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I've been under some stress lately.  The day I joined the forum was the day after my wife gave birth to our baby, 10 weeks premature, by emergency ceasar.  Two days before I joined the forum, a friend from childhood who was more like a brother was murdered.  I was really in crisis mode come to think of it.  I had some thoughts I'd been thinking about AGS, and some tutorial material I was working on, and I basically created an account, splurged it all onto the forum and made a complete dick of myself.  I'm sorry for that.

I'm presently 400km away from home, living in a tiny student bedroom with my wife, with a crappy internet connection to keep me sane between hospital visits.  My 5 yo daughter is 400km away, living with "grandma".  We'll be up here until our new daughter is mature enough to be transferred back to our local hospital which is still 3 or 4 weeks away.

So I know it's not adventure game related stuff, but I guess I want to explain why I've been a grumpy argumentative dickhead of late.  I'm normally not this hard to get along with, just a lot of stuff has changed unexpectedly and in such a short time.  I want to put this behind me and try to show people a different side...  Basically, this adventure game stuff is keeping me together right now, despite the fact I originally started the game as part of a side-job for a magazine I write for.   The editor has told me not to worry with it but I get relaxation from drawing rooms and scripting dialog, seeing other peoples creations and talking about it is fun too.

I just worry that I've messed things up by starting out on the wrong foot.  I hope I can make the record straight with this post.  I feel I have a lot to offer the community over time, but I don't want to have to struggle to prove myself against a bad first impression.

I hope this makes sense and doesn't sound like pathetic whining, but if it does, then hey, I wear my heart on my sleeve sometimes, take it or leave it (also sometimes I have a hard time censoring my thoughts though I do try...)

Peace all.

P.S.  I should add that I do not want any pity or remorse or sympathy or anything like that.  Just understand this is not who I normally am and I am still finding myself.  That is all I wanted to say, but I had to explain it because I felt just saying it like that wouldn't be credible.

I'm designing a main character for my game.  This is my first attempt at drawing a person for a long time.  I traced over a sketch made with graphite pencils.  This would be the standing still, talking to the player pose.  Do you think it would be quite hard to animate this guy to walk, talk and so on?  Should I keep the basic shading or go for something more or less complex?  Any tips would be appreciated.

The style I am going for is cartoony but with more realism vs caricature.  The character should be casual but intelligent, easily approachable, like the average mid-to-late-20s guy you might work in an office with, someone you can relate to.  I hope I have achieved this.

This is one of the rooms in my game, which I won't announce until I have more to show for it.

But I want to get the general style in check.  I kind of like the distorted perspective to add a cartoony, offbeat feel to the scene.  What do you guys think?  Should I go for a more realistic perspective?

I think it works but I'd like some other opinions, even though the game will be free I want to achieve a commercial quality.

It's a technique which can be used, though it will cop flak from pixel artists, it is a tool you can use to make some nice backgrounds.

http://www.soundportfolio.com/game-backgrounds.pdf

Here is what I am currently using.  Perhaps there is an easier way.  But the basic behavior I have achieved lets me define custom exit cursors when hovering over hotspots set up for top, bottom, left and right exits, returning to the previous cursor automatically when the mouse exits the hotspot or the room is changed.

I added this function to the global script:

Code: ags

//Check if the cursor is over a hotspot defined as an exit and change the visual accordingly

function check_cursor()
{
  if (GetLocationType(mouse.x,mouse.y)==eLocationHotspot){
    Hotspot* h = Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y);
    if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Top")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitTop);
    }
    else if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Bottom")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitBot);
    }
    else if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Left")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitLeft);
    }
    else if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Right")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitRight);
    }
    h = null;
  }
}

Which is called from the repeatedly_execute function:

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute() {
  
  // put anything you want to happen every game cycle, even when
  // the game is paused, here
  
  if (IsGamePaused() == 1) return;

  // put anything you want to happen every game cycle, but not
  // when the game is paused, here
  
  // Check if the mouse cursor is over a hotspot defined as an exit
  check_cursor();

}

Add 4 cursors to the list of mouse cursors named ExitTop, ExitBot, ExitLeft and ExitRight, for top, bottom, left and right exits respectively.  Set up the sprites and hotspots for each, leave everything else as default.

Edit the schema to add a new text property called Exit.  Set it's default value to No (or indeed anything that is not "Left, Right, Top or Bottom").

Now, whenever you want to use a custom exit cursor, draw a hotspot over your exit, give it whatever name you want.  You can then edit the "Exit" property to be either "Left", "Right", "Top", "Bottom" to use the respective cursor.

Even if this (or similar) behavior doesn't make the next version, I hope it's useful to someone.

( I did look and didn't find a built in "exit cursor" function - but if there is one it will be the second time today I pull my foot out of my mouth)

Code: ags

[code][code][code]AGS Editor .NET (Build 3.1.2.81)
v3.1.2, February 2009

In GlobalScript.asc:

   

    if (mouse.Mode>0) mouse.Mode=mouse.Mode-1;
    else
    { [/code]

Should be:

   [/code]    if (mouse.Mode>0)
    {
      mouse.Mode=mouse.Mode-1;
    }
    else
    {  [/code]

If you want the conditional to work properly.

I'm still fairly new to AGS so I am not quite sure what will happen as a result of the broken conditional.  It looks to me like this is supposed to happen:

If you scroll up when the mouse mode is Walk, and the player does have an active inventory item, then set the mouse mode to the inventory item... Otherwise, if the player doesn't have an active inventory item, set the mouse mode to "talk".

This behavior is being ignored in the present version of the code I have thanks to that semicolon.  Was there a different reason for this?

Anyway it doesn't seem to be important but I thought I would point it out.