Topics

Seriously, anyone can be nominated for an OBE here: http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/ceremonial/index/nomination.htm

Teh CJ deserves it far more than any Civil Servant Sir Humphrey types. So, if you want to write a letter of recommendation to back-up his nomination, let me know!

I am developping the action sequence for one of our top developers' new games, and it is swordfighting. Part of the brief is: "Like Fate of Atlantis fighting, but with swords". Unfortunately, I have never played said game.

So, can someone who has done some scripting please describe to me how it works in FoA? Whatever you do, please don't PM me a download of the game. That would be like stealing.  

Seriously, though, I doubt tha tI'll have time to play the game enough to get to the fighting bit...

So far, my games have gone under "SuperScottishHero Productions". However, I want to get a domain name and have it match the name of my "game company".

However, I don't want to buy 2 domains (cheapskate!) and I also want to use the email address for any serious job applications, so superscottishhero.com looks a bit silly on a CV...

However, ssh.whatever are all gone, and sshero makes me sound like a WWII Nazi.

I looked up Gaelic for hero: leoch, which sounds OK to me and is free domain-wise, but it maybe sounds a bit like someone coughing and my wife doesn't like it.

I also thought of new names, but I want them to not be completely irrelevant to my day job (designing chips): Narractive is my favourite of these, but it doesn't really fit with chips. If I was juts doing it for chips, it might be something like siliconsculptor..

so, any ideas, folks? Cool logos welcome, too!

Cheers!

Just a hint to folks: you can work around the lack of Alpha-blending in GUIs by using a character as a GUI! It will take some scripting to ensure it stays in the same room and to hanlde click (probably best kept to simple GUIs) but you could even make an inventory with this system!

Of course, CJ will soon implement alpha blending in GUIs and render this hint nearly obsolete...

Since threads seem to get deleted  if not updated in the last 9 months, is there a way to turn that off for the Technical Archive forum: otherwise the pearls of wisdom will be lost!

I don't know if this is possible as a plugin, but if one of those marvellous people with a C or Delphi compiler want to make it for me, I'd be very grateful (or even CJ do it native, but I've already asked for that)

I'd need a function like

DisplayScaledSprite(int sprite_slot, int x, int y, int width, int height);

Actually, I only need to scale the x dimension, so I'd enter height as the sprite's true height always, but I'm looking at general applicability here. It can be done as an overlay or however you like but transparent bits need to remain transparent. Ideally, it would have a baseline and things could be in front, but that's work-aroundable.

Many thanks if someone wants to do it!

When looking for help, advice or just knowing who's done what we can currently find out who was in charge of a game's production, but unless you load every game reach the end to get the credits it can be quite hard to find out who has helped with what.

What do people think of starting a credits database so that for each game you can find out all who contributed, and also so that for each person you have some idea of how much they have contributed to games and who is worth tapping for help on music/anim/scripting, etc.

Maybe its a silly idea, but I was just looking at the IMDB, with its lists of everyoe in the credits and envisaged somethign similar. However, I don't have a host or mySQL to offer, so someone else would have to pick up the project and run with it.

I mean, look at the players we have: all far more famous and at better clubs...

:'( :'( :'( :'(

[dad's army]
WE'RE DOOMED, WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
[/dad's army]

LATEST: (29 June 2004)

Finally getting some work done on this since the demo. Have been consulting with various people on the story (thanks to you guys, you knwo who you are!) and now got some work on our hero's love interest progressing:

I think the story for the whole game is now complete, so here's some of what's on my todo list:

Characters: Akhenaten, Smenkhare, Tutankhamun, Boat Captain, Quarry workers, VIllage women, Priestly scholar, etc. etc.
Backgrounds: Quarry, Nile dock, Nileside village, Temple of Amun, Place at Amarna, Overview map, Desert landscape, etc. etc.
Dialogues: Millions of these to do!

LATEST: (29 April 04 5.30pm BST)

Bunch of bugs fixed in v1.2 (check about box... no version number means v1.0)... download link is the same.

(28 April 04):

Yes, the DEMO IS HERE! The moment that you've all been waiting for!

You can download it as 4.1M Zip or 3.7M RAR

or check out the blurb on the website website

Here's a screenshot to whet your appetite:



OLD UPDATES:

(27 April 04):

Well, the demo is very nearly ready. I've got a few descriptions left to add for some hotspots, which are already written but not typed in yet (and I left that bit of paper somewhere else :  )  but we have music, SFX, savegames with screenshots and lots more all ready.

so, hopefully... DEMO release tomorrow (Tuesday!)... its only 2 months later than I told Vel in the ezine!



