Messages

Thanks for the suggestions. I've found a solution. Wyz's idea reminded me of something I had already written for a slightly different purpose and I was able to adapt it to my needs.

Thanks for your suggestion, Wyz. I'll see if I can do something with that. Note that SayBackground won't work because it doesn't use the character's portrait, but your idea doesn't use SayBackground.

The intro to my game features a conversation between two characters (essentially a bunch of "Say" commands). I'd like to make this skippable, which of course is easy enough to do if you use the StartCutscene and EndCutscene commands.

Rather than doing this, I'd like to have "Skip intro" displayed on the screen which will do what it says when clicked on. This can be implemented in various ways (perhaps the simplest of which is to make this an object with a script that runs when it is interacted with) but no matter how I implement it, whether as an object or a GUI, clicking on it has no effect while the characters are talking.

I've tried adding code to on_mouse_click in the global script, which didn't work, and writing an on_mouse_click function in the room script, which didn't work either. The problem is that the game engine does not do anything with mouse clicks while the characters are talking except advance the conversation.

So is there a way of doing this, that is, of making the interact mouse mode operational while characters are talking? I can't use SayBackground because then the characters would talk over each other, and in any case, I'm using portrait-style speech.

I'm using AGS v2.72. Thanks for any help.

keekee71:

The test that the Black Vyper is challenging you to is

Spoiler

to shoot yourself

[close]

.

First step is to

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pick up the Vyper 406 gun from the table.

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You don't want to die, so

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don't use the Vyper 406 on yourself (although nothing bad happens if you do).

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If instead

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you shot yourself with the Kolton-C4, you would be fine because it contains candy bullets.

[close]

But

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the Black Viper wants you to use the Vyper 406.

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So if you

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swap the two guns' magazines you can shoot yourself with the Vyper 406 without coming to any harm.

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Solution:

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Use the Kolton-C4 on the Vyper 406 to swap the magazines, then use the Vyper 406 on Kolt.

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@Eli:

Hint 1:

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Shoot your way out.

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Hint 2:

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The Kolton is not loaded, so you'll need to find a bullet.

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Hint 3:

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Better not use a real bullet in case it ricochets... something softer would be preferable, like a rubber bullet. Use something rubbery.

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Solution part 1:

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Use the candy you find in the Vacu-Orbit.

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Hint to part 2 of solution:

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Soften it up somehow.

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Solution part 2:

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Chew the candy (use the "talk" icon on it) to make a rubber bullet.

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Solution part 3:

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Combine the rubber bullet and the Kolton (I don't remember which one you need to combine with which, so try it both ways round). Use the loaded Kolton on the padlock.

[close]

@keekee71, PuNKKoMmANDO77

To hide text, type [*hide] followed by your text, followed by [*/hide], but make sure you leave out the two stars. (I've only put them in so that you can see what you need to type, otherwise it would have hidden the text.)

Oh no, and because the character walks SOOOOOOOOOO slow, it will take 2 hours to try every combination  :

No, don't try every combination - you'd be there for ever even if the character walked faster.

Clearly you need to find the right order. If I remember correctly,

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go round the side of the pyramid. There is a clue there. Remember to write the order down before you come back

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ok paolo i'm stuck again have robot head won game gave seal back to old man in ally got chip out robot and got gaurd to fall asleep w/butterfly wat now can do anything w/ machine can do anything with guy an body
can't take red rope so where do i go from here???/
TY in advance

OK, first of all, your messages are a bit hard to read - can you avoid using abbreviations and put in some capital letters and full stops, please? It will make things easier in the long run. Thanks.

It sounds like you're doing pretty well by yourself, but here are some hints for furthe progress. Some of these things you might already have done.

In the museum,

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take the mysterious arm.

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Go to the

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villa and pick up the garden gnome.

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Don't you think the gnome would look better without a beard?

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You can't reach

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the worm with your bare hands, so you'll need to use something in your inventory to get it.

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In the museum

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Blob won't give you any candy because it's for children. Do you have something that looks like a child?

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Talk to

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Mr. Masquero at the city gate to find out what you need to do to get into the Black Viper's lair.

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Have you got the

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spittoon? It's in the warehouse next to the alley.

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You need to

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make something disgusting in order to get into the Black Viper's lair. Combine two unpleasant items in your inventory to do this, then show the results to Mr. Masquero.

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That will get you nearly to the end of the first chapter. The rest of the chapter shouldn't be too hard to work out.

Where are you stuck?

OK, it doesn't look like punkkommando's seen this yet, so I'll do the honours.

Highlight the boxes to see the hints.

keekee71, Eli, it looks like you're stuck in about the same place.

Your goal is to

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get rid of Dark'A Billy, but you can't because the dark notes are preventing you from getting close enough.

