Messages

[personally]

And since adventures don't have much replay value in contrast to, say, RPGs, it's just wasted time.

I think most would disagree with this statement. I personally replay my favorite RPGs all the time (FF6, FF9, any Suikoden, Skies of Arcadia, etc) but many adventure games are geared towards re-playability. (LB, any QFG, KQ6, MM, Art of Theft, ATOTK, etc)


~Trent

[Edit]: Offtopic, which is why I'm editing a previous post. Personally, I can't stand FF7 or 8, cause of the super-sci-fi genre, whereas I prefer the fantasy of the originals, mixed with the excellent characterizations of the later ones (6+) making FF9 my favorite, followed by 6.

And I know I've beaten FF6, but I can't remember the end. FF9-can't remember past the escaping from Terra. Skies-can't remember from the final dungeon.
Despite, I still love them (and sometimes the beginnings are the funnest, just cause you're the underdog!)

I personally have always like foreach loops, but implementing them depends on AGS works internally. I'm thinking of something like foreach Character* in Room1, blah blah do stuff. Or something like that.

~Trent

Why is XD naked? But very nice entry.

~Trent

Awesome entry, I'm just trying to figure out what's on the bowl.... 

~Trent

[lose]

mouse.Mode==eWalkto changes the mouse mode to walking, or use any of the other mouse modes. You might consider putting a loseInventory after Animate, unless the player will use the key inventory item again. By making the player lose it (again, only if this the only time they use it) it keeps the inventory from getting cluttered.


~Trent

What's wrong with AGSers knowing the commands? Couldn't you just hook it up to 'Enable Debug Mode' in the general settings? Then, if any games don't want the "cheat commands", they can turn it off. If they do, but don't want the default Debugs, then all they have to do is erase some script. I don't forsee any problems.

As for suggestions, I'd like to make one about change_room (for player). I don't know how Ashen did it, but I'm assuming it might have been the default Ctrl-X. If possible with the same or another GUI, I would like to be able to see a 'common name' for each of the names, rather than a just a bunch of numbers. How to implement this into AGS Console, I don't know... (I started to script this myself last night and I was just gonna hardcode all my rooms).


~Trent

Windows 98? Bleh!

Windows 98 should be referenced under 'Obsolete' in the English Dictionary. Vintage...
Sparx.

Harsh. I mean think about it, Win 98 was the last OS that could play many of our favorite games without the use of emulators. I'd pay it homage for at least that.

~Trent

I mean, the font anti-aliasing appears poor quality

Are you sure you're using TTF fonts and you're not talking about the defeault fonts?

Draw an outline as in Monkey Island, Runaway, when one item is on another item, object or hotspot ....

Can't you just draw an outline in your favorite paint program, and use the Mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves (look it up in the manual, or the forums)

Fair enough, especially with the inventory order as Trent says. I can see that would be useful.

Does that mean I can expect it within a few betas? Or at least with 3.1.1 release? Oooh goody!

Oh also, I've discovered that ListBox.FillSaveGameList is broken in this beta, so I'll get it fixed for the next one.

I've used that in my game, but I haven't been saving recently so I never noticed...


~Trent

[supposed]

Not sure, but my ideas/comments are:

*Characters talking at the same time is supposed to happen with the SayBackground.
*I could be wrong, but I don't see why you don't use just the normal Speech command?
*If it's because you want the TV flickering in the background, try putting the flicker script under repeatedly_execute_always so that it will run even during a blocking function (ie. speaking)
*Check out the char.Speaking and char.Animating functions (readonly) to check for anything else you want to do
*Why the non-descriptive function names?

~Trent

A thing I'd like to see, though, would be the renumbering/resorting feature of rooms to be extended, at least to views, but characters are also a sensible suggestion I think. Call me spoiled, but I think it's useful to resort these "building blocks" in any way I like, so I'd really appreciate that.

