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Hi,

I was reading a (Polish) games magazine over breakfast when I came across a small section dedicated to indie games — literally just a couple of pages. At first, I couldn't quite put my finger on what stirred up such emotion, but after a moment it hit me: in a professional, paid, printed games magazine, there was a brief mention of your game made with AGS.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that's something really special.

I don't know the ins and outs of marketing — whether there was any involved in this case — but I'd guess the reviewer who covers indie games simply chooses titles she likes.

In short, your game received a good deal of praise for its charm. The reviewer even mentioned that she teared up a bit during the ending.

All in all, I just wanted to say that, in this age of modern journalism, I think it's amazing that your game was written about in an actual print magazine. Congratulations!

Wow, thanks for such a detailed response! I hadn't realised there was so much to it. It all makes sense, though – especially what you said about performance with high-res backgrounds and working collaboratively. I once shared a project with someone and tried using Git for version control. It did the job, but felt a bit clunky – unless I was just doing it wrong.

@lorenzo what are the main benefits of switching to Godot? Things have probably moved on by now, but I remember people used to complain that it wasn't very point-and-click friendly. A lot of features that come built-in with AGS need to be implemented manually in Godot (which can be fun in its own way). I'd imagine the main advantages are standardised syntax, better performance (though that's probably not much of an issue for point-and-click games?), and cross-platform compatibility. I'm not having a moan – I'm genuinely curious, as I've wanted to try Godot myself but never quite found the motivation.

Also, your art is spot on, as always!

If this becomes a regular thing, I'll participate, but probably not every time.

But of course. I envision this as something people do on an on-and-off basis - whenever they have time, will, and they feel like spending money on games.

Feel free to create such a thread in Adventure Related Talk and Chat board! I think this is the place to talk about adventure games.

I think I misinterpreted the 'activities' section, as in my mind this would be an activity. I don't want to clutter the forums too much, so could I ask you to move this thread to the relevant board, please?

For now I just to want to sound out how many people would be interested. If there are some, I will start a proper conversation (about a specific game) in Adventure Related Talk and Chat board.

I echo your sentiments. If you start up a thread like this, people can jump on board if they like.

Would you be willing to participate heltenjon in February? Any of the games looking interesting to you? Or have you got your own suggestions?

Hi all,
Some time ago I finished reading Niezwyciężony (The Invincible) by Lem and the first thing I did after was to check the web to find out what others made of it (personally I really enjoyed it). The first web forums that came up were fully devoted to Lem's work, however, most of the posts were like 10-year old, or more. What struck me, though, was how the threads were organised.

What they did at that forums was to create a sort of pen literary club. Some of the threads were 'The Invincible - chapters 1-10 - by 21.02.2006' etc. This meant the users participating in the activity would read the selected book and then share their thoughts, ask questions or whatever. At the time and age of sharing everything online I thought this was brilliant. I myself often find that after completing, say, a game I crave for an opportunity to chat about it. What I liked, disliked, or what was unclear.

I have finished some point'n'clicks playing together with someone, but a lot of things must line up for this to work. Essentially, I would say playing a point'n'click is a rather solitary activity. But still, after finishing one, it would be nice to be able to have a chat about it.

So here is my idea, maybe some of you would be willing to a start a monthly activity of playing a specific game by a specific deadline. It's not school, so it's not about finishing it on time or finishing with or without a walk-through, but about playing the game 'together' and having a little discussion club. So again, you haven't finished the game - fine, you didn't like the game - still fine, you loved it and but still haven't finished it - also fine. Or, you played the game years ago when it was released, but would like to revisit - great. Let's just get together at the end of the month and talk about what made it a good p'n'c game and what didn't.

In a way, I find this could be very motivating to finally play games I've got collected on my GOG account but never actually played it. Or try the very new games? We could do a test run and see how this plays out. I am open to suggestions what the first game could be, but here are some of mine:
Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers (a classic some would still like to play),
Whispers of a Machine,
Sanitarium,
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Machinarium

Let me know what you think.

