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Messages - Charles

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16
QFG2 Map
This is 300dpi. I originally scanned it in at 1200dpi, but that file is a 1GB tif.

17
Here are King's Quest 1, 2, 3 and 4.

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The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: QFG1 EGA Deluxe
« on: March 28, 2023, 12:59:13 PM »
PS: Are you the author of Blazingstix: Quest for Glory utilities?
Yup, that's me. Although I've never seen them called that exactly. Just the Quest For Glory Importer.

I just saw your work, it's great!
I plan to translate this game into French sooner or later.
I could then rely on this wonderful update :)
Also, thank you very much. That's very nice to hear.

You're of course more than welcome to base your french translations on the update I did. You can get the source on my github: https://github.com/Blazingstix/QFG1-Deluxe

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King's Quest 6.

Whereas in the King's Quest 5 one I recreated all the text by identifying (or mimicking) the exact font and kerning used, this one is full page scans, cleaned up and aligned as best as I could.
It's also a very large file because of it, to preserve as much quality as I could.

I wasn't entirely successful in removing the staple wrinkles.

20
So a number of years back (probably over ten years by this point), I started an attempt at remastering all the old sierra game manuals. I only got as far as the King's Quest series before life took over and my enthusiasm petered out.

I thought it was time I shared my efforts.  Here's the King's Quest 5 documentation, in the best quality you've ever seen.
If there's an interest, I can share my others. I have KQ1-6, and the map from QFG2.

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The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / QFG1 EGA Deluxe
« on: December 17, 2022, 05:51:57 PM »
This is the 1st public release of a mod for Quest For Glory I EGA that I've been working off and on for a couple years now.

It's an extensive rewrite a couple key aspects of QFG1 to support 1 new major feature I added now (and a handful of minor ones), and 2 potential features I would like to add in the future.

The big feature is one I've talked about before: No game over screens when you die.  I've replaced all Restore/Restart/Quit death screens with Retry/Restore/Quit death screens. These will let you revert things to just before the death, and as a bonus will mark that death as achieved, in your Death List.  No auto-saves, no 'save early, save often' required.

Because of how invasive this mod is, I cannot distribute it as simple patch files. I also opted not to distribute as a binary diff, so instead wrote my own extractor program that requires an existing copy of QFG1 (any QFG1 EGA) to validate against before extracting. Note, you'll still need to add it to ScummVM or DOSBox manually to run it.

Some of the potential features I started (but have disabled) are selecting from different playable avatars (it's disabled because while I've done the code to allow it, I haven't done any of the artwork...), and enabling access to the shed in the town (again, it's disabled because while I've made the door openable, I haven't drawn a room for it).  You can enable either of those BETA features by a creating specially named file in the game folder, if you want to try them.

I'll paste the rest of my readme here:
==================================
## QFG1Deluxe

Custom mod of QFG1 EGA, replacing death screens with a Retry feature, and keeping track of which deaths you've experiences.
Beta features include adding a second playable character, and new rooms/puzzles.
To enable BETA features, place the corresponding file in the game folder (the file can be empty):
 - 2AVATARS : Enables two avatars to pick from: Male or Female
 - 3AVATARS : Enabled three avatars to pick from: Male, Female, or Other.
           Other is an inverted colour for debugging. This could conceivably be replaced with
           any other sprites in the future... an elf, an ogre, whatever.
 - SHEDOPEN : Unlocks the doors to the Town shed.  Note, the room is a very crude drawing.
            Technically, this isn't even in BETA, more like ALPHA.

## Changelog

v1.310
 - fixed original QFG1 bug with casting spells accidentally casting twice in some circumstances
 - fixed missing negative points for killing bear by daggers or magic.
 - added support for multiple avatars (choose Male, Female or Other)
    o   To enable, there must be the file 2AVATARS or 3AVATARS present in the game folder.
      Female is WIP, and only has a single replaced graphic
      Other is a Proof of Concept, and is for debug testing.
 - added * next to Zap on inventory screen when your weapon is charged (like in QFG2).
 - added the beginnings of the town shed interior. To enable, there must be a
   file called SHEDOPEN present in the game folder.
 - added additional game flags exported in your character save (at game end)
 - added right-click look on Maltese Falcon in the Brigand Leader's room.

