Messages

[Graphics driver:]

Thanks Mandle!
I'm posting the whole thing in plain text, minus the character presentation part, if anyone feels like giving the technical stuff a gaze.
(Mandle's changes are included)

Spoiler

1 §. The launcher
Start the game using the 'Camp1.exe' launcher in the game directory. This opens a menu with the options: 'Start game', 'Setup' and 'Cancel'.


2 §. Game setup
If everything works properly and you are uncomfortable with changing setup options, there is no need to open this window. If not, these are the options in the game setup:
Graphics driver: Which graphics driver the system should use to handle rendering (Direct3D is recommended for most newer systems).
Graphics filter: Helps running low-resolution games (such as Camp 1) on high-resolution monitors/screens. It can, for example, make the screen less blurry in fullscreen mode or increase the displayed size of the game in windowed mode.
Run in a window: Check this box to run the game in windowed mode. Note that this game will display a very small window if run without a graphics filter.
Digital sound: Choose your sound device or 'No Digital Sound' to disable sound altogether. Note that both music and sound can be turned off from within the game.
Advanced: Shows some advanced options (hidden by default) that players normally do not need to change.

2.1  Advanced options
Use 85 Hz display: This is only relevant for some older monitors.
Side borders on widescreen monitors: This is  relevant for some monitors that can not handle this themselves.
Force alternative letterbox resolution: Relevant for screens that, for example, are stretching the image a lot.
Maximum sprite cache: Limits the amount of RAM the game will use for sprite cache. Low limit = slower game, high limit = faster game. Changing this will probably not affect this game at all.
Run Winsetup: Runs the AGS engine's default setup.



3 §. Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to the classic 1990:s adventure games but with a simplified, two-click interface. This leaves the player with the following options:

Walk - left click on an empty spot.
Look at something - right click.
Pick up or interact with an object - left click.
Select inventory item - left click.
Deselect inventory item - right click.
Combine inventory items - left click to select an item, then left click the second item.

3.1  Mouse-over description text
Whenever the mouse pointer hovers something of interest, it displays a small description. Things that the player can interact with, pick up or look at are always indicated with such a description (although everything in the game is not useful).



4 §. Buttons & panels
The main interface, at the bottom of the screen, holds the player's inventory (which displays scrolling arrows when its content becomes too large), a button for the game notes and an options button.

4.1  Game notes panel
When something worth remembering happens throughout the game, the player character will take a note of it. These notes can be read for as long as they are relevant, by opening the 'notes' panel. The 'notes' button will flash whenever something new is added to the notes.

4.2  Options panel
This panel holds all the options in the game, except for those handled by the external Setup (see 'Game setup'). The buttons 'Save game', 'Load game', 'Restart' and 'Quit' opens their own panels respectively.
'Resume' will close the options panel and continue the game.
'?' opens a gameplay quick help screen.
'Audio volume' is a volume slider.
'Music' turns music on or off (on by default).
'Gui' sets whether the main interface will show all the time or pop up on mouse-over.
'Dialog' sets whether or not character portraits will be shown during dialogs.
'Gamma' is a slider for increasing gamma (basically makes everything brighter). This is useful for darker screens and systems with dark gamma set up.
'Speed' slider controls the general game speed.
'Default' reverts all setup changes to their default settings.

4.3  Shortcut keys
Tab / O - Options panel
Space bar - Skip cutscenes or jump to the point where the player is walking.
N - Game notes.
F5 - Save game panel.
F7 - Restore game panel.
F9 - Restart game.
Left / right arrow keys - Scroll inventory (also: mouse wheel).
F1 / H - Help screen.

5 [I left out the character presentation part here]

6 License & disclaimer
This software is provided on an "as is" basis, without any warranty of any kind. The author of this game and the authors of the AGS engine and other parts of this software, assume no responsibility for any damages that may occur as a result of using this software.
   The game may be distributed (duplicated or copied) at will for free, provided all associated files are included and remain unchanged (all filenames, file types/forms and file content should remain unchanged). The game, and the files associated with it, may not be distributed if any of the above conditions are not met. Nor may it be distributed in return for any form of payment, for any purpose.
   All rights reserved (founder of Waxwing Games). Code, text, art and audio from the files provided with this game may not be obtained, altered or used separate from the game for any purpose.

[close]

I made a game manual a while ago but ditched it since it felt a bit over the top. Still, it may be a good idea to have one for the non AGSers.
Could someone please have a look at it? (what is relevant, readable, grammar, that sort of stuff)
- Link -

Also the license segment feels a bit all over the place. Suggestions there?

