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Hi there,

On replaying it yesterday, I noticed that the famous scifi author Orson Scott Card is mentioned in the credits in Monkey Island (under 'sword fighting insults', to be precise). Does anybody know if this is true, or an inside joke, or something else?
(of course it's in the same category as 'art and animation for disk 42', but Card is pretty famous so maybe it's homage?)

Hi there,

I was wondering about something... fifteen years ago (roughly) when Larry 1 was still new and being sold, there was a story about it, claiming that if you made an illegal copy of it, it would spawn a virus that would wipe your hard drive.
Needless to say this is untrue (and it would have been very poor marketing, too). But I was wondering if anybody heard of it, or what the origins of this story might be...

And another bunch of buglike reports of high obscurity and low importance...

- if in the global header, I import a function and specify a different number (or type) of parameters from the function definition in the global script, no compiler error is gnerated; instead the game tends to crash when the function is used.

- if I select 'recompile all rooms' and one of the rooms generates a compiler error, then that particular room will not be recompiled and an error message is displayed that doesn't actually show the room's number. If I then test the game, it will have one or more rooms that aren't recompiled.

- trivial detail: if you declare 'function thingy (void)', per C customs, any calls to the function are expected to pass one integer parameter. I figured 'void' might be treated as a parameter name instead, but a really weird compiler error is generated if I add 'if (void==0)...' to the function.

- am I correct to assume that any variables are initialized to zero? If so you might mention this in tha manual. If not, they should be as this tends to be what newbie programmers expect.

- MoveCharacterToObject (EGO, -1) moves the character to the top left corner of the screen, instead of doing nothing as I would expect (e.g. MoveCharacterToObject (EGO, GetObjectAt (mouse.x, mouse.y)) )

- if in the GUI editor, the first word of a label's text is too wide for the label (easily possible with @TOTALSCORE@), the label appears entirely blank (one would expect '@TOTA' or a similar fraction) (maybe in the GUI editor, @SCORE@ and @TOTALSCORE@ should be replaced by numbers so you can see what they actually look like; then in the
 pop-up window that edits individual controls, they should still show as the @SCORE@ string)

- the error message for SetGUIPosition() coordinates being out of range is incorrect, because the coordinates can in fact be set to negative values (which is a good thing, it allows you to scroll a GUI off-screen). However coordinates greater than screen height or width are not allowed (which is slightly inconsistent)

- 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?

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

- how about having the cursor arrows nudge the GUI object that is currently selected one pixel to the left/right/etc

Wow, thanks everyone! Looks like we're on the right track.

I've put a number of quirks in there to see how the people would react.
The gaunt man's shadow will be removed in the future.
I'll increase game speed (and EGO speed)
And the rooms will have less hotspot walkto points (i.e. for trees it's not usually necessary)
Night mode is tricky, I'll see what I can do without having each scene drawn twice.
The final game will have either the 'classic setting' gui or the 'tweak' gui. Judging by people's reponses it'll probably be the latter. Apart from that, I'd like to include the option to make EGO translucent to clicks since that's the way I personally prefer it (but this can be toggled off by people who think otherwise). Note that this doesn't invalidate any puzzles.

[Coding / Scripting]

Coding / Scripting
At the risk of sounding like a braggart, I'm a skilled programmer in C++, AGS and a bunch of other languages and have created and finished three full-length games in the past (none of them are adventures, though; see the webpage in my sig if you're curious).
Anyway if you need a programmer for your project please drop me a line.

Story and Puzzle Design
I love this part (then again, don't most people?). I've been running roleplaying games as master/storyteller for eleven years (D&D, Whitewolf, Amber Diceless and a homebrew system) and have extensive knowledge of mythology and fantasy literature. My main interest lies in fantasy worlds, from high fantasy to dark, or modern world with a magical or horror twist to it (i.e. world of darkness).

Playtesting
People who've read the AGS beta thread may have noticed my tendency to find obscure bugs if you have an interesting beta I'd be happy to give it a try. Again my main interest is in fantasy games; if you have a scifi or cop game I'd prefer you asked someone else.

Maybe there should be one more icon in this thread, for translating.
I could do a Dutch translation (that's my native language, after all) but that really depends on how large the game is and how much time I have.

And for certain fourteen-year-old newbies, maybe we could add an icon for pretending to be everybody's boss and taking the credit?

To send me a private message, click here!

- would it be possible to add a TAB character for using in dialogs? So you can display a list in a neat way with the Display () command.

could you clarify what you mean? Do you mean some sort of '\t' escape character to insert a tab in a message?

