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[123 pages long]

Hi everyone!

As many of you know, some time ago I decided to create several video tutorials for AGS and put them on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=21DB402CB4DAEAEF).  These videos have been very well received, and I feel like they've helped people to get started with AGS who might have otherwise been overwhelmed at how to begin.  The feedback I've received both here on the forums and through YouTube have been great, and so George (my AGS partner-in-crime) and I thought about other ways we could contribute.

To that end, George and I have decided to write a book documenting how to use AGS.  Different people learn in different ways, and, while some people prefer learning by example by watching video tutorials, I think others learn best through reading.  We've completed a DRAFT of PART 1 of the book and there's a link to the draft at the bottom of this post.

I know that other people have written AGS documentation, technical manuals, etc. in the past and I know documents of this kind fall short due to either not being complete, or just because they're not kept updated with AGS changes.  But our thought was that AGS is very stable at this point, and, while Chris stays VERY busy supporting AGS and providing additional functionality, I think that huge, global changes aren't made too often to AGS.  I don't mean to undermine Chris's work with AGS in the slightest bit here, I recognize the amount of work he puts into AGS and the AGS community, but I think that a book that documents the current version of AGS (3.1.2), even if it wasn't kept up-to-date, would still be relevant for a while to come.  And, George and I plan to keep the book up-to-date at least for a while.

The book is broken up into 2 parts.  The first part, which is linked below, is 123 pages long and covers the basics of AGS and is a good start to people learning how to write a basic game.  We're working on Part 2 now, which will cover more "advanced" topics, like Timers, Dialogs, customizing the interface, cutscenes, and other things.  The *really* advanced stuff, like modules and plugins, aren't in scope for this book at all, so we won't be covering those aside from briefly mentioning them in Part 2.

Part 1 covers the following:
The AGS Editor
Sprites, Views, and Characters
Rooms and Events
Hotspots, Objects, and Inventory Items
Sounds and Music
General Settings

Anyway, a DRAFT of part 1 of the book is here:

http://ensadi.com/ensadi/AGSBook.pdf

Feel free to take a look at it, and give us feedback.  Is this book thing a good idea? Is is something that anyone will care to read?  There is still TONS of editing that needs to be done to really polish it and make it useful, and we're looking for editors, so if anyone is interested, send me a PM.

Our thought is, once the book is done, we'll release it as a FREE PDF, with the option that if people want a printed copy, we will have a copy on LuLu.com where people can order prints of the book.

I hope people find this useful, and please leave us your feedback!

Thanks

densming

Is there a way to refresh the Project Tree with the Editor API?  For example, if I change a dialog's name can I force the editor to refresh the tree (or at least the Dialogs component) after I made the change?  I've looked through the exposed methods for the various objects in the Editor Plugin API and I can't find one.

The closest thing I found was CreateNewView method which adds a new view and then refreshes the ProjectTree.  I thought about a workaround where I create a temporary view just for the sole purpose of refreshing, but this is a little clunky and besides, I didn't see a way to RE-refresh the list after I removed the temporary view! 

I've been seeing an odd behavior with views, and I'll attempt to explain it here...

I have several views in my game, but 2 of them have only a single loop.  This is by design, but the odd behavior comes when I save/test my game.  For one of the two views (view #8), AGS keeps the single loop in the view and doesn't modify the view.  However, for the other view (view #9), AGS automatically adds 3 extra loops to the view (for a total of 4 loops).  Of the 3 new loops that were automatically added, loops 1 and 2 have the default blue cup as the only frame, and loop 3 is completely empty.

I can understand that AGS might try to force 4 loops to every view, but why does it not have the same behavior with both views?  Why not do the same thing with view #8?

EDIT: I figured it out.  Since view #8 was associated with a character's SpeechView, AGS forced it to have 4 loops.  Makes sense now!

Just noticed a tiny bug in the View Editor.  If you create a loop from the view editor using the "Create New Loop" button, a "Delete last loop" button appears.  But, if you create a loop using "Assign to view" from the sprite editor, the delete loop button doesn't show up in the view.  If you want to delete the loop you just created, you have to click "Create New Loop" to create an empty loop so the delete button shows up, then you have to click the Delete Last Loop button twice (once for the new loop you just created and again for the loop you wanted to delete in the first place).  Is this intended functionality?

