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Yes, version 1.1 will contain a fix for that - I've set up a flag so that the goat won't butt you a second time until it's been a fair distance away from you after the first butt. I'm still sorting out the custom save/load code, and am hoping to have it done by the end of the weekend.

Thanks for the enthusiastic response. I'd certainly have redone the graphics if I had any graphics talent. As it is, if anyone's ever interested in providing VGA graphics, I'd certainly be willing to integrate them.

I'm currently putting the fine touches on a consistant GUI interface, complete with my own implementation of the save and restore dialogs. It should be ready within the week for a version 1.1 release.

Ah. I understand now. Thanks for the explanation. It turns out it was a simple answer after all.   8)

Actually, I put the Display line before the IsGamePaused() check in the on_key_press method, so I know it's not that that's causing it. The problem is that the method isn't getting called at all.

Now that I think about it, maybe I can get around it by using IsKeyPressed(13) in the repeatedly execute rather than interface click, which wouldn't (as I understand it) get called at the proper time, since it's a keypress rather than a click.

Even if putting it in repeatedly execute would work, it seems a bit roundabout though, and I'd still be interested in finding out why the on_key_press doesn't get called at all.

I have a problem.. I'm currently building a custom save/restore game dialog, and in my save dialog I want to handle the Enter key to fire off the acceptance code, since a user's normal behaviour would be to type in a new savegame and press Enter.

The only trouble is that when the dialog is showing, the on_key_press method doesn't seem to get called. I tried putting a Display("%d", keypress) in it to register any keypresses, and it won't display anything whilst the dialog is active. Is there any particular reason why the on_key_press method isn't getting called, and is there some way around it?

This was actually a hard puzzle. As I recall, you had to jog on the treadmill until you were sweating, then collect the sweat and analyse it to extract some salt crystals.

Nice effort. One or two comments I would make on it, though:

* It might be better to use a shading range for the ground and tree rather than stripes of the same colour. Particularly with the grass, it looks a bit weird.

* The darkened area below the cave entrance is, I presume, a shadow. The only trouble is that if light was shining towards the cave, the shadow would be within the cave entrance, not outside it. And if the light were shining away from the cave, the whole cliff face should be casting a shadow, not just the entrance.

Mr Flibble, forgive my denseness, but what exactly is the Sierra text box look? Perhaps if you could give me a particular Sierra game you were thinking of.

cpage, yes the graphics are ripped from the original Black Cauldron game. The project was originally an attempt to learn how to use AGS without having to worry about drawing screens, and it reached a certain point when I realised it would be worthwhile taking it all the way to completion.

MrColossal and cpage, those are brilliant ideas.Ã,  Putting the cracks in gives it a nice old-style look. I wasn't particularly going for an EGA look, but now that you mention it, it will probably be best to keep the number of colours down to a minimum, given that all the screens are currently only 256 colours.

This actually has a bearing on Albert Cuandero's suggestion. I'm not sure, but a wood look for the icon bar might be somewhat out of place given that the bulk of the game is low resolution AGI images. I may replace some of the default icons though, now that I've had time to think about it - they have a slightly "cartoony" look to them that I don't think works well with a serious adventure theme.

DreamMaster.

EDIT: It seems my mistake of direct linking to the images on Tripod has spawned quite the thread.Ã,  Since cpage was considerate enough to make a copy of the images, I've reused his links.

I've just released a remake of the classic Disney game Black Cauldron, and a common feedback point is that my GUIs could use some improvement. Currently, I use a slightly modified version of the initial AGS icon bar, and my dialogs are a modified version of dialogs ripped from Space Quest 4.

I'd appreciate any suggestions of how I could modify the GUIs to make them more appropriate to the game subject.

Screenshots below:







DreamMaster.

Thanks for the feedback and bug reports.  8) I'll have to have a think about the GUIs, and see if I can figure out a style of GUI that would suit the game a bit better.

EDIT: Version 1.2 has been released - it fixes a problem with the game not properly ending if Gurgi sacrifices himself for you.

EDIT: I've uploaded a new version that fixes the problem with the restore button on the death dialog not working.

I'm pleased to announce version 1.1 of my Black Cauldron remake. In addition to giving all the gui's a consistant look and feel, this new version alsoÃ,  includes:

* Support for more than 20 saves (I wrote my own save/restore wrapper code)
* Full keyboard support in the save/restore dialogs
* Double click support in the save/restore dialogs
* The up/down arrows in the save/restore dialog support repeatedly scrolling

I've also fixed a few bugs that people have found in the game.

