Messages

Super easy.
Cube

I don't understand why you stepped back in our overall ambitions, here. You represented Inventories as part of a character, whereas I think inventories should be designed separately from characters, just like views.r "cEgo.Inventory["Spells"]" syntax, but through the Editor.

I was only trying to think of how you'd give or check if a character has an inventory item. Generally the only character that holds inventory in a game is the player character, but not always the case.

But if your 'All Inventories' worked for all characters, it would still need to act in the same fashion.  cEgo.Inventory.HasItem(iWhatever);


Edit: Also has anyone used another engine that manages lots of sprites? I've never really been a fan of the magic numbering we use for sprites. You literally have to check up what that sprite is every time you're checking older code.  Would an OO system be more user friendly?  Sprites.Folder1.Sprite9? Or perhaps the option for either or.

Edit again: Or whenever you've punched in something that requires a sprite number, eg: Game.SpriteHeight[   once you punch in that bracket an autocomplete comes up with the sprites icon on it. If you click the sprites icon it takes you to the sprites collection and you choose the sprite to use. Then perhaps whenever you hover your mouse over that sprite number (or perhaps the whole Game.SpriteHeight[number]  -- as long as it's a constant variable or sprite number) a graphical image of that sprite pops up above your mouse for quick reference.

Am I too late to join the party?
I vote on number 2. It's simple and doesn't obscure the item you're interacting with.

I also love the new Limey.

[DynamicSprite.CreateFromScreenShot]

[..]as opposed to snagging the background frame, drawing everything onto it to recreate the scene[..]

Seeing as this is slightly related to your conversation, would it be possible to have something similar to  DynamicSprite.CreateFromScreenShot  that actually grabs the screen before it applies the overlays (GUI's, cursors, speech, etc)?

Also Monkey, how are you drawing the characters and such behind walkbehinds with your method? Or is this done on a pixel per pixel level while checking the walkbehinds? Drawing everything onto the background sprite, then checking walkbehinds and drawing a background pixel over top of anything that a character/object actually is.

Chicky you got it!
If anyone hasn't seen that movie I recommend it. Just DO NOT watch the trailer beforehand, it gives away ALL the funny lines and scenes in the movie.

Wow do you ever know the corny horror movies, Progz.

Satan's Little Helper (2004)

I saw it about a year ago. Very corny. haha
Edit: Although I do not remember the kid playing this game on the computer, I thought he was using a handheld device of sorts. Or at least he does in the van in the beginning before meeting up with his sister and her new boyfriend.

Anyway, I'm 99.9% sure this is the movie, so I'm going to post my video clip and go to sleep (I don't want my turn stolen like Dualy).

[Red, Green, Blue]

I believe he was referring to how AGS sorts the enums alphabetically instead of numerical order.
Where the auto-complete should show it as: Red, Green, Blue  in the numerical order of the enum, instead of  Blue, Green, Red  which is what AGS does (if I remember correctly) throwing the auto-complete list out of whack.

I actually noticed a large problem with custom inventories (some character with none, or some with one or multiple). You wouldn't be able to call the Inventory by the character and its ID.

Code: ags

character[i].Inventory.AddItem(iWhatever);

Wouldn't compile because "Inventory" or "Spells" etc doesn't belong to all Characters. It belongs to individual characters.

It would basically limit how inventory is handled across multiple characters. But for the general adventure game, I don't see any issues with it as long as you're calling the character by its programming name.
I'll need to think some more on this..

Edit: The only real option would be to have the custom inventories work for all characters and not individual characters. That way is much less pleasing.

Maybe if you could explain to me why, for example, we need to decide whether characters should have no/one/multiple inventories, instead of just leaving that choice up to each game creator, I'd see the point of trying to make a universal adventure game specification.

I reread this thread again and have noticed you all asking about inventories. The current way inventories work is that every character is defaulted to a single inventory (or is it that every item has a List of which characters carry it). Whichever way it runs, it basically leaves you with one inventory per character mandatory.

Instead how about adding the inventory to the character like so WHEN you actually need it (tweaking my above visuals to describe):


So basically you aren't adding the inventory item to the character, you're adding the inventory item to the Inventory.

So a code example would be:

cEgo.Inventory.AddItem(iBook);
or
cEgo.Spells.AddItem(iFire);


Am I totally off base here, or are these ideas actually useful? lol

You could add a master script for all Characters. I don't know exactly how it'll work with the events tab, it just seems like a damn good idea overall.

Edit: Also as you've noticed in my visual example, I didn't include the ID on the Animations, GUIs, Characters or Rooms. They should never have been a hard-coded thing in AGS in the first place. It results in tons of magic numbers like  player.ChangeRoom(2);

What the hell is room 2? How does anyone remember what Room 2 is without actually going to the object tree and looking it up. It should all be using the programming name, not the ID. The ID should be used with scripting, whenever it's actually needed.