Exactly. I was writing a help function for my game, and basically it goes
Display ("F5\tsave game[F7\trestore game[F9\trestart game");

Fritos -> correct, it's internal only. If you really need to, save a font as BMP, edit it to your heart's content with whatever program, and import it back. And no, I'm not considering JPEG support
(hm, I could probably write a dos version in 2 kb, just to prove a point... <grin> )

Pumaman -> Thank you!

Out of curiosity... why would you use AGS to write a word processor? Visual Basic and Visual C++ have tons of templates and functionality that can get it done in a matter of days. It's like writing tetris in postscript, or pong on an oscilloscope (and yes, I actually know people who did that)

I believe sig length is rather limited; if you wanted to display two or three icons with tooltips and alt-texts, I doubt it would fit.

I believe this might be mentioned here as well, sorry if it's inappropriate.
I've just announced the game King's Quest 2.5 in the announcements forum, but our team could also use some help, so it's an ACR request as well. The announcement thread is

here.

Announcing King's Quest two-and-a-half.

In the score years between Graham's and Valanice's wedding, and Gwydion/Alexander's triumphant return and defeat of the fearsome dragon, all has not been quiet in Daventry. A horde of goblins is marching towards the nearby kingdom of Avali, and its old and weary king Vortigern has requested Graham's help in dealing with the matter. But treachery is afoot, and before long Graham is framed for murder and on the run from the Avalian guard. Going incognito, he has to deal with goblins, faeries, a giant and an evil wizard (not to mention ignorant villagers and a tendency to fall off cliffs) to clear his name and free the land from the goblins' yoke.



We have a three-room demo of the game available at
http://www.liacs.nl/~psimoons/dls/kqproj.zip (roughly 1 megabyte).
It even contains a puzzle. I am well aware that Graham looks like a Roger, and that there's no sound or music yet; but other comments are welcome.
The full game will have roughly 75 rooms and long play time comparable to KQVI and KQII+.

Our team could use some more help. In particular, we could use a skilled room artist, a character animator, and a musician. If you're interested in joining, please send me a private message.

- in the script editor, the ALT-codes for special characters (i.e. ALT-130 = e-aigu) work, but also move the cursor around erraticly. This seems to be a bug?

I just tried it out but I didn't get any erratic cursor movement. What version of Windows are you using?

ME. I believe on looking closer that Alt-4 moves the cursor to the far left, etc. I am using the numeric keypad though, it hadn't occured to me yet to use the keys above the letter keys.

Two more tiny bugs that aren't really important
- it is not possible to display the '@' symbol on a GUI. If you do, it appears fine in the editor, but in the game it disappears along with the rest of the line. Maybe @@ or \@ could be used?

- would it be possible to add a TAB character for using in dialogs? So you can display a list in a neat way with the Display () command.

This one however has some importance...
- if a GUI is set to Z-order 0 or 1, it still appears over Sierra-style speech dialog boxes. Maybe you could let the editor set a Z-order for the textboxes?

You can change any letter's size from 1x1 up to 64x64; if people really need bigger letters I suppose I could change that.
You switch a pixel's color by clicking on it (black to white or back), and can drag to make a group of pixels the same color; it's pretty intuitive (I think).

They're control characters, actually, but obsolete in most applications.
For instance, character 13 = return, character 10 = line feed, char 27 = escape, 9 = tab, 8 = backspace.
Also they had funky graphics used in many dos-based ASCII games: 1 = smile, 2 = bright smile, 3-6 = clubs/spades/hearts/diamonds, etc.
Currently, AGS can display characters 1-31 with no problems, however the text editor used for scripting cannot really handle them well.

SCI font files are named FONT.### where ### is some number. I'm not sure why this convention was chosen, I would have named them ###.FNT myself. I believe AGS can import them regardless of name.

- in the script editor, the ALT-codes for special characters (i.e. ALT-130 = e-aigu) work, but also move the cursor around erraticly. This seems to be a bug?

- when the small window comes up that lets you select a value in the GUI editor, AGS no longer shows up in ALT-TAB (but it is still in the taskbar)

- would it be possible to add some more hot keys to the editor for hotspot areas etc? I.e. +/- to select hotspot number, and I,P,S,R for the interact, property, set/remove hotspot buttons

- suggestion: when displaying a SCI-font, it would be easy to add support for extended characters (German and French accented letters, in particular). These correspond to ASCII codes 128-140 roughly. It seems to be easy to modify the WFN font format to support 140 characters rather than 128, or alternatively the game could use the characters 0-32 instead, which are currently unused (i.e. char % 128). Both SCI studio and Radiant FontEdit allow editing these. This would be helpful to all people making translations of games.

For instance I've added accented characters to this font file: agsfnt0

[Download here]

Do you want to pixel-edit your own fonts or need a special accented character for Icelandic dialogue?
Try this small FontEdit utility I wrote!

