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[Jake's Very Last Journey]

Hello, fellow adventurers!

I'd like to present the polished version of my recent MAGS game.
See below under "Release notes" for the changes.

Jake's Very Last Journey.

Jake has an unfortunate mishap on his way home, a mishap that lands him right in the clouds. He needs to find his way to the Pearly Gates and into heaven. But to make that happen, he needs your help.

Encounter, and counter, a preachy neighbour and an ill-tempered ghost in a wild and wonderful journey!

   

Download the game via the AGS Game directory
and play the game! Jake's eternal bliss depends on you!

Standard BASS interface. (If you think that Jake is acting overly obtuse, remember that your mouse has a right-click (examine) button!)

Hints & Tips thread



Release notes

Version 01.01:
Initial MAGS version.

Version 01.02:
Core gameplay hasn't changed as compared to the MAGS version, but I fixed bugs and improved animations.

• Clearer BASS system explanation screen
• Higher-res Jake sprites.
• Improved Jake animations.
• Removed bugs when clicking on components of the opening screens.
• Fixed bug, Jake could sometimes walk through the crashed car.
• Improved screw handling in first cloud screen.
• Cloud potholes easier to discern in first cloud screen.
• Fixed glitches in Mr. Reckman's song.
• Probably fixed bug in ghost room: clicking on ghost when gui is up could cause strange effects.
• (Windows version:) Thicker outlines for superior readibility
• (Windows version:) Better visual for "ball lightning" gui and "cloud ghost" gui.

AFAICS, what it does specifically is it exaggerates the way that distant objects are tinier that near objects. So when that older girl runs into the foreground in a way that corresponds to this perspective, she'll downright "explode".

No -- come to think of it, the exact opposite is true. If you move the perspective points out, the floor and ceiling lines of the side walls will become steeper and so the exploding effect will become more extreme. By moving the perspective points in so that the left wall lines meet in a point that is to the right of the point for the right wall, the floor and ceiling lines are flatter and the "exploding" effect is attenuated.

I think that the "points" in the two-"point" perspective are a red herring: Let's suppose that a table was standing freely in the room somewhere, parallel to the walls - would the table sides line up with the left perspective point or with the right one? Probably neither - it'd need to be a third point in between. So I agree with those that say that the perspective "point" is a continuum in the picture. That's why the floor lines meet in a point that is neither the left nor the right wall.

What's more interesting is _why_ you'd want to do that in the first place: AFAICS, what it does specifically is it exaggerates the way that distant objects are tinier that near objects. So when that older girl runs into the foreground in a way that corresponds to this perspective, she'll downright "explode". This was probably the effect the animator wanted to achieve.

We can reproduce that "exploding" effect in AGS by using a walkable area with an exaggerated minimum and maximum scaling level. But would that be wise? Usually the characters stay in the room for a while and walk to the front and to the back repeatedly -- making them constantly "explode" and "implode". Not so good. So for designing a background in an adventure, I'd rather use the trick in the exact opposite way, making the left wall lines meet in a perspective point that is to the _left_ of the point of the right wall. I can then use a walkable area that _attenuates_ the "exploding" effect. That works best if the viewport is smaller than the room so that the player can't see both room sides at the same time and get wise on the trick.

[Download the new version via the AGS Game Database]

Get the new Happy Holidays 2019 version!

It features:

• higher-resolution, super-crisp improved Jake visuals,
• more animations,
• some improvements in handling the ice cream maker,
• Snowflakes (sort of),
• and Jake has trained and gained some speed â€" at least when he needs to evade angry mums and start complicated machines.

(The core gameplay hasn't changed.)

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Download the new version via the AGS Game Database

Hi folks,

Is there a way to realize the following scenario within an AGS game?
Some GUI is shown.

• User clicks on a specific GUI button
• AGS reacts by opening the standard internet browser of the computer and showing a specific website in it.

This would probably only work on Windows systems, since Linux doesn't have the concept of a “standard” web browser AFAIK.

Brothers & Wreckers might be “more of a demo” right now (as has been said) but I think that the game has a lot of flair. The protagonists are likeable, and it doesn't take much exposition to draw me as a player into the story. So I think that the game would be a solid basis to build on. The art is really beautiful and must have taken a lot of time to prepare. In the light of that, I found it a bit of a shame that, e.g., it was so quick for me as a player to walk off the left side of the first room and never need to come back to it. Perhaps you can come up with lots of creative ways to tie the protagonists with puzzles and tasks so that all that hard painting work at least pays off.

