Messages

Very cool! And congratulations, for a first crack at EGA, you've done a fantastic job!

If you're going for the Sierra EGA style, I think you've nailed the dithering effect and the colour combos - the spooky clouds, the darkened window, the bushes, and both pine trees in particular!

And if you're looking for things to try out, here's a couple of thoughts that come to mind:

- In a night scene like this, with the moon in the background, most of the scene would be backlit. Meaning, the front of everything would be darker than the edges. The pine tree on the left is lit using the moon, which is nice! For reference, The Colonel's Bequest exteriors do a great job of communicating 'night darkness' by using a lot of dark blue and black, even in the dithering. (Link)

- Switching to a backlit style would also let the windows have a nice glow, affecting things like the porch and shutters.

- The shutters are a bit small for the windows, and unattached to the window frame. On the other hand, the door frame feels a bit big for the size of the door.

- Small things: the snow on the roof could be uneven instead of a straight line; the stars felt a little close to the horizon; the patio roof could have some supporting beams; and maybe the patio icicles should come from the metal trim, like the ones at the top?

None of it necessary of course, it's a lovely scene! Just some ideas if you're looking. Excited to try your game!

This is my first AGS contest submission and a sneak peek at my first AGS game... I'm still getting the hang of Dee Dee Murray's art style, but I appreciate her work even more after trying to emulate it!

I found a few unusual things while browsing the games section:

- The "actions" dropdown only had one action (report image as broken). Maybe other games have more actions, but a dropdown list with only one action seemed odd.
- It's also an unusual action to have as important in the UI as 'Download'.
- Below those two buttons, hidden in the list of game details, was 'Favourite'. This is another user action, so it also seemed odd that it wasn't in the dropdown list.

It might make more sense to have the two big buttons be Download and Favourite, since these are arguably the two most important ones for people browsing games. The less important and less used "report broken image" action could be a text link near "share your thoughts" or an icon integrated into the image browser.

Speaking of the image browser:

- On Firefox Android, the pause button often doesn't stop the progress bar when only one screenshot exists (it just resets and progresses again).
- After pressing the pause button, pressing it again (to try pausing it again) occasionally makes the image browser go full screen.
- When the pause button occasionally works, tapping the screenshot / holding it to scroll down will unpause the progress bar (or trigger full screen, as above)

If these are issues beyond my phone, one option could be to disable the progress bar when only one screenshot exists? And perhaps the ability to drag the image by holding it down?

Hopefully some of this is helpful! Thank you for making the new AGS site so great!

Hopefully it's not too late to say congratulations to all the nominations, winners, and everyone who created the whole event!

I've never done an AGS challenge before, but I'll definitely try to enter! It's a fantastic idea!

I've recently started a game in 3.6.2 but currently focused on the art. Once I'm back to choice I'll report in if anything comes up!

I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug:

There's a banner at the top of the forums for the AGS Awards which invites me to visit its thread for more info.

However, when I click that link, I end up at the very latest post in the thread - which was very confusing for someone who was looking to understand how it worked, who was nominated, etc.

The banner is worded as though it was going to take me to an introduction/explanation of the awards, but maybe I'm misinterpreting that!

Awesome, thanks for such a detailed reply! It's great to hear all the details and considerations that go into something as seemingly small as this. I've not seen argb in the software I've used, so this was very educational!

Edit: the rgba default to max opacity definitely feels right!

Hi! Thank you for the new update!

Entirely out of curiosity, is there a reason for some of the colour features being ordered RGBA, and others in ARGB? And is that purely on the backend, or will we using both formats at different times in the 4.0 editor?

@Khris Sorry I missed your reply!

This is fantastic and much more precise and elegant. And the solution to diagonal movement is very kind of you to include. Thanks so much!

Hello!

I'm trying to create a main character that:

• uses keyboard movement
• uses one animation loop to walk in all directions
• repeats that animation loop at all times
• moves smoothly when moving diagonally


EDIT: For anyone's future reference, one method that works is to position the character's X and Y coordinates directly, instead of using move/walk:

Code: ags

func repeatedly_execute()
{
	// Direct position changes based on keyboard input
	if (IsKeyPressed(eKeyUpArrow)) cEgo.y -= 2;
	if (IsKeyPressed(eKeyDownArrow)) cEgo.y += 2;
	if (IsKeyPressed(eKeyLeftArrow)) cEgo.x -= 2; 
	if (IsKeyPressed(eKeyRightArrow)) cEgo.x += 2; 

}

And running these commands at the start of the game:

Code: ags

	// Adjusting this changed the rate of position change
	SetGameSpeed(30) 

	// Set Ego to first view
	cEgo.LockView(1);
	cEgo.Animate(0, 16, eRepeat, eNoBlock, eForwards);	

[/list]

Hello and congratulations on your first game!

If you're going for the SCI style, I'd vote for staying away from smooth gradients entirely and using pixels and dithering (as you have).

Working within the restrictions of the old technology will force your art to match the style of the day. If you're breaking that rule with a broader palette, sticking to pixels and dithering will be even more important.

For the main character, I think you're right to stick to reds and whites - the forest will be greens and blacks mostly, with blue for water and sky, so that's a good balance. King's Quest IV has a similar setting and took the same approach,which could be good reference.

Hope that helps! Keep sharing your progress!

Ah sorry I missed that! I'll add a new variable for it. Thanks very much!

Hello!

I'm starting a new project in the 4.0 engine, but I can't figure out how to update the score variable in the status bar.

In 3.6, the line 

Code: ags

 lblScore.Text = String.Format("Score: %d", game.score); 

works well,

But in 4.0 it returns the error "Expected a component of 'GameState', found 'score' instead"

Sorry if I've missed something obvious! Thank you for any help!

Amazing! These are both fantastic solutions, thank you all for sharing. And congratulations on such an elegant module!

I think a combination of both methods will be perfect. And I'll definitely try the 'everything that fades is a character' trick!

Thanks again!

Hello!



I was wondering if anyone has had experience using dithering to fade in/out an object.

My background is in pixel art, so my instinct is to draw this frame by frame, but maybe there's a simpler way? I poked around for a plug-in, but came up empty handed.

Thank you for your help!

That's a great approach too! Being able to do this dynamically really opens some doors for the room design. Thanks very much for this and the example!

Hey! I really appreciate the quick reply! And yes, that solved it!

Thanks so much!

Hello!

I'm getting back to AGS after many years, so this may be an obvious question!

When my characters walk to the bottom edge of the screen, there's a 'transition walk': Input is disabled, they automatically walk down until they're totally offscreen, then the room changes.

But when this happens near a Walk-Behind, they appear on top of the walk-behind, because their Y coordinate is lower than the screen height.

I can't seem to set the walkbehind baseline lower than that, so I'm not sure how to fix this.

I appreciate your help!

This is amazing! Congratulations on everything so far. I've wishlisted the game!