Messages

@cat You're right of course -- it would three times as much work to make as well.

But I like your idea of incorporating the tutorial aspects into the game itself. That's a much more efficient way of executing the same concept.

To answer your original inquiry, here are the features I think a demo game could showcase.

Scaling walkable areas
Walk-behinds
Animated backgrounds
Animated objects
Different views for player character
NPCs
Dialogs
Inventory items
Combining inventory items
Cutscenes
Credits
Splash screen
Different music in different rooms
Sound effects
Title menu
In-game menu
Credits
Basic visual effects (character walks off-screen before changing rooms, overlays)
Text input
Built-in UI modes (Walk-to, talk-to, and so on). I don't know what the actual UI should look like, but it seems sensible to me to showcase the built-in modes.

I'm sure there are more features to showcase, but this can get the list started.

Also, I started a different thread and put the assets from the above mock-up there, in case anyone wants to play with them: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/adventure-related-talk-chat/some-free-sprites-to-play-with/

I've been following these threads for a couple of weeks and had a maybe crazy but maybe good idea.

Here's a mock-up of a title screen (I couldn't resist  ).



The idea is for the first door to take you to a demo game (nothing meta about it, basically something short, similar to a MAGS entry). The second door would take you behind the scenes of the demo, with a TRON-like guide showing you how things like hotspots, walk-behinds, etc., created the immersion, and perhaps demonstrating small bits of code (no more than 3-4 lines). The third door would demonstrate more advanced capabilities, like the Tween module, Rellax module, custom GUIs, mostly as a showcase, with the code itself maybe heavily commented as a guide.

If this isn't what you're looking for, that's fine. I just wanted to share because I had fun with it. (I adapted Roger's walking animations for both the TRON-like figure and the Mage figure if anyone wants them  ).

Feel free to adopt any or none of the ideas here.

Cheers,
RootBound

Nice entries this month.

Concept: Creamy. I like both in their own ways, though I do think The boarded-up door and atmosphere of grittiness make the cityscape a bit less inviting as a vacation spot. All a matter of opinion, obviously.

Playability: Creamy. This was difficult because I do think both rooms look very playable. I think newwaveburritos's feels more like a gateway to other locations, a good establishing-setting room, and Creamy's has the same qualities but also feels like important actions would happen right on this screen--more to interact with.

Artistic execution: newwaveburritos. Hard to beat that use of color and lighting to convey atmosphere.

I've read it, and am afraid that it's written in an overly "encyclopedic" style. I'd propose a more light and regular-human-friendly style for these articles, so to speak.
There are also few incorrect terms used, and incorrect information.
For instance, Inventory items are not a "script object" but a game object, which has a corresponding InventoryItem script class.
Another example, it's not inventory IDs are in array, but pointers to InventoryItem objects are.

Thanks for the input. With regards to tone, I could certainly write in a more friendly style. That's not a problem at all.

I can try revising this draft to reflect your comments, but as regards the errors, I don't think my knowledge of the technical side of things is advanced enough to prevent similar errors on any other page I might write, so my text would have to serve as a very rough draft in need of revision by people with more expertise. If that's OK, I can continue writing drafts. If that's not a preferable situation, I may not be the best person for this, unfortunately.

Hello everyone,

Here's the refined and polished version of the first game I completed with AGS! This game won the March MAGS competition (theme: "Uplifitng"), so some of you are familiar with it already.

AGS game databse entry with download links here:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2671-elevation

In this short adventure survival game, you help a small robot
trapped in a space-elevator shaft to find rescue. 

All original art, fonts, and music.

Built with Adventure Game Studio 3.5.1.

Playtime: 20-60 min.






Updates since the MAGS version include:

-Lots of bug fixes
-Greatly improved GUI
-Some improved animations
-More polished dialogue and pacing (especially the ending)
-Slight refinements to puzzle experience
-End credits

Thanks so much to everyone who played and commented and voted during MAGS March. It means a lot to me. 

If anyone who plays would leave a rating in the AGS database, I'd be very grateful!

[Inventory Item (attributes and behaviors):]

Hi @Crimson Wizard ,

Thanks for the explanations.

Is there a complete list anywhere of which items need these pages written?

I certainly don't have the "in-engine behavior" knowledge to write many of these, but I can try for a couple of them.