By the way, I don't think that adventures absolutely “need” to have an inventory in order to be proper and complete. If I remember correctly, Samorost 2 is also very a poetical game that doesn't have an inventory but that I liked a lot.

[love]

My internet connection has acted up today, so I've found the result only now.

Why, thanks a lot, voters! I'm honoured!  😍

I think I've become a little attached to Jake. I might extend the adventure somewhat - give it more rooms, more riddles, etc.

• Jake would probably profit from a higher resolution (the game is 600 px high, but Jake's height is only 200 px). He might learn to stoop so that he can pick up dropped things … get less finicky standing sprites  …


• There's that teacher ghost bug ... IMO it can't be a coincidence that the troubles happen when the test GUI is shown: That's where I use dynamic sprites and DrawingSurface routines, so the rogue code will probably hide there  …


• The puzzles have rough corners …


• I've had feedback from several sides that my art style is ugly. Well, I've certainly tried to improve here, for instance by now consciously choosing colour schemes that I hope are tasteful. I agree that the “cloud floor” doesn't look like much; I'll try and come up with a less ugly “cloud floor”.
  But I can only do so much in the short run and with the time I have. I'd love to be able to paint such fantastic, atmospheric, detailed pictures as in @Flugeldufel's and @Creamy's game. But in this game, the pictures will probably continue to be based on line art and colour transitions, in a sort of “hand-drawn” vector art style. I'll have to rely on the gamers' imagination to supplement what isn't drawn.

What do you think? Would it be worth it?

Thanks for the generous initiative! I'm interested in Deponia Doomsday.

[Jake's Very Last Journey]

Jake's Very Last Journey

Spoiler

I know that it's not conceivable to code a different action for every nut but why would you need to unscrew exactly that one?

[close]

Thanks for the feedback! In fact, it is feasible …

Spoiler

… to make each of the screws unscrewable -- I just was very pressed for time to get the adventure done, so I avoided edge conditions as far as possible: What if the player unscrews all the screws so that the plank falls down; how do I accommodate for several grommets and screws in the inventory â€" not to mention several packs of ball lightning that might have different numbers of charges!, etc. etc. When I find the time for a polished post-MAGS version, I'll improve on that.

I've also noticed that the handling improves if the hotspot for the wrench is inside the claw instead of in the middle of the icon, so this is something I can improve on in a post-MAGS version, as well.

[close]

[sum]

if you have a different result for each choice that's a minimum of 32 different paths.

Perhaps it would be still within the rules to treat some of the choices as a 0-or-1 option and provide paths that are dependent on the sum of them. If the player has 0 for all the options, they'd make for a deplorable Christmas, having them all 1 would get the player a perfect Christmas, and having any three of them a middling Christmas -- no matter which particular three the player chooses "right".

After all, each option would still influence the end result, just not individually but as part of a "team".

That would make for only six different end results instead of 32 different end results.

Also, not every option needs to result in a different "room". For instance, some of the options might be the presents for the siblings, and the christmas party would only differ in the reaction of the respective sibling to the respective present -- all the other aspects would be the same.

Then all the options differentiate the end result, but you don't need 2^5 different rooms for that; you could basically handle all the siblings' reactions in the same christmas party room, one after the other.

So even with (at least) five different choices with (at least) two possibilities per choice, there are ways to whittle down the differentiation to an extent that makes the task manageable.

I had a strange crash the first time that I clicked on the big hand in Fernewelten's game:

I've just managed to trigger the bug myself. I right-clicked the hand specifically whilst the ghost was showing a test. This is an error “below” the level of AGS scripting; it's from the bowels of the engine that interprets AGS code. If I can find a way to reproduce the error reliably, I'll get a C++ debugger on it. IMO AGS script code shouldn't be able to trigger this sort of error even when it is wrong in some way.

@Cassiebsg: That's most definitively a bug ...

Spoiler

The car is 'solid' and Jake is 'solid', so he shouldn't be able to walk through the car.

[close]

I even remember testing that. I won't change my code in any way while the competition runs unless there is a real showstopper, but I've an inkling that the particular AGS version I used is at fault. If that's the problem, I'll try a recompile in a newer version with my identical code.

In the meantime, I hope you can go into the first room again and go hunting for that signpost.