v1.301
 - fixed a fatal bug in the goblin ambush area
 - made minor tweaks to several areas. They shouldn't affect gameplay.
   (rock throwing script, dagger throwing script, flame dart throwing script,
   antwerp following script, brigand courtyard script, dag-nab-it script,
   healer's hut tree script)

v1.300
Here?s a quick Changelog:
-   All deaths replaced with a Retry dialog
   o   The Retry will revert only the relevant bits back to just before the
      death, so as to let the hero try again.
   o   If the hero got killed, I restore some health (sometimes all health?
      can?t remember which gets what treatment)
   o   Any skill gained between dying and retying are kept (I?m taking a cue
      from EarthBound here? it is a game, afterall, the point of which is
      primarily to have fun. Building skills is incidental to that? and
      anyway, if you died because your skills were too low, you need them
      higher eventually anyway)
   o   Date/Time are not reset except in certain time-critical instances. 
      Conceivable, if you die hundreds of times in a room, days could pass,
      but that?s such a small problem, with no real consequences I don?t worry
      about it
-   Added a new screen that shows how many deaths total, and how many unique deaths
   you?ve had.
   o   It also lists the first 32 deaths (in a predefined order), with the most
      recent shown 1st in red.
-   Restored a unique death in the Sheriff Break-In house that was never shown due to
   an original script bug
   o   If you crack the safe 3 times in a row, the game accuses you of ?Power
      Gaming? to build up your skills, and wakes up the Sheriff.
-   Restored an unused instant-death and animation in the 2nd room of Fred the Troll?s
   cave. He sneaks up on you, and the game does a Luck Roll to see if you get killed
   instantly, or have to fight him.
-   Added a text title for the Sheriff?s Wife?s single line of dialog (if you enter
   her room). She always had a name in the source code, but I don?t believe it was
   ever visible in game before now.
-   Slightly tweaked the meetings with Baba Yaga to show the sword cursor when she?s
   expecting you to reply.
-   Changed Date/Time shortcut to ^d to be consistent with QFG2
-   Modified Razzle Dazzle slightly (show different title bar, expanded Alt-S details,
   let Alt-X ask what amount the skills should be set to.
-   Added a SillyClowns toggle. It modifies the Date/Time message a bit.
-   Changed in-game status bar text back to So You Want To Be A Hero, as it was in the
   original release of HQ1

22
AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter
« on: October 20, 2022, 03:01:16 PM »
Agile already checks its folder the see if there is an AGI game in it, first.
Oh awesome. I didn't realize.

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AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter
« on: October 20, 2022, 10:35:08 AM »
Right clicking an AGI game's folder and selecting "Run with Agile". This would work as an IDE add-on where the the IDE would only have to pass a game's folder path to Agile to run it. It could work like SCI Companion's plugin system. Just drop a folder with Agile in it in the IDE's "Plugin" subfolder.

Honestly, that feature's a hard pass from me.  The amount of folder on my computer that I do not want to open in Agile far exceeds that amount of folders I do. Having a folder-browser dialog that I can paste a url into solves that ease of use problem for me.

Copying the Agile exe and DLLs to a game's folder and starting Agile from there.
That's a good one though. In fact, Agile should automatically check the folder it's run from for a valid AGI game and run it if found, otherwise prompt with the folder browser dialog.  And command-line arguments are of course good too.

24
AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter
« on: October 19, 2022, 08:43:31 PM »
My vote?s for ZIP while you?re still in development. A faster update cycle and your target audience during such probably prefers the zip. When you get to a stable release phase the installer is nice as long at looks/acts modern. The MSI one you?re using doesn?t.

I gave it a look today, and there were two UI-type annoyances I had. I hate that folder dialog. Can you implement something like https://stackoverflow.com/a/15386992/57611, and toggling the aspect ratio correction on and off caused the window to slowly get wider. I would expect changing the aspect ratio to only affect hight.

I can?t really speak to the technical AGI aspects. Leisure Suit Larry worked for the 30s I played it.

25
AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter
« on: October 08, 2022, 01:44:09 PM »
What I'm not sure about at the moment is what .NET Framework version to target. By default, it seems to have set it to .NET Framework 4.8. I've read online that there is also a .NET 5 and .NET 6 available, and a .NET 7 preview, but that those are no longer the .NET Framework? Apparently new development should target .NET 6, but Microsoft says that there is no need to migrate existing .NET Framework apps to .NET 6. I've found tutorials online that cover migrating a .NET Framework Winforms app to .NET 5/6 but I'm not sure if it is worth it at the moment. As far as I can tell, .NET Framework 4.8 is available on Windows 7 upwards, so perhaps it is a good one to leave it on for now. It has been around since April 2019.

The whole .Net stuff is such a confusing mess. .NET Framework 4.8 will have the best compatibility, but it's a dead-end. Aside from a minor bugfix release 2 months ago (4.8.1), it stopped development in 2019.  Back about 6-7 years ago, MS rewrote .net from the ground up to make it more platform agnostic. They called the new one .NET Core, retroactively renaming the old one to .NET Framework. That was about the same time they released .Net Framework 4.6.2. They updated both in parallel, and continued to call the new one Core up to .NET Core 3.1. Then the next version they called .NET 5 to make it obvious it was intended to succeed 4.8. Since then .NET 6 has come out, which is the current LTS release.

