Messages

Many excuses. You know how Internet is with case-sensitivity...

It's up again (or rather, viewable again.)

I was watching Titan A.E. again today, and suddenly it struck me how much Akima looked like Nico. Then I noticed how much Cale is actually like George. It was almost scary.

Judge for yourself:

There's a scene at the ending of Broken Sword 2 that would fit a lot better, but I'm too lazy to reinstall it just to cap that.


I searched Google but it didn't turn up too much evidence linking the two. I got some vague references that the creators of Titan A.E. worked on Dragon's Lair 3D, and some Czech movie site that mentioned Broken Sword in their review, but I couldn't understand it.

Crazy coincidence or evil conspiracy?

Got the demo yesterday and I must say they are doing a good job on it. There were some OH SHIT WTF WAS THAT moments that really set the mood. You have to get used to it in the beginning, but it looks pretty promising.

These comic comps are a great opportunity to get back into hand drawing. So, here's my entry.

Sorry about the length, I got a little carried away.

I've experienced the same problem with one specific walk-to point in a scrolling room. It doesn't dissapear, it just repositions in some random corner of the screen. Very strange...

Damn, that's a real shame! Sorry to hear that.

At these times I'm glad I have another pc on my network, so whenever I make some progress I can back it up there...except for that time when both pc's miraculously died in a 2-day timespan... But that was just odd.

[SetGlobalInt(0, 0);]

At the very top of the global script, under //Main global script file, put

SetGlobalInt(0, 0);

Then, in the characters tab, under interactions(where you've specified to run dialog 2 when you talk to him/her), select instead Run Script from the list.

In it, put:

if (GetGlobalInt(0) == 0) {
  RunDialog(2);
}
if (GetGlobalInt(0) == 1) {
  RunDialog(3);
}

Now lastly, open up Dialog 2 in the dialog editor, and at the ending response, which could be for instance:

@ Dialog Option Nr #
EGO: Goodbye!
stop

Add set-globalint 0 1 between the last spoken sentence and the stop command.

That should do the trick!

I'm looking for some creative minds to come up with original, complex puzzle ideas for my adventure The Majestic Conspiracy. I'm not very good at that, so I could use some help.

Contact me at largopredatorATgmailDOTcom if you're interested.

Sheet:
I think this could really be fleshed out into a great game rather than a simple dialog puzzle.  Allowing the doodle to get inked, which gives him some more freedom and possible actions...  Then he can get colored, which gives him even more actions... get a walking animation...Whatever, it could turn into a fun and novel game with some fun and innovative puzzles.

That was the exact plan as it had formed in my mind that fateful evening when I had the idea for it.

My friend said it often happens that inexperienced programmers wish to make "the perfect first game" and fail. "You want a game that is really perfect and earns you fame, fortune, everything", he said, "but then it looms. It makes you afraid, and you stop working at it and are very sad about it."

I know exactly what you mean. When I started out I was really motivated, and it had a lot to do because everything was new. But once you're working on it for a while, things turn into routine, and it could become a drag creating room after room, like Helm said.

And ofcourse you get to know the community and you see other projects, that seem much better than yours. More original, better graphics, that sort of stuff. You start to improve on your game. Sure, it's good to take a step back and look at your game critically, but if you get stressed out and get discouraged you're doing something wrong.
I have moments like those, but then I think "Hey, this is my project. I like working on it. It's my first game, and look how cool it is already. I don't care if I get critical acclaim already, I want to do what I like, and what hopefully other people will appreciate aswell." It's all part of the learning process.

And that's when small, new ideas can get me excited again, even if it's just a funny animation. Usually, when I get an idea for the gameplay, I first see if I can implement it, then if it really adds something to the game. Ambitious features sound nice, but if they don't work well they're not worth putting in (yet) IMO. Moderation is a virtue.