Edit: No... I've just given my best but I can't reproduce the glitch in either version. What a pity, that makes the problem hard to fix. After the competition, I'll rework the room so that the *** is on a separate walkable area that is switched off until the conditions are met. This should fix the problem, no matter where it is exactly.

Hmm, I think there's a way to disable Alt+X in game actually.

game.abort_key: The keycode for Abort Game, which allows the you to quit even if your script is stuck. Default 324 (Alt+X).

(retracted)

I see. I don't think I would have gotten that on my own. I finished the game. Thanks for the help.

I found that puzzle in, I think, Machinarium, where you need to …

Spoiler

outwit a ventilator to get into a greenhouse.

[close]

In that game, I fell for the trap myself, very much so.    I tried and tried. And when I got the solution at last with outside help, I went, Aaaaaah ...

[quite]

As an aside, don't you feel, watching the talk, that the AGS dialogue system could be immensely improved?

Even though the dialogue in the talk is quite small, it still already has several branches and sub-branches. The AGS dialogue system, on the other hand, only allows one set of alternative answers at a time. So each AGS “dialogue” turns out to only be a “dialogue fraction” in reality.

In order to reproduce the dialogue of the talk, we end up with a bunch of “dialogue fractions”. Each “fraction” only holds a smithereen of the whole dialogue. It's quite hard to get a bird's eye overview of the _whole_ thing.

Although we can introduce folders in the AGS Editor's dialogue tree, the respective “dialogues” still need unambiguous identifiers. So we probably end up with a bunch of names like dRachel1, dRachel2, dRachel21, dRachel22, dRachel23, dRachel3, dRachel4. When we work out the dialogue gradually, we might find that a step would need to be added in between dRachel21 and dRachel211. Then we'd either need to rename lots of dialogue fractions, taking care to update their references in code at the same time, or invent a dRachel21a to avoid that renaming. This makes either for a huge hassle, or a huge mess. Or we avoid the numbers in the first place, then we start out with a naming mess from the get-go.

Another, separate issue:The talk argues convincingly that 3 is the correct number of dialog options so you should always start out with exactly three. But even then, the need might still sometimes arise to add in a fourth dialogue option. Let's say it needs to be added between the first and second existing one.

In the cockpit, we can only add in further options at the end, so after doing that, we need to move options @3 and @2 down by one place using  copy-paste. Then subsequently, the script part of the dialogue editor refers to the options by number, not by name, so you'd afterwards need to peruse the whole script and change all the @3 to @4 and @2 to @3.

Um ... 

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong:

Hint:

Spoiler

Confucius says: If you can't succeed, you must fail.

[close]

Spoiler:

Spoiler

The whole set up of an "examiner" ghost giving you "intelligence tests" that you must solve to get on in life is a red herring. Solving a test will simply get you a new test, so you're bogged down in an endless sequence of tasks to solve and get nowhere.

[close]

Solution:

Spoiler

You can't win by winning. So alter the strategy. Instead of trying to please the ghost, try to p*ss him off royally...

[close]

Any chance of making the font bigger, i have a job to read the text?

I'll have a go at it.

Part of the blame is on the AGS; they only have one pixel wide outlines. This is great for lo-res games in the 320x200 range. But if you go 800x600 or even higher, then the fonts aren't adequately offset from the background and become very hard to read.

My upload connection isn't all that great; uploads take ~20 minutes. So be prepared to wait awhile: I'll have the new files ready in an hour or so. When they're done, I'll update this post.

Edit: So now I've uploaded a Windows version with larger fonts.
Edit: So now I've uploaded a Linux version with larger fonts. Note: I can't test Linux myself, I haven't currently got a working Linux system.

[Jake's Very Last Journey]

So, I managed to finish my game!

Without further ado, I'd like to proudly present:

Jake's Very Last Journey.

Jake has an unfortunate mishap on his way home, a mishap that lands him right in the clouds. He needs to find his way to the Pearly Gates and into heaven. But to make that happen, he needs your help.

Encounter, and counter, a preachy neighbour and an ill-tempered ghost in a wild and wonderful journey!



Download the game via the AGS Game directory
and play the game! Jake's eternal bliss depends on you!

Standard BASS interface. (If you think that Jake is acting overly obtuse, remember that your mouse has a right-click (examine) button!)

Well, I'm sure to make it, but not in the next five minutes. I'd need an extension, too.