Messages

Some weird bugs:

During the game_start version, system.viewport_height is assumed to be 200 even if the game actually runs in 320x240. This means that setting a GUI at the bottom of the screen is not possible at this time, since setting a GUI's Y beyond the (perceived) viewport height causes the game to abort with an error.

If a GUI button's font is set to a nonexistent font number, a critical error (of the kind that dumps a bunch of hex data) happens the next time that button's TEXT variable is changed, but nothing happens when the font is set.

Yeah you did strike a nerve. You phrase every crit about our game as an attack.

No I don't, I'm commenting on a statement, and not making personal attacks on anyone on your team. And you're conveniently overlooking the fact that I was one of the first people to download and complete your game and congratulate you on a task well done.

Whats to be honest about Radiant?

It's honest to say that KQ3v has some bugs and they'll be fixed soon. It's dishonest to say that it's normal for a newly released game to have this many bugs, or that AGDI's games had just as many bugs.

It's honest to say that KQ3v has fewer music tracks than some games because of a conscious decision on style. It's dishonest to say that it has a lot more music tracks than the original.

It's honest to say that you remade KQ3 because it's a cool game and you wanted to. It's dishonest to say that you remade KQ3 because fans can no longer run classic games on contemporary computers. I'm sure you see the pattern here.


Bottom line? I respect people who work hard and manage to complete a major game project. I also respect people who are competent in their field, and/or who seek feedback to improve their skills in that field. What I do not respect is people who attempt hide their flaws behind false statements, or who delete disagreeing posts from their forum.

It's perfectly fine to sit there and make comments like that Radiant, I'm sure the whole world looks very small from way up in your ivory tower.

Wow, looks like I struck a nerve. How about you be honest with your fans instead? If you release a buggy game, people will complain about bugs, it's very simple. If you wrongly state that KQ3 requires VDMSound to run, people will correct you on that.

If you must know, check http://crystalshard.net to see what I've released in the past, just FYI.

Still, I look forward to see how you've handled the spellbook part of the game.

You click the 'spell' button and then either you die (if you lack some ingredients) or the spell is instantly complete. They claim that many people complained about the complexity of doing it some other way (e.g. the KQ6 way of clicking ingredients on one another).

Unfortunately, due to the advances made in computer technology over the last twenty years, such classic games no longer run on the modern computer.

Does anybody actually have problems running AGI games?

I call bullshit. All AGI games run perfectly fine on all modern PCs, and with the several free interpreters available they also run perfectly fine on Macs, Linuxes and Gameboys. Even getting KQ5/6 to run isn't all that hard.

Not sure if this belongs here, but...

could you please add an editor option somewhere to 'disable source comments'? Basically when I'm making the game, the AGS engine adds helpful comments in a number of places. I'm sure these are useful to a beginner, but to one who isn't they have a rather big 'duh' factor. I delete them all on sight, actually.

For instance,

Code: ags

// This is a text script
@2  // option 2

#section-start thingy // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE!!!!!!one!!!

Also, this appears to be a bug... if you do 'option-on' twice on the same option, you must also do option-off on it twice before it goes away.


And also, in a 16-bit color game, you cannot import PNGs for the 'alternate' room images #2-#5. The game claims the color depth is wrong (24 bit PNG rather than 16 bit). It is, however, perfectly possible to import a 24-bit BMP file.

The moral of the story is that you cannot assume that people use a certain size of browser window. A good designer should also take into account the visually impaired (who use extra-large fonts) and people with very old systems that run in 640x480.

Anything that can be sized in HTML can also be sized in percentages. So, don't make your table 800 pixels with four 200-pixel columns, make the table 100% wide with four 25% columns. I realize this gets trickier with images, but it's possible to work with that; at any rate, websites should be functional first, flashy a distant second.

As a benchmark, try if your site works properly in Lynx. It should, and most major sites do. Many amateur sites don't because they use "clever" hacks.

Also, to make controlling easier, any mouse click inside the window but outside the part that actually shows the game, should be treated as a click on the very edge of the game. This makes it easier to click on room edges, e.g. for leaving that room.

(for instance, in a 800x600 window we're playing a 640x480 game, centered; this leaves a 80-pixel border at the side edges, and 60-pixel on top and bottom. Pixel 80,60 in the window matches to 0,0 in the game. Pixel 40,60 should also be treated as 0,0 in the game. 750,120 maps to 799,60. Etc).

Actually it doesn't matter if the game runs slower while recording, as long as you take a shot every X game cycles rather than every X seconds. If normally the game runs at 40 fps and you take a shot every 4 frames, then it doesn't matter if the game runs twice as slow while recording, as long as you can play it back at 10 frames per second.

You can significantly reduce size here by using a lesser color depth or a lesser resolution. AGS isn't particularly fast in 800x600x16bit to begin with.

