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Are you running in 32-bit when the delay happens, then? Were most of your game graphics (the dialog options GUI and room background) imported at 32-bit or 16-bit?

Yes. I believe all graphics are imported at True color (32-bit).

The thing is that in 16bit mode there is no delay. I run AGS 2.62 on an Intel Core2 Duo 2.2 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, Geforce 8600M GT, Vista. Had the same problem on my old PC, AMD 2800+, 1 GB RAM, Geforce 6800XT, XP. The delays were no different or anything, just that the game ran about 10-15 fps slower on that one.

Hmm, what do you mean by "loading of the dialog options"?

If someone is able to post a sample that demonstrates the music stuttering, I'd be interested to investigate it.

It's basically when you talk to someone (activate a dialog), and the dialog options GUI shows up, but the options are not there yet. At that point, it stutters for a second or two, then the options show up and everything works again. When a response is done and it has to go back to the dialog options, then it hangs again. I'm using a custom GUI for dialogs, but it happens with the default one aswell.

Here is a video I recorded of it to show what I mean (I skipped some things to get to the good bits). When I walk into the office you can hear the music stutter for a sec, and then very heavily during the following dialog with Jake.

I've seen this issue come up in the past, and I'm suffering from the same problem aswell, although I've sort of accepted it as an inevitability. I'll try to describe it as best I can. (I use 2.62. btw)

I think it definitely has something to do with the complexity of the game. My game is approaching 150 mb now, so I'm not too surprised. I don't think it's exclusively the fault of the rep_ex though (or maybe it is in Radiants case). In my rep_ex there is a small cursor text overlay script, a check to automatically close the inventory in a certain condition and a keypress setup for keyboard movement. Nothing fancy.

During normal play, the framerate is fine (steady 40), but during room transitions and the loading of the dialog options the audio stutters, sometimes for several seconds. I use only Oggs (and some WAVs for short sounds effects, since apparently Ogg or MP3 can't play sounds shorter than a second). I use 8/10 compression on music, probably equivalent to something like 44k 128 kbit, and something lower for sound effects. I don't think it has to do with the audio though, because if I disable the digital music pack, as far as I can tell the delay persists.

Interestingly though, when I check 'Downgrade 32 bit graphics to 16 bit' in the winsetup, the problem is gone.

I don't think you really have to make a design document, unless it's a really big game in which case I guess it's handy to keep things organized. I have one but I don't really refer to it that often. It's more a sort of repository of bits of info on my game.

Back when I was looking for dd's too, I was linked to the dd's from Leisure Suit Larry and Torins Passage here. It's an inspiration to see these professional ones, how they're structured and what's in them.

[Mika - Happy Ending]

I assume you heard it on the radio? Just a regular station? Is it a bit of a laidback song? Then, judging from your description, it sounds a lot like Mika - Happy Ending.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sl4WN-aOWDY

Starts with piano - check
Sounds like Queen - with his song 'Grace Kelly' he was touted as the new Freddy Mercury, so check I guess
High-pitched male harmonies in the chorus - check

Hope that's it.

Holy crap, the new stuff is looking great! Can't wait to play this.

I run 2.62 on Vista and no problems.

simply add another 1px-wide line to all four sides, using the transparent background color.

This is how I did it too. I've had this problem when I had taken sections of a background, changed them (like for instance a lamp turning on and off) and imported them as objects, they would never overlap with the original background perfectly. I usually solved it by adding an extra row of transparent pixels on one side, in effect padding the object's image.

Yay more Barn Runner! Downloading now. Been too long Ponch, too long...

Yeah I second the hair suggestion.

Right now the elements seem a little seperated from the background. You should give the woman and the table + props a similar lighting treatment as the background, so they fit in better. Lower their contrast a little bit etc. As for the lens flares, I take it they are supposed to be strong lights coming through the canopy? That typically only happens when you look directly at the sun, there aren't multiple strong light spots that shine through like that.



I like the overall composition though.

Technically it wasn't rotoscoping, it was more like real life cel shading.

Yeah true, especially on the hair you can clearly see the poster edges filter from photoshop. And good point about the size, it hadn't occured to me.

I'm very interested in the Virtual Theatre engine, not just for the AI but there are also some great graphical features in it like the dynamic walkcycles, the non-blocking conversations and the way they render shadows on characters and objects.

It's been a while since an AGS game in production made me go "wow!". I love the graphics, they look very much like a classic adventure game. The vibe is certainly there. Can't wait to see the final product.

I'm a big fan of ideas like this. For my game I've been trying to stuff in all sorts of things that you can do that have nothing to do with the actual story, like get a cup of coffee or turn on a fan, or things that make the enviroment seem alive, like a flickering vending machine and animating NPC's. For a relatively small effort, the payoff can be huge. I always hate it when you have only 2 or 3 things to look at in a room.