Ok, folks, I heard the song in this video and I know it from somewhere!  I can't place where I've heard it before.  HELP!  Has anyone else heard this song before?

http://video.techsmith.com/jing/latest/demo/introvideo/index.html?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=440&width=640

I'm having trouble with a textual Overlay, and GetTextWidth.

My function is fairly straightforward, I'm trying to create a textoverlay that's centered on the screen (both x and y):

Code: ags

Overlay *textOverlay;
function ShowTextCentered(String text) {
	int x, y, width, height;
	
	width = GetTextWidth(text, Game.NormalFont);
	height = GetTextHeight(text, Game.NormalFont, width);
	x = (System.ScreenWidth / 2) - (width / 2);
	y = (System.ScreenHeight / 2) - (height / 2);
	
	textOverlay = Overlay.CreateTextual(x, y, width, Game.NormalFont, 17238, text);
}

But whenever I run this code, it wraps the text on 2 lines, so it's not centered.  This seems to be the case no matter the length of the string.  For example, if I call the function using ShowTextCentered("Hello"); it will put a line break between the 'e' and the first 'l'.  This makes me think the width parameter of the CreateTextual function is not wide enough.  I know I can add 10 or so to width, but then the centering isn't right...  I know the GetTextWidth() function returns the right number (I've tested this by taking screen shots and measuring) so I'm thinking it's an issue with the Overlay.CreateTextual() function?

I'm trying to get this right for the video tutorial but I can't seem to figure out what's wrong.

Hi everyone!

I'm starting to do a series of videos on YouTube about how to use AGS Editor to create a game.  At this point I've only got a couple of videos completed but I'll be creating more as time goes on.  I'd really love for folks to check them out and let me know what you think.

I'm no expert at AGS Editor by any means, but I know that a video tutorial would have helped me a lot when I was starting out so I wanted to create one.

The videos are on my channel on youtube (www.youtube.com/densming).  The tutorial goes over how to create Sammy's Quest, and there's a Sammy's Quest Walkthrough on my channel as well, so you might want to download the game and/or watch those videos first.

I hope these videos are helpful to someone just starting out with AGS!

Dave

I want to put an effect in my game where an object moves across the screen and leaves trails in its wake, similar to the "Mouse Trails" feature for mouse cursors in Windows.  As the object goes by, it leaves a ghost-like trail behind it.  Anyone have a suggestion on how to do this?

In Sammy's Quest, your character is a little boy named Sammy.  Sammy's parents have gone away to California to look for gold, and Sammy's been left in the house with his butler, Mr. Donatello.  The object of the game is basically to help Mr. Donatello out with chores around the house.  Your first mission is to get Mr. Donatello out of the closet! He's been locked in there and he really has to pee.  

Well, check it out and let me know what you think!

Here's a screenie.


Yeah, ok, it's an MS Paint game. But it's funny.

AND... There are TWO secret (optional) BONUS PUZZLES in this game.  See if you can find them!

Also, two of the puzzles have multiple ways to solve them.

[EDIT:]
I've added a "mirror" host to download the game from...  If one doesn't work, try the other.

Right-click the link, and choose "Save As..."

http://www.geocities.com/densminger2004/sammysquest/sammysquest_full.zip
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/densming/sammysquest_full.zip
ftp://densming.serveftp.net/sammysquest.zip

The built-in script editor is GREAT!  When typing a function or variable name, it brings up a list of all the names that match what's been typed so far.  If the desired function/variable is highlighted in the list, I can just hit Enter to type the rest of the name.

However, it would be nice if it would auto-complete the name even if I typed other characters as well (like space, brackets, parentheses, etc.).  This is the way some other programming environments work, and I've gotten used to it.

How can I incorporate a "narrator" voice into my game?  For example, when a normal message pops up, I want a voice to read what the message says.  The documentation explains how to do this when a character is speaking, but not when a normal message pops up.  Is there a way to do this?

I did figure out a semi-workaround, but it's not exactly what I want: If I begin a normal message with & and a number, it will look by default for the main character's wav file and play it.  Problem is, when the user dismisses the message box with a mouse click, the sound does not stop playing if I do it this way.