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Try rebuilding the VOX file(s), go to Game -> Rebuild VOX files.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream went this route, and it was an improvement, though still not optimal in my opinion. If you're doing this, I'd advise you to implement more than one binding for each mode - maybe the you / w / l / i keys for people that are used to that, as well as 1, 2, 3, and 4, so that I can just switch with one hand and without needing to look at the keyboard.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think both having multiple  keyboard shortcuts and an optional GUI that will pop up in one of the corners showing all the actions is the best way to go.

I'd still like to know what letter people associate with the active inventory being used, though.

[u]

I actually hate both the LucasArts-style interface and the late Sierra-style interface, because they both force you either to take ages cycling through cursors...

This is my preferred interface, actually. It's a breeze once you get the feel over what cursor comes after another, but until then it's a bit messy. It will always be messy if the cursors dont make sense.

I know a lot of people prefer keyboard shortcuts to change the cursor in games like Sam and Max, and seeing as I'm making a similar interface, which keys usually go with what interactions?

u* = use
w = walk
l = look
? = active inventory

This sound about right? I'm figuring people want to be able to open the inventory with the i button, so what button should I script to select the active inventory (if any)? Suggestions? Or am I all wrong in my assumptions?

* This is all AGS' de-l33tifying script... sigh, do we really need one? It also corrupts my homepage urls...

Damn, I wish someone would post their gut reaction to this game. The lack of Insecticide talk on the internet doesn't give high hopes... (

[exactly]

Very nice article that I wish a lot more people would read, if you know what I mean! 

In general, you want the hotspot to be clearly pointed out and usually in the upper left hand corner of the cursor.  This is familiar and comfortable to computer users and is usually what I try first in the absence of a clearly defined hotspot. 

See, this is the problem right here. If your adventure game needs to have a cursor with a one pixel mark (so you know exactly where you are pointing), your game is already broken. If you're pointing at a man and you need to differentiate between his nose and his moustache and you can't make out where your cursor is hitting him, you need LARGER hotspots. If those hotspots would collide, you need to increase the size of your art. If you won't put the effort into the game and decide the player needs to click pixel perfect with the cursor on his moustache, then I won't be playing your game. Point is, a cursor shouldn't have to have a tiny clear marker over what part of the cursor that's triggering an interaction. I know you already pointed out the importance of large hotspots, but it can't be stressed enough.

And always, always have an arrow or some pointy thing helping to show you the exact pixel.  This goes double for inventory items. 

I disagree with this. Again, people must design their games so that pixel perfect cursor clicks aren't neccesary. Look at how Sam and Max solved it; by creating a huge red frame around the inventory items when they hovered a hotspot and hand actions for walking and talking etc. that also changed when over a hotspot. If two hotspots are so close together and small that you NEED pixel perfect clicking, there's a huge flaw in your design.


When we're talking cursors and inventory, I'd also like to share my dislike for games whose inventory items disappear from your cursor if you try to combine it with an object on screen. It's unnecessary and time consuming for the player if he wants to try the item combined with the game world, and it bugs the hell out of me. Don't do it people! That goes for you too, Telltale!

Does anyone actually think artificial graphics smoothing looks better than the original art? Just wondering...

I really like what I'm seeing so far. The unprecise use of lines and colouring give a cool look to them, a look that would've been wrecked if done the wrong way.

Quick question: what font are you using? I know I've seen it somewhere... A Lucasarts game?

Does the latest AGS have the ability to play sound effects that you can name whatever you want?

If you have like three hundred sound effects named SOUNDX, it's a huge mess to script that will often lead to  duplicated files because it's hard to find that spesific sound effect's number. Something like PlaySound(char_ego_cough.wav) would be immensely helpful.


edit to the guy below me: since it's a plugin, won't it effect mac / linux support? oh... seems it's down anyway. well, using descriptive filenames for sounds and music should be a quick fix, shouldn't it?

Already have it, thanks ! Good to hear there's a sound mixer too.

Interesting choice of musicians too.  Matt Gray I know, Reyn Ouwehand I know (I love his live Green Beret remixes) but the other two are totally new to me. I'm listening to both of them now and they both seem fairly fantastic despite having small bodies of work. Well, compared to someone like DRAX at least.

While Matt Gray's Last Ninja 2 has to be my all time favourite SID score, I have to say no one could make a SID track sound as natural and warm as Ouwehand. Ouwehands tracks CosMail-08, Easy Goin',  Eye to Eye, Master Design Group tune 2, Stranger in a Strange Land, MacMagic Song 2 + 7 (worktunes folder) and of course Last Ninja 3 are perfect examples just to name a few. Making music only using three channels must be really challenging, although that doesn't seem to have stopped the SID guys back in the days. Funny how much more listenable and enjoyable the game music was in the 80s and 90s than todays often boring, ambient stuff.

