I want to be a game creator again.

[Squinky]

Hi everybody. I am posting this here because I need help to create with AGS again. I know it sounds silly, but any help would just be awesome.

Years ago I decided to make a game. I downloaded some crappy game creator that was very limited and required anybody that wanted to play your game to download the engine to play it. That sucked.

I them stumbled across AGS. The dos version at (2.14) the time was simple and I designed a game while stuck at the hospital after my first son was born. I had to stay there about three days.

Then I came home and after 3 weeks work I made Pirate Fry. It was awesome. Ags was Awesome.

More awesomeness ensued. The community sucked me in for many years. I made a decent amount of games, got bogged down by overzealous ideas and eventually lost interest in putting so much time into things that I felt few people really enjoyed.

It’s been a long damn time since then. AGS has progressed a lot.

I keep thinking I want to make a game again. Artistically I am more talented than I was back then, and hey, I’m still as hilarious and creative as always. So…..

1.   Any advice for an old-timer? I stopped with AGS back in MoveCharacterBlocking days, its all different now. How would you recommend restarting that whole learning process? My primary motivator back then was the magic of seeing my dude move around the screen, and eventually complete a game. With that powerful motivation appeased, I am not sure I can endure it.

2.   Any advice for me artistically? I was a mouse and pixel artist back then, since then I have gone on to doing freelance illustration and am more comfortable with a tablet and higher res stuff. Backgrounds aren’t my issue, its more sprites that match up with the background, and don’t make me run away because animation is so hard. Recently I started up a Pirate Fry remake idea, worked out some test backgrounds and a fry animation. Its pretty damn rough when you cant just count the pixels to keep your animation in line. Also, anti-aliasing issues arose.


Thanks for reading, and for any advice. I would love to have a reason to be a part of this community like I used to be.

[monkey0506]

Squinky!

I..vaguely remember you, you eye-patched dude, you!

My advice to you would be just get started making stuff. The script language is now (mostly) object-oriented, which is a scripting model that you either love or hate. There's no middle ground here. The basic idea of object-oriented scripting is similar to how, in Spanish (for example), one might state what they're talking about before going on to describe it. You simply say what you're going to be performing a function on before calling a function on it.

So, while you might have done:

Code: ags

  MoveCharacterBlocking(EGO, 250, 110);

Back in the day, you would now do it more like this:

Code: ags

  player.Walk(250, 110, eBlock);

Once you get the hang of it, it's really not that much different. Often it can actually make your purpose clearer, which makes your script easier to read. At least I think anyway.

If you're concerned about animation issues with your characters, just do them in pixel mode and do higher resolution backgrounds. It might sound wonky, but take a look at Ben304's games. Seriously, he's proven that it can work. And hey, you could even take a crack at animating some pixels by hand, and then just painting over the frames. I mean, I'm not much of an artist, but I can't see why that wouldn't work!

As for antialiasing, if you're going to be using that, make sure you're saving your images as PNG (preserve those alpha channels!), and running your AGS game at 32-bit.

Anyway, like I said, get back to it man! It's great to see an old familiar face.


P.S., I dunno if you'd remember a monkey like me, but if you need help with the coding side, that's certainly my forté, and I devote a lot of my free time to the technical forums.

[Ponch]

Squinky, you, Scummbuddy, and Erican McClane were a big help to me when I was but a young AGSer. Nice to have you back again. 

[m0ds]

Yep it's good to see you again Squinky. Check out all the plugins and modules and stuff, they've raised the possible level of professionalism in AGS games a lot since MakeMyGameBlocking. Welcome back, hope you find the motivation & inspiration you're looking for!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Hey Squinkman!  As far as art goes, you could try sticking with a simple, cartoon-stylized way of drawing (outlines and solid colors rather than shading).  That would mitigate some effort with the animation side of things.


Pirate Fry 4?

[Ali]

Hi Squinky!

Anti-aliasing shouldn't cause too much trouble now that scaling of 32 bit sprites is possible. Just save your frames as PNGs with transparency and they should import looking lovely.

Since you're comfortable in hi-res I'd love to see some games that make weirder use of higher resolution. Perhaps something like the torn paper of And Yet It Moves. Or something using silhouettes and shadow puppet effects!

[Dualnames]

AND THIS IS A BLAST FROM THE PAST.

SQUINKY YOU ARE MY HERO.

When I first joined, I remember how everyone talked about Pirate Fry, and i said to myself I'll never be half as cool as this guy. And I was right. Glad to know you've decided to go back to developing games.

I suggest strongly that you should make a test game, nothing to release, just something to get you going. I did the following for myself and helped tremendously. Each day I'd think a task and attempt to code it.

-Open the door using a key, and lose the key
-Open the door using a key, keep the key, but don't open the door again.
-ecc..


Also when i first joined the forums, everyone was talking about m0ds and yuf. Well, i thought i'd never be as hot as m0ds. And i was right as well. 

[Chicky]

I'm still here, hey Squinky 

Your games always felt established and well planned, you had a VERY consistent style with the pixel art stuff. I remember when you started showing the higher res stuff in the critics lounge, i was amazed. Why not try 640x480? Bit more room for character art and small details.

