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thanks Khris!

Stupid follow up question, does that just create the token? If so, how do I add it to the text field in the top menu?

Also you're very good at this. : )

Onker that makes perfect sense. Thank you!

I was going to edit the default fade in menu anyway to get rid of unnecessary stuff, and now I can add more unnecessary buttons to it to switch characters! : )

Seriously though, thanks. That gives me a strong starting point.

Yeah, I saw the Character.SetAsPlayer() command, I just wasn't sure how to go about adding a button somewhere to let the player select which of the three characters they want to control. I'm still new to that level of scripting. I guess I can start cross referencing that with a search on "adding mouse functions to the controls"

I'd like to avoid 9verb for now as it's my first game. I played with it for a few hours earlier this week and it was a little much to just dive into for me right now.     

alright, I've searched "switching main character, switching player characters", checked the wiki and the manual, and seen where it's possible, and how to do if else statements depending on the character, and even found threads about sharing inventory between characters and setting the game so that when you switch, it automatically takes you to that characters room if they're in a different one...

but I can't for the life of me figure out how to physically switch the characters in game. I'm using the default game template, and all I want is either a button in the top menu or something in the right click cycle of options to switch characters. I've got three characters and I want to be able to control any of them at any given time.

The second issue I'm having is with the text field on the top status bar. I added @overhotspot@ to it so that it would display what I'm hovered over and that works great, I'd like to add a text field before that to show what the mouse action is currently set to, so for example, if you looked at a poster it would say "look at poster" instead of just "poster"

Are the only "@x@" options the five or so listed in the manual or are there more? Will I need to create one, and if so, is there a guide for that? I'm happy to read it to learn more, I just wasn't able to find much in the way of searching aside from custom gui creation.

Thanks!

I'm still wondering why AAA games don't have 64bit versions (like Borderlands 2 for example).

Mainly because there's still a HUGE playerbase that's either running on 32bit processors (which IS dwindling, admittedly) and most of them still run a 32bit OS. The big PC distributors really just started bundling 64bit versions of the OS with new machines in the last two years.

I think 64 bit will begin to become the true standard right around the time that a 128 bit processor begins to hit the mainstream market. : )     

Where did you get the skygoblin editor? I know they talked about releasing it a while back but I didn't know they had done so.

The resolution settings were just an exercise in futility, I realized that with the nearest neighbor setup it's not really necessary to make different sized backgrounds.

The 9 Verb was just something I wanted to play with, but I realize now that won't happen without me re-drawing my background images to have a smaller walkable area.

Honestly this is my first game, and a demo at that, so I think I'll just take the advice and stick with the basic game template until I know what I'm doing a little better.

Thanks for the advice Khris. I appreciate it.

This can be closed.

Thanks for the help.

Regarding the backgrounds, is it easier to just add 56 or 112 empty pixels to my 320x200 and 640x400 backgrounds, and THEN change the game style to 320x240 or 640x480 and adjust accordingly, or is it easier to build the game with 144 or 288 walkable pixels from the start?

Can I just take my 320x200, add 56 empty pixels to the bottom, and then load that into a 320x200 9 verb?

Sorry to bug you, thanks for the help so far.

Indeed I can.

Here's the room editor and the walkable areas shown



And here's the actual gameplay under a run, where the character's feet are is the lowest he will go.



I've done nothing to the game scripts themselves. They're the default 9 verb template scripts (hence the cup in the bg)

Khris,

Thanks for the info. I knew that with 9 verb I needed to expand the room. I did that already. I've got a 320x200, 320x240, 640x400, and a 640x480 version of my room in both regular and 9 verb flavors already, as well as characters that fit both sizes. The room I have in 9 verb works fine, the bottom of the room is set to the top of the gui, but for some reason the character will only walk about halfway down the room (about level with the wall socket) in 9 verb though, and I was wondering if it was due to the default 9 verb room scripts.     

Fixed the issue, I was manually entering the baseline rather than just clicking and dragging it and I accidentally entered the x cords instead of the y cords... I'm a moron. Thanks though.

I've got a follow up question though, and it's a little more complex. I'm playing with the 9 verb template (I'm not trying to bite off more than I can chew, this is simply just to play with/tech demo kind of thing, just for one room)

So I loaded the 9 verb, imported my room and characters, and set the walkable area, but the main character only covers about half of it. Whenever he gets about halfway down the room (same room above) he just stops.

The rooms both have the default room script from the template. I tried just deleting it and it caused a game crash.

Again, not trying to perfect 9 verb, just trying to learn it more : )

Thanks!

