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I've started something... as usual for my MAGS entries, it will be one room and probably not an adventure game per se. Gonna see if I can one-room one-week it, which worked well last time.

I see now this is unrelated to the button. I think it used to be the case that to select the parent GUI in the editor, one had to click on a part of the GUI with no controls. Now that happens when clicking outside the GUI in the empty space between the properties panel and the GUI itself. This isn't necessarily a problem, just a new behavior I wasn't aware of.

A couple things in the editor that should be easy to reproduce I hope:

1. When selecting a hotspot from the drop down menu in the room editor, the previously edited hotspot remains the highlighted color one in the room, until a new click in the room happens. It used to be that when you select a new hotspot from the menu, the newly selected hotspot would immediately become highlighted and the one in color, so you could see which hotspot was which just by using the drop down menu.

2. If I delete all the text from a GUI button, the editor switches to editing the GUI as a whole and not the button.

Hey @WHAM,

I totally understand where you're coming from, and any reason for not participating in MAGS is valid . Nobody has to enter.

But if you're actually interested in participating and being concerned about upsetting people is the only reason you wouldn't, I'd encourage you (any anyone else) to enter anyway.

As a member of the topic's group myself, my only worry (and I speak for only me) is the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes or actually harmful misrepresentation. I think the guidelines above do a pretty good job offering ways to avoid that, in that if the game has a protagonist who is any of the LGBTQIA letters, the rest of the game doesn't actually have to be about their identity or that subset of their experience. Personally, I'm just happy to see more games that acknowledge that people like me even exist.

If this is at all helpful (and it might not be, I admit), I encourage a mindset not of "how can I not upset people?" but "how can I make this awesome?" and "am I willing to learn?" If, for example, you're not sure what the harmful stereotypes about trans people are, you could go with a subgroup that you're more familiar with (I feel like most people understand what it means to just be gay or lesbian at this point), or you can post in this thread and ask "what are the kinds of representation you wish existed but haven't seen enough of in games?" (I'd like to know that myself, and I'm a member of the queer and genderqueer communities!)

And it's true, this can be work. If you don't have the time or energy for it, or it's just not fun, that's completely understandable. Like I said, any reason not to participate is valid. I'm just hoping this month gets a lot of entries so that the list of games with characters who are not both straight and cisgendered gets longer. It increases the odds that there will be good ones.

I'd like to think those in this forum are willing to appreciate a good faith effort, even if (as most MAGS games do), the entry prompts some constructive criticism. That's how I read the above comment by danvzare.

If your feeling is still "No, not for me," I'm not offended. But nothing makes me happier than when allies take risks. I hope you have a good gamedev month regardless of whether you enter.

Thanks for reading.

Time to vote! We have two entries:

CREAMY
HELTENJON

Whose entry provided the more logical, creative, and/or satisfying solution?

Voting open until March 16.

Concept: Creamy
Artistic Execution: Creamy
Playability: cat (I think this would work as a screen in a first-person game)

A couple days left still - any other entries? If you were playing this game, what would you want the solution to be?

So this update is technically very late, since the progress I'm reporting has been this way for a few months... but it deserves an update just the same.

Base background scenery for the desert level is complete - still need to add special scenery like bridges, tunnels, and depots.

In addition, I have a procedural terrain generation system, or something like it, that ensures you never drive through the same scenery twice.

It's been a huge challenge to code, and took a long time to draw all the scenery objects, too.

Enjoy!

EDIT: I also have a logo!

Bit of a rush job, but...

On the Deck of the Flying Dutchman

This fix is included into both 3.6.1 and 3.6.2 since September 2024

Thanks for the clarification. In that case, I think I'll just have to not use the software renderer. This leads to a more general question, which is, is it common practice to include acwin.exe with distributed games, or should I leave that out, since players changing the settings can cause problems?

Thanks for testing, @Crimson Wizard . After more testing, I think the differences in game speed are probably because of my computer because these differences are inconsistent. It's possible my machine is just slow sometimes.

Regarding the commit with the fix, how do I download and test it? I couldn't find a clear option for this at the link you posted. Or has this already been added to the 3.6.2 download link?

