No-Shirt Developer(s)

[CTxCB]

As some of you might be able to tell... I'm quite new at SCI Programming. Not AGI or SCI as a whole, I've played most of the Self-Published Sierra Lineup (Not including ones made by external developers and published by Sierra). I've played with SCI Studio and SCI Companion before, years ago and I did even have an account on the forum... But I believe I deleted that to avoid embarrassment (All the questions I asked that were meaningless), and for a fresh start in the future (now).

"No-Shirt Developer(s)" (I haven't yet chose whether it'll be Developer, or Developers, thus the bracket there) will be my first game I'll be making with the help of SCI Companion... It's meant to be a homage to the style and feel of a Leisure Suit Larry game whilst being somewhat original as well... Full of jokes and meaningless side adventures that just add to the fun, and lots of ways to die. I'm hoping it'll actually be a finalized game, but yet, I'm only experienced in writing and scripting, so more important things like art or music are going to be difficult for me; Especially since EGA / VGA Art is something that needs to be learned from scratch. "No-Shirt Developer(s)" is also a vague reference to Kawa's "Comfy Shirt Kawa 4".

So... I'd love to have any suggestions for how I'd do art or music in Sierra Style, and more importantly without buying software to help me out. Also, I'd love offers of help, although as a Game Developer, I understand that I'll probably not get that kind of help until I have some kind of thing to show... Like a Game Design Document, or a rough prototype available.

[Kawa]

You realize that "Comfy Shirt Kawa" is just a stupid little joke reference to what I was actually looking for, right? It's a thread title nothing more

However... <ignoreable rant> there is not, when it comes down to it, a single "Sierra style". Each game (not even each series) does its own thing. For example, I'mma limit myself to character art: back in AGI, most games had the same graphical style simply because there wasn't much room to play with. But even back in early SCI0, you had things like this scene in PQ2. All these characters are in the same style... except for Larry. It's actually a pretty good shot, highlighting the differences. And in SCI1, things did not get much better. </ignoreable rant>

Anyway, Paint.NET and Anvil Studio.

[CTxCB]

You realize that "Comfy Shirt Kawa" is just a stupid little joke reference to what I was actually looking for, right? It's a thread title nothing more

Yep, I know that... I basically want this to have as many references to the SCI Programming Community as possible. 

[CTxCB]

<ignoreable rant> there is not, when it comes down to it, a single "Sierra style". Each game (not even each series) does its own thing. For example, I'mma limit myself to character art: back in AGI, most games had the same graphical style simply because there wasn't much room to play with. But even back in early SCI0, you had things like this scene in PQ2. All these characters are in the same style... except for Larry. It's actually a pretty good shot, highlighting the differences. And in SCI1, things did not get much better. </ignoreable rant>

Anyway, Paint.NET and Anvil Studio.

I kind of mean more the SCI-Style, in terms how each game as similar to each other in design, although not exact... They all had the same kind of feel, until much later into Late SCI1.1 / SCI2, when the art style began to change drastically from game to game. In Paint.NET, how would I draw with a Color Scheme matching SCI Companion? Also... 320x200 is still the maximum drawable space, yes?

[troflip]

In Paint.NET, how would I draw with a Color Scheme matching SCI Companion? Also... 320x200 is still the maximum drawable space, yes?

What do you mean matching SCI Companion? You can export a palette from SCI Companion if you want to use a specific palette in paint.NET. You would do this for the fixed colors for characters/view, usually. For pic backgrounds, just draw whatever, and SCI Companion will figure out the best palette colors to use for the "flexible" part of the palette range.

320x200 is the maximum for SCI1.1, yes. SCI 2.1 supports 640x480 (And larger, but the screen scrolls). And of course SCI Companion only has limited support for 640x480 and there is no template game.

[CTxCB]

In Paint.NET, how would I draw with a Color Scheme matching SCI Companion? Also... 320x200 is still the maximum drawable space, yes?

What do you mean matching SCI Companion? You can export a palette from SCI Companion if you want to use a specific palette in paint.NET. You would do this for the fixed colors for characters/view, usually. For pic backgrounds, just draw whatever, and SCI Companion will figure out the best palette colors to use for the "flexible" part of the palette range.