Thanks for the quick response, I'll try the script when I get home and let you know.

To answer your first question, yes (I think) The baseline to the walk behind is just a bit above the plug outlet to the left of the coffee table and below the lightswitch (let's say it's 260) so I set that, and when the character walks through the right door, he vanishes, as he is supposed to.

When he exits the room, walks down slightly, and to the right (to the coffee table) his upper half vanishes behind the walk behind area, even though his feet are below the baseline I set previously.

I'll let you know what the debug shows later.

I think the reason old games were inherently harder is because of a few reasons...

1) You were a lot younger and a lot less technically skilled

2) The Nintendo D-Pad was a cruel, cruel mistress, especially with 8-way controls.

3) Older games (generally) had a more poorly written hit detection compared to stuff we have today.

4) Older games WERE just plain harder because beating them was the accomplishment, there generally was no easy mode, and there were no achievements. Beating the game was the achievement, and if it had a battery your high score proved it. Beating the game on a self imposed time trial or 1/no hit challenge was a personal accomplishment.

Having said that, I'd say that finally getting to Wiley's castle in Mega Man 2, with no cheat codes, was probably the closest I came to beating a Mega Man game, and that made me proud.

Difficulty aside, I get a sense of accomplishment whenever I beat an RPG game that has more than 30 hours of playtime in it. (I.E. Skyrim, Fallout games, Mass Effect, etc)     

Alright, I'm having an issue with my room.

So here's the room, and a character in there for reference.



I set a walk behind area in the right side room and that works fine. I set the baseline to the bottom of the right side of the door frame and it's perfect.

The problem is when the character walks down to go to the coffee table, as expected, he disappears behind the walk behind area.

I've searched the forums for walk behind threads, checked the tutorial, and watched the AGS videos on youtube and unless I missed it I can't figure out how to fix this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Done.

I'll say my only crit is with your last question. The price ranges for annual spending on games needs to be broader, yours was limited to $200+, and that's only like three console games a year. I'd have gone from like 0-50, 50-200, 200-500, 500-1000, 1000+ personally.     

I'd like a copy of the files. I really dug your artwork and menu layout and I'd like to kind of see how you worked on it, if that's alright.

[that]

I just wanted to chime in and add my two cents to the commercial debate and just say that you can technically raise money for a fan project that uses copy-written materials as long as you release it for free upon completion and don't charge for the item itself or list it as a reward for backing.

I think this is 'can' in the sense that you probably won't get into trouble. But it still isn't legal to use other people's material whether you profit from it or not.

Yes and No. Copyright law has a lot of holes in it, in particular is has two popular defenses in fair use and the first amendment, which contain sub-defenses like parody and implied consent (I.E. if the team from Valve say "we love the way people make all this fan generated content", it's implied consent that they allow it and does hold up in court)

While someone could be taken to court over a free distribution of fan works based on copy written material, they'd be likely to, and have often won based on the above defenses.

Interestingly, the guy who is the resident IP attorney for deviantart gave a speech on this at SDCC (San Diego Comic Con) 2012 that recently hit the interwebs. It's an hour long, but an amazing listen.

http://www.webcomicmarketing.com/fan-art-panel-at-sdcc-2012/

I will agree with you that technically it's illegal in a broad stroke that all works based on derivative pieces are a breach of copyright law, but there's several upheld in the supreme court defenses to that law.

I only argue it because I don't want to see great potential artists, musicians, or developers learning their craft turned away because of the threat of a lawsuit by a company that owns the rights to the inspiration for wanting to learn those crafts.

Having said that.... If you're a good artist, writer, musician, or developer and you've been one for years, having honed your skillset, stop using other people's shit : )

Yeah I mean really the only hurdle is actually getting people to pay so you can make something you're going to give away for free anyway. Unless you're a media celebrity it's damn near impossible. The L4D fan film crew was able to pull it off because they had already shot a three minute teaser as their advertising video.

I just wanted to chime in and add my two cents to the commercial debate and just say that you can technically raise money for a fan project that uses copy-written materials as long as you release it for free upon completion and don't charge for the item itself or list it as a reward for backing.

The crew that made that amazing Left 4 Dead fan film a year or two ago which used several licensed characters from multiple franchises used kickstarter (I think, could have been igg) to raise the funds, and their reward tiers were all things like thanks in the film, shirts, producer credit, etc. but the film was planned from the get-go as a free release. All money went toward production and anything left at the end was not kept by the crew.

I don't know if that was the case here or not, I was just throwing it out there for anyone looking to make a fan project and get funding, it's possible. 

I still can't get over the fact that Urkel voiced sonic.