Is it possible to make a 2 player agi game?

[Joey]

the question is (read the subject. ) is it possible to make a 2 player agi game? thats what i was thinking of if i made a new BETTER version of snowboarding. right now im concentrating on DQ2, but after that, im not sure what i should work on. im thinking GOSQ2 or snowboarding (a newer version of it.)

(I know what chris is going to say. Anything is possible. or hes gonna say something like that. jk. What i meant is has this been done before, or how hard would this be? what im thinking is all i have to do is set new keys for a second player. maybe not that easy huh?)

[Chris Cromer]

Well it hasn't been done before, but it is possible, just map certain keys to control the 2nd player and then both players could play.

[Joey]

do you think its a good idea? i think it is and i may make it. the first 2 player agi game. please know one make a 2 player agi game until i do. it was my idea.

if you wanna go ahead. i may fool around with it sometime.

[Chris Cromer]

Of course, you should know the second player isn't going to work exactly like the ego does. The ego is automatically mapped to the arrow keys and it moves him automatically.

You would have to program what the view does on different key presses because it wouldn't happen automatically.

[Andrew_Baker]

There was a two-person puzzle/action/adventure for PSX called Cookies and Cream.  Rather, it was a game where one or two people had to simoultaneously control two characters to get through each level.

[Jelle]

But,...  
Let's say, ego 1 is controlled by the usual cursors and ego 2 is controlled by the numeric controlpad. If you press up-6, then would ego 1 move up (because you pressed up) and would ego 2 move right (because you pressed 6) or will nothing happen because you haven't said what the keycombination up-6 does.

Pfff, hard to explain myself. My question is: will you have to defiene what every possible key-combination does, or not?

[Joey]

well this is interesting and would be quite a challenge i would be willing to take. but this leads me to something else. can you connect people online with agi? you make a multiplayer agi game that would connect through ip addresses. is this possible? i dont know how to find EVERY SINGLE command for AGI. is every command in the index and others in defines.txt? could you make you own commands? (you would have to edit agi studio huh. and sierra's interpreter wouldnt be able to understand that command so i would have to make my own interpreter.)

[Chris Cromer]

But,...  
Let's say, ego 1 is controlled by the usual cursors and ego 2 is controlled by the numeric controlpad. If you press up-6, then would ego 1 move up (because you pressed up) and would ego 2 move right (because you pressed 6) or will nothing happen because you haven't said what the keycombination up-6 does.

Pfff, hard to explain myself. My question is: will you have to defiene what every possible key-combination does, or not?

You can define what they do, but the interpreter would not automatically know. Just use the example in logic.091(I think it was that logic?) and it will show you how to assign keys. Then after you assign it, you have to build little if statements that tell what is pressed, and what to do if they are pressed. It won't be automatially I press 6 so it goes right, you will have to program and tell the interpreter what to do if they press 6.

[Jelle]

Then after you assign it, you have to build little if statements that tell what is pressed, and what to do if they are pressed. It won't be automatially I press 6 so it goes right, you will have to program and tell the interpreter what to do if they press 6.

Yes I know, that's not my problem...

I was just wondering,...
Program the game so that ego 2 will go right when you press 6.
Than program the game so that ego 1 will go up when you press up.
But than if you press 6 and up together, will ego 1 move up and ego 2 go right or will the game do nothing because you press up-6 instead of up and 6...

I don't know how I can explain me better...

Or maybe:
Compare with ctrl-z in agi games... when you press those keys the game will end because you pressed ctrl and z together... The interpreter thinks as if it's one key... You had to set ctrl-z...
But how can you possibly set every possible key-combination...

I know there are games with more than one player, but I don't think they are written in AGI, so...

[Jelle]

Oh well, maybe it isn't a problem at all... Just forget everything I posted here...

[Joey]

heh heh. no i think that was a good point. that will be something to look out for. i understood what you meant. when i have some free time ill check this out. maybe I (the one who always has the questions) will do what has never been done before..... MAKE THE FIRST 2 PLAYER AGI GAME!!!!

i was thinking of one packet with multiple to player games. ex: laser tag, a downhill snowboarding race.... you know, simple little things. not all one game or quest. it would be mini games for 2 players.

[Adam]

Check this idea: AGI Pong.
That'd be a great way to get the ball rolling on 2-player AGI games!

But don't count on an online version.. remember Al Lowe couldn't figure out how to make a multiplayer LSL game (which is why there was no LSL4) in SCI, let alone AGI.

Personally, I'd be pretty happy with a hotseat version.

[Joel]

well, you'd have a great deal of difficulty doing an online AGI game for the simple reason that AGI doesn't have network support. it would at the least require a hacked interpreter...and I'm not really saying that such an idea would work for sure.

[Nick Sonneveld]

if you were to create a network agi.. how would you implement it?  peer to peer (send data to everybody) or a client/server setup (send and receive data from single source)?

A game world would have variables shared across all clients so you would need functions to read the variables/flags from the game world.  either a function "get.gameworld.var" or flag, when set, would mean any variable access is through the gameworld.  what about copying variables from the server to your own client variables?

What about the state of other ego's in the room?  There would have to be a limit on the number of ego's in a room because of the limit of animated objects in agi.

You would have to increase the limit (We're adding new commands and network support anyway) and perhaps only show the nearest 10 people around you.  The rest could be shown as a list of (or number of) people at the bottom of the screen.

communication.  shouting something so everybody in the room can hear or a speak to individual person option?  you would need to easily find the name of each person then.

quests. how would you program them?  one big quest for everybody or an individual one that people can join in?

new rooms.  only created by people who run the server or can anybody add a room?  how?

- Nick

[Sami Tervo]

Hmm, how about this :player one uses keys and second players uses mouse.

And oh yes, AGI-community's Go-players...let's start workin on a Go-game!