It's kinda like how Windows XP was the next iteration of the Windows NT product line but still replaced Windows 9x, which was itself a dead-end.

Incidentally, not that this applies to you, but for dll applications to ease upgrading you can compile against something called .NET Standard 2.0, which is a subset of code shared by .Net Framework and .NET. Those dll's will be compatible with both .Net Framework and .Net Core applications. (Not .NET Standard 2.1 though.)

You should be able to compile most of your existing code against .NET 6, but upgrading your project from .Net Framework to .NET isn't a simple 1-click process.  I mean, it's not hard, but changing from one .Net Framework to another .Net Framework is as simple as changing the target in a drop-down; changing from .Net Framework to .NET is not that simple.  There are some pretty fundamental changes to the project files between the two.

I've been slowly moving all my personal and professional projects to .NET 6, and it's been pretty painless for the most part. The biggest hurdle for me was Visual Studio's WinForms designer is buggy on HighDPI displays.  They have a workaround, but that broke in Visual Studio 17.3.1... haven't been able to test later versions, so I've stuck to 17.2.6 for now.

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(The Power Pack will only run on a native MSDOS sytem, or in DosBOX- no other platforms are supported.)

Does this mean it uses some AGI functions that are not properly or accurately implemented in ScummVM?

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I didn?t realize that interpreter still supported vector pics ? or did you have to rasterize them first?

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Is that the interpreter version that?s like QFG2?s but with debugging still enabled?

29
SCI Community News / Re: Mad dash to move Hosting
« on: September 04, 2022, 10:46:04 PM »
I?m not having any issues. I didn?t even have to re-login after the server switch.


I think that was a fantastic job switching servers especially on such short notice. This is one of the few sites that I check multiple times per day.

30
I've looked pretty thoroughly through the code now, and I think I know exactly what's going on. Some of this might help you fix the VGA bug, because it's probably the exact same thing going on there.

It's not effecting all spells in the rooms you've identified. It's not even actually causing problems in all the rooms you fixed, so you can scale back your fixes a bit.  That said, I think your fix is the best way to do so.  The basic problem is exactly as you found -- the (switch spell) is happening after (CastSpell spell).

The basic order of things is that in Main, the glory::handleEvent procedure runs constantly, and for speechEvents (of which typing "Cast anything" is one) it tells the specific room to do what it needs to do first:
Code: [Select]
(super handleEvent: event)
If the room code has done what it needs to do, it will set (event claimed: TRUE). I.e. it did the job, stop there.

So, what should be happening is that the room specific stuff should check only for spells that do something unique in that room, and if so cast the spell (via (CastSpell), do the animations, whatever, and claim the event.

Instead, what's happening is that those buggy rooms are casting the spells first thing with a (CastSpell) call -- that improves your skill with the spell, drains your mana, and flags the event as claimed, so nothing else will try to claim the spell -- then it's checking if it should actually do anything specific with the spell.  If so, do that animation, show that text, otherwise if it's a spell we're not doing anything special with reset the event claimed flag back to FALSE, so the main script can deal with it.

But we're already cast the spell... so we're casting it twice.  Once in secret, then finally with the animation and text.

There's two ways to fix it... one, as you've already done is to swap around the switch statement and the CastSpell statement.  So you check to see which spell the player typed in, and only CastSpell if it's one this room recognizes... otherwise, leave the claimed flag as false and let the main script handle it.  You can see the original programmers already did this in some rooms, like the Stags in Rooms 77 and 78.

The other way is to add cases for all 7 spells, and don't let the main script handle any of that.  That's actually the approach done in the RandomEncounter.sc script.  So that room you didn't actually need to switch the order around, because it's not leaving the event unclaimed for the main script to handle.  It's not my favorite approach though, because it means needlessly copying code into all the rooms. Something the original programmers did a fair bit... there's like 5 places where they handle the Zap spell, and it does the exact same thing in each... scratch that, almost the exact same thing. They slightly changed the text for when you're not holding a weapon in all but the Main script.

Best I can figure, there were 31 separate instances that check if the user tried to cast a spell (calls to the SaidCast function), not counting the one in Main.  So to be sure, I think you'd need to check each of those rooms, and see if they're casting the spell first, then accounting for a fraction of the spells then flagging the event as not claimed.  Those would be your problems rooms, and I suspect it'll be the exact same in the VGA version.

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