Seconded, especially inventories. I want to be able to use UpdateInventory to re-sort my items (in my RPG, weapons are kept together, etc) but they're not all in the order I want them in the editor. I'd be willing to go through and switch them, but I also have 3 properties on each, which would make switching even more of a pain.

~Trent

mrsix,
Walking-dead/dead-end is a term applied to the Adventure Genre. It'd be like talking about an overworld map (like many console RPGs) in an FPS discussion. It just doesn't work (granted, there's a few hybrid games in every genre, but I'm talking generally).

And to continue off of what OneDollar was saying, the genre has evolved, so those old design choices just don't work any more, even though others have persisted. To take the FPS example again, imagine the flop it would be if Halo4 used a raycasting engine (like Doom, Wolfenstein) on the 360. It'd be ridiculous because the genre (and tech) has evolved from older design choices.


OneDollar,
In this thread, I think the two are interchangeable. Which is fine by me:

I personally use the term 'death message' when the game ends badly (ie. Sierra games). If you get a bad ending (ATOTK, QFG1, Laura Bow(note: I've never played LB)) then that's just a bad ending (as opposed to the good/canon ending).

It's the difference between a Game Over screen and rolling the ending credits. (And DDR is the only game that I know that does both )



~Trent

[Edit]: To take this point further (not to bash OneDollar, but just for discussion) I'll talk about the QFG1 example. Being both a Sierra Game and RPG, there were plenty of ways to kill off your character (ie. death messages). As for ending the game, you could fulfill the prophecy completely (free the prince, free the princess, and drive away the ogress) which gave you the best ending (canon from QFG4 and 5 dictates this when you talk to Baba Yaga, Elsa, or Toro). However, to just end the game you only had to free the princess, but it gave you a 'bad ending' (and you lost the associated score points).

Example 2: Daggerfall, you could obviously die in many ways (if you didn't know how to manipulate the opening quiz and character building, that could be in the first dungeon!), but the Main Quest and ending deals with giving a powerful artifact to one of 9 characters/organizations. (Interestingly enough, all 9 endings are considered canon! Jeez I love TES).

Example 3: Chrono Trigger, to end the game you just had to kill Lavos. But because you could do this at multiple times, the ending changed depending how far you went in the 'main quest' and completing major side quests.

Example 4: Suikoden, in the Suikoden series, you can recruit the 108 Stars of Destiny to your army/crew (many of which joined automatically). But if you recruited everybody, you would get a special ending (dealing with the main character's True Rune) through the power of the 108 Stars.


~Trent

I'm thinking (ie. I could be wrong) that I've played through times where I saved too late (say, the night before the burning) and my skills weren't up to par. Even with mad-training (train, nap, train, nap) I haven't been able to make it in time.

So it only becomes a dead-end if you wait too long..... But like I said, it's not a true dead-end, just 'sort-of'.


~Trent

Just thought of a (sort-of) dead-end/missing item syndrome from QFG4. There's a character that gets framed for a murder he didn't do, and you have to either prove him innocent or break him out of jail (if he dies, you get a death message).

Because QFG has classes and stats, it's not a missing-item, but rather a low-stat problem. So you had to do one of the following (supposing you had enough in that stat/skill)
Eg.

• Picklock the jailhouse and cell (pick locks skill)
  
• Cast an unlocking spell at previous mentioned doors (magic skill)
  
• Use brute strength to free the trapped 'murdered' (strength skill)
  
• Use a grappling hook and leverage to free the trapped 'murdered' (strength skill (I think))
  

So basically, if you're skill isn't high enough if one of these areas, you'd have to solve it another way, which poses a possibility for a 'dead-end'.



~Trent
PS-It seems like I'm missing some clarification on something above, but I can't pinpoint what..... Oh well, my brain's fried! (which is why I'm ignoring my scripting and on the forums in the first place)

thats... interesting. I would suggest a help file site for all shortcuts?

Well, this is displayed on the Edit menu, so it's not exactly a hidden shortcut.

But what about the Tab-switching shortcut you just taught me? Although not on a visible menu, I didn't know about it. I would welcome a manual entry (or equivalent) of editor shortcuts.

