AGS 4 - Early Alpha 4
Full release number: 4.0.0.1
ACHTUNG! | This is a EARLY ALPHA version of AGS 4. This is a WIP version, and must go through extensive testing. Use at your own risk. Please back up any games before opening them in this version of AGS. New settings in this version WILL make your project files unusable in previous versions after saving with this version. |
For Engine/Editor developers
Last updated: 3rd November 2023
This release is brought to you by:
- Alan v.Drake
- Crimson Wizard
- eri0o (joystick & gamepad support, other improvements)
- fernewelten (new script compiler)
- ChamberOfFear, aka persn (open room format, Editor improvements)
- Matteo Piovanelli (some improvements)
What is AGS 4
AGS 4.0 is an upcoming version which is currently in experimental stage. The primary idea of this version is a complete removal of the deprecated functionality: game settings and script functions. AGS 4 will no longer be able to run older 2.* or 3.* games. It will only guarantee the import of the latest 3.* game projects (such as 3.6.0). This means that if you want to update your existing game to AGS 4, then you'll have to first import and save it in 3.6.0. If your game is using any of the deprecated settings or script commands - you'll have to replace these, as 4.0 will no longer have necessary "backwards compatibility" switches in General Settings.
It is still in works, and there is a number of large changes planned.
But what are the ready major new features of AGS 4?
Open Room format
The new room format made by @ChamberOfFear now stores rooms as a collection of directories with room data split into multiple files. The room properties are stored in XML, which make it possible to read and even edit by hand outside of the editor. Room backgrounds and region masks are stored as separate PNG images.
This improves the safety of working with rooms, allows to change things externally, and simplify teamwork to some degree.
New script compiler with new syntax features
The new compiler was written by @fernewelten, and it grants a whole bunch of syntax improvements to the AGS script, such as nested structs, multi-dimensional arrays, dynamic arrays have `Length` pseudo-property, and so on.
The full cheat-sheet of the new features may be found here:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/wiki/New-compiler%27s-end-user-cheat-sheet
If anyone is curious, here's the more "technical" version, explaining things in depth:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/wiki/Features-of-the-new-Script-Compiler
Managed pointers inside managed structs
These are also allowed now (this is not related directly to the script compiler, but also to how engine handles dynamically created objects). This feature finally opens full potential of structs referencing each other with pointers, and allow you to create virtually any kind of data storage in script.
To give an example:
managed struct Item; // pre-declaration
managed struct Person {
Item* items[];
};
managed struct Item {
Person* owner;
};
Here's a LinkedList module I wrote for a test:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sxur2bsccsvaqmr/ags399-LinkedList.zip?dl=0
Advanced object features
The game objects have two new features worth mentioning up front: Blend Mode and Rotation.
* BlendMode property lets you change the way object is drawn, selecting one of the 10 classic modes (Add, Subtract, Dodge, etc). This gives you ability to make more visual effects in your game.
* Rotation property (called GraphicRotation in some) lets you to rotate the object by a number of degrees. Most standard things have this, and even Cameras, so you may, for example, rotate the whole room view, and characters in it individually. Rotation is hardware accelerated (in Direct3D/OpenGL mode) and does not slow things down, unlike rotating dynamic sprites. Engine correctly detects clicks on rotated objects, so for example, rotated GUI will be fully functional.
What else is PLANNED for AGS 4?
Here's the milestone proposal:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/issues/1298
It's not clear at the moment whether all of these features will be a part of the first 4.0 release, but at least some of these will hopefully be.
How safe is this WIP version currently?
It is relatively stable, and there are few people who were already using it to make games for a while: Alan Drake is one of them, and I suspect that fernewelten was also using it sometimes for his games because of his new compiler (but I may be mistaken).
The biggest problem with this is that this version will be updated further, so some things may not be final. Project format may also change in the next updates. We'll try to keep things upgradeable (so that the previous projects made in this WIP version won't just break).
And it surely it will benefit from more testers.
The full changelog follows:
Contains all additions from AGS 3.6.1 Beta 8, except ones made for backwards compatibility.
Common:
- Most of the deprecated functionality (game settings and script API) is cut out from both Editor and Engine, and is no longer supported. The Editor guarantees to import the projects saved by AGS 3.6.0 and later. The Engine may run games compiled in 3.6.0, but only so long as they don't use any deprecated settings or script commands.
- Completely removed Global Messages and Room Messages.
