Messages

By the way, doesn't the Windows version of AGS run under Wine? (windows emulator for Linux)? That would solve some issues.

I agree that you should create a working version as soon as possible and then keep improving on it. Of course you should have a certain goal in mind with all these improvements. Most of my past games aren't adventures, but for an AGS game I would use a lot of temporary rooms that are mostly white so that at least the game can be tested. And bugfixed. And tested again. Repeat ad nauseam.

But I suppose it's easier with a team. I wouldn't want to tackle an AGS game solo (but that's also considering my rather poor artistic skills). Seems to me however that most people want to make a game on their own and then get stuck way before the halfway point, and give up on it. Maybe they should all put their graphics and scripts so far on a site (similar to juncSource) so that other people can see and learn. Just a thought.

Sounds good, Hollister.

Actually, do a lot of people use the Linux and Dos versions of AGS?

Thank thee...

actually I did download FreeType but haven't done much fiddling around with it. It's under consideration, time permitting.
But I have several game projects to worry about.

Suggestion:
plugin DLLs don't work in the Linux or Dos versions. Now it may be useful to be able to use the same game data file for both Linux and windows... this could be done if the Linux version of the AGS runtime simply ignores the DLL function calls. In the AGS editor I could supply a list of external functions; in windows these are linked to the DLLs, in Linux they are not.

Versatility. In other words, can it be used to program Tetris, or a platform game. This is less silly than it sounds, because this is a crashtest for versatility in other fields such as minigames.
Stability, i.e. does it crash a lot.
Similarity to existing languages (i.e. AGS syntax is quite similar to C)
Does the author respond within three days if you post a long list of really obscure bugs (kudos to CJ!!!)
Minimum system specs to run a game on

I agree, that would be nice. Even the 'free drawing' tool only responds to a mouse drag, not a mere click.
Also by the way at least on my computer, the line that appears on-screen when holding the mouse button is often a pixel away from where the line actually gets placed once I release the button.

Oh, sorry about that. Didn't get much sleep this weekend.
Looking forward to 2.62 very much!
(real ultimate power!!!)

Just a bunch of small bugs...

- the ^E 'edit local script' hotkey doesn't always work, even
  if the ^G and ^H keys do. Maybe it depends on the top panel?
- If I do a TintScreen (10,0,0) the screen gets less red,
  instead of more so.
- you might want to mention in the manual that Overlays are
  numbered 101 - 110, and that various common functions such
  as Display() also create overlays [and thus crash the game if
  ten exist already]
- StrGetCharAt() returns a negative value for characters > 127
- it would be nice if the empty game had a 'pointer' cursor

objects
- changing an object's name does not cause the room to be
  marked as 'dirty' for saving
- is it possible within a script to detect the amount of objects
  in a room?
- GetObjectY() actually returns a value one pixel below the
  lowest pixel of the object
- MergeObject places the object in front of all walkbehinds
  even if it has a baseline that should place it behind one
- after you Merge an object, it is still a valid object for
[psimoons@pc305l 13:41 ~/public_html/new] > more question.txt
misc
- the ^E 'edit local script' hotkey doesn't always work, even
  if the ^G and ^H keys do. Maybe it depends on the top panel?
- If I do a TintScreen (10,0,0) the screen gets less red,
  instead of more so.
- you might want to mention in the manual that Overlays are
  numbered 101 - 110, and that various common functions such
  as Display() also create overlays [and thus crash the game if
  ten exist already]
- StrGetCharAt() returns a negative value for characters > 127
- it would be nice if the empty game had a 'pointer' cursor

objects
- changing an object's name does not cause the room to be
  marked as 'dirty' for saving
- is it possible within a script to detect the amount of objects
  in a room?
- GetObjectY() actually returns a value one pixel below the
  lowest pixel of the object
- MergeObject places the object in front of all walkbehinds
  even if it has a baseline that should place it behind one
- after you Merge an object, it is still a valid object for
  subsequent calls to SetObjectPosition, -Graphic etc, only
  the object won't be displayed any more. MergeObject can be
  called again to draw the object once more!

dialogs
- in the dialog editor, 'run-script 0' gives a compiler error
- on_key_press and rep_ex_always won't run while a dialog is
  running (the idea was to have ESC automatically select the
  last dialog obtion, which tends to be 'goodbye')
- why can't I delete a dialog topic?

The King's Quest two-and-a-half project is looking for a background artist.
The game uses a realistic medieval style, and runs in 320x200 in 16-bit color.
Interested parties should drop me a private message. Thanks!

We have a demo of the game, which is discussed here.

The airsick bag, from in the airplane.