Oh yes! Congrats!

It's hard because my script is a mess, but I think I got it.

The only possible problem I can see is if you've been passing AudioChannel* variables as arguments to functions...

Well, sort of. At least now I know this is bad practice.

Thanks Wyz.
Unfortunately, it seems that this solution was horrible to implement in retrospect. I will have to go for bracket wrapping this time, but any new project will have safe audio structs for sure. ...that is, if nobody makes it even easier and writes a module -COUGH!-

Congrats fellas!
Will there be a non steam version as well?

@Wham & MichaelDavis: Glad you guys like it!

Found some new bugs in the sound setup, that needs to be taken care of. Most other major ones seems to have been ironed out by the exquisite Camp 1 testing team.

In the meantime, here is the Camp 1 staff:
[imgzoom]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/42/41159/prt_all_x4.png[/imgzoom]Top left: The player character: Inmate Korski. Pilot & assisting technician.
Top right: Inmate Adwa. The camp geologist.
Bottom left: Inmate Chen. Camp administrator & assisting geologist.
Bottom right: Inmate Parker. The camp technician.

Interesting.
Could this be done with already defined global AudioChannels as well?

Without starting another discussion about what AGS should and should not do, I'm trying to find a workaround for the sound issue discussed in this thread. I.e. if "no digital sound" option is chosen in the setup, the code below will make your game crash.

Code: ags

AudioChannel *audio = aMusic.Play();
audio.Volume = 70;

...unless you wrap everything in a "if(audio){}" which is too much work for me at this point.

I suppose there is no way of checking if this option is chosen, from within an ags-application? Could I do this by raw reading acetup.cfg? (been unsuccessful so far) Changing the name of audio.vox with a custom setup could do the trick, since ags can check for files. Any obvious dangers there? (such as windows security)

Thanks.

Just got word from the folks at gamejolt.

Hi there,

I'm afraid it never got any further. Maybe someone will come up with a plugin after we release the updated API soon!

Well, there we are.

Also, but slightly off topic, they removed the old "public" folder which allowed you to use it as a basic server (for sharing downloadable links, posting images and testing web based stuff). Not a big issue for ags devs I suppose, but it made sharing files a lot less sleek. The feature is still there if you installed dropbox a while ago or if you pay for it. So think twice before uninstalling...

Oh, I just assumed that a token login was the standard way of doing it, since gamejolt info says:

Your user token is what you input into games to record your achievements. For security reasons it should be different than your password. You shouldn't share your password with anyone. If a game asks for your password rather than your user token, please report the game.

That would be nice. Looking at the api documentation, it seems that you can ask for the players token (as a login). The big issue, as far as I can see (not being competent enough to even talk about these things) is the required encryption.

@Selmiak: But you need keys to open doors... Seems like a catch 22, or whatever it's called.

Some people actually expect working achievements in games now...

I suspect a majority of those are young people, i.e. people who wouldn't have enough patience for my game anyway.

I can't actually think of any AGS games that have used GJ achievements...

Neither can I. Wadjet eye's games use steam/in-game achievements, right? Anyway, I don't think I have much use for it atm. It would have been a nice addition to AGS though.

I registered on gamejolt last night and started, by accident, to read about the achievements system. Now, this may not be very relevant for my small game (I always found achievement notifications a bit out of place in adventure games), but it would be interesting to know if anyone has implemented this.
There was a short discussion about it here, but it seems to have been fruitless.

Indievania is "offline", whatever that means, and links to itch.io. Is anyone using itch?

[This is the current main theme candidate, performed by Magia154, a Mexican pianist who very kindly released the tune on the CC attribution license.]

Thanks! The palette has shown to be a bit dark for some screens. Hopefully, the magic gamma slider will resolve this.

This is the current main theme candidate, performed by Magia154, a Mexican pianist who very kindly released the tune on the CC attribution license. There is quite a lot of noise in there, but that only suits the setting imo. Plus, there will be wind in the background anyway. The piece is usually recorded with much less "room", which makes this one a bit more unique and gives it another level of gloom. Enjoy!

God news, indeed.
Best of luck!

Planning for improvisation is probably a good idea as well. At least when it comes to code. A lot of puzzles in Camp 1 (WIP) were made without planning ahead very much. So later on, when I decided to change things, adding little bits or had to adapt puzzles to fit changes in the story, a whole bunch of little bugs started popping up everywhere. Why? I hadn't planned for improvised changes later on.
Improvised dialog is a completely different thing, though imo.