When I think of games I dropped down, two recent ones come to mind (I think there have been dozens of games I stopped playing for various reasons).

First one is Syberia. I started playing it for the first time somewhere around Christmas last year. From the very first moments, I realised the chapter areas are bloated with empty and lifeless rooms you had to walk through to get from one point to another. Walking speed also didn't help. Despite that, though, the game managed to keep me engaged for a few weeks and I would play it every evening. I think I've got pretty far into it, but when I got up to the cosmodrome area, filled with even more empty rooms (the cosmodrome area looked particularly dull imo), I realised I can't bear any more searches for hotspots or objects in hard-to-see areas. I still haven't uninstalled the game from my drive, but every time I boot it up and see the main menu I instantly feel fatigued and quit. Dunno, maybe I will get back to it one day, but only with a walkthrough.

Second is a non-adventure game. This War of Mine. I started playing it a few days back. At first try I got a pair of characters to play (a father and a daughter) and everything seemed rather fresh to me. I managed to survive for 7 in-game days. Then my characters died and when I started over I got a randomly selected set of different characters. Three this time. The location was different, too. However, when I saw the screen dotted with icons indicating points of interests/interactive hotspots and those three characters waiting for my orders I felt overwhelmed. I just couldn't get myself to manage the characters' needs, resources etc etc. It may be due to the fact that I have very little free time, and when I do, I don't want to burden myself with even more (micro)managing...

Hi Jabbage,
Your art is simply beautiful. When I saw that the violin is interactive and then saw the bee hives this scene from Sherlock Holmes immediately came into my head: //wSAGkwpPC8Q

I know these are flies, but still...

These backgrounds really caught me eye - they look awesome. Especially the daylight one. However, I wouldn't make the project dependent on the response to the thread. Carry on only if you feel like it.

Also, a pet as a protagonist? Cyberpunk setting? Feels like a canine response to Stray

Thanks for your suggestions heltenjon, I will check them out when I can.

Yes, I've been mainly interested in games that aim at showing a specific region or a country.

PS.
I've been meaning to play Mind Rape: Duress, too, but the description has actually scared me away. I will give it a go at some point, though.

I know. GOGs giveaways last for a few hours, tops. I am sure I've missed dozens of them. 

[surface.DrawingColor = 53248;]

I also doubt the mouse cursor because it stays there after you draw. Is there any way to prevent it?

The mouse stays because the game captures whatever is displayed on the screen. I didn't have that problem because the cursor was hidden in my room. I guess you could try hiding the cursor right before this line:

Code: ags

sprite = sprite.CreateFromScreenShot();

...and then showing it again afterwards.

And I cannt change the color surface.DrawingColor = 53248; I want it red but it's always black, but that doesn't matter, that's no problem.

Are you sure your colour code is correct? In my game it had the value of 13 and it worked fine. Have you tried any other colour numbers?

Whenever I click to draw, the music stutters annoyingly.

I didn't have that issue. Are you doing anything with the audio clips in the same room_RepExec() function?

the sprites of buttons become more pixelated and look aliased.

Are these buttons the only GUI elements shown in this puzzle room? I am not an expert, and I am not sure what may be the cause of that. I wonder if the same would happen if you hid the buttons for the time of capturing the screenshot from the background (just like with the cursor)?

Sanitarium is now available for free on GOG. 5hrs left as of now.

Right. I found the code and managed to pull out the bits that will hopefully shed some light. I haven't tested this particular code, so there might be some imperfections. But, in essence, this is the same logic that worked for me. It's possible you will have to tweak it here and there, though.

