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Lemmy&Binky's fantastically pointless blog:

http://lemmyandbinky.blogsopt.com



EDIT: Damn I looked over this thread 3 times to make sure we hadn't posted in it yet. Of course I only see we have the fourth time, after   I post

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments

sign up to the Beta Testing thread here:

http://www.cgempire.com/forum/showthread.php38

...to get the plugin earlier (not yet though )

PS: Thanks TastyCrisp. No pressure obv. we've technically released sod all yet but needless to say any contribution would be super fantastically appreciated

Cheers CJ!

It's all subjective, but the ones that have been with me for a long while, I've listened to most, and probably enjoy more than any other:

Pixies - Surfer Rosa / Come on Pilgrim
Pixies - Doolittle
Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Radiohead - The Bends
Radiohead - OK Computer
Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
Gorillaz - Gorillaz
Oasis - What's the Story, Morning Glory

There ya go

Hiya CJ,

Thanks again for adding this call in for our DirectX thingamajoob. However, we have a slight issue arising from how it works.

Namely that it actually sets the windows cursor to that position in windowed mode, meaning that if it is in windowed mode, the mouse cursor jumps off the DX window to the AGS window (even if the AGS window is hidden)

Not sure if it would be easy or not, depending on how the mouse code is implemented, but being able to set the stored mouse position internal to AGS after it has read the windows cursor, to allow both to be at different points on the screen if we were overriding it every frame.

Again, I appreciate it's quite a specialised request, so expect it to be v. low priority if at all Or at the very least hopefully something you'd consider for 2.8?

thanks again!

lemmy

Thanks! The plug-in, as with all the content we'll be providing (art assets etc) will be completely free! (For non-commercial use )

L&B

[New conversation and cutscene engine]

Something more for the game makers. Info on the in-development plugin used to get awesmoe AGS to do some extra stuff.

As development on The Forgotten Element continues, our plugins have developed to a point that they have been combined into a single plug-in called AGX.

AGX is an extension to AGS that provides many new features to the system. Some of the main features include:

New conversation and cutscene engine - A powerful XML driven cutscene / conversation system that allows more fluid conversations, easier logic handling, and more emotive animation to be quickly added to AGS games. Simple scripts control all character actions and are easily batch compiled into XML to be run by the engine. Example:

Code: ags

#1 EGO
[KnowAboutChicken!=true]Hello! How are you? (2)
[KnowAboutChicken==true]Tell me about the chicken. (3)
I better be going. (END)

#2 BOB
I'm fine.
[ Bob:ScratchAss ]
but this chicken is pissing me off.
[ Bob:Point ]
Watch as I point at the chicken whilst talking.
[ Bob:Normal ]
[KnowAboutChicken=true] (1) 

#3 BOB
It's an evil chicken. From Mars, of all places.
[Bob:Shrug]
[ Walk( Bob, 10, 20 ) ]
[ Walk ( Bob, 50, 80 ) ]
[ GiveInventory( 5 ) ]
[ Wait( 20 ) ]
[ ShowOverlay( Banner1,Additive, 200, 300 )] (1)    

This system allows you to easily add many different deeply branching conversations that change each time the conversation plays out, and seamlessly integrate conversations with cutscene actions and screen effects. Also has support for integer counters, to allow you to create dialogue puzzles in the scripts.

Multiple poses and gestures can be set up for each character, each with full in/out transitions, and speaking frames, allowing you to easily add lots of erm... character to them, switching between them fluidly without using reams of views and AGS script.

The system also allows multiple people to easily write cutscenes and conversations simultaniously outside the editor, and for musicians to place the music and sfx themselves independently of the coder/scripters.

AGX cutscenes also simulate blocking by turning off the mouse and GUI, but AGS is really not blocking, allowing it to run alongside AGS script, or have many AGX cutscenes running at the same time! (Imagine having a looping cutscene adjusting the transparency of a subtley changing shadow map, at same time as looping slightly rippling/fading in/out beams of light through a window, at the same time as looping a drunk snoring and coughing and hurling abuse at the barmaid, at the same time as looping a dog scampering about, at the same time as your main character's conversation)

Overlay / Particle system - Allows full 32bit animated alpha overlays with masks on screens, allowing you to do snazzy credits, lighting effects, rain, thunder, even saturate and desaturate portions the screen. All driven by the cutscene scripts.

DirectX Support - Allows you to run AGS through DirectX, utilising hardware acceleration for the overlay and particle system, and even allowing you to run 320x200 games on those pesky LCD screens.

Full game logging -  AGX logs every action, conversation, and user interaction, all timed, allowing you to read exactly how play-testers experienced your game, and how long it took them to solve specific puzzles. Also allows focus testing by allowing play testers to hammer smiley icons during gameplay based upon their enjoyment/frustration which can be used to refine your gameplay / story.

Advanced Music System - Based on a system conceived by Vince Twelve and Nikolas, the music system in AGX allows for interactive music and more advanced mixing / blending than is available in AGS.

There are a few things left to do that mean it's not currently releasable, for example the conversation/logic system does not save into AGS save files yet, meaning essentially it's useless as it stands for use in a game. Clearly before the FE prologue is released, these will need to have been addressed, and we will begin public beta testing soon after.

Cheers!

lemmy101

WOW!

AWESOME!

It really looks like this game is gonna be one of the best AGS games ever!
I just have to play this game when it comes out!

Also, is there a way to give you guys some money support?

