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Is there a complete list anywhere of which items need these pages written?

No, i did not prepare this yet. I think anything relevant will do for now, as things may be restructured later.

Also, I've noticed that people here and on discord have commented that there are pages that need screenshots, which seems like an easy thing to create. Is there a list of "needed screenshots" anywhere?

Not in my knowledge.

Here is my attempt at writing a "behavioral" description of inventory items. Some of it may be incorrect or in need of clarification, but this is the extent of my knowledge of how they work:

I've read it, and am afraid that it's written in an overly "encyclopedic" style. I'd propose a more light and regular-human-friendly style for these articles, so to speak.
There are also few incorrect terms used, and incorrect information.
For instance, Inventory items are not a "script object" but a game object, which has a corresponding InventoryItem script class.
Another example, it's not inventory IDs are in array, but pointers to InventoryItem objects are.

One thing that confused me about inventory items--and this may just be the BASS template--but in the custom properties you can set the item "InstantUse" as well which changes the behavior somewhat.  I didn't realize why it affected some inventory items and not others.

All custom properties come from templates, there are no custom properties provided by AGS itself.

Something that I find strange in your example, if you already have Spanish in the game itself, then why do you need a separate Spanish translation?

Good question...maybe this is part of the problem. But if I have to refer to spanish language and this is the default idiom...how must I refer to it?

You pass an empty line:

Code: ags

Game.ChangeTranslation("");

Did you edit the key lines in TRS yourself?

No...but I changed the lines on the dialog, as you can see on the first image i posted....

The translation will not work if the key lines are different from the text in game.
You must do translation Update if you edit or add new lines.
Alternatively, you could edit them by hand, if there are only few modified lines.

But in any case, the key lines must match the game. So if in game's dialog you have "&1 Hola Jerry!!", then in TRS you should have exactly "&1 Hola Jerry!!", not "1: Hola Jerry!!".

Of course... here is:

You do not need to insert numbers there (like "1:", "2:"...), if they are not part of the text.
Did you edit the key lines in TRS yourself?

My default language is spanish in the game.

Something that I find strange in your example, if you already have Spanish in the game itself, then why do you need a separate Spanish translation?

You say it's "english.trs", but in script posted above you have Game.ChangeTranslation("Ingles")?

Another question that I have because I do not know Spanish, what is the default language in your game, the one you have in scripts and editor? Is it not the spanish already?

When you say "dialogues", do you mean a Dialog script and options, or something else? Can you show an example of a dialogue?

Well, I've been waiting for anybody interested in testing this, but it's been too long, so I cancelled the feature merged this into ags4 branch.

Voxes are supposed to be generated along with the built game, inside Compiled/Data, Compiled/Windows etc.

Please always clarify what does "not work properly" mean: you do not hear voices at all, they are from wrong language, anything else?

Which files did you create (what names and extensions exactly), and did you setup the voice numbers properly in the speech text?

On  a side note, this code does not make any sense:

Code: ags

Game.ChangeTranslation("Spanish") == true;

Perhaps you meant to use "if"?

There are number of config settings that are not a part of the save because they do not relate to game progress, but to player's preferences. For example, a player might want to continue same game using another language, or another display mode.

[and the screen stays black permanently....until I press a key or the cursor mouse]

When I test the game and record a game, it is perfectly recorded. If I use these routines to recover one of the saved games, it works too but....it fades-in to black, and the screen stays black permanently....until I press a key or the cursor mouse, so that with a fade-out the correct scene appears and the game continues without problem.
How can I avoid the need to have to press the mouse or a key for the process of restoring a game to be done perfectly?

This is not a normal behavior.

How is your game saved, in which moment exactly and what script do you use?

Do you have any commands in on_event function under eEventRestoreGame?

[Rooms]

@RootBound, hello, thank you for your interest!

I know the editor well enough to at least explain many of the "Built-in Game Features." This is essentially the list of components in the "explore project" window, correct?

Not only, there are objects that may only be created at runtime (like overlays, dynamic sprites, drawing surfaces), and also concepts that do not have a direct representation in the project tree, such as speech, animation, walking (pathfinding).

I'd like to emphasize again that there's a distinction between describing a game feature (behavior) and editing an item in the editor. In my opinion these should be distinct articles.

When I speak about features, I mean an overview of how something works in AGS.

To give couple of very crude examples:

Rooms

A game made in AGS consists of rooms. Rooms are like scenes, and may be used for various purposes: game locations, menus, cutscenes, and so forth. Rooms may have this and that. Characters travel between rooms. Only one room may be loaded and running at a time, - that is decided by where the player character is. Etc etc...

Characters

Character is meant to represent a person in the game (but may have other utilitary uses). Characters can: Speak, Walk, Animate. Character walking involves both moving and animating using current NormalView. Pathfinding is normally done over walkable areas in the room (link to what walkable areas are). Etc etc.

Would I need to have a github account?

Ideally yes, but if you don't want for some reasons, you could post the text elsewhere, except in that case we'd have to manually copy it over to the manual repository (and possibly reformat).

There's an updated version built on top of 3.6.x wip update, may be downloaded here:
https://cirrus-ci.com/task/6132921954729984

Has some performance optimizations and fixes compared to the old one. Also, the log level settings were since removed and log panel now uses the Properties panel instead (you have to select the log panel to make its settings shown).