And thanks for that suggestion about the Last Express. I had never heard about it, so I checked out the demo. Really fun game, I love how they used rotoscoping for the characters. Just too bad only half the animations are actually continuous.

Didn't Holland get Kane & Lynch, Assassin's Creed, Need for Speed Pro Street, Smackdown 2008, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, Crysis, Sim City societies, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario & Sonic at Olympics, Mario Party on DS etc this month?  :o

Or did you mean that was the storm?   

That was the implied storm. The silence was in the 6 months before.

And I think Blueskirt has a point. If we put a little more effort into fostering the games in production now instead of remeniscing about past days, maybe people will be motivated more and more new games would show up.

I would have probably picked the IRC channel to ask for advice on this one, responses are a little faster.

It is (was?) probably nothing, but you can never be too sure. Like, one morning I woke up to the doorbell, and assumed it was the mailman, so I was waiting for him to drop a note of absence in the letterbox and take off so I could get back to sleep (I was the only one home). But I heard nothing. Then there was a ruckus out back. That's the sort of shit that makes your neck hairs stand up. So I grabbed my crowbar and went downstairs. I looked out the garden window, and saw a man CLIMBING OVER THE FREAKING FENCE! I almost shit my pants as he approached the back door, until I realized it was a neighbour. He must have dropped something over the fence when he was working on the roof. So false alarm luckily. But then again the guy looked like a goddamn burglar: tall, scrawny-looking dude in his dirty jeans and sleeveless baseball tee.

That sort of shit is why I have a crowbar. I may be over-paranoid about these things, but if the shit ever hits the fan, I'll be prepared. Now just to wait until my country legalizes beating up burglars...

The sprite looks great, love the dynamic pose. Looking forward to this game.

Haha, it's nice to see someone else who loathes animation aswell. But you did a solid job though. I think for this graphics style, the animation is perfect. There's even a slight oldschool feeling to it.

[How important is it to include seperate "look," "talk," and "hands" commands?]

How important is it to include seperate "look," "talk," and "hands" commands?
Not very, its just a familiar game mechanic. For my game, I've spent a lot of time finetuning the GUI system. Before, I had 'walk', 'look', 'talk' and 'use'. I quickly abandoned a dropdown where you select the modes, but scrolling through them with the right mouse button introduced the 'Sam & Max issue' (you click too fast and miss the cursor mode you want, resulting in having to click through them all again). So I had a sort of verb-coin that opened on RMB to select the cursor, and I favoured that for a long time, but there where some impracticalities. So in the end I settled on a two-click system. Although also not perfect, I find this the most intuitive and easy-to-use system.

Do I really need to worry about the 286s in the audience?
No, but you'd do good to not stuff too much performance-hogging stuff into your game. Undoubtedly the newer versions of AGS perform better, but I built and tested my 640x480 game on an 2Ghz computer with 1 Gig of RAM, had everything tuned to perfection, until I tested it on my new 2.4Ghz dualcore laptop with 2 Gig or RAM, where it ran about 10 fps faster(it maxed on 40 so it might be more). Mind you this was windowed mode, so fullscreen it's probably not even an issue.

How comfortable are you with me tainting the Adventure Game format with other genres?/
Let's agree that Adventure Games are NOT dead.  Which would you prefer: nostalgia, or continued advancement of the genre?
I applaud this movement. I love the classics as much as the next person here, but personally I always try to introduce new elements to my games. I'm always worried this sounds a little pretentious (and I don't have much to show for it yet), but wherever I can I try to avoid clichés and twist things so that they seem new and fresh. It's hard to find things that haven't been done in games these days, but if you look purely at the genre of adventure games there are still plenty of opportunities to explore. Basically the only thing that matters is if it results in a good game.

I wouldn't say that forum has gone boring, but game production is dried up indeed.

I've been Critics Lounge resident for 4 years, and this is one place that's gone down. There's no more superb entries, no noticeable quality in entries, and no-one cares to C&C any story or music thread.

I agree, this is mainly why I don't come around much anymore. I was never that active, but I used to love browsing the forums looking at what other people were working on. Not to judge or offend anyone here (I play far too little AGS games for that), but when I occasionally visit the C&C these days, I don't see a lot that inspires me, or makes me say WOW! There are a few exceptions, like the Forgotten Element, Rising Sun, the Blackwell games and an occasional small game, but the problem is they are just too few and far between.

Not that I am not guilty of this either... (TMC going on 4 years in development now I think). Since I'm not actively working on a game most of the time, I don't have a lot to seek info about on the forums. And I'm working in AGS 2.62, so I can't indulge myself in all the wonderful new modules out there. Can't wait until I'm done so I can adopt AGS 3.0.

So let's hope it's just the silence before the storm (like what happened in mainstream games this month).