[monkey0506]

For the record, Squinky, when you showed back up, we all decided to reply to your thread in the order of how much we love you, in descending order. 8)

@Dual: We all know what you meant to say is that you wish you could be as hot as yufster, but nobody's as hot as her, sorry.

[Squinky]

Monkey

I remember you dude, I’ve kinda still been lurking about for the last few years too. That explanation helps me wrap my head around the new scripting a good bit. Thanks man!

I will definitely check out Ben's game too, thank you.

Ponch

Hey man, thanks for the kind words. Whatever happened to Erica McClane?

Mods
Thanks dude! I will check out those plugins.

Progz

I kinda wondered if this is the way to go, creating a stylized cartoony look seems to work for some folks, I will definitely look into this. Thanks.

Ali
Thanks for the info man . I think I tried the Alpha channel thing before and goofed it up somehow, it appears it was just me.

Dualnames

Heh, well thanks for liking some of my work. The curse of most creative people is to never appreciate your stuff, and I guess I am one of them.

Dude, your advice about starting slow if pure gold, especially the one goal per day thing. I think I knew this was the way to go, but reading it from someone else was apparently needed. Thanks man.

I am so doing that.

Chicky

Thanks man. I remember people always telling me I had a certain style, and I miss that. Thanks a ton


I'm gonna go "Read the F'ing manual" now

[Darth Mandarb]

I want you.

To be a game developer again too.

Good day sir.

[Snake]

Squinky! You bastard! Welcome back! I would love to see games from you again!

YAY! Squinky's back!

[Dualnames]

@Dual: We all know what you meant to say is that you wish you could be as hot as yufster, but nobody's as hot as her, sorry.

Yeah. Yufster is so hot. You got me there 

[Ponch]

You know, Squinky, if you're wanting to test the gaming waters again, there's always the Oceanspirit Dennis universe. It's open source, so just think of all the time that will save you! What's more, all the cool kids are doing it. And you want to be popular, don't you?

[Snake]

Oh yeah, Squ0nk, does this mean we can continue MoNKeY WReNCH?!

[InCreator]

Over 8 years, being on/off game creator, I say you this:

* AGS is easier now. New AGS has insane learning curve - or rather, a high wall blocking at the *very start* if you come from AGS 2.5x era. But once you get over it, everything else is much simpler and better thought-out.

* Co-operate, concentrate.

In the old times, everybody tried to make one-man projects. I guess it's natural evolution for a game maker, but I wouldn't imagine doing everything from scratch anymore, unless it's an OROW game or something.
Take sprites, story or coding and find someone to take it off your shoulders, chances of success will double instantly.
Also, going crazy with ideas and making epic length game doesn't work anymore, especially alone. Concentrate on single premise, build a small game around it, then and only then try to make it longer, better, etc.

* The bigger the project, the less likely it'll get abandoned.

Small project has great chance of success. As it gets bigger, the chances drop. But once it's large enough... trend will turn.
With lots of people working for same goal, the responsibility needed is higher so I guess large projects have more chances of success again.

[Squinky]

Har, Darth you cheesy bastard . Good to see you still poking around.


Increator
I don't know man, I've been a good bit of co-operative internet projects in my time. AGS games included. They all seem to die off after you get more then three people involved. Unless there is money to be had.

I used to pretty much design the games with help from folks like Snake, y'know puzzles and gags whatnot. I used to have people I could go to for music, like Trapezoid or Petteri. But I always found it best to do all the rest myself. Perhaps things have changed though.

I'm never one to make big games though. I like the middle ground games, just long enough to be worthwhile. Anything more than that and it feels tedious.

Thanks you for the advice man.

SNAKE!

We will make Monkey Wrench when we are hanging in the old folks home probably

Ponch

I have looked for this oceanspirit thing to no avail, any pointers here?


So far I'm reading the manual, doing the tutorial. I'm thinking of making a little two room game to learn on.
Thanks guys!

[Ponch]

I have looked for this oceanspirit thing to no avail, any pointers here?

Look no further!
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=43979.0

But please understand this is a bit of a tongue in cheek suggestion. 

And don't let the others talk you out of one man projects. I still make my games that way. It takes a while, but I like it that way.  8)

[monkey0506]

The Oceanspirit Omnibus would probably be a good place to find all the games, but it doesn't in itself contain any references to how the whole bit came about. Ponch also wrote a run-down of the Oceanspirit Denniverse history, but it also doesn't contain any reference to the strange origins of this "game series". At the sake of forcing you to read the entire thread, this is where Oceanspirit Dennis truly began.

Of course you didn't hear that from me. Since I'm under legal obligation to stake a claim to being the creator of all things OSD. Especially those things that I didn't create. 8)

Trust me, Oceanspirit Dennis is one of those things that you don't want to get messed up in, unless you're ready to dive head first into the empty swimming pool (from the high-dive mind you) that it truly is. Things like sense, sensibility, intelligence, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and lack-of-homosexuality-and-or-ninja-pirates have no place there.


Oh, hey, Ponch ponch'd in with a ponch.

[Blackthorne]

Squinky!  You're a welcome blast from the past!  Glad to see you back.  Now make a new AGS game to entertain us all!


Bt