I guess it has a lot to do with the payoff. You want your efforts to get you something, be it a finished game you're proud of, or good reviews from fellow gamers. If you work on a long project, you have to wait for the payoff, and you get distracted. You come up with another good game idea during an idle time, and you get all excited about that. I guess that's why I'm very thankful for the OROW2 contest, otherwise Sheet probably would've never been 'finished'.
Deadlines really aggrevate me, but atleast they eventually pay off.

It was fun participating in this contest, and I may enter future contests aswell, yet the circumstances were especially favorable here. There were some great entries. Thanks for those who voted for me, even though I can't even bring myself to call it an actual game.

It originally had another character, an afro-american brush, but due to the time limit I had to cut him, and thus the puzzle element was kinda reduced to nothing. I liked working on it, so I might pick it up again after I finish TMC, and make it a full-featured game with multiple rooms and such.

Congrats to the winners and looking forward to the next OROW.

The new screens look great, good improvements on the demo. You can certainly set the mood very well, looking forward to playing the full game.

AGS automatically creates an .exe file in the '...projectname/Compiled' folder when you save your project. You can copy that to your desktop.

with the _always addition, the overlay only updates when you switch cursor mode. It doesn't follow the mouse anymore. It does remove it during interactions though.

Didn't work for me either. I've tried different versions, even checking the getmousecursor() == 7. No dice.

Guess I'll just have to add the extra lines in every script in my game aswell. It's the only way to disable the overlay during every interaction. That or rescripting the entire thing some other way.

[#sectionstart on_mouse_click // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE]

I still haven't figured it out completely, but what might help you along is this script:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#sectionstart on_mouse_click  // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE
function on_mouse_click(int button) {
  // called when a mouse button is clicked. button is either LEFT or RIGHT
  if (IsGamePaused() == 1) {
    // Game is paused, so do nothing (ie. don't allow mouse click)
  }
  else if (button == LEFT) {
    RemoveOverlay (Over);
    ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, GetCursorMode() );
GetLocationName (mouse.x,mouse.y,Name);
Over=CreateTextOverlay(mouse.x-25,mouse.y-18,100,1,15,Name);
  }
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The italic lines have to be added, the rest should already be there.

It's not exactly what you meant, but it's very useful during interactions. I've seen this only fixes the issue(aka removes the overlay) for hotspots that rely on room messages. With objects, characters, global messages and scripted interactions it doesn't work. I'm still working on it...

What Strazer suggested should help your particular problem though. Just remember to re-enable the overlay once the sequence is finished, like I did in the script above.

Gonna get it once it comes out in my language...

It's possible, but it's not very easy. Well, the converting is, but there's hardly any free utils to do this, i think. I pull it through Adobe After Effects, it handles everything.

Whee, I own a TI83+ too. Used to play all kinds of games on it during math.

If you could pull something like that off it would be great. There are very few(read: no) graphic adventures for it.

[Adventure Game Studio]

Flipped this months issue open and I was staring at a chunk about AGS. They even threw in a short review of The Uncertainty Machine.



Translation:
Adventure Game Studio
Always wanted to make adventure games yourself, but never had the time to learn programming? With AGS you finally have a chance. With this program people with imagination and a lot of patience can make their own game, like The Uncertainty Machine. Justa bout everything in the creative process is done with inputscreens. You make backgrounds, animations and dialogs and specify in the program waht the player can do in every enviroment. AGS does the rest.
What: ags_262.zip
Where: www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ac.shtml
How big: 4293 kb

The Uncertainty Machine
We make a computermagazine for you and when we do that we are called 'journalists'. But you will rarely catch us unraveling large conspiracies in society. For that you would need a newspaper journalist. That's the kind of journalist you play in The Uncertainty Machine, an original adventure in classic point-and-click style. There is something wrong in the seemingly perfect society and it's your taks to find out what. A good and nice-looking game which you could make too. See AGS.
What: uncertain.zip
Where: www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=4372
How big: 20 mb

Source: Computer Idee Nr-16-2005