Also on a side note, I don't think the game should require a player character. So to change the room you simply just use: Game.ChangeRoom(rDesert);  or something along those lines -- but also having Player.ChangeRoom(Room)  as well. It makes it easier for cutscenes where the player is still in the other room, or in any situation where you may not even have a player character but are forced to because of AGS.

It would be nice if characters had the option to have their own script as well.

Can you decribe a use case? I can't visualize it. Maybe if there were some events associated to characters, like, let's say "has started speaking".

Basically because everything is being grouped into the Global Script. It's a gigantic mess.

This would make it possible to export a character/GUI/Inventory Item. One person could be creating the characters and their responses and default actions, animations, sprites, etc all on their end. Then they simply export all that work as a single Object and is easily imported into the group project. It could be done with Inventory items, GUI's, etc.

Would we really need a Global Script?(...) Basically all we would need is a Game script.

I won't say yes or no, it's just vocabulary, isn't it?

Not at all. If every entity had their own script, just like Visual Studio does with each Form and such, what would be the need of a Global Script other than a few game events and such? And then the name would be misleading. It should therefor be called the GameScript or TestGame.Script or whatever.

I even think removing the header script would be justifiable

Why not. What is the opinion of scripters here? Doesn't it make a module more readable if you put all the comments, function description, parameters decription, etc. in the header?

What's the honest purpose of a header script? So you can Import/Export things? The only reason we need that is because there is no Public expression. I see zero reason for having them. You need to document your module script, do it in the top of the module script itself.


Here's a quick mockup of what I mean with a script for each element:


Notice how some things are actually left out? Like inventory and such? Well why have the inventory tab if the game doesn't even have inventory items? You should right click on the game group, Add inventory item, and from then on you have an Inventory branch where you can add Inventory items to the main game.

Everything should be nonvisible like Sprites, GUI's, Conversations, etc. And the reason for that should be to the game should be completely customizable. Where you can add an Animation or Sprite set for each character, or whatever you wish.

Kinda like this where Sprites and Animation are within the Character object - but there is still the global game sprites:


Now I know this could make things more complicated, but it's the only logical way to be able to export characters and such and actually have their scripts, sprites, animations, etc all be able to stay with them. Mainly only for team projects, but could help with organization. I'm just not sure how the sprite numbers should operate. Perhaps something like  cEgo.Sprite[10]   and that would access sprite 10 from within the sprite set for cEgo  and not sprite 10 from the global game sprites.

Like I said, this wouldn't be mandatory to group Animations and Sprites for each element, only if you wanted to as a designer or in cases of a team project.


(the whole point of this thread is to suggest ideas that would perhaps better AGS - even if it's technically difficult to overcome)

Guys, think of a porn title for the lightning bolt fast, red tight wearing man.

Edit: Reminds me of Orgazmo (1997) actually.

Do you mean someone could create a Game object in an AGS application

I'm not saying someone *could*, and I'm not suggesting a way to implement it.
I'm just saying we should anticipate it, at least formally, because it's a possible use case.

Well of course. That's why I said could.

Anyway, even the possibility of a character class/object? containing these sprites or animation views as well. It would be nice if characters had the option to have their own script as well. They should, shouldn't they? It only makes sense to me. Organization and such.

I even think removing the header script would be justifiable. Having the public keyword on classes is all we would really need. GlobalScript.DoFunction();

Would we really need a Global Script? GUI's shouldn't share the global script. Character's shouldn't. What other need other than repeatedly execute and always, plus on event and other functions. Basically all we would need is a Game script.

Or you could force AGS scripters to write their game object as inherited from a global "Game" object, so that it's easily imported into another script just by copying the sources (a bit the way applets work)

Do you mean someone could create a Game object in an AGS application, containing things like: Views, Loops, Frames, Sprites, Dialogs, GUI's, Rooms etc etc (whatever these existing objects get turned into).

So if I were to delete that Game object, all the inner items are deleted. So a game object could simply be a game within the game. Like a super advanced module that contains everything the module would need?

Also exporting or importing would also contain all these items. That would make things super easy for team projects. Especially for things like a mini-game like you mentioned.

Because if that's what you meant, I have a chill running down my neck.

[It's a platformer]

It's a platformer....

Oh, so it's not Adventure-related?  :

[Let Me In]

I'm getting a Let Me In vibe, but I'm pretty positive it's at night. So I have no idea what this is.

I didn't a little searching and it looks to be a very terrible movie, Ponch. lol

Am I the only person who couldn't care less about it because the search feature and playback haven't really changed as a result of this redesign?

lol Same.

I ran out of recent movies to watch and I like John Reilly so I figured I'd download it to give it a shot. lol

Yep, Dualnames answered for me. It was Terri.