I've tried selecting music from titles I've never even heard of, but damn if I couldn't help myself from using Steve Rowlands' Mayhem in Monsterland for one of the locations. I'm really ashamed of that one, but it's just too damn catchy... Besides, who really remembers C64 tracks these days?

Please excuse my insane ramblings.

I love that this game is using C64 tunes and I hope you'll include a sound mixer so I can lower the volume of sound effects- they were a little too loud for me to hear the music. Who is the musician/musicians?

A sound mixer is included. The trailer music is a little piece called Fruit Machine Simulator by Matt Gray who also did Last Ninja 2. Although the tune won't be in the final game, the game will feature relatively unknown, positively uplifting tunes by people such as Reyn Ouwehand, Steve Barrett, Ian Crabtree (and also a splash screen tune by Matt Gray). The game uses about 20 different tunes now.

If you like SID tunes, grab the High Voltage Sid Collection. It's basically every SID track ever written, categorized.

This was actually a nice surprise. One of the few AGS games I've thoroughly enjoyed and not felt frustrated playing. The art style was great and and the dialogue was funny. Throw some uplifting music in there and you've got yourself a game!* Why don't more people put uplifting music in their games these days?

edit: * that was positive criticism by the way, you did great!

On an unrelated note, you can actually simplify the if-else-if codes a bit:

Yeah, I had this in the back of my head while writing the code, yet I did it the hard way It's fixed now.

My guess is, the following line somehow got executed continuously:
  if (IsChannelPlaying(3)==false) PlaySoundEx(371, 3);

So the effect got restarted every game loop (I don't know whether playing a new effect will reset the channel volume though, hopefully not).

Nah, I can hear the 3 second sample loop perfectly, there's just this intense clicking and popping noise coming from it as well as it always plays at the loudest level.  At first I thought there was something running in repeatedly execute that interrupted the sound scaling code (seeing as it works perfectly while doing something blocking such as talking), but I can't find anything resembling either the room or sound in general in there. This is the games repeatedly execute code I'm talking about here -- the room doesn't even have a repeatedly execute script.

Looks like I'm gonna have to resort to hardcode spesific sound effects in there instead of having it scale automatically. Which is a pity because if the player has an old computer or some intensive program in the background and the game slows down, maybe there'll be a short pause between the sound clips.

Here's the move-around code for the character the sound scaling belongs to, also being in rep_exec_always:

Code: ags

  if (runtractorinbackground == true) {
    if (cChar3.Moving == false) {
        if (cChar3.x==169 && cChar3.y==133) { //moving up
            cChar3.Walk(169, 91, eNoBlock, eWalkableAreas); 
            oHarvester.Animate(3, 2,eRepeat,eNoBlock,eForwards);  // object connected to tractor, following cChar3
            oHarvester.StopMoving(); 
            oHarvester.SetPosition(169-35, 133); 
            oHarvester.Move(169-20,91, 1,eNoBlock,eAnywhere);
        }
       else if (cChar3.x==169 && cChar3.y==91) { //moving right
            cChar3.Walk(280, 91, eNoBlock, eWalkableAreas); 
            oHarvester.Animate(2, 2,eRepeat,eNoBlock,eForwards); 
            oHarvester.StopMoving(); 
            oHarvester.SetPosition(169-45, 88); 
            oHarvester.Move(280,88, 1,eNoBlock,eWalkableAreas);
       }
       else if (cChar3.x==280 && cChar3.y==91) { //moving down
            cChar3.Walk(280, 133, eNoBlock, eWalkableAreas); 
            oHarvester.Animate(0, 2,eRepeat,eNoBlock,eForwards); 
            oHarvester.StopMoving(); 
            oHarvester.SetPosition(280-20, 91-10); 
            oHarvester.Move(280-35,133, 1,eNoBlock,eWalkableAreas);
       }
       else if (cChar3.x==280 && cChar3.y==133) { //moving left
            cChar3.Walk(169, 133, eNoBlock, eWalkableAreas); 
            oHarvester.Animate(1, 2,eRepeat,eNoBlock,eForwards); 
            oHarvester.StopMoving(); 
            oHarvester.SetPosition(280+30, 133); 
            oHarvester.Move(169,133,1,eNoBlock,eWalkableAreas); 
       }
    }
 }

Just in case anyone sees something crazy in there. It's just a tractor driving around in a square. I AM running 2.72 so I dont think the fact that it might be a bug will be relevant seeing as it's kind of outdated.

The room's rep_ex isn't run during a blocking event.
Try moving the code to rep_ex_always.

The stuttering might be caused by the sound being played every 40th of a second due to IsChannelPlaying not returning true quick enough after PlaySound is called.

I accidentally left out that the code I posted actually *was* in repeatedly execute always... Sorry about that.

Now, why does the sound play perfectly with no stuttering when cEgo is examining an object (talking), and play horribly when he ain't doing anything? It just doesn't make sense. Some part of me wants to believe it's because it's setting the sound volume 40 times every second. However, if this is a problem, why doesn't it sound screwy when doing a blocking command?

