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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Creating a Game - No Template

« on: June 14, 2003, 07:16:46 AM »

Kind of a long post here so hopefully some of the experts will bear with me and help me see where I am going wrong. (This might help others who approach SCI Studio the same way I did.)

In SCI Studio 3, I create a new game based on an empty game. Since this feature is able to be used, I choose to use it. I copy the main SCI interpreter files into my game directory. (These files are: std.drv, adl.drv, sciv.exe, joystick.drv, ibmkbd.drv, gm.drv, and ega320.drv.)

Now, in order to even compile a script I need a vocab.000. So I open up the Vocabulary Editor from the main toolbar. I then create a simple group just to get things going. I do a "Save As" to my game directory as Vocab.000. Now, it appears you cannot just add this to your game because there is no resource file yet. However, if I hit the Rebuild button that creates resmap.tmp and resource.001. This then does allow me to use the "Save to Game" menu item on the Vocabulary Editor and this does seem to work in terms of putting Vocab.000 into my game. I then Rebuild again as this seems to be necessary.

Now I am also told in the Help documentation that the game must have a script.000 and that bare minimum to go in this file is:

(script 0)

(class Game
  (method (play)
    // Put code here
  )
)

(instance GameInstance of Game)

So I open the Script Editor and put the above in the script. I have to save the script as Main.sc let us say. Then I compile it to Main.sco. But I cannot add Main.sco to the Resources. When I try to do I get:

"The file you are trying to add, C:\BrandNew\Main.sco, is not a valid SCI resource, or does not contain a valid header."

So I add to my Main.sc file:

(include "sci.sh")

and that seems to work. When I add this line, it automatically adds Main to my game (as Script.000) but when I try to double-click on Main I get the message:

"Sorry, scripts can not be edited, only created. You can create them with the script compiler."

Now I realize you cannot edit scripts if the .sc file is not present. But in this case I have the Main.sc and Main.sco in the same directory in my game directory, just like in the template game. (And according to the Help file, that bare minimum quoted above is all I need for SCI0 to execute a game.)

Also if you Rebuild anytime after this you get the error message:

"Resource package/map file identifier mismatch! The game you are trying to open is incomplete, corrupt, or not the correct version."

Then you get the message:

"An extremely odd error occurred that should'nt have. Go figure. The game will now be closed."

This seems to not just close the game, but forces you to End Task the whole SCI Studio via the Task Manager in Windows 2000.

This was a lot to wade through so I appreciate those that took the time. Now I realize people will say: just use the template. I can do that. But obviously the choice is in there to create a game from scratch. Creating a game from scratch can be a good exercise for you to try if you want to learn how to build a game from the ground up. Plus it will make you very cognizant of how all the resources all link together, which can generally give you a great deal of insight into the overall structure of SCI. This is the case in any development language. So the real question, given my steps that I have provided, is what am I doing wrong? I realize doing a game without the template is not the best way, but for learning purposes, I am still curious about "from the ground up development".

(I think part of the problem may be how I am creating the Resource.001 file. I just create it, by proxy, by hitting the Rebuild and it seems if you do that often enough, when creating your own game, you cause that resource package/map mismatch problem.)

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Observation] SCI in Different Countries

« on: May 19, 2003, 03:19:44 PM »

I noticed (what may be) an interesting thing. I created a few mini-games (not even games, really) based off the SCI Studio template and then sent those to a few people in other countries so they could see the general idea. What I seemed to have found was that the games cannot run in those countries.

Now, more specifically, I sent copies to a friend in China, one in Kazakhstan, and one in Zambia. Not one of them could play the game(s). These games run fine here. The error they would get was basically an MS-DOS prompt showing up and the text: "Cannot load resource map." In the case of Kazakhstan and Zambia, they were run on Windows 98 machines. In the case of China, my friend was running on a Windows 2000 machine. (Again, here I can play them on both operating systems.)

I guess part of my observation would be a question: I am not doing something right in order to allow these games to be played? Is there some special step for those games being played outside the country or is there some "other" file that needs to be included? (I did not think SCI needed country codes as part of its compilation into a game.)

(One other point: the operating systems were localized in the case of China and Kazakhstan but I am not sure yet of the case in Zambia. I am also uncertain if the regular Sierra games can be played in those countries but I would certainly assume this to be the case.)

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] SCI - Adding Functionality

« on: May 19, 2003, 09:25:15 AM »

I am curious if the SCI scripting language is extensible to any agree. What I means is that I know a certain amount of processing is done by the interpreter but a great deal of the actual mechanics is held in the scripts and the kernel functions. But how do you extend that if you want to?

As a concrete example of what I mean, I was thinking of doing a game but part of the game would require being able to somehow "record" what the player did in a given room. The reason for that is because, later, those recorded actions would be utilized to determine some elements of how the game plays. For example, let us say that the player moves Ego around for awhile, picks up something, opens a door, then leaves. Okay: so I would want to record those moves/actions, perhaps to later automatically play them back (such as with a plot device where Ego watches "himself" on a camera that had been filming him).

While I have given a specific example here, the question is more generally one of how to extend the language or how to get the language to do more things. (The only immediate gaming example I can think of is in the realm of Interactive Fiction, where there is a main compiler with a library of functions but people can contribute their own "function libraries" that can be called as well.)

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Bug Report] SCI Studio

« on: May 14, 2003, 02:16:56 PM »

Unfortunately this is somewhat hard to isolate in all cases. I am using SCI Studio 3.0.1.29 (dated 16 March 2003). I notice this problem only appears to happen on Windows 98 SE. It does not happen on my Windows 2000 platform.

What happens is this:

If you spend time going through the Views, sometimes just looking, other times cycling through the loops and cels, you will once in awhile get the message:

"The parameter is incorrect."

