Messages

1201

SCI Development Tools / Re: Decompiler, new SCI Studio

« on: January 04, 2007, 10:05:38 PM »

In any event, part of the reason the SCI community is on life support is because it spends most of its time not learning from its past and being critical (harshly so, sometimes).

I wouldn't call it life support, I own the domain name for the next 9 years, so for that long whether or not it's active, these forums will always be present. To say that we haven't learned from our past just isn't fair, I have tried to design our new home to directly combat some of the problems which we used to have as I saw them. The forum boards themselves were carefully considered to try and ease a users ability to find and use tools and resources and to provide a wealth of scripting examples that are easy to find and understand.

I can personally pinpoint the day Mega-tokyo started it's decline, it all stemmed from one moment. Now there is only a small percentage of users who were around then and can point to the same day, with a new home and new users coming just let it go, less and less people will even know what you are talking about anyway. In three years when new members are reading this thread looking for your decompiler are they even going to know who he is, assuming by then we have a bug free studio to replace scistudio and documentation to match. It might be nice to have his mythological decompiler, but we don't, and we don't know how well it even really worked anyway, but everything else he has released will fade into the background as better less crash prown tools are created. Considering the state of scistudio vga, if the decompiler was remotely usable, it probably would have been released. I have my own opinions of Brian as I'm sure everyone else does, but airing them doesn't progress the community, that's something I have learned from our past.

If you have suggestions to make the community better or stronger in any way, by all means, let's hear em. But bitching about Brian isn't going to help anything. I read your thoughts in full, I never said I disagreed with any of it, all I'm saying is that it isn't going to get us off of "life-support" only prolong it.

All right, now that that's over, have you figured out a name for your studio. Is it going to start off with just ega support or are you going to try and incorporate vga  elements. Trodoss and Lars both have ideas for getting vga resources to work via our measily scripts. A studio and template that was built around that concept would fit the bill nicely.

1202

SCI Development Tools / Re: Decompiler, new SCI Studio

« on: January 04, 2007, 04:12:26 PM »

It's good to hear that more tools are being developed ... However

I edited the worst of your post 

Seriously, think positive here, a whole negative atmosphere could kill any new fledgling forums. Especially one that has been humping along for a while before attempting to branch off on it's own. Let's make sci fun again, and leave our old M-T baggage at the door. Announcing the development of some new tools is great news, don't poison it.

1203

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Best Interpreter for our sci games

« on: January 03, 2007, 02:04:02 PM »

I was wondering which interpreter would be the overall best one for us to use. I know  Chris has mentioned before that he likes 0.000.685 because of the sound and support for 3 mouse buttons. But will it support the avoid script that Troflip got working.

I know the one that comes packaged with the scistudio template will support the avoid, but I have no idea what version it is, or what else it may do.  I was wondering from you interpreter-guys what your opinions are of our best interpreter version option for our sci games.

1204

Community Competitions / Re: First ever SCI Game Contest

« on: January 03, 2007, 10:32:36 AM »

So the good news is, the trophies have been completed. I must admit though, the second place trophy is really an edited version of one of the ags forum trophies, but it was too close to what I was going to draw so it became easier to steal it and change it than to redraw the same thing again. So whoever gets second place, sorry bout that.

Now all that is left to do is to get them to show up in our signatures. While I work on that, you guys work on your games.

1205

Everything-Else / Re: Guitar Heroes I and II for the ps2

« on: January 03, 2007, 08:59:57 AM »

Playing the same songs over and over again does get a little repetitive, but really it happens with all games. At some point you've done what there is to do.

If you've got two may I sugget getting one, the song list is a little better and it's probably alot cheaper since it has been out longer.

After discovering her guitar legend talent I've almost got thewife ready to try out a real guitar.

