Messages

OK Roger, jannar I have a version ready for testing.  I appology for being late.  It took me a little longer to put an example ewnvironment together.  You will find a "Bluster" discussion board and dopwnload/install instructions there.

Anyone else that wants to be a tester please register for the forum and then I will give you access to the test area.  Thanks. for your assistance.

Ok testers,  time to sign up.  Click on the forum link in my sig and register for the forum.  I'll have an alpha release ready Friday AM PST.   Check back then for a download and instructions.

It's alpha because I anticipate cosmetic changes to the configuration screen the necessity to add a DLL or two for some of the platforms.  Other than that, everything is functional , unless I have unknowlingly broke something that used to work.

See you at thre forum....

Yufster,

You need to end up with a Bachelors or higher degree from a university.  If you fail to do this you will consistently take a back seat to a steady stream of less talented folks than yourself.   Everyone in the professional world knows that there is a noticable difference in attitude, approach, professionalism between folks with 2 year degree's and four year degrees.  

Having said that, I started out with a two degree and it served me well.  When I transferred to university I lost one semester, would have been more if hadn't taken a whole bunch of classes that were prerequisites for each other.  

If you were to get the 2 year degree and then transfer to a university as you suggest, you will find yourself far ahead of your classmates.  The down side is that it may take 5 years to get the degree instead of 4.  You can minimize the loss by asking ahead of time what will transfer and what won't.  For example, in my second year of the 2 year degree, I took extra calculus classes which help quite a lot when I transferred.

My advice to you is to go to each of these places, find a sympathetic professor or teacher in each place.  Make it clear to them your intentions and ask their advice.   I don't know how much luck you will have with counsilors (damm spelling ) at these two schools.  Likely you will get canned answers and what you nee is a customized program.

Consider seeking a masters degree.  I got one sort of by accident  but have never regretted it.   Since you mentioned Disney and the US, let me recommend you take a look at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh Pensylvania.  There is a professor thetre named Randy Pausch (not sure about how to spell his name) who did a sabatical at Disney and is now on a mission to bring together people from multiple disciplines to produce digital entertainment software, virtual worlds, etc...  I am sure there are other places to get a Masters degree in your area oif interest, I just don't know about them.  Just keep telling people your going to do it.  You can change your mind later.

Just to summarize:

1.  Tell the two year school,  "I intend to get  a masters degree.  Your school has a good reputation.  If I get a degree here how many of my credits will transfer to a university?  Have any of your stundent done that, how many of their credits transferred and how long did it take them to complete their bachelors degree?"   You get the idea.

2.  Go to the four year school and tell them the same thins.

3.  Corner some of the Disney folks and ask them.  I know that may a bit difficult  but if you can pull it off the advice you get will be golden.

Good luck in earning you r Master's Degree. I know you can do it.  

RickJ

To clarify things a bit... the larest sigs in this thread so far, have been Trap's and jannar's  which I think are fine.  Trap's sids takes 5 lines but each one is a hotlink to somewhere presumeably of importance.  Jannar's little banner is just that ... little.  

On the other hand,  song lyrics, 100+ pixel pacmen, and other distracting blather are not appropriate, IMHO.

Broosie, I know you love me and I am glad for the attention you shower upon me .  I love you too.  When you say

A polite request that users consider those people with slow modems and desiring a streamlined asthetically pleasing forum should be adequate. ....

I thought that's what I was doing albeit not as eloquently stated as you have done. Thanks.

Has anyone else noticed the recent profusion of annoying signature lines some people have been using here?

IMHO, it's annoying to wade through a thread where the signature's are 10 times larger than the content of the post.  I think it's a rude distraction we can all do without.  

Just to be clear, I'm not referring to the little 20 pixel banners folks sometimes use to promote their current project.  I'm talking about one with gigantic graphics (50, 100+ pixels)  and/or  8 or more lines of text.  

Not to be mean or anything but do we need to includ some guidelines about this in the "Read This First" rules?   What do you all think?

Scumm,

That would be great.  I could really use some button icons.  I have an acceptable splash screen, just some 3d lettering, but if you come up with something cool I'll find a way to use it.  Just let me know.

I'm implementing the "Play from CD" thing at the moment.    It's done except for properly handling the category paths, when runing frm CD.

Cheers

Thanks guys, I'll let you know in a couple of days, maybe by the weekend.  

Only some cleanup and minor repairs left to do.  Any one interested in being a beta tester please reply to this thread.  I should have something ready by next weekend.

I need testers running Win98, WinME, win2000, NT, or XP. Thanks.  

You can get Photoshop Elements for about $100 and it does nealy everything the $1000 one does.  You can also get Gimp at gimp.org.  It's very good, open source , and costs nothing.  

In that case you may find TintScreen (..) useful as well.  It can only be used with 16bit color though.  

I think you are looking for this ...

SetAreaLightLevel (int area, int level)

Changes region number AREA to have light level LEVEL. This does the same thing as the Light Level textbox in the editor, but allows you to change it at run-time.

IMHO, an adventure game is just another story telling medium,  the same as a book, movie, or play.  They all require the basic elements of drama (i.e. plot, characters, resolution of conflict, etc).  An adventure game, however, differs in the fact that it requires the viewer's intellectual  participation in order  to progress through the story.  