Also I havent noticed yet (though I been a bit lazy lately so havent checked in on games I looking forward to that much) any website?
(only a forum)

Do you have a website?


Peder.

Well...thanks! we were thinking of adding a donate button onto the L&B site when we release the prologue, obviously we'd share anything we got with Nikolas. We've long ago realised our game would be a shadow of itself without the the music Nikolas has given us so far. Can only imagine how much the music will have driven the game by the end

PS: Our sites:
http://nikolas-sideris.com
http://lemmyandbinky.blogspot.com

We've yet to make a super official Forgotten Element website too busy on the game. But will have one done for the prologue's release.

Cheers!

L&B

It terms of a full project lifecycle, code design stage C# UML class diagrams you can design the entire object base in a fraction of the time and generate code for them (true you can do this if you buy UML packages), not to mention the simplified memory system would take eons off of bug-testing, tracking down memory leaks, reduce the amount of bugs created, etc.  Higher level abstraction of hardware accelleration means that engine development will be higher level, meaning game engine development will require less work as the XNA SDK is expanded.

I would go as far as to say that writing games faster and simpler is the primary point to C# and XNA.

The only arguments in my mind against it really are being under Microsoft's proverbial thumb, compatibility with existing or legacy third party libraries or platforms, and execution speed. The latter two of which will not likely be a problem forever, maybe even the first if it becomes a standard.

It's a game programming platform for the 360, with ability to compile the same source for PC too. It is based on C#. No, it's not worth trying unless you're desperate to make a game for your 360.

I'd disagree with this heavily. Once you became fluent in C#, you could make a game many times faster than in C++. C# is not ready for any Halflife 2s or Gears of War, but a few processors and GFX cards down the line... It may well be the future of PC game development.

It's more the people who make games that will suffer IMO. Ironic that given their commendable efforts in helping the indie community with XNA, they've subsequently gone and totally stuffed them by making their games look like dodgy viruses to newbie PC gamers.

Microsoft has multiple personality syndrome :-S

Not sure if this has gone around yet:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12314

Looking grim for indie/amateur game developers having Vista scaring less computer savvy people into not running/not finding/deleting their games.

Hullo. I think what Binky is trying to say, is that we all know that it's going to be quite hard funding the setting up of a bonafide fulltime game development studio by selling indie adventure titles, or rather, you're unlikely to be selling 30,000 copies of a retro point-and-click no matter how good it is.

If you wanted to make games full time, then you would most likely be looking at making quick turnover match-3 puzzle games etc that can be made, then sold to portals all over the internet, within a few months. Sad fact is that's where the real money is at, as vacuous and uninspiring games they are, not in making some retro point-and-click adventure which only appeals to a relatively small percentage of gamers nowadays.

This is why making a point-and-click is by and large a labour of love purely because the motivation behind it can only be more because you WANT to make a point-and-click, because we all love adventure games, not because it's a sound commercial venture to earn lots of money, because the market is too small. So if selling a game was a way of funding development of another game, something more mass marketable and less time consuming like a match-3 game or something would likely be more effective.

That all said neither of us have any problem with people selling their games at all, you have the right to be rewarded financially for your time and efforts, it's just the question of whether the amount that you would make would justify the number of people who didn't play it, being that the game itself is something you clearly care about and would want people to play as much as possible (unlike a match-3 game you knocked together in a couple of months, where you probably didn't care that much how many people missed out)

lemmy

Oooohh, that would be funkerific

/crosses fingers and patiently waits (and makes excuses to not update main character's walkcycles )

Cheers for the info CJ!

C# is the future I think, in terms of games, but I doubt current gen we're gonna get anything competetive in terms of 3D. No Halflife 2s or Gears of War or anything, that's for sure. People were as skeptical about C++ over C, and C over ASM. I think it'll get there eventually when the CLI can be run nippy enough...

IMO it's all about freedom of expression. Do what you like. It may offend some, it may not offend others. Nothing wrong with having disturbing imagery or taboo subjects if there's a valid point to be made, but try to handle them with respect. Also, I see no problem with having a racist character in an AGS game. Cartman on South Park is racist as hell, but it's justified by other's repulsion to his attitude and views.

Riiigght. That would explain it then Sorry for the confusion.

Gamewise :- Id assume, since AGS uses allegro, which uses DirectDraw on windows, which uses COM and *should* be perfectly backward compatible, that it'll probably be fine.

I say probably...

EDIT: Ahh apparently we have a Vista guy on the thread. Ignore me.

Well fair enough, credit where credit is due, and perhaps that's an important lesson for Akatosh to learn. Just seemed to me like a starry eyed newbie sprite artist getting shot down unneccessarily harshly for what is essentially quite a different image to what he started with, outline aside, but I see your point

EDIT: Ah. I say that, but then according to his profile he *has* actually released more games than me by a factor of infinity

EDIT x 2: Oooohh I've just realized from your sig, it's you! --> http://www.adventuretreff.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9537&start=30&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=2e279a07a9fb461d51d970604754fa7e
Forget I said anything. You rule!

XNA AGS would be pretty cool! that said tho I've got *****VM on my modded XBox with M***** *****d 2 (naughty!). But have played it for all of 5 minutes despite my love of the game. I personally think it's not the platform for point-and-clicks in their traditional form.

It'd also be a quite humongous amount of work. As you say, a dream suggestion

(Or perhaps a nightmare suggestion in CJ's eyes I'd imagine )