27 Jan 04:

Well, now I've finished with the FOREGOs, I'll give you an update on the game progress.

Firstly, Vel has spoken to me about a preview in the AGS ezine. Hopefulyl that can be appearing soon. I have given him some exclusive screenshots, but I won't steal his thunder by posting them here.

Hopefully I can have a demo out by the end of February, although I don't promise. So far I've got the GUI nearly completed (just save/load boxes to do, but I'll leave them fro when I've got bored writing dialogues) and all the backgrounds for the demo are loaded into AGS. I think all the sprites are loaded too, but there always turns out to be two or three more that you need when you come to implement these things.

Most of the remaining work is going to be writing dialogs, I think. The way the icon-based dialog system works means that tehre will be a heck of a lot of dialog. I doubt that I'll have time to do a voice pack before end of February, or to finesse the music but there will be some music in there and hopefully some sound FX.

Also, Farlander has said that hes going to try and help me out with some cutscene GFX which is great. However, if anyone with 3D skills wants to PM me, I've got an awesome custscene that would look great in 3D. Also would liek to hewar from potential  voice actors for Ay (Old Grand Vizier), Maya (Helpful adjutant) and the Sphinx (booming deep voice)...

PREVIOUS:

Woot! At last I've got a walkcycle for Horemheb done. Thanks to PureGhost for the improvements to the character.


So, now that my wife has agreed to let me work on a serious game rather than a Princess Marian game, here's what there is so far:

PLOT:
The 18th Dynasty of Egypt is one of the most eventful. Tuthmoses IV had a dream as a boy that if he uncovered the Sphinx he would become Pharoah. Later in the dynasty, Akhenaten rejected the traditional polytheistic religion of Egypt and turned to workship Aten. He built a new capital at Amarna and the period of him and his two successors is known as "The Amarna period". Many, however, were angry at this blasphemy against the old gods and seceretly fought against it.

The game starts as our character, General Horemheb, a lowly born man who has worked his way up through the army, talks with Ay, Lord Vizier to the Pharoah, but secretly against his new religion. Horemheb also has covert feelings against "Aten" as the religion was involved in the death of his first wife. They discuss their feelings
and Ay mentions that if the Pharoah was got rid of, he would become regent of the heir, Tutankhaten (Tutankhamun's name at the time) and could make Horemheb more powerful and grant him nobility if he helped him. Horemheb also wants this as he is in love with Mutnojdmet, Ay's daughter, but out-of-reach to him as she is a member of the aristocracy.

So, with this in mind, he returns to the army cmap near the Sphinx and goes to sleep. In his dream, he has a vision of getting up and the Sphinx talking to him, just as happened with Tuthmosis before him. The Sphinx tells him that the power of the Great Pharoah Khafre, a great magician and builder of the second pyramid of Giza, will be his to command if he does as the Sphinx says. The Sphinx says that it is angry at the blasphemy of the Pharoahg and wishes to destroy him. It tells of a secret chamber in the second pyramid, never found by any thief who long since stripped the main chamber bare. So the adventure begins as Horemheb sets off to find the secret chamber and the secrets of power that lie within..

EDIT: cut out big bgs

Related threads:
Plot (this was when the player character was different, but now changed to Horemheb, but the story is pretty much the same)
http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=5530
Character C+C:
http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=6988

It looks like everybody is at each other's throats: foz and Vel are arguing over a MAGS game, Trap doesn't like to read about HTML tags, Minimi is apologising to everyone and let's not even mention "Symbolic representation of landscape features - o - plural of medium".

To quote President Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks:

Why can't we all just get along?

No doubt I'll be similarly zapped for this thread  :

Sorry if this is wrong forum, etc. please move or whatever

Can anyone give me some adivde on PSP? I've got to put some text on the left and right hand walls of my room but I can't work out how to turn the text into the correct perspective. Funnily enough, this is easy to do in MS Word's WordArt but to do it there and keep pasting it over is a pain.

Thanks for your help!

I propose that anyone joining the forums, as well as having to pass the (needing updating again) quiz, also has to use a username that doesn't have too many capital letters in. What with the uNdEaD and the YOKE and the PSOne, there's just too many caps... why do we need all this shotuing!!!  





Thanks to CJ for reminding me of the notice...

EDIT: See last post of mine...