[always]

I've got this room that has a tractor driving around in the background (running non-blocking and performing excellent in the rep_exec_always script) and I want the sound of the tractor to scale according to its distance to the player. Don't worry, I ran into some problems...

In the rooms repeatedly execute always script:

Code: ags

  // scale sound
  if (tractordriving == true && IsGUIOn(OPTIONS)==false) {
    
    if (IsChannelPlaying(3)==false) PlaySoundEx(371, 3); 
    
    //adjust volume according to scaling
    if (cChar3.y < 95) SetChannelVolume(3, 30);
    else if (cChar3.y >= 95 && cChar3.y < 110) SetChannelVolume(3, 50);
    else if (cChar3.y >= 110 && cChar3.y < 125) SetChannelVolume(3, 70);
    else if (cChar3.y >= 125 && cChar3.y < 140) SetChannelVolume(3, 100);
    else SetChannelVolume(3, 140); // character has an equal to / larger y-coordinate than 140
    
  }

Now, this sound code works and sounds perfectly when running a blocking sequence, for instance looking at something using the cEgo.Say command, or while in a cutscene. Whenever something non-blocking is happening, like nothing at all (player can move cursor around), the sound stutters and pops like crazy, and it seems to be stuck at the largest volume. This really don't make sense to me. What's going on here?  :'(


Edit: Sorry, I left out the little detail that the code was actually in the rep exec always script...

Excellent graphical style and animations. Can't wait to see it with music and some clarifications in the interface which I'm sure will be in the final version, but I'm sure you're on top of that already. Ran well here, but I'm just running standard XP so that's no big shock. I pretty sure the first person mode will work well. And I know all about how tiresome it is to work on a indie game for years without no real feedback... 

Again, awesome style. Maybe I'll find out what Les Miserables is really about when playing it?

Edit: Only thing that turned me off was that some of the animations were a bit slow. Maybe I'm just an impatient bastard...

You failed.

Seriously though, I'm sorry but with that description I don't think anyone could help you. I suggest reading up on walkable areas to begin with.

And I'm also wondering how you got the screen to flash yellow with black stripes! It could sound like either a bug in AGS, outdated graphics card drivers or like someone did something very wrong inside the editor. What version of AGS are you using?

It looks like LockView is one of those basic functions I never really cared for learning about or using, and it came back to bite me in the ass. I haven't tested it yet, but according to the manual it should do exactly what I want. Thanks!

This problem has been bugging me for ages. Lots of times I want a character to animate specific views while moving. Problem is, if that character for example is moving in a curve, the default walk views will interrupt. (if the character should be moving leftwards while animating loop 7, loop 1 will interrupt and take over).

I've been working around such problems using objects instead of characters, but then there's lots of extra work seeing as you have to resize all objects to fit the size of the character for each walkable areas scaling as you can't scale objects in 2.72.

Any smart solutions to this problem?

Cool to hear you guys liked the trailer. Turns out Adobe Premiere is much more powerful than Windows Movie Maker... who would've guessed?!

The entire concept behind the art is that it is supposed to look simplistic and childish... When I think about it, the art IS simplistic and childish, that's the whole point! I think childrens art is really interesting, personally, and makes for a perfect game setting if done right. The "child" behind the art and dialogue, Bjørnar B, is a youngster with wisdom far beyond his years, and it's my duty to convey this wisdom through adventure gaming! In fact, people all over the web has said the first game's visual style literally gave them nightmares... both in a good and a bad way.

About the graphics, let me tell you guys it's not as simple as you might be thinking. Bjørnar might be good at drawing, but he can't draw a complete screen full of objects, so I had to piece them all together in Photoshop while maintaining the consistency of the graphics' looks. This was surprisingly hard when Bjørnar draws in all shapes and sizes using all kinds of pens and pencils.

On the subject of characters looking weird, well I guess you're right. Somehow they become parodies of the real Disney characters. For me, the biggest fan of his art around, they are a relief though. They're really fun and quick to animate, which makes it easier to throw garbage animations out the window and keep the good ones.

I'd much rather make a simple and stylized game that focuses on puzzles, animations and gameplay, rather than trying to imitate the visual quality that lucasarts did in the nineties. Cause guess what, I don't have the skills to do it! Therefore I chose a stylished look. It's really hard to find a good, solid team to work at an adventure team over the internet. Unless they are exceptionally motivated, I'd say any such project is doomed. While I may not make more Life of D. Duck games after this one, I'm intrigued by the thought of doing a game with a similar hand drawn look,with proper grammar using a talented pencil artist.

Oh god, this is turning into a developers diary!

Perhaps the newly added trailer could spark some interest? I have the feeling this kind of style might not be everyone's cup of tea. A nightmarish world of scribbles, indeed.