Messages

The MAGS site says there is a winner. Atelier, can you confirm?
*bounces up and down on chair impatiently, like some kind of amorphous rubber ball*

Good call, if all the lines were spoken in panicked voice I would have played it with the speakers turned off.

Cool game, the water rising was a nice use of a timer, I liked the various challenges that sprung at different time and walking slower the more water there was, it really added to the experience and the emergency.

How many endings were there?

Spoiler

I wouldn't ask if what I think is the good ending wasn't so ambiguous, with the guy getting through the window, giving the thumb up to the diver while huge glasses sticks out of his back.

[close]

SPOILER: LIST OF ENDINGS

Spoiler

1. Death by electrocution

2. Death by drowning in the corridor

3. Death by bleeding (get through window, but no diver to save you around)

4. Saved by the diver

(There is also a short phone conversation you can hear in the ending cutscene, after the news, than can be triggered by...


Reading the books in the cabinet repeatedly and then getting saved by the diver)

[close]

I hear AGS is pretty good...

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

I read Duals message and it seemed to me like he was referencing a site where the subjects are 12 year olds, who think they can act, but...

I wish I could unsee...

The suspense is already killing me! ARGH!

I've been reading peugeot forums and the symptom seems to point towards the servo steering. It seems that it may start to leak some oil, or the tubes begin to crack / leak, letting air into the system.

We've been having -30C temperatures for weeks and now we've had -3 to -7C temps for a couple of days, so that may have caused issues as well.

I've also contacted a car repair shop to see if they can take a look at it ASAP.

Sounds like you should go and change your timing belt as quick as possible. Though I'm no mechanic, but I can ask my step bro, he's a professional.

And THAT's what I like about the AGS community. A place for anything and everything! =D

What is wrong with my car?

I have a 1999 Peugeot 4D 406 SEDAN 2.0I, which has developed some kind of screeching syndrome.
The engine makes a screeching noise that gets louder as the revs go up. The noise approximately doubles in strength if the steering wheel is turned, and I can feel slight tugging on the wheen as I turn.

Wait, what forum am I on again?

This isn't the peugeot forums!

. . .

Oh well... *click*

HA! I still have that ceremony on my hard drive! It was beautiful!

Great! This means I should have no further need to worry about this when designing my next project. =)

Thank you!

Quick added question: how much text can a string contain? Is there a limit to number of characters allowed?
If there is, what is the best way to store large amounts of text so that it can be called when needed? A separate function that contains several string?

My idea is to have a large label that would contain an entire page full of text and have the potential to scroll, in order to contain even more text.

Personally I thought the interaction editor was a good thing for a beginner. I started to use AGS with the 2.72, and used the interaction editor to practice some basics. I created things with the interaction editor and read the script that the editor produced to learn some commands.

The I implemented similiar commands by writing them into the script myself and started to get the hang of what is now known as "old style code".

Then, as I encountered issues, I posted them on the forums and Khris and others in the beginners-tech section pointed me in the direction of the newer object-based scripting. I then started to learn that and now I am beginning to get pretty good at doing stuff in AGS.

A similiar system that could implement object-based script would definitely lower the bar for beginners, in my opinion. It's not perfect, but it can help the newbies (like me) to get started.

I've already sort of written a LOT of weapons with this system, and other scraps of code already reference the array numbers, so I won't move onto enums at least yet.

The solution you posted works like a charm, as always. Thanks!

The reason the righthand variable stores the name, is that it must search several arrays of structs, and in that case I would also need to store the struct type I am searching from somewhere.

EDIT: Bleugh! I'm going to rewrite most of the stuff anyway, now that I've learned some new tricks, so I'll probably merge all the different structs into a single one and add a "type" variable inside to make different types of items (melee weapon, firearm, healing item etc). Makes for simpler searching and gives me a chance to simplify and make things more uniform and sensible.

I'm still not sure about the enum -thing, but I'll take a closer look into it as well, to see if it better suits the requirements of the game.

Here is what I have made so far.

Code: ags

// GlobalScript.ash

  struct Firearm {
    String name;
    String description;
    int graphic;
    // Lots of other variables be labeled here
  }

// There are also structs that generate similiar melee weapons and special weapons in separate struct arrays

Code: ags

// GlobalScript.asc

// Create firearms
  Firearm firearms[10];

// called when the game starts, before the first room is loaded
function game_start() 
{
  // .32 REVOLVER
  firearms[0].name = ".32 Revolver";
  firearms[0].description = "A small .32 revolver, the standard firearm of the 1920's";
  firearms[0].graphic = 56; // The sprite that contains the graphic for this item
}

What I need to do: A character has a string variable "righthand", that contains the name of the weapon the character has in his/her right hand. If the variable "righthand" contains the value ".32 Revolver", the game should search through all the weapons in the game, and when it finds the matching name, it needs to be able to save the firearms[ # ] number to a variable and use that to draw the other variables stored in that struct into GUI labels and button graphics.

Any suggestions on how to best do this?

Quick answer: "no"

I thought it would frustrate the player less if the main character was more neutran than panicky. Imagine if his every line was spoken in a terrified, panicked voice.

"W-wait, WHAT!?"

I wanted to add a touch of humor here and there to lighten up the mood in the game. If a game like this is too serious about itself, it quickly wears itself down (in my opinion).

Heh. I had to say something to that: the save/load GUI was a hasty mash-up, to be hones. I even thought of leaving it out altogether, as the game is so short that a save/load feature might not even be necessary, but decided to leave the simple system in place after all.

I guess it could've done with a "Saved game successfully" message when you save...

Thanks for the feedback David!

I wanted to give the game an interesting narrative that would be intriguing itself and make way for a possible sequel in the future. It's good to hear people liked the story aspect of the game. The cutscenes were also a lot of work, so it's great to hear people enjoyed them.

I kind of knew that some people would find the strict time limitations and constant presence of looming death to be frustrating, but I wanted to go for the mentality of games in the "olden days". The games were immensely hard, but when you finalli manage to get through, the feeling of completion is the greatest reward.

In my own testings I found that if you didn't examine every object (for instance, the trash on the floor) or repeat "wrong" actions several times, you could finish the game quite easily. It's all about figuring out your priorities and trying to keep up. I thought of having difficulty levels at one point. Easy mode would have allowed more time to look around and that water would have risen more slowly, but I felt that in such a short game, making the player start from the top once or twice would not be unforgivable.

On you last remark, I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

Spoiler

Do you mean the floorplates? I tried using the light effects in the crawlspace, as well as the stack of wood being visible, to indicate their presence. The valve's location could also be tracked quite easily by just watching where the pipe was going from the leak.

[close]

I don't know what everybody is talking about now!

Oh well, in any case: Congratulation dkh!

Haha! This might have something to do with my girlfriend going for a vacation for two weeks starting today.
Thus we make a scientific deduction:

Code: ags

if (havingsex == true) {
  Abilitytocode = false;
} else {
  Abilitytocode = true;
}