The log font may be also configured in the Editor preferences (on Advanced tab).

I would also suggest separated panels for game messages and script messages.

I think multiple tabs could be implemented later as an additional enhancement, if really wanted. For the time being we are focusing minimal necessary setup where you may filter message types. There are potentially more message groups than game and script; also if messages of different types are displayed on different panels that might make it more difficult to find out if they are related. So it's something to think over and experiment with before making any actual changes.

Holding the back button and selecting "Toggle keyboard" does make the keyboard appear...for a split second, and then it vanishes just as quickly.  I've tried with both Hacker's Keyboard and the default Samsung keyboard.

I heard it may have something to do with restrictions on newer Android devices, but I don't know if there's anything to that.

I did not know that's a case. Could you tell what are your device specifics? I will open an issue in our issue tracker.

Is there any way to bring up the virtual keyboard when playing AGS games?

It should be brought up by holding "BACK" and choosing "Show Keyboard" in the menu.

I made the suggestions in this section of the forum because I thought it covered them.

This section is more about developing the program itself. It's difficult to say where to post this suggestion, but I would try "Advanced Technical Forum" perhaps. On another hand, if you have an actual idea and plan of a template but need help to create one, you may also try "Recruitment" board to get more people in, like coders or artists.

In any case, I think, it's best to begin with setting up a template "specification". Write down what the template's purpose is, and which features should it include. Then it will become more clear what is necessary to make one, what code and which assets (graphics and others). Maybe someone will be able to help with coding in "Advanced Technical Forum".

[delegated to the users of AGS]

Hello!
I'd like to mentions several things.

1. Anyone can create game templates. "Game template" is simply a AGS project packed up in a file (name.agt), nothing else. In AGS editor you can do "File" -> "Make template from this game". You may do same thing using a stand-alone packing tool. After template is packed, the "name.agt" file may be copied to the Templates folder in the Editor, or "%APPDATA%\Local\AGS\Templates" folder, and it will appear for selection in the "New game" wizard.
There's a forum section for posting templates here: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/modules-plugins-tools/ (although I can barely remember couple of these posted in recent years).
Similar thing can be done to room templates. Yes, rooms may also have templates.
Distributing a new game template along with AGS is mostly a question of download and disk size. If it's a good template useful for many people then we may add one to official distribution. Alternatively, we may create a separate distribution for templates (to save on download size for those who do not need these). But at the same time, nothing prevents someone from creating a template collection of their own, and provide for download.

2. Another option is to make demo game(s), that would demonstrate the basic and advanced features of AGS. This was proposed many times in the past, and here's the most recent thread on this topic: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/adventure-related-talk-chat/crowd-sourced-of-an-open-sourced-ags-example-game-collaboration/

3. The development team of AGS is already quite busy with the AGS itself and short on collaborators; and this was always the case. There are only few people (1-4 depending on a moment) working on it in their spare time. This means that it would be most preferable that the task of creating new templates and demo games were delegated to the users of AGS (the game makers), since they already have good experience in making games, and also may know what the beginners need better.

This is why I believe that this suggestion should not be given to developers of AGS, but to AGS community. Let the community create templates and demo games, and then we may decide how to distribute these "officially", which is a less problem.

@Gilbert or @Dualnames , perhaps this may be stickied and replace the 2.2.0 sticky topic?

Updated version, built on top of the script performance fixes:
https://cirrus-ci.com/task/6166331867791360
New related comment on performance:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/pull/1923#issuecomment-1532781830

A small update, these performance fixes were merged into the dev master branch, and required few fixes already; so the latest version, if anybody wants to try, is this:
https://cirrus-ci.com/task/5080770293792768

(might be still building at the time of me posting this, so if no downloads are available, wait for 15-20 mins)

I also noticed a curious thing: the builds made by our CI server are little faster than the ones I build on my PC (maybe it uses a newer compiler), so final fps stats may be higher by 3-5 fps.


Here are the stats testing the aforementioned "3D space sim" game using the engine builds from CI:
v3.6.0: 65 fps
master branch (3.6.1 update in dev): 88-90 fps
ags4 branch, using classic compiler: 87-88 fps (got slightly slower)
ags4 branch, using new compiler by @fernewelten: 110-111 fps !! (it produces optimized bytecode)

Testing racing game is more difficult because the fps jumps all the time, so I chose the highest values:
v3.6.0: 150 fps
master branch: 210-215 fps
ags4 branch, using classic compiler: 200-210 fps
ags4 branch, using new compiler: 225-235 fps

[won't be a part of 3.6.0 patches]

I'd like to comment on this change:

- Fixed performance regression in the script related to long loops (regression in 3.6.0).

This only fixes a performance regression that happened during 3.6.0 development; this problem may be noticed mainly when doing long "while/for" loops in script.

There's a much more significant performance fix prepared, but it won't be a part of 3.6.0 patches: it modifies some critical parts of the engine and so may require further testing.

I think we might release a 3.6.1 update after some time, when we see that everything is stable again.

In "Perfect Tides" these chat windows were also causing a significant slowdown, seemingly because many dynamic sprites were recreated and/or redrawn, but I did not investigate whether this is caused by the module itself or its misuse in game script.