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what you could do is adding the cast shadow of the furniture (fridge, etc.) appearing on the wall, on one side of it. This will give depth to the scene.

As an example: look at the cast shadow on the right-hand-side of the fridge here. It takes 2 seconds to add.


Also overall I'd recommend reducing the dithering everywhere (for example on the desk).
All you have to do is zooming on stuff (for comfort) and then hand-drawing a bit, to create larger areas of one single color (manually remove the noise). That doesn't take any skill at all either and you immediately get cool resulsts.

[that font]

- Does anyone still have that font (below) in any format (WFN, TTF, SCI...)?
OR
- Does anyone still have the very old Scumm template where it used to be included?

Are you talking about XAGE?

yes

I had an idea about using XNA to make a Grim Fandango type engine.

There is an actual AGS sort-of clone made with XNA somewhere around these forums (I can't remember its name, though).

OK my question was really stupid : I had downloaded Radiant's tool and I had run it, and yet I just didn't see that it's possible to import BMP files. For some reason, only the *.ttf, font.* and *.wfn caught my attention. I was convinced they were the only supported formats. I just didn't see "*.bmp".

Problem solved! Thanks Scavenger.

Hi everyone.

I'm ashamed in advance to ask such a stupid question, so please forgive me. But it feels like the "Fonts" topic has been around for such a long time (Radiant's editor = 2004!) that it seems to be taken for granted now -- and beginners like me don't know where to start.

I have a sprites table with all the characters of my font. It's a rather large (but still pixelly) and fancy font, not too easy to draw again pixel by pixel.

I've been searching how to turn that into an AGS Font, but I'm not too sure :
- Radiant's editor targets SCI fonts and already-existing TTF fonts.
- The more recent WFN font editor also allows to use TTF fonts.

But how do I do if I start from my sprites table? Once agian sorry if the answer is obvious but mys earches always lead me to Radiant's tool.

I am generally sceptical of all GUI solutions

I think I've seen int he presentation video that scripting is available for advanced things? Very much like AGS actually.

[contents]

Don't you have any sense of pride/prestige with your work? Don't you want to make the very best thing possible and to do that you have to make every bit of it yourself?

To me, it's like Van Gogh saying "my painting is twice better because I collected the flowers myself to make the pigments".

Powerful middleware is the key to success, in order to focus on the contents, not on the technique. Having said that, it's not the middleware's fault if some developers then get lazy and stay in the template offered to them, hence producing something boring, standard, and not ambitious at all. But you could say the same for the AGS "lucasarts" or "sierra" templates: "I want to create my own Lucasarts template, the game will be twice better". Meh?


Side note: The only exception to that creative process would be when the game is at the brink of existing research (e.g. GTA V/Skyrim/Assassin's creed, where you need to create new powerful algorithms for crowd effects, distant rendering, etc.). But come on, point-n-clicks? All the theoretical aspects and technology are mature since around 2000.

Damn. I broke my own rule and fed the troll.

[@OneDollar :]

@OneDollar : yes, you and me have pretty much the same appareciation. The purpose of the "large location" needs to be clearly defined. Thanks for your detailed answer.

In our specific case, the "issue" with having to walk through all the useless rooms is worked around using two tricks :
1) Double-clicking makes the character walk much faster.
2) There is a map inventory item with a "teleportation" feature.
So, the choice of leaving or removing those empty rooms becomes less obvious, and tough. The place needs to seem very large, and additional corridors help achieving that.

I hate having to walk through a lot of empty rooms with no purpose.

That's the main problem we're having so far: half the players love the mini map thing, they are thrilled by the arcade-game feel, and appreciate visualizing where they navigate. The other half of the players hates it: they feel like it's breaking the disbelief suspension, and they prefer the cinematic immersion of "real" rooms. :/


But so far most of the commentaries (here and in our internal discussions) are in favor of something Knossos-style.

When it comes to making large games a lot of devs *do* make their own engine because its faster than retooling their pipeline to fit existing tech.

Yes, but I could argue two things :
1) we also want a nice IDE for non-commercial games.
2) maybe they've been developing their own tools because Adventure Creator wasn't out there
Middleware is an actual market, let's not argue about that. A world with Adventure Creator is better than a world without, for point-n-click makers.

Nooooooooo! Not this conversation again! "it's so easy to do everything yourself from scratch! Why don't you?".