Hey, that's the site of one of my fave webcomics, too!
Thanks!

Well, yes, but in particular the later later games.
KQV has mouse interface and VGA graphics, and about a dozen resource files, which I can read.
KQVI has mouse interface and VGA graphics, and one friggin' huge resource file, which I can not read. I was wondering if anything can read the latter.

I've read Pumaman's extensive list of ideas for AGS (it comes with the latest non-beta version) and came up with the following wishlist... I believe most of these should be relatively easy to implement, and very useful. Some of them may already have been done, sorry about that if I haven't noticed it.



Suggestions taken from your Future file
* save current line number in script editor when exiting editor and returning
 similarly, it should remember its last search string.
* How about shift-F3 searching backwards?
* export/import single GUI
* option for objects to block at their base / make characters & objects block like walls
* script 'modules', or #include (especially to break up a large main script)
 (easy way for instance is allowing three of them, to be edited by pressing
 ^1, ^2 and ^3, then the compiler simply concatenates them)
* option to not draw bottom half of character in areas, ie. shallow water
 (with option for a view to be displayed at the character's new bottom, for
 splashing water)
* make ctrl-A cycle none, walkable, walk-behind, hotspots, none.
* Patch system, to allow patching of finished games AND to incorporate other team members
 changes into the editor
* option to see room areas semi-transparent in editor
* right-click in edit hotspot/area/walkable/walkbehind editing should
 select the color you clicked on for drawing (rather than copying the cursor
 contents, which could be done in the room options panel as it is now)
* hotkeys for hotspot editing: L for line, D for draw, F for fill
* Option for new QFG3-style speech, where if no speech view it displays
 at the top as if there is one, rather than doing LEC-style as at present
* button to cycle through GUI Objects on a GUI
* allow to start drawing areas outside of the drawing area
* change tempo of music
* Loop oscillate animation (1-2-3-4-3-2-1-2-3-4 etc)
* zoom in on Areas tab, esp. for walk-behinds
* some function that does MoveCharacterBlocking() but that aborts the movement if the
 player clicks the right mouse button (or presses ESC); the function returns false if
 it was thus interrupted, true if it completes
* sound panning option to set left-rightness of a sound (eg SetChannelPan)
* Make characters block so you can't walk through them.
* stop chars moving through each other
* AddNewObjectToRoom(x,y,pic) to add a new object with no interactions
* multi-select in sprite manager
* walkable area have sound effect for footsteps
* function GetSubstring (string source, string dest, int start, int end)
* talking idle-anim - eg. blinking/flexing muscles. should be overlaid on top of
 normal talking anim occasionally
* option to skip entire dialog by pressing ESC
* manual setting of character zoom level (eg. for effects like character shrinking)
* option to flip frames of animation left-to-right

I was reading some SCI script files this weekend, when I noticed that the SCI resource reader (latest download from their website) is only capable of reading SCI0/SCI1 games with 'split' resource files, i.e. RESOURCE.### numbered 001 through 010 or whatever. Some more recent Sierra games have a single file called RESOURCE.000; is the format of this file known and legible? Does anyone have a tool for it please?

- if I import a sprite and select a file, then change the transparency setting afterwards (i.e. to lower right pixel), I must re-import the file for the change to take effect. Bug?

The top of the Import Image window says "After selecting your settings, you must import the source again". Perhaps it needs to be more obvious, though.

Could you make it so that clicking a different type of 'transparent pixel' just immediately re-imports the source? That wuold be most intuitive I think.

- why doesn't a Textbox GUI have a 'font' line in its edit popup window? It seems more intuitive than SetTextBoxFont()

It does; I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say?

I meant a GUI marked as 'textbox', not a label on any GUI. I'll double check but I believe it only has an Xsize and Ysize parameter.

Oh wait, there's another upgrade! Cool!

As to merging games, isn't it just possible to just take room files from several people, put them all into one directory, and compile the result?

Oh I don't know, those insults from MI were pretty funny.
As to his books, well, wow. Especially Ender's Game, Lovelock and Pastwatch.

If done sparingly, I don't think ripping sprites (or backgrounds) is bad. It certainly won't get you sued any more than making a prequel/sequel (for the simple reason that a lawyer-type won't play through your entire game and spot which sprites are ripped).
I am reasonably sure, for instance, that King's Quest IIvga contains a number of graphics ripped directly from Sierra games, including the rooms for the wrong destinations of the Door, and the 'teleport poof' graphic which is from the genie in KQ5. I don't see a problem with that.

I seriously doubt that anyone could be offended by looking at screens from Larry 1 or 2.
Of course, #4 is the one that is really bad. Which is why it was banned and most people haven't heard of it.