The primary goal of any adventure game is to progress to the end of the story.  But I don't think this will help break your mental block.   The way I approach this is to:

1.  Setting - write a paragraph describing the setting when and where the story to take place.  

2.  Characters - Populate the setting with characters.  Write a one or more paragraph(s) biography of each of the characters.  Include their  phyiscal description, personality, vocation, and their relationship with the other characters.  

3.  The characters and setting are all interrelated so it will be necessary to make a number of itterations of setps 1 & 2 above.  

For me, the story starts writting itself once I know who the characters are, what they are like, and how they are likely to interact with the other characters.  It's much easier to invent plot in this case.

Hope this is helpful.

The character's global inventory variables are integers and can be used to keep track of how many items the character has.  So if the coins were inventory item 1 then you would do
something like the following to use 7 coins.

character[EGO].inv[1] = character[EGO].inv[1]  - 7;

[Room Script]

When you create an overlay an id number is returned.  You use the id numer o remove the overlay.  For example ...

Room Script

int overlay_id;         // Put this at the begining of the room script

function room_x() {
  // Any event handler (i.e. interactions)
 
  // Create an overlay
  overlay_id = CreateGraphicOverlay(...);

  // Do something

  // Remove the overlay
  RemoveOverlay(overlay_id);
}

inf the event handler you would put soemthing like the following to qualify the action.

if (character[EGO].activeinv == 1) {
  // Do something
}
else {
  // Do nothing
  Display("You can't use it for that!");
}

Alex,

This is a really interesting idea.  I have traveled quite a bit and always enjoy learning how to find my way around a new place.  

I would love to be able to just walk around Tel-Aviv, talk to people on the street, ask directions to bars, see the sights,  etc...  It doesn't need to be an adventure game in the usual sense.   I would encourage you to not limit obligate yourself to such a paradigm.  

Wouldn't it be interesting if in a year or two there were a collection of interactive tours of various cities around the world.    

jane,

Welcome to the AGS world.  We really are a very friendly bunch, including Minimi.   I hope you won't take Minimi's comments personally, I am sure they were not intended that way.  

Just so you know, the "Gamed in Production" ection of the forum was recently introduced with fairly strict guide lines so that it could stay organized and not degenerate into mindless garble.   In both the "Games in Production" and "Completed Games" forms, it is intended that threads be initiated by a game developer.

We are glad that you are here and we are looking forward your future particpation and contibution to our little hang out.  

If I or anyone else here can be of any assistance to you please feel free to ask us via forum posting or PM.  

best regards
RickJ



Minimi,

Shame on you, you pumpkin head .  You should have realized that jane was new here and should have taken the time to show her the ropes.  I made the same mistake with Earlwood a long time ago and have felt bad ever since.  We should all make a point to take some extra time and have patience with newcommers.  All the rest of us pumpkin heads want to welcome you to our club.  Oh yes! You would be surprised to know how many of us there are.

Cheers
RickJ






 

Duzz:  You will be able to create as many categories as you like, name them whatever you want, and whatever games you wish into each of the categories.  

You are not making this with AGS, aren't you? My guess is Visual Basic, because it seems familiar, but I could ofcourse be totally wrong

It's written Borland in C++ using their cross platform CLX components making a port to linux possile at some point.

It's a nice idea, of having a menu of all ags-games.

But the thing that bothers me is the name, because there are tons of programs under that name. About 6 or 7 years ago, for example, we got our first cd-burner, and started making copies for others, and made lots of money in that time. It was called Gameblast. Later I found there is something similar to Twilight wich is also called Gameblast. There is a website where you can play free games, that's called Gameblaster. And I think there are much more.

So I suggest, think of another name maybee? Some more questions here.

I agree that the name is somewhat unoriginal, I'm open to suggestions.

1. Who writes (will be going to write) the html info files?

Ideally the game author would create the preview document.   It's not very much work and a template will be provided.  Plain text files are also supported.

2. Can you import games to the list, by searching the exe file of the game on your pc.

A Category is synomous with a directory.  Games are sub-directories of a Category directory.   To add a game to the list  simply create a sub-directory and copy the game files there.

Hey, this looks great.

Thanks

But does that really work....?

 yes

[Bluster]

Bluster  is a game organizer and launcher.  Games are grouped into categories, select a game and a preview document is displayed and it's theme song is played.  Click the PLAY button to launch the game.   The current  feature list is as follows:

• View html preview document
  
• Play theme song or sound
  
• Launch game
  
• Launch game's setup programs
  
• Supports AGS made games
  
• Limited support for non-AGS games
  
• Run from CD or hard disk installation
  
• Install individual game, category, or entire collection from CD to hard disk
  
• Open browser on link to game website

Download current version at ....
http://gaia-spa.com/download/Bluster.zip


Project Status
11-14-03
* Release V1.00 Beta-1

11-08-03:
* Releast V0.04 for alpha test

11-04-03:
* Request for beta testers
* Changed name of application to "Bluster - The BluSoft Game Launcher"

10-25-03:
* GameBlaster is currently in production and is expected to be released before November 25, 2003.  Check back for updates.