Because it's 2013 and we want to share tools that allow developers to focus on the actual game, not on making the engine. If making a fully functional, cross-platrform engine with an IDE was so easy, it would be common knowledge
So now, shhhhushhh Calin! You scoundrel!

Adventure creator is the closest thing to what I had on mind when I started this thread.

Is it me or has there been a one-year space-continuum gap in this thread?

I think that's very, very hard to complain about.

Not complaining at all! I'm thrilled by Adventure Creator.
Just trying to be exhaustive

What I personally love here is the color palette : very 64-colors-esque. Half tones. Sort-of amiga. Reminds me of "cruise for a corpse" in some ways.

I still don't get what discussion you're trying to start here though, sorry! It depends on the structure is my answer I guess?

Yes, I know it's blurry, and I suppose it depends on everyone's preferences.
But Radiant started an answer : he said his personal taste made him prefer choice #1. Me too. My own reason : I don't like that top-down map from choice #2. And I like the cinematic aspect of full backgrounds.
What about you? Were you bothered by it when you played LAst-Crusade? Did you have more immersion with the map, or only with the succession of corridors in Knossos/MI2?

[we're not really discussing a maze here. But rather a large structure: does it need a top-down map? Does it need generic intermediate corridors?]

One is generally based on a pattern you need to find out (or find clues for), the other one is a 'real' and true maze where you just need to find your way

Actually, no I specifically explained that we are not in the case of monkey-island-1-monkey-head maze. The backgrounds are not random, and you don't need to find the pattern to progress. You should have read more carefully

Overvall, we're not really discussing a maze here. But rather a large structure: does it need a top-down map? Does it need generic intermediate corridors?

[what makes a good semi-maze?]

Hi everyone,

This is not really for Critics Lounge, as it's more a general question about what makes a good semi-maze?
By "semi-maze", I mean typically what you'd find in a good Indiana-Jones nazi base: it's rather large and confusing, but all-in-all it's not really a maze. It's not design to make you get lost.

Discuss choice #1 and choice#2, with variations A and B.

========================================

Choice #1 : Monkey Island 2 style
READ CAREFULLY:
- there is no top-down view of the corridors
- each corridor section is a (smart) variation of a basic background
- the payer is able to navigate in the corridors without getting lost
    o Each background is easy to recognize,
    o Most of them have their own purpose,
    o The base is not too giant

That is what you see in the final scene of MI2 (even though, in that case, the corridor is straight and doesn't have any turns. But we can add some)
From 3:17:20 to 3:17:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AerjOGn6jGo

====

Choice #2 : Last crusade style
READ CAREFULLY
- there is a top-down view of the corridors. The player has an idea of the general map of the place (even though, in Last Crusade, there is a very annoying Fog of War)
- the "regular" player view comes back only when he enters a room, or interstingly (see video) when he's in front of a locked door.
- There is only a handful of actual rooms, they are used stricly for puzzles.

From 37:50 to 38:50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwsvTQfsD4A

====

Also important: In FoA, there are two variations of those two systems :

- VARIATION A : In the underground maze of Knossos, we have a variation of the Monkey-Island-2 style (no top-down map), except it's meant to semi-confuse the player by adding additional, useless rooms (some backgrounds are very similar to one another). But an attentive player can still find his/her way. (The rooms are not fully randomized, like they are in the Monkey-Island-1-monkey-head maze, or MI1-forest maze.)

- VARIATION B: In the city of Atlantis, we have a variation of the Last Crusade style (top-down view + rooms you can enter), except there are quite a lot of generic rooms, that are not here to confuse you, but instead to make the place look bigger (based on this background: http://imgur.com/a/jNECF#85)

Looks like it may have taken only took three years to resolve this question.

To be fair: The question is not fully resolved, because (if I recall properly),  the unlicensed version of Unity3D has annoying limitations: a huge watermark, and cannot be used on mobile devices. Or something.
Also I suspect that AdventureCreator may target professional use in a not-so-distant future (hence might come with a fee in the future). Or am I just fooled by the very professional look of it? It's a sad world where really cool indie products look suspicious

AGS still doesn't have a competitor in that world

[Adventure Creator]

Bumping an old theread, but for exhaustivity's sake :

Adventure Creator (Unity3D plugin): http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=49134.0

to just apply the dithering effect in a layer using the Mode:Indexed Color command, make the layer a smart object. Then you can open it as if it's a separate file.

Very useful! Thanks.