Code: ags

bool accept_input = true;
bool draw = false;
int line_count = 0;
int LINE_WIDTH = 5;
int start_x;
int start_y;
DrawingSurface *surface;
DynamicSprite *sprite;

function room_RepExec(){

  //if the left mouse button is down and the game accepts input, 
  //store x and y of the current mouse position
  //as well as copy the current view of the screen to sprite (so already drawn lines will stay)  
  if(Mouse.IsButtonDown(eMouseLeft) && accept_input){  
      accept_input = false;
      start_x = mouse.x;
      start_y = mouse.y;     
      sprite = sprite.CreateFromScreenShot();  
      line_count++;      
  }

  //if the mouse button is released and input set to false, reset accept_input and stop drawing lines
  if(!Mouse.IsButtonDown(eMouseLeft) && !accept_input ){
    accept_input = true;    
  }
  
  //if accept_input is false, this means the button is pressed, so draw the lines
  if(!accept_input){
    surface = Room.GetDrawingSurfaceForBackground();
    
    //if this is the first line/match to be drawn, draw the background from the 'clean' sprite
    //otherwise draw the background with already drawn lines
    if(line_count == 0) sprite = sprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(id_of_background_image);      
    
    //draw the sprite variable on the screen
    surface.DrawImage(0, 0,  sprite.Graphic);  
    
    //draw line from the place where the mouse was pressed to the current position of the mouse
    surface.DrawLine(start_x, start_y,  mouse.x, mouse.y, LINE_WIDTH);
    surface.DrawingColor = number_of_colour;   
    surface.Release();     
  }
}

Note that once you are finished, you should delete the sprite variable with

Code: ags

sprite.Delete();

Hope this helps, if not, give ma a shout.

I see. If you don't mind waiting, I will try to fish out my old code from my game in the evening and share it with you. This is a clip from my game, which also draws lines: https://youtu.be/9pksmHxbXnc?t (go to 48:00) If I am not mistaken, this is something similar you want to achieve?

Hi all,

I am planning to take a closer look at games that were made predominantly in order to share devs' life experience. I am not taking necessarily heavy stuff (but this is very much welcome, too), but in general about games, where the aim was to show a specific corner of the world at a specific point in time.

The best example of I have in mind is La maleta by potajito (or, you know, Absurdistan).

I tried to find something by the title in the database, but I wasn't very successful. If you know a game like that, could you share it with me, please? I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

Not sure if this helps, but if you are going to have the pictures as objects in the room, I would, on mouse button click, loop through the objects and check their coordinates and dimensions of their sprites. Knowing the coordinates and dimensions, you can check if the click happened within the boundaries of one of the objects/sprites. If yes, you store the object's id and wait for the release of the mouse button. When the mouse button is released you do the same thing - check where the mouse button was released. If it was released within the boundaries of one of the images you grab its id. Then you can check what two objects/images have been linked (of course you would need to have an array of correct matches to compare against).

As for the drawing the line, once the mouse is pressed, you start drawing a line using dynamic sprites. As far as I remember, you do it by capturing the background before you start drawing the line, and every pixel the mouse is moved, you redraw the background and the new line (starting from the point where the mouse was pressed, and finishing at the current position of the mouse). Once the mouse button is released, you stop redrawing the background and the line.

I can't write the actual code at the moment, but I would probably try doing something along these lines.   

I changed my post because I realized that I shouldn't pollute this thread with unrelated stuff. Oh, well...

I see what you mean. I thought it was something more generic.

Nevertheless...

Spoiler

...the Kommissarin has got some sick moves. It looks awesome.

[close]

There you go: "If you are looking for a change from classic pixel-art, you are in a for a treat. Jump into the beautifully hand-drawn, yet crazy, world of Clotilde Soffritti and help her get away from an asteroid where she's been stuck for way too long... Also, a nostalgia kick guaranteed for all comic-book lovers!"

Didn't you mention something about a free animation, Creamy ?

Sorry Creamy, I didn't notice your post before. I am away today, so if anyone could help me out with the description that would be grant. If not, I may try to cobble sth together before midnight