I was on the understanding that Sierra Games (Especially SCI0, which I'm trying to emulate), uses EGA, which has a limited range of colors (64, I think), but only 16 can be shown at a time, usually listed as 0 - 15. I'm not sure whether SCI Companion allows different palettes for different rooms or whether it's locked to one across the whole game. But really, I'm trying to emulate the color scheme and feel of a Sierra Game (As in, the image above being a good example of what I mean).

[troflip]

SCI0 uses a fixed 16 color EGA palette with four different "virtual palettes" of 40 dithered colors available per background (in-game, your code can draw the background with any of those 4 palettes). SCI Companion doesn't limit anything, you can do whatever the engine supports. The docs should explain this well; if they don't let me know and I'll make it clearer.

Unless you need a text parse interface, though, I would almost recommend using the SCI1.1 VGA template, and just artificially limit your palette to the 16 EGA colors (or use a fixed 256 color palette that is the combination of all 16x16 dithered colors). This is because SCI0 backgrounds are vector-based, which most people find very challenging to draw (and they have to be drawn in SCI Companion). SCI1+ are bitmapped.

[CTxCB]

SCI0 uses a fixed 16 color EGA palette with four different "virtual palettes" of 40 dithered colors available per background (in-game, your code can draw the background with any of those 4 palettes). SCI Companion doesn't limit anything, you can do whatever the engine supports. The docs should explain this well; if they don't let me know and I'll make it clearer.

Unless you need a text parse interface, though, I would almost recommend using the SCI1.1 VGA template, and just artificially limit your palette to the 16 EGA colors (or use a fixed 256 color palette that is the combination of all 16x16 dithered colors). This is because SCI0 backgrounds are vector-based, which most people find very challenging to draw (and they have to be drawn in SCI Companion). SCI1+ are bitmapped.

So... SCI1.1 doesn't have text parser? It looks like I will have to use SCI0 because of that. Because I feel that a Leisure Suit Larry-Style Game works better with text, and having more ways to do things; It allows for things that couldn't really be done with purely a Point and Click Layout, something like "look under bed" would be very difficult to do with Point and Click, because it'd have to be a "look area" under the bed, which takes away from the fun of working it out yourself.

[Kawa]

something like "look under bed" would be very difficult to do with Point and Click, because it'd have to be a "look area" under the bed, which takes away from the fun of working it out yourself.

I don't see the problem here.

[CTxCB]

something like "look under bed" would be very difficult to do with Point and Click, because it'd have to be a "look area" under the bed, which takes away from the fun of working it out yourself.

I don't see the problem here.

The fact that they could just use the look button and click under the bed, probably even by accident if they're on the wrong pixel (E.g: If they're trying to look at the bed instead of under it). With a text parser, "look at bed" would just give you a description of the bed, but you would have to TYPE "look under bed" to get the thing that might be under it. I just feel that this type of game would be more challenging (in a good way) like that, than using a Point and Click GUI.

[Kawa]

I don't think we have quite the same opinions on good puzzle design.

[troflip]

I get it... I kind of have a fondness for the parser games too, because of the ability to express yourself with clearer intent.

[CTxCB]

I get it... I kind of have a fondness for the parser games too, because of the ability to express yourself with clearer intent.

Yes! Anyway, could a Text Parser System, and Menu Bar / Menu like SCI0 be made in SCI1.1? Or is it coded too differently to allow it?

[Kawa]

The menu bar? Yes. If you use the terp from Larry 6. The parser? No. But you could if you really really wanted to reimplement one... but then it'd not be nearly as functional as the one that SCI0 had built in.

[troflip]

If what you're looking for is VGA + text parser, I think there are some Sierra games that have that. Or if not, there are certainly some SCI1 Sierra games whose interpreters still have parser support built in, but it was never actually used in a game. Unfortunately, the interpreter that the SCI1.1 template game is matched with (from LSL6) does not have a built in parser. So I think you'd need to decompile an SCI1 game whose interpreter has parser support, and make a new template game based off that. A lot of work.

Re-creating the text parser in script would be possible, but also a significant amount of work and you wouldn't be able to leverage any of SCI Companion's vocab editing support.

Finally, if all you care about is having the easy of bitmapped graphics (but are ok if they are just EGA) with parser support, then you can just use SCI0 and the  "import bitmap to pic" function of SCI Companion, which converts bitmaps into vector commands to generate a pic. A number of fanmade SCI0 games use this...