Author Topic: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)  (Read 15455 times)

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Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #75 on: April 28, 2024, 02:48:06 AM »
I agree that typing without pausing sure gives me the AGI feels while playing, but it's important to note that the original interpreter did pause (at least some versions of it). My recollection is specifically the dos herc.mono version.  No clue why it did that... I always assumed it was because of some limitation of the hardware.

Yeah, you're right. I keep forgetting that, probably because it wasn't part of the experience I had when originally playing these games back in the late 80s. Our first PC already had EGA. I don't think I ever tried the games on a monochrome set up.

I was just looking at Sierra's original AGI interpreter source code. The HDIALOG.C file has the code for mono text entry. It shows that it uses the standard AGI text window for that mode, clears most of the bottom line within that window, and then accepts text input within that space. It exits when ENTER is hit. It looks like it might also show the text "ENTER COMMAND" within that window, although I can't spot where it actually displays that in the code. An AGI fan made game could easily replicate all of that in LOGIC code.

The original AGI interpreter source fragments we have from the original SQ2 and KQ3 disks doesn't include the bit that triggers the opening of this window though. I'll have to start up dosbox to see when that happens, e.g. is it on every key stroke? Or is there a key combination that opens the window? This is more out of curiosity, as I don't think I would add an option for a mode like this. Perhaps later down the track. At launch, it is unlikely to have any optional settings.

Edit: I just tried it in dosbox. Looks like it shows the text entry dialog on any keystroke that would normally be expected to be used for command entry. Obviously it doesn't do it for direction keys, function keys, and other special keys.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2024, 02:54:44 AM by lance.ewing »

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #76 on: April 28, 2024, 03:03:17 AM »
Regarding the keyboard: I was initially thinking that having the toggle button for showing/hiding the keyboard visible at all times would be a good approach, then the user can choose.

Yeah, perhaps I should go down this route. I think it might be the best approach. Just need to work out where it would make sense to add the keyboard icon when in portrait mode, as it starts to look a bit cluttered with four icons at the bottom of the screen. I'll play around with putting it in different spots to see what feels best. I didn't feel like I could sacrifice any of the other three icons when in portrait mode.

I have released a change that has added the keyboard icon for portrait mode. I just shifted the icons to give space, so that the four are evenly spaced. It doesn't look too bad actually. Not sure what I was worried about.

So this addresses the concern about not being able to hide the virtual keyboard when in "portrait" mode. I'm going to think more about whether to show it by default in portrait mode, which is what it currently does. I think it makes sense when the keyboard wouldn't overlap the screen, such as when on a mobile phone, but isn't great for these non-standard sizes where it does overlap.

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #77 on: May 03, 2024, 12:44:06 PM »
I tried it both on mac (firefox & chrome) and on iPad. On the former, with both firefox and chrome, I noticed that the behaviour of the keyboard appearance is a bit weird. When the window is narrow, the keyboard appears below the picture; when it is wide enough the keyboard is not visible at all. But between these widths it appears overlaid on top of the picture, which for desktop doesn't seem to make sense - I think better to avoid the keyboard overlay altogether for the desktop.

I released several changes over the past couple of days to hopefully address all of these issues.

It should look and behave much better on iPad now. I have added a new placement for the keyboard and icons for those in-between screen sizes that are kind of a portrait/landscape hybrid. There are now three different UI layouts. One is when it is clearly landscape in nature, in which case the icons will be on the side of the game screen. The second is when it is clearly portrait, in which case the icons appear at the bottom, larger in size, and evenly spaced across the bottom. For this one, the virtual keyboard automatically shows when the height to width ratio gets to a certain point, which should mean that it automatically shows in portrait mode on most phones. For portrait sizes that are a little "shorter", it dynamically scales the height of the keyboard to avoid overlapping the screen. - The third UI layout is for these in-between sizes where it isn't strongly elongated in the width or height direction. For those, it shows the icons at the bottom of the screen, but not spanning the full width, so that the virtual joystick has space also in the bottom right corner, and the keyboard likewise doesn't span the whole width but instead is more like the fully landscape mode.

Not sure if I described that well enough, but have a play around to see what I mean.

Assuming no major bugs are discovered with this over the next week, then this is the version that will be launching next Friday, exactly a week from now.

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #78 on: May 03, 2024, 12:57:58 PM »
Continuing on from the previous post, yes, it is exactly 1 week until the 40 year anniversary of the release of King's Quest. As mentioned above, I have made a few changes over the past few days. One of those involved fixing a saved game bug where it was failing to overwrite previously saved game slots, which was a big problem actually. Luckily I had been trying to play through King's Quest 4 and was wondering why my game wasn't saving after I'd using up all the slots. Problem solved now though. It was appending to the existing file rather than overwriting it!  ;D

If people get a chance, can I ask you to have another play to see if you can spot any major issues.

@doomlazer, I do plan to add some features to export the whole state, but I didn't want to put the 10th May launch into jeopardy, so I'm planning for that feature to be a quick follow later in the month.

