Messages

Hello.

First time trying to run a GUI,  I got an 'Illegal exception' dialogue box.

"An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x0043FBE7' program pointer is +379, ACI version 3.12.1074, gtags(37,0)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the number above, remember what you were doing at the time and post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.

Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.
An error file CrashInfo.dmp has been created. You may be asked to upload this file when reporting this problem on the AGS Forums. (code 0)"


best regards,
Madra Dubh.

Thanks for comments and thoughts.  I try to explain what I'm at sometimes, but this is the first time (including Art school) I felt anybody really 'got' it.  
Indie game making is tough; you really have to believe in yourself and your ideas.  So thank you.  



After considering different options and compromises, I've decided to do it fully in Irish.

I'm working on design right now, and it's going well.          


Provisionally my plan is to:

continue to build reference material in notebooks and on my drive.  It’s chaotic, but loosely consists of

Backgrounds,
Characters,
Bits of dialogue,
Plot ideas,
Interface ideas.

I'm reaching wide, but confining myself to Middle Ages stuff with a fantasy or horror vibe.

I hope to distil this (by the end of the summer maybe) into a single notebook that reads like a walkthrough, and deals with all aspects of the game except programming, music and sound.  Then use that as a technical manual to compile the game.




Further comments and ideas welcome.  Particularly want to hear about game making methodology, and tips to increase efficiency, or anything that you think might be helpful or interesting.

Great!

Thanks all for posting.


GarageGothic:  Thanks for your positive comments.    Programming is by far my weakest skill set with regard to game making: but It'll be a 
few months before I have to deal with that.  I'm good at drawing, so I'll be able to storyboard & concept art the game myself.  I'll start 
posting ideas somewhere when I've articulated them enough to share.  Your offer of sharing script modules is very generous, thank 
you.
(I've posted on poc31's thread- thanks for heads up.)

Ali: Black and white to colour:  That’s a freeking killer.  That's going in. 

LimpingFish: 'you have to integrate the language using a system that feels organic; a system that doesn't just foist an Irish/English 
Dictionary on the player.'

Yes!  Exactly. That's the central challenge that will make this work or not.  I think the key will be having a plot that is revealed by 
Images and actions, not long blocks of text.   I know poets and writers who work in Irish, who will help with dialogue and spelling when the 
time comes.  It would be nice to have a kind of escalation of complexity, so that by the end, the player is jammin' away 'as gaeilge'  totally in sync with the story s/he's partaking in.   

  '...view the situation in such a dramatic way.' I know what you mean.  I tend to get excited about this one.  When I get going on it, my  eyes glaze and I'd froth at the mouth.  Not very cool! 

SSH: I just looked them up!  Interesting!!  I can't believe I'd never heard of them! 
oh, agus viva na gael!


RickJ:  That's a tricky one.  Opening the project to other languages has advantages in terms of getting more people interested, and I like the  sound of 'devilishly easy.'  but there are some problems.   It's minority languages that benefit from this project.  Maybe Scots Gallic or Welch speakers would be ready to roll up their sleeves, but most commercial games are routinely  translated into languages like German & Spanish, and those countries already produce their own games too.  And though I think AGS would be great for a 'learn to speak spanish' game for non native speakers, the requirements are different.
  I'm not sure.  For  now, I'm going to plough along with the Irish language in mind;  but if you care to elaborate your idea more details welcome.

I haven't made any decisions about style or plot or setting or content yet, (suggestions welcome) but I imagine parts of it will be set in a roughly alternative mythological Ireland ( steamCelt?).  I don't mind borrowing heavily from classic games and using the best of what has gone before (in any game genre, any language.) so again, suggestions welcome. 

thanks folks.

Hi poc301,

I'm Irish, and I'm into Gaelic culture and history.
Can I help?

Hi there.  It's 4.36 am, and I've work in the morning.  But You know what it's like; I'm buzzing with my AGS dream, so I'll write this then send myself to bed. 

Yeah, AGS, I'm a fan. I made one short game for my degree show at art school that was about a year ago.  Didn't blow their brains right out the back of their heads like I'd hoped to, but the concept was right and I'm still working on it.

I kept the idea secret till now, foolishly worrying some other chap might stealing it.  That’s daft for many reasons, here are 2 of them: 
1.  I'd love to see this idea happen, way more than I want credit for it.
2.  It will be impossible without all kinds of help, on and off AGS.

So I'd like to talk a little about this game I'm working on, (provisionally) called 'Banshee', but first a little context.

(Like I said, it's late and I'm tired; I'll try to be concise, and accurate, but some of the things I want to say are going to be simplified and generalized to the point of being offensive.)

