Messages

I see lots of wonderful things in that list. Thanks people!!!

Can you post the individual frames please?

Here you go : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kax7x54iq248rd3/AADtmkkdVbsVSS7FLrZ-Hzoca?dl=0
EDIT : here you go (these are the frames of version side05, posted below) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xaivifwfb6eqodg/AAChYISYRD-hs1UTlDaY_-gVa?dl=0

IMPORTANT: if you intend on doing a paintover, then let me know asap, so that we don't diverge into two branches of the file. I'll give you access to the .PSD instead.

side05.psd
side05.gif
[imgzoom]https://78.media.tumblr.com/ccc77906731516270aee31921191bc4b/tumblr_p3lax9oW4F1tsfksfo1_250.gif[/imgzoom]
4x
[imgzoom]https://78.media.tumblr.com/c1f3bc8b5066084ee8317d3273992253/tumblr_p3lax9oW4F1tsfksfo2_1280.gif[/imgzoom]

New version


(side03.gif)
[imgzoom]https://78.media.tumblr.com/9eed4b1093083fbc3a8301a474eebbd1/tumblr_p3f7j51ebu1tsfksfo1_250.gif[/imgzoom]

4x
[imgzoom]https://78.media.tumblr.com/d898700c037fd396aa4ae729e3204f6e/tumblr_p3f7j51ebu1tsfksfo2_540.gif[/imgzoom]

The hat also seems fishy and it's not just the contrast.

The hat "feels" smaller... probably cause the other two there's 2 pixels, then 3 then the center of the hat. While the walking you have 3 in line and then the center (giving the impression that is thinner). Also the hat is leveled on the standing stripes, while on the walking is "falling backward".

Indeed the hat needs a redrawing. With time, I've come to hate that fedora!

There's something very weird happening to his arm at the forward extreme. Just as it's about to swing back, it's as if his bicep flops forward or he develops another joint in his upper arm.

Noted. The shading does that. It's a moving sprite clumsily applied on top of the "real" animated arm. In some frames it's positioned with too little care.

[Known defects:]

This post is about the side walk, not the two other views (any paintover of those views will be ignored)

Known defects:
- shading is a bit dirty
- bad contrast in hat
- walking character one pixel too short in frame where he is standing up
- there is a weird gray pixel under his chin.


[imgzoom]https://78.media.tumblr.com/d5e8b7ab044427919ad9af62e5cf1e10/tumblr_p3c7tvuZ5w1tsfksfo1_250.gif[/imgzoom]
4x
[imgzoom]https://78.media.tumblr.com/d96047e3953960d02d80f9130985eb07/tumblr_p3c7tvuZ5w1tsfksfo2_500.gif[/imgzoom]

[Keep them coming guys.]

Keep them coming guys. Now is the time to take a strong decision, after the initial shock.

My own vote, on a par contributing to BladeCoder OR MonoAGS. There's a billion reasons why they're equally good from my perspective. In a nutshell: I think BladeCoder is better, but handling the Java bits (packaged distribution of the JDK) make it a pain in the neck, PLUS it doesn't have a strong impulse in the AGS community, unlike MonoAGS which is carried by tzachs and others.



   
       
   
       
   
       
   
       

Name	Vote	Reason
ChamberOfFear	MonoAGS	-
morgangw	MonoAGS	"the only one which could function as a direct replacement (without re-scoping the whole project)."
Monsieur OUXX	MonoAGS or BladeCoder (on a par)	I think BladeCoder is better, but handling the Java bits (packaged distribution of the JDK) make it a pain in the neck. MonoAGS has a strong impulse in the AGS community.

Not possible for me (too far). However if there is some sort of European-based warmup or after-party, I'd be very interested.

You mean AGS 4?

I support it.

I said AGS 5 to avoid creating confusion with the "AGS 4" cleanup branch, but it doesn't really matter.

Leadership decision to take :

AGS 5 based on this? Last call?

The more "external" code/tools/graphical elements you can embed in the game, the more development tools you can have for making games -- things you potentially wouldn't have thought about (graphic programming, dialogs editor, script debugger, etc.). This sounds perfect.

Here's my thoughts on the matter.

Let's look at this objectively:

• The gaming industry is 100x larger than it was in the 80s/90s. This is considering the industry as a whole, including those casual gamers playing titles on mobile devices.
• A very small percentage of that number are those who 'grew up' with point and click adventures.
• A larger industry means more potential for sales, also more potential to get lost in the crowd of new releases.
• We live in a society where attention spans are very low.
• The core gameplay (or player interaction) of a point and click is driven by puzzles, something that requires a lot of patience and commitment from the player.
• The majority of popular mobile and AAA games require little to zero effort from the player in regards to understanding narrative, let alone puzzles.
• Media has become increasingly gratifying with the introduction of affordable CGI and improved *dramatic* narratives in television, a large majority are not prepared to invest in slow burning narrative (see above)
• As time passes, less people are logging onto a PC when they get home. Average families favour sitting back on the sofa and playing mobile/console games, often with television running in the background.
• Due to the lack of responsive gameplay, most point and click titles can be equally enjoyed by watching Let's Play videos.
• We are in an age where most people are now used to googling problems they encounter in life, why would this be any different for puzzles in a video game?
• A great deal of Point and Click games released are 'low-res' and the work involved in creating a higher resolution game requires a large team of very talented artists.
• Low-res games are often overlooked by the larger majority of gamers and higher resolution point and click games are generally not financially viable for indie developers.
  