Offline russdanner

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #79 on: May 04, 2024, 09:19:19 AM »
Continuing on from the previous post, yes, it is exactly 1 week until the 40 year anniversary of the release of King's Quest. As mentioned above, I have made a few changes over the past few days. One of those involved fixing a saved game bug where it was failing to overwrite previously saved game slots, which was a big problem actually. Luckily I had been trying to play through King's Quest 4 and was wondering why my game wasn't saving after I'd using up all the slots. Problem solved now though. It was appending to the existing file rather than overwriting it!  ;D

If people get a chance, can I ask you to have another play to see if you can spot any major issues.

@doomlazer, I do plan to add some features to export the whole state, but I didn't want to put the 10th May launch into jeopardy, so I'm planning for that feature to be a quick follow later in the month.

Upload game seems to work :)  I'll be testing like a crazy person in the next few days :)

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #80 on: May 07, 2024, 09:21:05 AM »
Only 3 days left! (including today). I'd be keen to know people's suggestions on how best to go about promoting the release on Friday. What sites do you recommend I mention it on? To be honest, I haven't really promoted one of my own projects much before.

Offline Collector

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #81 on: May 07, 2024, 06:30:29 PM »
I'll announce on the Sierra Facebook groups.
KQII Remake Pic

Offline pmkelly

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #82 on: May 08, 2024, 10:05:03 AM »
I recommend contacting the Space Quest Historian (https://spacequesthistorian.com/). You might even be able to convince him to make a youtube video about it, or perhaps a livestream.


Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #84 on: May 08, 2024, 12:26:09 PM »
Thanks both for the suggestions. I'm very tempted to remove the password form already, as I don't think there is a danger anymore in news getting out before I want it to. I thought it would be good to have at least a day beforehand with the password taken off, in case there are any issues with that.

Offline Collector

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #85 on: May 09, 2024, 12:13:32 PM »
Just let me know when you want me to annouce on the Sierra groups.
KQII Remake Pic

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #86 on: May 09, 2024, 01:23:16 PM »
@Collector, I am happy for you to promote it on the Sierra groups as soon as it is the 10th May in your time zone, so either if you're still up at midnight, or whenever you get a free moment Friday morning.

The status is that the password has already been removed, so anyone can get to it now. I have already let someone know who maintains a weekly gamedev.js newsletter, as I thought that this would certainly be of interest to the subscribers, and that there is an issue going out tomorrow. The maintainer was able to access it and was impressed, so that is a good sign.

Regarding Let Them Eat Cake, @russdanner has now finished the conversion and has given me a ZIP that I have added to the site. I put a change in there that will force it to appear for anyone that has previously accessed the site, so all of you should be able to see it in the list of games. This is a direct link for those who want to try out the converted, fully AGI compatible build of Let Them Eat Cake:

https://agi.sierra.games/#/id/ltec

I haven't yet tried playing through it, but I plan to give it a go this evening as a final test of AGILE. It may have been a little risky to add that small change to force the inclusion of LTEC, but I wanted to make sure it was definitely going to appear.

My plan from midnight my time zone is to publish the following:

* A new blog post on my lanceewing.github.io website.
* A blog post on the Medium website (virtually identical to the one on my own github pages site).
* A post on reddit.
* A post on Hacker News.

Everyone else can feel free to share it as much and wherever they like.

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #87 on: May 09, 2024, 06:11:44 PM »
My plan from midnight my time zone is to publish the following:

Maybe midnight my time is too early. I'm in the UK, so that is just under an hour away. Most of the US is still in the afternoon of the 9th at the moment. I guess I could wait until 6am UK time.

Whatever I decide, I'll post here after I've published the blog posts.

Offline lance.ewing

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #88 on: May 10, 2024, 01:26:11 AM »
I'll announce on the Sierra Facebook groups.

@Collector, feel free to announce it in the Sierra Facebook groups any time from now.

The Medium post is published:

https://medium.com/@lance.ewing/agile-celebrating-40-years-of-kings-quest-81ff3ab89a7e

...as is the post on my own GitHub pages site:

https://lanceewing.github.io/blog/sierra/agi/agile/kq1/2024/05/10/agile-celebrating-40-years-of-kings-quest.html

I have also posted on Hacker News. I am about to post on reddit.

Edit:

I tried posting on reddit, but it is saying that the post was removed by the moderators. Not sure if that means that it is waiting for a moderator to approve, or whether it has actually been removed. I guess I'll wait a bit to find out. Maybe it is because its my first post.

Edit 2:

It looks like it was the automatic spam detection used for r/Sierra. I may have been a little too enthusiastic in my promotion. It worked fine for r/kingsquest though.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2024, 01:58:37 AM by lance.ewing »

Offline AGKorson

Re: The web version of AGILE (https://agi.sierra.games)
« Reply #89 on: May 10, 2024, 09:38:56 AM »
Congratulations Lance! You've put together an amazing app. For all of us old timers, it sure does bring us back to 'the glory days' of PC gaming. And for the younger generations, hopefully it introduces them to the history that needed to happen to get us where we are today.

Well done.


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