You can download the game from http://tg_comics.tripod.com/bc.html

The download contains both the executable and the full source for the game - hopefully, the source will be helpful to other people starting out with AGS.

I'm not sure what you mean by "without having to do anything in the game.".. How about setting up your cutscene in the after fade in interaction of your starting room. You could do as much as you want, then when it finishes, control will automatically be given to the player.

I'm presuming you mean that with the cupboard's contents you only want one object to be visible at a time. If that's the case, it's fairly easy - there are two approaches:

1) have a single object that's going to represent all the objects you can take from the cupboard which is behind the cupboard object in z-order, so it immediately appears as you cycle the cupboard object through an opening animation. As the user clicks on the object to take it, if there are still more objects remaining to be seen, you simply change the object graphic each time, and have your look/interact event handlers check the current graphic (or use a flag) to display messages appropriate to looking at or taking what the object is now.

2) The other way is to have separate objects for each object in the cupboard, with all the objects but the first visible one turned off by default. Then as you click interact on each object to pick it up, at the same time you turn the current object off, you turn on the next one in the sequence.

DreamMaster.

It may be just to tie the whole series in a bit more. After all, the newest beta also contains an old message from Hagatha, and some messages from Al Hazarad and others, which tie in both KQ2+ and KQ6. It gives the games a greater sense of continuity.

PS: Another bug I just realised; on Night 3 I navigated to lab (being invisibile due to the previously reported bug) and used the lab desk to read the messages. After the message was read, the stunned sound started playing in a loop.

I was fairly busy on the weekend, but managed to scrounge up a few bugs (I've tried to remove bugs that have already been reported):

* The co-ordinate tracing option is still showing the co-ordinates as screwed up letters like the previous version was
* Looking at the study trapdoor still gives you the "you see the steps" message even if it's shut.
* I finally found the pouch - I'd actually experimented with the garbage dump before; the graphic used for the pouch was simply too distorted for me to recognise it. I only got it now because I tried interacting with the dump again. If you are going to allow people to get the pouch by using the dump, it'd be worthwhile to add in a descriptive message, like "Sorting through the garbage, you discover a pouch that might be worthwhile"
* It's almost impossible to go north from room 63 (to get to the mountain base).. clicking most anywhere just moves player to north end of room without leaving it
* You're already aware of the treehouse ladder not appearing
* Using the hand icon on the sleeping thief in the treehouse seems a bit unstable. If your active inventory item is the rope, then you automatically use it for some reason. Othewise, it says the thief wakes up, but then you get a dialog "you think you can hurt two husky bandits", and the bandit stays sleeping
* There's also a misspelling.. it says "you *d*ie the rope to the thief's leg"
* Fatal error trying to talk to the 3 bears having a picnic
* It's very difficult to leave room 62 to the north on the left hand side.. any click on the skyline has no effect; you need to click on the ground at just the right spot
* You can take mistletoe multiple times
* Some objects still need use messages, such as the bartender or the bushes
* Restoring the game to a postion on day 3 in the house tends to give you a message "You were about to prepare a meal for the hungry wizard"
* If you use the desk in the lab, it displays the message about lions and cats, but then gives you a "no message for touch desk" dialog

Nitpicks
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* I think there should be a walkable area added to the left of the tree in room 85. Visually there's enough room to walk, so it doesn't make sense to always force Alexander to go around the tree.

The teleportation spell failure room is the crypt from Kings Quest IV. If you've played it, it was the cemetary crypt where Pandora's Box was located.

Slight correction to Scorpiorus's code fragment - one trouble is that the animation is only restarted with a 10% probably. But your test condition was if .animating == 0, which means that it'd keep calling ReleaseCharacterView.

Perhaps  not a critical problem, but it's a good practice to set up flags so that such "ending" conditions only get called once. Otherwise, as your code becomes more complicated, there could be weird side-effects.

What script are you using to animate your character. The AnimateCharacter method is non-blocking, and AnimateCharacterEx has a blocking parameter that specifies whether you want the animation to go in the background (ie. the script to continue running), or wait until the animation is finished.

You can also use the GUI name as the parameter, rather than it's number, which removes the possibility of using the wrong GUI number.