1206

Community Competitions / Re: First ever SCI Game Contest

« on: January 02, 2007, 04:52:09 PM »

You've got a month. I figure we'll run our competitions the same way everyone else does, the winner gets to "sponsor" the next competition deciding rules and whatnot. Likewise they will judge the entries of their sponsored game. So since I'll be judging this one I can't enter 

I can only hope there is a little competition for you. I know our member count is pretty low now, so really two entries is a good turnout, but three, that would make our first competition a flaming success.

Since you've been in a couple of the old agi contests Eigen I'll leave you to yours, but to anyone else I would like to make some suggestions. Keep it small, a game with 150 rooms, you just aren't going to be able to finnish. A game with 3 rooms, more than adequate for these types of competitions. Don't get ate up with the graphics. I don't know anyone around here who's an artist and I wouldn't expect anyone to be, the point isn't to make a Sierra Quality game, but just to make something creative.

1207

Community Competitions / First ever SCI Game Contest

« on: January 02, 2007, 12:23:45 PM »

Hey gang, it's the start of a new year, and the start of our new home. I have installed an award mod allowing me to issue awards and trophies and rather than see this feature go to waste, I would like to announce the first ever SCI game competition.

The rules of the competition are simple,

• Ends: January 31st
• Rooms: minimum 1 original room
• Characters: 1 original character
• Theme: New Year's related

The rules call for only 1 original room, and one original character, therefore, you MAY borrow any additional graphics from any other source. As far as the New Year's theme, that can be anywhere from using characters like father time, the baby new year, or even having a quest to eat cabbage (old wive's tale about eating cabbage on New Year's and good luck) or even to catch the ball in Time Square as it drops. As long as it has something to do with New Year's.

Now let's get out there and jumpstart our community a little.

1208

Everything-Else / Re: Guitar Heroes I and II for the ps2

« on: December 29, 2006, 10:21:47 PM »

It even has guitar controllers which have 5 buttons, each in place of the first five frets of varying colors, a little switch thing where the strings would be and a whammy bar.

The game itself, is you are in a cover band and you play a whole bunch of different songs. In the center of the screen is a guitar fretboard which is always scrolling towards you. On it are the different buttons you've got to hit just like all the other, match the beat games, but when you miss, the guitar part you missed is muted from the song. For instance imagine Iron Man (I) without the long notes in the beginning, or in Free Bird (II) during the solo missing every third note. When you screw up part of a song, you know it. Each game has about 40 to 50 songs on it.

1209

Everything-Else / Re: Guitar Heroes I and II for the ps2

« on: December 29, 2006, 12:43:10 PM »

And considering Eigen lives in Estonia. What all have you got at your fingertips over there.

I have noticed that thewife is more of a "natural" at it than I am, and the same goes for my friend and his old lady, she seems to be picking it up a little faster than him. I have a theory about that though, and as neither of them play guitar and both of us boys do, we are playing it with our fingertips looking for strings, rather than our finger pad just pressing the big button, we lift off and they just quit pressing. But as our fingers figure out the spacing of the buttons that gap between the girls and boys is closing.

I think the first one has a better song list, but the second one has a cooperative multiplayer mode so you  can play either lead and rhythm, or bass and guitar, rather than just head to head.

1210

Everything-Else / Guitar Heroes I and II for the ps2

« on: December 28, 2006, 10:01:07 PM »

I hate to say it, but I love them both (they are almost exactly the same). Me and thewife got the games and a pair of guitars for Christmas and my fingers haven't been straight since.

Eigen, as a fellow guitar player I think you'll love this game as well. I took it to a friends house yesterday and today he has a copy of the game and his own guitar.

I've seen it demoed in a few stores, with that one guy who does nothing but stand in a store playing their demo systems for hours at a time and I thought man that looks dumb. Then I got it and man do I have to admit I was wrong.

1211

SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Re: Taking an Inventory Item away from character

« on: December 27, 2006, 10:52:25 PM »

Lars, never before has the ownedby or really any of the inventory items other parameters really been discussed. I personally had no idea how to do it, even though, it makes since that ownedBy would be a room number. I assume that by getting the item the ownedby attribute is changed automatically, or do we need to make a call to change it when the ego gets the item?