There are easier ways to do this... programs exist that let you record whatever is going on in your screen, and that is better encoding than a series of JPEGs.

Besides, JPEG is a lossy format.

By default, volume is lowered during dialog (this is convenient if a speech pack is installed). IIRC there is an option to turn this off; check the help files for the "game." variables (it's something like "game.low_volume_during_speech = true")

Wait, didn't you get anything from me?

I did just now. Thanks.

Received answers from Pablo and Yodaman. Thanks!

[The Rules (tm)]

The Rules (tm)
* This is a quiz about adventure gaming trivia. Each installment has about a dozen questions with a common theme, about well-known adventure games, either classics or from the more famous "indie" games. Suggested themes include but are not limited to inventory items, music, easter eggs or forest creatures.
* Each question is worth two points if correct, one for a partial answer, and three if you have a better answer than the person who made up the question.
* This thread is for hints and feedback, as well as noting your participation. Please send answers by PM to prevent people from peeking. The quizmaster will post all answers when the quiz ends.
* As with most activities, the winner of this quiz will be the quizmaster of the next one. In case of a tie, the person who submitted earlier is considered the winner.
* I'm setting a deadline of a week, then give me a few days to look over all answers, and give the winner a few days to come up with something new. The result should be a biweekly quiz, or thereabouts.


QuoteMania
Okay, a simple Quizzening... tell me from which game the following quotes are...
All are for classic Sierra or Lucasarts games, with a slight majority of Lucas quotes since there's much more spoken text in them. And most of the quotes occur near the beginning of the game.

1. He who would seek the key to this door will undoubtedly make a splash.
2. Hiden goseke.
3. How am I supposed to take over the world if I'm on a budget?
4. How are you going to find the statue in all this junk?
5. I'm selling these fine leather jackets.
6. I'm sick of making up stupid stories! ( -- then make up stories that aren't stupid! )
7. Ken sent me.
8. Last leaf of the year.
9. See ya!
10. The wisdom of the Elders may not be questioned. That is the final Rule of Membership.
11. You must be mistaking me for somebody else, I am not a farmer.
12. Z jo jb! Lvoo sd fj?

Ok guys i need some help here - or is it a bug ?

Spoiler

I went 'home' after a while - so the soucerar doesnt appear and get me, and hid all my red items, and started cleaning (I'm assuming this is how you stop him appearing every now and then to kill you ?!) and he said id discovered the 'magic' and killed me, even though i had no 'bad' items on me, and the trap door had been re covered.......?

[close]

Spoiler

Make sure the wizard's wand is in the cupboard. In the original game, he'd specifically say that he'd kill you since his wand is missing; in the remake he just has a generic killing message.

[close]

Spoiler

How do I escape the pirate ship? I have already escaped the hold and got my stuff and a shovel but now what?

[close]

Spoiler

Wait for five or ten minutes.

[close]

So, for many of us, all we got left is going around on forums looking for help, asking complete strangers to help out if they want, no matter how ridiculous that sounds, or risk just dumping all our projects.

That is true, but asking people in the forum really isn't guaranteed to help at all. The problem isn't really that the forum system is lacking (although I rather like your suggested system above), the problem is that everyone good enough to be on your team is also good enough to be on a dozen other teams and likely already busy with something, or working on his own project.

I've been thinking about the GUI design for my game, and I was wondering, does anyone actually use the iconbar to select their cursor in the Sierra-style GUI?

I use it all the time to get back to the 'walk' cursor quickly. Hardly for anything else.
I believe there's one AGS game out there that has a Sierra'esque toolbar but no walk button; that was annoying.

Oh and yes, you definitely need keyboard shortcuts.

Is it possible for any AGS game to run in window, but window is automatically full screen size and game is centered at its own resolution? I mean, just black borders around game window to cover the screen?

Seconded.

I agree that parody == comedy most of the time (specifically, a parody would be a 'comedy remake'), and that fantasy != scifi.

You seem to have left out 'horror', though.

I suggested "unique" because HOTU also uses that category for one-of-a-kind games. In the IF genre, Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die would be an example; most other examples are exotic crossovers. I don't quite like the term "experimental" because that kind of suggests the author didn't know what he was doing at the time. Also, MOTLPAA is definitely experimental but certainly not unique (I'd flag it RPG/non-adventure or something).

Given the prevalence of RPG threads, we may want an RPG category as a subset of non-adventure.

How can I manage to escape that shark?

Spoiler

Turn into an eagle and fly over him, or rub the magic stone until you appear on the beach.

[close]

You have no need to use the fly wings on board the ship

No, but it the most convenient way of getting off the ship. Or should be.

How can I catch the cat?

Click the hand on it. For some reason this doesn't work in all rooms, that is likely a bug.