Also, I've noticed that people here and on discord have commented that there are pages that need screenshots, which seems like an easy thing to create. Is there a list of "needed screenshots" anywhere?

Here is my attempt at writing a "behavioral" description of inventory items. Some of it may be incorrect or in need of clarification, but this is the extent of my knowledge of how they work:

Built-in Game Features

Inventory Item (attributes and behaviors):

Inventory items are a built-in class of script object, which have user-assigned images and cursors, as well as unique automatic ID numbers and user-assigned script names. Each unique inventory ID is included in a built-in array which may be accessed from the script.

An inventory item's five main capabilities are being "added" to a set of items that "belongs" to a character, "displayed" in those sets via GUI windows, "lost" from those sets, becoming "active" in the game interface, and being "used" on other game components such as hotspots, room objects, characters, and other inventory items.

Being "lost," made "inactive," or "used" does not affect the existence of the inventory item's definition and accessibility from the script. Each inventory item may also have multiple instances, such that a character may "possess" x number of any particular inventory item. Each character in the game has a distinct set of items that "belong" to them. Inventory items may be assigned to any or all of these distinct character inventory sets.

@edmundito Thank you, I will try these things out soon and see what happens.

It seems like no one is volunteering here, so even though I have only been using AGS seriously for a year or so, I have completed one game and about 90% of another, so I know the editor well enough to at least explain many of the "Built-in Game Features." This is essentially the list of components in the "explore project" window, correct?

I can definitely write a description of the basic ones like characters, rooms, inventory, guis, views, cursors, colours, and audio.

There are a few features I've not used there, though, like lip-sync, plugins, translations, and the text parser.

I'd be willing to put in some time on the basic things, though. Would I need to have a github account?

@4KbShort How dare you get me misty-eyed in the middle of the day.

Spoiler

Great use of setting detail, dialogue, and music choice to maximize the emotional impact. Well done.

[close]

OK, new problem. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong in my scripting. Goal is to be able to pseudo change speed of tweens (including stopping and resuming) by doing the following:

1. getting the current fraction of tween's duration remaining through customtween.GetTweenProgress() and the current value through customtween.value.

2. stop the tween

3. start a new tween with the value and duration modified based on what was previously elapsed.

This is, however, not working. I have a label displaying the value of customtween.GetTweenProgress(which, if I understand correctly, is supposed to return a float value between 0 and 1), but instead the returned value almost instantaneously climbs to a 10-digit whole integer, and if the tween is paused and unpaused value returns to 0 (integer, not float) and stays there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's my code:

Code: ags

Global variables: 
-----------------
int Speed = 0
int SpeedChange = 0
float TweenFraction
int CurrentTweenValue


Global script:
--------------

repeatedly_execute_always() {
   Label2.Text = String.Format("Scaling: %d", CurrentTweenValue);
   Label3.Text = String.Format("Progress: %d", TweenFraction);
}

function btnSpeedUp_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button) {
  if (Speed < 3){
    Speed ++;
    SpeedChange = 1;
  }
}

function btnSpeedDown_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button) {
  if (Speed > 0){
    Speed --;
    SpeedChange = 1;
  }
}


room script:
-----------

Tween IncreaseScaling;
float Duration;

function room_AfterFadeIn() {
  SetTimer(1,GetGameSpeed()/40);
}

function repeatedly_execute_always() {
  CurrentTweenValue = IncreaseScaling.Value;
  TweenFraction = IncreaseScaling.GetProgress();
  
  if (IsTimerExpired(1))  {
    SetTimer(1, GetGameSpeed()/40);
    if (IncreaseScaling.IsPlaying())  {
      IncreaseScaling.Update();
    }
    cTree.Scaling = IncreaseScaling.Value;
  }
  if (Speed == 0) {
     cTree.StopMoving();
     IncreaseScaling.Stop(ePauseTween);
  }
  if (Speed == 1){
     Duration = 3.0;
  }
  if(Speed == 2){
    Duration = 2.0;
  }
  if(Speed == 3){
    Duration = 1.0;
  }
  if(SpeedChange == 1) {
    readonly float CurrentProgress = IncreaseScaling.GetProgress();
    SpeedChange = 0;
    cTree.StopMoving();
    if (Speed !=0) {
      cTree.SetWalkSpeed(Speed*2, Speed*2);
      IncreaseScaling.Init(Duration - (Duration*CurrentProgress), CurrentTweenScaling, 300, eEaseInCircTween, eNoBlockTween);
    }
    cTree.Walk(500, 400, eNoBlock, eAnywhere);
    
  }

Thank you very much for any responses.