There’r things I'd spell out to anybody not into AGS, that I don't feel I have to tell you;  Stuff about computer games as art, about the commercial games industry being
Monolithic and trapped on a technological vector, leaving vast realms of creative inquiry, love and craftsmanship unexplored... all that stuff.

There’s other stuff that maybe you aren't so familiar with, which is relevant to ‘Banshee’.  Stuff about Ireland.

Ireland is a strange and special place.  I love Ireland, but She's a heartbreaker.  So much goodness and virtue, so much sadness and shame.

Here's something about Ireland.  This is delicate.  Wherever you're from, you probably know things about your country that outsiders will never really understand.  Well, I'm going to tell you a little about mine, but I'm going to say it in English.

That’s the point.  Ireland has her own language, and we can all speak it, but none of us do.  We are all taught Irish in school.  To get into college you need Honors marks.  To get a government job, you need to be fluent.  We have the language learned, but we never speak it.  It’s in stasis. 

It’s a kind of stigma that goes back hundreds of years.  See, for hundreds of years, Irish was a forbidden language, which (being Irish!) made our ancestors very determined to keep it.  Up until the middle of the 19th century, Irish was the first language of the Island, English spoken only by servants to English lords, in the cities.

So the Famine wiped out most of the Irish speakers (tenant farmers) and being able to speak English became a matter of life and death.
Irish became seen as a sign of ignorance and vulgarity, and was on the brink of extinction, but for a man called Douglas De Hide (first president of Ireland).  He realized what a colossal loss it would be, and began a movement to preserve and restore our native tongue.  The restoration of the language was a national ambition and an inspiration for the war o independence (if you think about what a language means, this is logical.) But with the civil war, and great disillusionment, the movement stalled. As they ran the schools, the language fell into the church’s care.  Whatever about God, the church in Ireland is an organization guilty of causing great pain and sadness to the people of Ireland. 


So.  Anyway.


The language, miraculously continues, but in a whisper.  It's a weird situation.  In Ireland, you must learn Irish, and though there are many wonderful speakers, the majority of the population a) have no confidence in their ability, and b) would rather not think about it.

Irish speakers speak with each other, but it’s kind of taboo to speak Irish among people who don’t.  (And Irish speakers are frequently guilty of the kind of defensive elitism which alienates non speakers still further.)

I love my language.  I love English too, but Irish is my true language.
I'd love to be able to inspire Irish people to spend time with Gaelic.  I want to make a game that blows their minds: actually connects all the disparate bits of Irish they have static in their brains, and gets them thinking in Irish.

  My audience will be shy and suspicious, their experience of the language having usually been a source of embarrassment and anxiety.  They haven’t experienced a need to think in Irish or use it for anything, other than school and state exams.  Even if they wanted to, they often simply dare not speak aloud. 

I believe that AGS software could spark an intellectual revolution.   
  Not one, many.

I know that ‘Banshee’ will have to be impeccably planned and executed; absolutely beautiful in every way a game can be, to do anything beyond what games normally do.  It'll also have to be smarter and deeper than any videogame has ever been.
Ok, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for reading this far.


Consider this:
The Irish words for ‘up’ ‘down’ ‘left’ and ‘right’ respectively are
Suas
Sios,
Cle
Deas.

Imagine this.
The opening scene:
A room with a character in it. 
An image of the 4 keyboard cursor keys appears.
The ‘up’ arrow flashes on and off.  Nothing happens until the player presses the corresponding up key on his keyboard.  Then 2 things happen.
1.  The character says ‘Suas’.
2. The character moves up.

The game has begun.  Little by little the player’s vocabulary is increased, by all the hotspots, characters and mouseovers in the game.  He can have a dictionary in his inventory getting updated with all the new words.

So.
  I want to make a very special game.

Anybody interested in helping out? It’ll take years. 
Titles released in Irish will be valuable to Irish Schools, the Irish Diaspora, and the millions of individuals who feel that their language is important, but have never had a game like this to develop their skills in the comfort of their own imaginations.

We do a good job, we’ll make history.
 

Hello,
My name is Roibeard.

MadraDubhCroga means Brave Black Dog,
after my beloved Puca, who was.

I am introducing myself here because I just spent ages writing a long post, and then saw rule 8 'this forum is not your soapbox...'  and asks you show some game making credentials before posting.  I still want to post what I wrote, so for what it's worth, here are videos of games I've made, and games I'd like to make.


peace.

R


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo8S5u5-Zt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVZQdEem62Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5SoZncLcm0

Thank you.

Hello all:


I have a videoclip.avi that
plays music and flashes the text "Ready Player One".

Can anybody tell me how to make this avi file repeat if there is no player input for a period of 5 minutes? 

I'd like the avi containing the text and music to activate like a screen-saver, if the player is not interacting, because the game will be in a gallery space.

All and any help appreciated.

mdc