~Trent

You can already use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab for this, and these are standard shortcuts used in other tab-driven apps like Visual Studio.

Dang, I've always used PageUp and Down. Alrighty, then my request is filled. But hopefully others will use this thread too...

~Trent

Just for reference, it's supposed to say

Code: ags

function MyStruct::Add(...)

Yeah, that's what I figured out. Now on to the next problem.

~Trent

Found the answer at this thread, but it was titled "how to do "blah.blah" functions", which wasn't very descriptive.

~Trent

Code: ags

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
Script link failed: Runtime error: unresolved import 'MyStruct::Add^2'

---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

I'm currently trying to organize my code, so I decided to write a module to contain my variables and functions. I get the error above when I try to run my game (no compile errors) and I have no idea what to do. My code:

Code: ags

//module header

//enum StatEnum is declared here.

struct MyStruct {
  import function Add(StatEnum param, int toAdd);
};

//..later on
MyStruct  Stat;

Code: ags

//module script

function Add (StatEnum param, int toAdd) {
  if (param == eStr)         { Stat_Strength += toAdd;     }
  else if (param == eInt)    { Stat_Intelligence += toAdd; }
  else if (param == eAgi)    { Stat_Agility += toAdd;      }
//etc
}

I read the AGSwiki Module programming guidelines a little bit, but most of it is if you're publishing a module. Basically I just want to be able to access Stat.Add and other functions (and other structs).

~Trent

Yet this community leans towards not using ripped graphics, but is fine with using public domain sounds and music.


Not that I don't agree... just commenting.
~Trent

Exactly, this is a different time. As dkh said as the first reply to this thread, they just don't count as nostalgia.

That being said, how about we gear this thread and discussion toward other types of the missing-item syndrome (as some of us have done) instead of the 'anti-dead-end thread'.


~Trent

I second that. In fact, I second any kind of keyboard shortcut in AGS.

This thread is for all Keyboard Shortcuts for the AGS Editor. Please suggest, discuss, etc all the shortcuts you would like to be included in the AGS Editor. If someone suggests a shortcut that already exists (perhaps under a different key), then please reply so that I can update the list in this first thread.


Known Shortcuts:

F1       Manual
F2       Game Statistics
F3       Find Next
F5       Run
F7       Build Exe
F9       Toggle Breakpoint

Ctrl-A   Select All
Ctrl-B   Match Brace 
Ctrl-C   Copy
Ctrl-D   Duplicate line to next
Ctrl-E   Replace
Ctrl-F   Find
Ctrl-G   Open GlobalScript.asc
Ctrl-H   Open GlobalScript.ash
Ctrl-L   Open
Ctrl-Q   Quit
Ctrl-R   Save Room
Ctrl-S   Save
Ctrl-V   Paste
Ctrl-W   Close Tab
Ctrl-X   Cut
Ctrl-Y   Redo
Ctrl-Z   Undo

Ctrl-Space  Show Autocomplete
Ctrl-F5     Run without Debugger
Ctrl-Tab    Switch Tabs

Tab         Tab selected lines
Shift-Tab   Un-Tab selected lines

Suggested Shortcuts:

Ctrl-/        Comment selected lines
Ctrl-Shift-/  Uncomment selected lines

Open Ctrl-Letter keys (no shortcuts):

Ctrl-I      
Ctrl-J      
Ctrl-K      
Ctrl-M      
Ctrl-N      
Ctrl-O      
Ctrl-P      
Ctrl-T      
Ctrl-U      

To start off, I would like Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDown to be able to switch to tabs. This is standard behavior of browsers, VB, etc. I wouldn't even care if wrapping was implemented.

Also, I noticed that Ctrl-J and Ctrl-M  do the same as the Enter/Return button. Why is this? Or am I missing something?

~Trent

In Visual Studio (or Eclipse, I forget), Ctrl-/ (control+slash) will comment out selected lines, and Ctrl-Shift-/ will uncomment them. I use that a lot.