That will be great to get rid of some of those redundant global variables in the main script. Every byte counts afterall.

Who'd have thought that I would have learned something from my own tutorial.

1212

SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Taking an Inventory Item away from character

« on: December 27, 2006, 02:32:26 AM »

This is a pretty basic need, perhaps you have given the golden ring to the potion maker or say you eat the spinach dip, either way your character will need to "lose" the inventory item.

This is not covered in any of the tutorials, but has been covered enough at our old home that we all know how to do it, but any new members won't. I figured I had better stick this up here so anyone new to sci won't have to ask. I remember I asked when I first started out.

Anyway, if you have done the tutorial, which if you haven't you should, then you will remember that in order for you character to get an item you needed to use the code

Code: [Select]

(send gEgo:get(INV_KEY))

Now to drop an item either when your character uses it, gives it away, or simply drops it, it is simply a matter of using put instead of get.

Code: [Select]

(send gEgo:put(INV_KEY))
And that is it. One thing to remember though, in whatever room your character got the item, if you checked to see whether or not gEgo had it before initing it, then the item will reappear there since your character no longer has the item. This may seem strange if the person used the item, or gave it to someone else. Handling these type of instances will require using global variables.

1213

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Fabulous Las Vegas (in development)

« on: December 26, 2006, 10:16:09 AM »

I was just about to comment that old shiny man. It looks 'fabulous'.
This looks like a fun game to play when it's ready.
I would love to see how you implemented the cursor interface. I presume you can click on views and certain areas on the background? If so, are you using certain regions with coordinates or control color?


-Eigen

Actually, I am using a combination of priority colors, and coordinates when necesary to determine when something has been clicked on in the background. Then check against which cursor is set to determine what you are trying to do to it.

Code: [Select]

// Background                                                              pillars  //
(if((== $0100 OnControl(ocPRIORITY (send pEvent:x) (send pEvent:y)))   or    // GREY
    (== $0002 OnControl(ocPRIORITY (send pEvent:x) (send pEvent:y))))        // NAVY

     (switch(gCurrentCursor)
      (case 999 ) // walk
      (case 998 (send pEvent:type(evMOUSEBUTTON) claimed(TRUE))Print(3 43))// look
      (case 996 (send pEvent:type(evMOUSEBUTTON) claimed(TRUE))Print(3 44))// talk
      (case 994 (send pEvent:type(evMOUSEBUTTON) claimed(TRUE))Print(3 45))//  get
      (default  (send pEvent:type(evMOUSEBUTTON) claimed(TRUE))  // Item
         (switch(Random(0 2))
            (case 0 Print(0 16))
            (case 1 Print(0 17))
            (case 2 Print(0 18))
         )
     )
   )
)  
This sample above, handles all of the "said" statements for trying do do anything to any of the pillars found in the casino. It's much easier than trying to come up with all of the user inputs that someone might try. For starters I don't have to come up with all the different alternative names someone might type in for pillar, column, pole ...

1214

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Fabulous Las Vegas (in development)

« on: December 25, 2006, 11:53:36 PM »

Thanks, I definately find producing the graphics to be the most laborious part of creating anything in sci.

As you might be able to see from the screenshot of the casino, there is a process to my graphics development. I like to kind of sketch my pic with blue lines using the pic editor. I usually test at that point by running the game to make sure everything is actually sized approximately right. After I'm happy with that, I start redrawing both the pic resource and rough sketches of the views (the rough view of the woman in the lower right for example is worse than the sketch which she was placed on.) Then, it's just a matter of finalising everything and giving it a pretty shine (like the old man at the bottom right). I haven't gotten to put much shine on those pics yet, but they are all pretty well into the process.

1215

Everything-Else / Merry Christmas!

« on: December 25, 2006, 08:45:46 AM »

I have officially finished opening presents with the fam damily and thought I'd take a minute to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas before we hit the road.

Hoping everyones season is merry!