EDIT: added into this post a block of code I forgot to include in the above section.

EDIT: SOLVED - I didn't realize there was an issues page, it was this one: https://github.com/edmundito/ags-tween/issues/2
---------------------------------



Hi @edmundito,

Running AGS 3.6.0, I get the following error:

Tween.asc(751): Error (line 751): undefined symbol 'gui'

This is the code in question (error caused by final line):

Code: ags

function _TweenObject::Step(float amount) {
  switch (this.Type) {
    // GUI step
    case _eTweenGUIPosition:
      if (this.FromValue == this.ToValue) {
        _value = gui[this.RefID].X;
      }

Any idea what the problem is?

Thanks

I like it! I think the lighting works really well, although I'm wondering why the foremost pillar is all in light and not hidden in shadow at the top like the others. It's tricky depending on where exactly you want the light source to originate.

I really like the character and room design -- the characters have a lot of personality (including the cat!), and the room looks like there's ample potential for exploration without feeling too crowded. The castle-like doorways and stone walls are also rendered quite nicely. Good work!

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for playing my game! I appreciate you putting in the time to play and vote, and I'm happy this tiny game that I made very suddenly turned out well enough that people like it. 

And @4KbShort your game was a great entry too. If you'd won, it would have been well deserved too.

Just finished playing it, and the absurdity made me smile the whole way through. I love Mallory. I love the worm in the desert.

Spoiler

I like the snowglobe smashing and random bi-flag trading. I both love and hate the "kissing bridge."

[close]

Overall, it was a surreal and strange way to spend 20 minutes. I'm not sure exactly what I just experienced, but I enjoyed it.

I did find a few possible bugs:

Spoiler

In the first room, it is possible to walk up onto the dresser or bed and get stuck there. I had to restart the game because I couldn't get down.

After you open the treasure chest, if you click on it again, Goby still says "I need a key."

The minifig's arms on the fish hook seem very difficult to click on, enough that I thought you couldn't click on them at first. But I might have been confused by what was arms and what was hook, so others might not have that issue.

Movement by left-clicking the mouse is possible in addition to using the WASD keys. Is mouse-based movement intentional? In any case, leaving the esophagus by this method is not possible as the inventory window popping down blocks the exit. The W key works to get past it, though.

[close]

EDIT:

Spoiler

I also love when the music starts going "Goby goby goby." Made me laugh a lot.

[close]

Good news, looks like I may have fixed those two bugs in the patch I already uploaded in the first couple of days -- at least, the bugs aren't showing up for me in the current download version.

If this is correct, then kudos to Creamy for being enthusiastic enough to download the game in the first couple of days before I fixed anything.

If anyone else finds these issues in the current version, I'll take another look, but I'm hopeful they've now been addressed.

EDIT: unrelated, I have a protocol question - I'm planning on releasing a revised/polished edition of this game later on, and that's the version I'll put in the AGS database and in the Completed Games forum when it's done. Should I keep the MAGS version available too for the purposes of things like next year's Maggies? I'm assuming yes, but I'll be making enough changes that I don't really want the MAGS version to be the default edition. What's the etiquette for handling that?

Thanks.

Here's a little work in progress screenshot:

@MOCCA I like it! Really appealing style and atmosphere. Great pixel work.

And @Coco the Clown, I like the campfire too. Great lighting.

@Creamy Thank you so much--so glad you connected with the characters and had so many positive things to say. Extra thanks for reporting the bugs, too--I think it's too late to upload a fix before voting ends, but I've made sure this won't be a problem in the revised stable version (coming soon, after more playtesters). Very, very much appreciated.

This looks totally bonkers, and I already love the dog following Goby around. Will definitely play it when I get a chance.

Construction worker. I often work quickest under constraints (fewer artistic decisions to make), and so I tried using the smallest possible resolution and a pre-existing palette to help speed things along. I think it worked OK.

@lanchong

Keep trying. This moment is intended to feel a bit hopeless, a bit impossible. But there is a way out. You just have to keep looking.

Spoiler

Think about what was out of reach before that may now be reachable, even if it is not currently on the screen.

[close]