• Most popular low-res games will have a unique gameplay mechanic not seen in AAA titles, often skill-driven gameplay.
• The indie game market is over saturated but very healthy (and a viable option) in comparison to 10 years ago.
• There is still a very strong and dedicated community of fans of this genre, let us not forget that.
• People buy adventure games for the story, first and foremost - something that is very hard to convey in marketing media.
• Quality visuals can go a long way when promoting a game on social media, try to tie this into the story.
• People still buy adventure games.

THANK. YOU.
I was being too lazy to post this. This sums it up entirely.
Asking "what is wrong with the adventure games genre?" is like asking "what is wrong with books?" -- i.e. "why don't people read books in 2017?". Well, they do. Just not the same people, not the same books, not as many.

[@eri0o :]

I'm asking again : what's wrong with SharpDevelop?

Seriously? I've answered this (twice). Any reason for ignoring what I wrote there?

I've missed it (twice). Now I see it.

@eri0o : it wasn't clear to me that you were just mentionning Unity for its features, not as a candidate for AGS 5 underlying tech. When I started this "comparison of engines" thread I should have been more specific : comparison of strengths and flaws of technologies that might become the underlying tech for AGS 5.

I know that Crimson Wizard is interested in a top-down approach (features first) -- aparently, so do you. I started this thread with a bottom-up approach on mind (tech first). Let's meet halfway.

["Really" MIT = OK for our purposes. Carry on]

Doesn't the second post in the issue you linked to contradict your conclusion?

Maybe. The thing is that I wrote this message in a work environment where I couldn't open the link that I linked; I could only read its summary in Google. But the day before I did read several posts in several websites on the Internet, stating that VS Code is a "fake" free software. Anyways that settles it. "Really" MIT = OK for our purposes. Carry on

Unity, Unreal engine

eri0o I fel like there is an ongoing misunderstanding about Unity and Unreal : I've stated several times that those are not suitable for our purposes for licensing reasons. But you keep posting about them. Unless we decide that AGS should be a Unity plugin and that AGS games will have forever the splash screen/watermark "made with free Unity".

I'm asking again : what's wrong with SharpDevelop?

VS Code is not brandable nor redistributable either.

Why not? It's open-source and released under the MIT license.

I don't think so; I think they made it misleading on purpose : https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/17996
It's written here and there on the Internet that the source code is MIT, but that the EULA states that the use of the software is still licensed, whatever that means.


If it turns out that VSCode is indeed free in every way, then it can become a good candidate. But some effort still needs to be put asap into packaging the thing with MonoAGS, which could be far from trivial.

Monodevelop is redistributable, isn't?

Yup, it's a mix of LGPL and MIT license. Alsoif I understand correctly it would still be c ompatible with .Net Core (if only using this http://lastexitcode.com/projects/MonoDevelopDnxAddin/ , or natively )

[free]

Guys, thanks for all the feedback above. Lots of accurate things to move the discussion forward.

However there's one point that seems to be continuously misunderstood, which is Visual Studio. I'll say it more time : it does not matter if it's free (money-wise) when it's not legally redistributable, it makes it unsuitable for a packaged AGS. VS Code is not brandable nor redistributable either.

recap one more time :  a potential IDE must be :

- free (money-wise = zero dollars)
- free (license = you can do a commercial use of the game you make, you can extend the source code, and you can add the AGS logo on the IDE)
- legally redistributable (you can host it ont he AGS website and you can allow to copy it around)
- OPTIONAL BUT HIGHLY WANTED : portable (as in "no installer required")
- OPTIONAL BUT HIGHLY WANTED : lightweight (less than 50MB all included, no separate download/install required beforehand -- in AGS you'd need the .Net Framework, but everyone usually already has it)

SharpDevelop is all of that, VS is not, VS Code is not -- that's is why I'd like someone to explain why ChamberOfFear said it's outdated.

Right, Clarvalon has released an exporter to Xage (with source, apparently) which might be a good place to start.

True! I forgot about that. Brilliant! Damn, at the moment I work at a very restrictive company (and I have very very long days of work so I have almost zero free time once I'm at home). I can absolutely not toy around with any of that. #frustration

I would strongly suggest to start orienting the amount of energy spent on MonoAGS onto the packaging part, so that a non-hardcore developers community has a chance to slowly emerge.

I believe this will require coding some kind of wrapper for MonoAGS to emulate AGS behavior.

I was thinking the same thing. The (small) thing is that MonoAGS doesn't have a parser for AGS script or loading AGS resources. So it might be simpler to do it on AGS side, as an exporter.

[@ChamberOfFear]

The fact of mentionning SharpDevelop as an option for the IDE suggests that not being really up to date with the .NET eco system.

@ChamberOfFear Can you explain how? Which specific point do I misunderstand? Is it only compatible with "traditional" .Net Framework? Is it compatible with Mono? Is it compatible with .Net Core? Is it out of support? Etc. It's free, portable, lightweight, under MIT license, and specfically targetted at C#, so it makes it a very appealing candidate.

@tzachs Any reason why you don't use Monogame as the "middleware" that other point-n-click engines use? (see initial table). It has recently switched to .Net Core and it has the most permissive Microsoft license. I know it was mentionned before but we never elaborated. It might not be too late.

Other question : do you use tools such as mkbundle or Monokickstart to bundle Mono in the current version of MonoAGS?