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To do this,

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use something on the dark notes to muffle them.

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If you haven't already done so,

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look at the packet of marshmallows in the inventory to obtain two marshmallows.

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First step:

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Use the marshmallows on the dark notes. (Kolt uses them as earplugs so he can get close enough to take them.)

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Hint for next step:

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You need to get rid of the shadow so that you get get at Dark'A Billy. What gets rid of shadow?

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Answer:

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Light gets rid of shadow. If you haven't already done so, go back to the games room and use the Claw (the machine with the grabber in it). You'll get a toy light bulb (Bob Tesla) which you can use on the shadow.

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Hint to final step:

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The shadow is replaced with a penguin. Give it something that penguins like.

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Answer:

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Give Fishy Joe to the penguin.

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This should get you on to chapter 1 of the game.

Where are you and what is it you're currently trying to do? What have you achieved so far, and what have you tried doing already that didn't work? (You can't really have tried everything or you wouldn't be stuck )

Please use spoiler tags around comments that give any of the game away, [*hide]like this[*/hide] (but without the *s).

I'm stuck!

I have

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the straightened coat hanger.

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I've

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phoned Hansel but he wants to know the times for Glee. I thought I might be able to get these from the TV, but no dice, as OSD would say.

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Any little hints, please?

Very nice for a first game. The only thing I didn't like about it was

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that the final puzzle was a bit of a pixel hunt.

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Otherwise, good job!

I recognise that font from somewhere...

Welcome to the 'Dipping things into milk' AGS club, Chooky.

Your badge, bookmark and rulebook are in the post.

For me, it's dipping panettone in amaretto. Yum! Do I qualify, Ben?

It looks like sand to me only because of the palm trees. Sand is generally much paler and more yellowy brown than orange.

obviously if this were in an AGS game you couldnt really use a while statement unless you wanted it to be a blocking function (i.e with a Wait(1) in there)

you would check the condition in rep_ex

if(closeenough) {
etc
}

Quite right... thanks Calin. I was thinking in plain old C++...

http://www.mediafire.com/?gpb4gvc4b6xzu6b

Here it is. It probably works on AGS 2.72 so make a game there, port the guis,  and port the game to 3.0 to get them into a 3.x.x game.

Thanks, Dualnames, I'll try it out. I forgot to mention that I'm using ye olde 2.72, so hopefully it will work straight out of the box.

I'm looking for a module that will allow me to save and restore from my own GUIs. Pablo wrote such a module but the links to it have expired.

I'm looking for a "Type a name for savegame"-type module rather than a screenshot-style one (there are a few modules of the latter variety around). Can anyone recommend something suitable? Thanks.

Calin's code is fine except that the raindrops move the same amount each loop. If you want a perspective effect (in other words, the drops move fast when they're far from the sun and slower the closer they get), then you could try something like the following:

Use the same code as Calin has written, but change the last too lines to something like:

Code: ags

float XPerLoop = PlanetXFromSun / 5.0;
float YPerLoop = PlanetYFromSun / 5.0;

This will make the drops start off moving 8 times faster (= 40.0 / 5.0) than they currently do. (The value of 5.0 is just a suggestion - experiment to see what value gives best results, but make sure it is greater than 1.0 or it won't work.)

Then, inside the loop where you animate the drops, add the following after you've moved the drops to their new positions:

Code: ags

XPerLoop = XPerLoop / 2.0;
YPerLoop = YPerLoop / 2.0;

This will move the drops a smaller and smaller distance each time, slowing them down. Dividing by 2.0 gives a perspective effect.

Note that Calin's code will make the raindrops reach the sun in 40 steps. The above changes mean that they will never reach the sun. You might therefore want to include a test for how close your raindrops are to the sun, and stop drawing them when they are close enough, by modifying your loop:

Code: ags

bool closeEnough = false;
float smallDistance = 0.5;    //stop when raindrops are this close to sun

while (!closeEnough)
{
    //code to update raindrops goes here

    float xDistanceToSun = raindrop.X - sun.X;
    float yDistanceToSun = raindrop.Y - sun.Y;

    if (xDistanceToSun < 0.0)
        xDistanceToSun = -xDistanceToSun;

    if (yDistanceToSun < 0.0)
        yDistanceToSun = -yDistanceToSun;

    if (xDistanceToSun < smallDistance || yDistanceToSun < smallDistance)
        closeEnough = true;
}

I haven't tried out any of this code, so I don't guarantee it works, but hopefully this is helpful and gives you the general idea.

The second option is to render it in some photo-realistic 3d renderer, so you can adjust the size and perspective there.

You've probably sorted this out already, but SketchUp has an option to match the perspective of a rendered scene to a photograph. If you haven't got SketchUp, it might not be worth the effort to download it and learn how to use it just so you can add a desk to this image.