Supports reading and writing of SCI font files (font.*), AGS font files (*.wfn) and bitmaps (*.bmp), with regular editing tools and an outline generator. It's freeware, by the way. Enjoy! And bug reports welcomed, of course. I'll add TTF support if I have the time to figure out FreeType.

Note that I am well aware that SCI studio can edit fonts, but it's a lot bigger and crashes frequently, at least on my computer. As to which one is more userfriendly, ymmv.

Download here (40 kb Windows executable*)
Mirror (Thanks SSH!)

*Also works under Linux with WINE if you put a mfc42.dll in its directory

1. When you hear the term "adventure game", what do you think? Point n' Click in 256 colours? Keyboard Controlled with 3D enviroments such as Grim? Or Lara Croft? What's the first, and most familiar/comfortable image that springs to mind when you hear that term?

On a gliding scale... text-based adventures (i.e. ADVENT, Zork); text-based with graphics (i.e. The Hobbit, Spellcasting series); animated with text entry (i.e. any Sierra classic); and animated with point-n-click (...)
Personally I prefer the third; I like text entry. If that's not available I'd like a panel with a lot of verbs on it, such as in LucasArts (then LucasFilm) classics. The walk/look/touch/talk icons feel a bit limited.
Color depth and/or 3-d-ness make no difference to me.

2. What do you think are absolute neseccities for a game to fall into the adventure genre? I mean, is an adventure game the same without a Point n' Click interface? Is a keyboard control system as good as a mouse control system?

Puzzles are a necessity (one may argue that Mixed-Up Mother Goose isn't much of an adventure). These could be object-related puzzles, search puzzles or conversation puzzles, or possibly others.
What in my opinion doesn't count are logic puzzles (i.e. soko-ban stuff or anything from the Seventh Guest) or riddles (i.e. the old man from Hugo's). I'm not saying that these shouldn't appear in adventure games, but that they shouldn't be the main focus, and including them does not make a game an adventure. What also doesn't count is pixel-hunting.
Also you should be able to think your way through with no hurries. Of course there can be arcade sequences or time-limited puzzles but again these should not be the main focus of the game.
I believe the key difference, is that in an adventure game you have to wonder what exactly you have to do (or how you have to do it), and once you've figured that out actually doing it is easy. I.e. how do I cross the troll on the bridge (KQI/StS/Monkey/...) or how to get out of the university without a hall pass (Spc201). In comparison, in action games (Zelda/Mario/Tomb raider) it is generally obvious what you have to do (kill the baddies, hit the buttons in correct order, time your jumps carefully) but pulling it off requires practice.

3. Name the current developers/publishers of Adventure Games that you know, and the titles they've released/are working on in the past three years.

Tierra/AGDI - QfGIIvga, KQII+, KQIvga
Femo Duo - Enclosure
I can't think of any commercial or industry big-guys working on adventure games at the moment.

4. Name your top five adventure games of all time.

Loom. King's Quest VI and II+. Monkey Island I and II. Spellcasting 201. Enchanter/Sorceror/Spellbreaker.
(in no particular order)

Would you consider these games to be adventure games (And yes, I realize that some of them are not adventure games at all, it's part of the question):
     Tomb Raider
     LBA
     Alone in the Dark 4
     Dino Crisis
     Zelda - Ocarina of Time
     Mario 64
     Resident Evil

I haven't played most of them but I wouldn't include any of them in my definition. Note of course that definitions vary. I believe Tomb Raider is a first-person shooter (FPS). Mario has been a platform game but I haven't played '64. The Zelda series were originally labeled action-adventure, I believe.

- when a string contains characters not printable in a certain font, it would be nicer to just ignore those characters rather than crashing the game. Or print blanks.

I'm not sure about this one - then we'd get questions from people asking why their text wasn't appearing. At least the current way they get a message to explain what they're doing wrong.

Not really, you get a message stating you're displaying illegal characters, whereas what they're actually doing wrong is not supplying enough parameters to the Display() function. If I ask the user to enter a string, then display the string later, the game will crash if the string happens to contain '%s'. Of course there is an easy workaround but the error message isn't exactly clear.

- when using a SCI font, character 127 remains unusable even if it is present

I'm not sure why that would be, but it's not really a high priority issue. I'll look into it at some point.

It's not really important, but I wanted to create a SCI font containing extended ASCII (in particular, accented vowels). I suppose I could overwrite the brackets and other seldom-used characters instead.

A workaround that tends to solve this problem is the following.
In most windows versions, you can set the middle mouse button to 'do something' such as a context menu or location help. This is done in the system config panel. Set it to 'left double click'.
Then in AGS (or whatever else you're using) detect double clicks and handle them differently.
For reasons unknown to me it is inherent in windows that applications tend not to be sent the WM_MIDDLEBUTTONDOWN and _UP messages. So blame Bill.