I think that to allow sprite-based dialogs, all CJ would have to add to AGS would be:

int RunDialogOption(int topic, int option);

Which would run the Dialog Option as if it were clicked on and return the following:

0 : illegal option: it is disabled
1 : ran option and ended with "return"
2 : ran option and ended with "stop"

or some other encodsing as CJ sees fit.

Then  one could make

import function myRunDialog(int topic);

which could use GetDialogOption to see which options are enabled and use a GUI or whatever to show the sprites and then use the new RunDialogOption to run the talking bit. It would be compatible with existing dialog scripts. However, GUI inetractions calling the dialog and unchanged scripts using RUnDIalog instead of myRunDialog would sitll use the old system. It would be more work, but maybe CJ could add a global option "Use script for RunDialog" and then a global script function called run_dialog or whatever could be configured by the programmer...


EDIt: Oops, sorry, I've posted this before, although not in so much detail!

See: http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=6534;start=msg79663

Can anyone recommend me an AGS game that makes good use of music? I normally play with the sound off for variuous reasons (either I don't want to wake the baby or I don't want to wake my boss, depending where I am   ). So, do any games make really good use of music, by which I mean not necessarily that the music is the best ever, but rather that the music is dramatic at dramatic moments, peaceful at peaceful places, etc.

Yes, it's the moment you have all been waiting for... another in the Princess Marian series of games made for my wife. This time it's our wedding anniversary.

Please can you let me know if you find any bugs.This is now the final version with music and sound effects included and optional music pack (put in the same directory as the exe)

UPDATED DEC 2004 WITH NEW LINKS
Download from: http://www.ssh.me.uk/darkcave.zip
Music pack: http://www.ssh.me.uk/darkcavemusic.zip

Screenshot:


For those of you who have never played one of my games before: it's got naff graphics and not a great deal of plot, but if you like cuteness, you'll love it (maybe).

Further Princess Marian games at: http://www.angelfire.com/space/little_flower/ags.html

This is a song I wrote for my wife. There's some romantic lyrics, too, but you don't get to see them (unless you have Noteworthy Composer, too and get the original NWC file )

http://www.angelfire.com/space/little_flower/Took_your_hand2.mid

I'm pleased with the melody, but I'm not sure what more to do on the backing.

It seems that lots of people are having trouble finding pre-existing functions in the help file index and getting RTFMed as a result.
For example, search for walkbehind and you get 3 topics: Character functions, Object functions and Room/Screen functions. It would be better if you got 1 topic for each function that has "walkbehind" in the name or description, not to mention the part of then room tutorial where walkbehinds are done.

When you get your import definition wrong in the script header (i.e. forget the parameters of the function) the error messages you get can be confusing (as they were for subspark). Is there any chance of a messgae like

Error: script_header import function does not match function declaration.

Oh, and when it pops up the editor to fix a script header syntax problem, it opens the wrong script (ie not the script header). Try removing a semicolon from the script header and see what happens when you Save Game. (v255)

Here's a spam I got recently that escaped SpamAssassin's clutches, but it's the funniest Spam I got ever. I don't want to risk visiting their site in case of the normal spy/malware but does anyone know if this is for real?

Welcome to the site http://www.darkprofits.com, it's us again, now we extended our offerings,
here is a list:

1. Heroin, in liquid and crystal form.

2. Rocket fuel and Tomohawk rockets (serious enquiries only).

3. Other rockets (Air-to-Air), orders in batches of 10.

4. New shipment of cocaine has arrived, buy 9 grams and get 10th for free.

5. We also offer gay-slaves for sale, we offer only such service on the NET,
you can choose the one you like, then get straight to business.

6. Fake currencies, such as Euros and US dollars, prices would match competition.

7. Also, as always, we offer widest range of child pornography and exclusive lolita
galleries, to keep out clients busy.

Everyone is welcome, be it in States or any other place worldwide.

ATTENTION. Clearance offer. Buy 30 grams of heroin, get 5 free.
Prepay your batch of rockets (air-to-air) and recieve a portable rocket-lacuncher
for free.

http://www.darkprofits.com

This offer won't last! Only until 20th of August all our clients will also recieve ...

For those of us who find it helpful to dump everything in a file sometimes and edit it outside AGS, would anyone else appreciate an emacs mode for AGS editing? Emacs is an editor, for the ignorant amongst you. ANy suggestions for features?

On a related note, does CJ or anyone else have a text file list of all Script  Keywords and Built-in functions that I can have? Maybe CJ could include this with all main releases as an extra download? This would let me do syntax highlighting more easily.

Finally, the function name completion is great in the built-in editor, I just wish it wouldn't do it when editing dialogs, too. Grrr.