Eventually you will get:

"Access violation at address 004B7475 in module 'SCISTUDIO.EXE' Read at address FFFFFFFF."

I can get this to happen fairly consistently and by fairly consistently I mean anytime I use SCI Studio on Windows 98. I also noticed the frequency of this happens more if you open a large, detailed game. For example, I opened Space Quest 3 and Leisure Suit Larry 3 and this would happen fairly regularly, but not in any discernible pattern. (Also you usually cannot shut down the application normally after this. When you start getting the "parameter incorrect" message but before the "access violation" message, you will often be unable to close the application - it will just spawn more "Parameter is incorrect" message boxes.

Just bringing it up as a matter of possible interest in case anyone else is finding this issue. Again, this never appears to happen on my Windows 2000 machine but happens consistently on my Windows 98 Second Edition machine.

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Building New Game

« on: May 11, 2003, 03:42:09 PM »

In order to learn SCI Studio and the SCI language as much as possible, I started out with a blank game and started adding in scripts manually to best understand how they work. So I called up the Script Editor (from within SCI Studio) and made a Main.sc file.

When I go to Add that script into the general game, I get the following error:

"The file you are trying to add, C:\SCIStudio\Games\_Exericse\Main.sc, is not a valid SCI resource, or does not contain a valid header."

My question is: why is this happening?

(Note: I realize I can just go through the template and use those files. But a development system should also let you create those files from scratch. So I am curious what I am doing wrong that is preventing me from doing this.)

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Observation] Said function

« on: May 08, 2003, 07:26:08 AM »

I notice that this function does not seem to work as indicated in the tutorial, at least in one instance. In chapter 16, I am going through the examples. I use:

(if(Said('look/at/me'))
   Print("You look sort of pixellated.")
)

This just prints the text "You are in an empty room", which is the text that is actually part of the default:

(if(Said('look'))
   Print ("You are in an empty room")
)

However, I notice if I do the following:

(if(Said('look,examine / me'))
   Print("You look sort of pixellated.")
)

it works just fine. Also, even my modified version does not work if you put it after the default 'look' condition. It only works if you put it before the default 'look' condition. If you my if-condition after the default block, it just prints the "You are in an empty room." (Note also that my original condition of 'look/at/me' does not work, regardless of whether you put it before or after the default 'look' condition. Interestingly, even if you comment out the default 'look' condition, the 'look/at/me' condition still does not work. In that case, it just says: "You've left me responseless.")

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Tutorial: Scripts and Rooms

« on: May 08, 2003, 07:00:33 AM »

Regarding the tutorial (part one), in chapter 15 it says that the scriptNumber keyword is used in the rm001 script "so it will use the picture with the same number as the script." Then the text says the part that confuses me:

"This being script.001, it will use pic.001."

I get why we have pic.001 because that is the resource number we saved the rm001 pic image at. But what determines that rm001.sc is actually script.001? We never save it that way in the resource, from what I can tell. (Yes, I know, I am probably missing something frightfully obvious here.)

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Script Compiler

« on: May 07, 2003, 02:13:35 PM »

In using SCI Studio, the one thing I find somewhat lacking (and this is small criticism, admittedly) is the script editor. It does not handle tabbing well and the "smart" features for code editors are really not there, such as not allowing the caret to just jump to anywhere on the screen but rather automatically moving to end or beginning of lines when clicking on a contextually empty area. Again, small criticism, I suppose but for those of us who use code editors a lot, the discrepancies are a little jarring.

But what I often do is use the open source CodeSense control to write my own editor for applications. (I have done this for Inform, TADS, Hugo, and a few other game systems, where I can utilize things like Intellisense.) However, that requires that there is a compilation system that can be utilized to reliably have my own editor hook into.

So the question is: is the Script Compiler literally (and without any caveats) a full compiler of script resources? Would there be any problems with editing the scripts in my own editor and then using SCI Studio for the other elements? (I am concerned I guess with the scripts "synching" up in whatever fashion they have to with the other resources in the game.)

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Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Priority Indicator on SCI Studio

« on: May 07, 2003, 07:13:41 AM »

Greetings all. I just started using SCI Studio, version 3 and I am curious about the Priority indicator on the GUI that is immediately to the right of the X,Y coordinate indicator at the bottom.

My conceptual understanding is as follows: this indicator reflects the fact that every Pic has a set of priority numbers starting at the top of the screen (color #00) to the bottom of the screen (color #14). When at these various points of thescreen, Ego will share that priority. Likewise, any view at those same coordinates will share those priorities.

My question: is my above conceptual understanding accurate?

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SCI Development Tools / How does SCI Studio or SCI Companion compile?

« on: February 12, 2011, 08:41:26 PM »

Here

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SCI Development Tools / Source Release of SCI Companion?

« on: November 25, 2010, 07:51:33 AM »

It looks like SCI Studio was open source. Is that the case for SCI Companion? I'm guessing not since I can't find a reference to it, but I figured I'd ask. There's a lot of neat stuff in the Companion but I also think it could benefit from a few updates. (I'm also wondering if a .NET conversion is worthwhile.)

If the tool isn't open source, is there a reason why not to anyone's knowledge? Is the author still around? It looks like the tool hasn't been updated in awhile. (June 13 2007, according to the site.)

If not, it looks like a better bet is to take the source of SCI Studio and start from there.

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SCI Development Tools / SCI Companion or SCI Studio on 64-bit

« on: November 21, 2010, 07:37:36 AM »

So I'm noticing that you can't run games when you are creating them via the SCI Companion or SCI Studio if you are on a 64-bit windows. Even if you put the SCIV.exe file to work in compatibility mode, it won't work. This seems like a massive shortcoming that guarantees these tools won't be used on 64-bit machines as they gain popularity.

Is there a solution to this that anyone's aware of?