Messages

I checked it in Audition and didn't hear a gap. Let me know. :-)

There isn't a gap, but it is just under 2 bars too short.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles  ?

"less pre-compiled binary files, more direct assets"

^ I think this is the general direction that is being steered towards, since it solves issues for people using version control, removes some workflow issues in Editor, and also shifts the actual building of the game files as late as possible (which is better for building on platforms that aren't Windows, and for automated builds).

Currently there is no long-term design to work towards, and partly this is because the issue of how backwards compatible to be is not resolved. So at the moment I probably shouldn't comment too much, but just to say everything you raise is valid and already something I would like to change (in some cases I would like to go a little further too). There are also some issues with resource management with the engine, so potentially the asset management problem could be solved from both ends.

So to summarise, thanks for your suggestions and I hope that a link will be added here once the future development direction is decided...

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

You would normally use 'xdg-open'.
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-utils/

You can create a dynamic sprite, get access to its drawing surface, and then draw other sprites on top of it.
Here is a quick example (not tested), assuming that sprite ID 1 is a picture of someone's head and sprite ID 2 is a hat.

Code: ags

// get a reference to a dynamic sprite that contains a copy of the head
// (true is a flag to preserve the alpha channel of the image)
DynamicSprite* sprite = DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(1, true);

// get a reference to the drawing surface for this new sprite
DrawingSurface* surface = sprite.GetDrawingSurface();

// draw the hat on top of the head
// (the first two parameters are x and y position where we will draw, if the images are same size then use 0 and 0)
surface.DrawImage(0, 0, 2);

// release surface after drawing
surface.Release();

// use the new graphic on an object
// (.Graphic is just the ID number)
object[0].Graphic = sprite.Graphic;

// delete the sprite when you are done with it
// (if it is for long term use then you might need to make the dynamic sprite pointer a global variable)
sprite.Delete();

Probably the best thing to do is to have a look at these two manual pages, which will show the sort of things that you can achieve:

https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/DynamicSprite.html
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/DrawingSurface.html

Thanks for making all of this music available. I had a quick question about the looping versions...

I downloaded one but it doesn't seem to be aligned for looping, and not just by a small amount that could be attributed to properties of the audio format. When you say there is a looping version do you mean that there is a section within the file which is loopable or is the entire file meant to constitute the loop?

Here is the file in question:
https://soundimage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Steamtech-Mayhem_Looping_v001.mp3

Street Fighter. Although if that is correct, someone else can take my go if they like.

'Observer', if it was still available?
Thanks!

BAT 2?

Correct!

I'd say, it's an NES or MSX game.

is it a Metal Gear title?

^ this is headed in the right direction, although it isn't NES or MSX, and it isn't a Metal Gear game.

[imgzoom]https://www.dropbox.com/s/f8njcduljgeuim0/guess_3.png?raw=1[/imgzoom]

Here is another:

[imgzoom]https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5aokt3c1wl3vys/guess_2.png?raw=1[/imgzoom]

If your animation frames can be exported to fit a grid (or a single row or single column), it might be useful to you:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/EditorSprite.html#import-sprite

It probably depends on which external tools you use and whether it is more convinient for those to use this approach or use separate image files. At the moment, there is no difference from the game engine's perspective about how the sprite was imported as they are all packed individually.

Well, I'm not sure that guess was worthy of the win, but...

[imgzoom]https://www.dropbox.com/s/zd0guu3951ci3mc/guess_1.png?raw=1[/imgzoom]
Technically this games has two names (it changes depending the platform) but either name will do.

This is by design in terms of how the spritesheet reloading works, since there is an assumption that the spritesheet dimensions don't change. But I'll look at adding a flag that determines whether to honour the tile dimensions, and default that to off when the original import used the entire image.

I think a Lemmings game, but I don't know which.
3D Lemmings?

I'm thinking CD-i, but I don't know any games for it. The video quality looks too good for anything that was cheaper and also using 68k.

Santa, Texas Ranger

I asked some people yesterday. itch.io shows the e-mail address for purchases and that includes the casual $2 tip that is offered on the download page. Steam does not reveal any identifier about the buyer, you just know that there was a buyer.

It seems this was the case but it was meant to stop:
https://itch.io/t/222345/gdpr-and-itchio-sellers-questions
I would agree that this isn't acceptable.