@Crimson Wizard my memory is that there were two fixes, one in the mode7 module itself, and one in the engine (I could be wrong).

The fix to the mode7 module is present in my current game build, which prevents the crash if objects are not moving directly toward the screen (though I can occasionally get out-of-memory issues if the object does move directly toward the screen).

Unfortunately, I can no longer find the build of AGS that fixed the software renderer issue, so the crash which I gave a screenshot of in my previous post happens in both 3.6.1 and 3.6.2 unless I do not use the software renderer.

I did find some of the previous discussion, which is in the mode7 module thread, and this was your comment with regard to the engine:

On engine's side this situation may be improved by not preparing new overlay's graphic while it's offscreen. This is easy to do for GUI and screen overlays, but bit more complicated for room objects and room overlays, as these will have to be tested against all existing cameras.

I do not remember if this was actually implemented, but I thought there was a test build somewhere that fixed it. 

I will DM you a link to the game, but this is probably a very unusual case, so if it's not able to be fixed in the engine, 3.6.2 is probably still a stable build for almost all games.

I cannot answer this question, because I do not remember about fixing this game now. Can you link to a relevant discussion?
Is there a way I can download this project or compiled game for a test?

Unfortunately I think the discussion must have been on Discord because I can't find it anymore.

I can DM you a link to an uploaded .zip of the project folder or just the .ags file, whichever is preferable.

@Crimson Wizard I tried converting my mode7 game from 3.6.1.27 to 3.6.2 RC 1, and there seems to be a regression. The frame rate was significantly reduced on both Direct3d and OpenGL modes, and the game went back to slowing and then crashing when using the software renderer. Is it possible that the change you made to fix this back in 3.6.1 didn't make it into the 3.6.2 branch?

This is the error it gives:

My Siblings, The Stones didn't make the final cut in any category? Really? 

@Ponch this comment made my day! But given the number of commercial-quality games released this year, I'm just absolutely thrilled that my other two games (MORT and Bad to the Coral) still got noticed.

A crowded field of great games is a wonderful problem to have, so I'm not complaining in the least. 

Anyone want to give it a go? 

It seems that when you search by game author, if you accidentally put a space after the name, then it returns no results. If you delete the space, the search results are as expected. Nit sure if this is fixable or not.

Also, on the forums page, if you click on posts from the "unread posts" page (on mobile) those posts are still listed as unread until you click on them from the main forum page.

[make the rules of the world as clear as possible]

Thanks so much for all these thoughtful and detailed responses!   This is a really great discussion! 

@CaptainD I think the multi-layer hinting sounds really smart. In practice, though, that sounds really difficult to design without simply including a "hint system." Is this demonstrated in the newest Captain Disaster demo? Would love to see how you're implementing it.

Anyone else have thoughts about hints or hint systems and how to nudge struggling players without making it too easy for the pros? Do you have a favorite game that did this well?

I remember one of the later Myst games, 3 or 4, had a hint system, but it was very immersion-breaking, just a gui, not integrated into the game world. The first-tier hint was sometimes helpful but the second-tier hint was usually not, and the third-tier hint was just a walkthrough. It was too easy to just give up and use the hints whenever a puzzle got difficult. More ideal would be stopping short of a walkthrough and integrating the hints more into the game itself. Which is obviously a lot more work.

I think the way I've tried to do this in the past is to make the rules of the world as clear as possible and have the puzzle solutions deduce-able from those rules and from the tools available. I'm trying to be much more intentional about that in my current project, making sure the first puzzles teach the player the major rules and tools of the world. Later puzzles should then (in this method) apply these rules and tools with increasing complexity. All of this is of course MUCH easier said than done.

@cat thanks so much for saying MORT was your favorite. That's huge considering you played every MAGS game of the year, and it means a lot to hear it.    For what it's worth, I nominated Apfelmannchen in a few of the regular AGS Awards categories. 

Hi Repi,

How long is the game? That's going to be a big factor for me in deciding whether I might have time to test it.

Thanks, and congrats on getting close to a release.
Rootbound