- Removed built-in support for Game Score, including related game settings and GiveScore script command. Users are advised to script their own score counter if they need one.
- Removed support for '[' as a linebreak character in text.
- Added FLAC support for music, speech and sound effects.
Editor:
- Open room project format: rooms are now saved as subfolders in "Rooms" folder, where each component has its own separate file (room data, backgrounds, masks and scripts).
- Support room backgrounds and masks as PNGs.
- Translation sources are now saved in PO format.
- General panel look enhancements.
- Support built-in Base Color Themes that have the custom themes applied over them.
- Game template selection now displays template's description right in the dialog.
- F2 is now a hotkey for editing labels in the Project Tree. "Game statistics" are now displayed by Ctrl + F2.
- Script editor supports "word wrap" mode.
- In General Settings added "Use extended compiler" option that lets to choose a new script compiler for your game (see list of changes in related section below).
- Added BlendMode property to Characters, GUI and Room Objects.
- Added readonly Length property to AudioClips, for the reference.
- Fixed faulty double-click on project items in case user dragged the cursor away.
Compiler:
- The new extended script compiler is available. Almost all of the new Scripting features are only supported when using the new script compiler.
- Optimization to the bytecode generation: same scripts may now work faster at runtime.
Scripting:
- Support for having regular structs inside any structs (regular or managed); there's no nesting limit.
- Support having managed pointers inside managed structs.
- When declaring a pointer to managed struct you may now omit "*" sign.
- When writing struct's function's code you may now omit "this" keyword when addressing current struct's member (variable, attribute or function).
- Support for extender attributes.
- Support for multi-dimensional regular (non-dynamic) arrays. They may have any positive number of dimensions.
- Dynamic arrays now have Length pseudo-attribute used to retrieve their length.
- Global variables may now be declared right after struct's or enum's declaration, between the closing bracket and closing semi-colon.
- Functions now may call any other function from within same script, regardless of their order of declaration.
- Compiler can now evaluate integer or float expressions at compile time whenever result is actually constant and can be calculated at compile time.
- "const" keyword now may be used to define compile-time "int" and "float" constants.
- "readonly" keyword now may be used to declare non-modifiable variables (local or global) and function parameters.
- Added "fallthrough" keyword, which is used to hint that switch's case does not require a break statement. This is only to clarify coder's intent and prevent compiler's warnings.
- Support pre-increment and pre-decrement operators (++x, --x).
- Support bitwise negation operator (~x).
- Support addressing members of the function return values in one expression. This lets chain multiple commands including function calls, e.g. GetObject().MyVariable...and so on.
- Two sequenced string literals ("text" "text") are now automatically concatenated.
Script API:
- Most of the deprecated API is now removed completely, except those that have no equivalent.
- Added SCRIPT_EXT_AGS4 macro which tells whether extended script syntax is supported by the compiler. This may be used to know whether the script is being compiled by the old or new compiler.
- Added SCRIPT_EXT_NESTEDPOINTERS macro which tells whether nested managed structs are supported by the compiler.
- Added Joystick struct, meant to work with joystics and gamepads in script.
- Added BlendMode enum.
- Added Character.BlendMode, GUI.BlendMode, Object.BlendMode, Overlay.BlendMode.
- Added Character.UseRegionTint and Object.UseRegionTint, deprecated Character.IgnoreLighting.
- Added Camera.Rotation, Character.GraphicRotation, GUI.Rotation, Object.GraphicRotation, Overlay.Rotation.
- Added DrawingSurface.BlendImage() and DrawingSurface.BlendSurface() functions.
- AudioChannel.Position and PositionMs no longer return a very large value while skipping cutscene.
- Removed "hasAlphaChannel" param from DynamicSprite.Create() and CreateFromExistingSprite().
- Removed HasAlphaChannel property from DialogOptionsRenderingInfo.
- Removed "transparent" param from Overlay.CreateGraphical() and CreateRoomGraphical().
Engine:
- Support joystick and gamepad input.
- Implemented more accurate Character movement. The movement direction is now more precise and diagonal movement speed no longer may exceed MovementSpeed setting.
- Animated buttons now display flipped frames correctly.
- (possibly) Fixed characters sometimes keep walking animation for a short time after arriving to their destination.
- Added "--print-rtti" command line option which prints script RTTI table to the log.
(RTTI stands for "runtime type information", and is used for handling of certain advanced script features, such as nested managed structs.)
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