Messages

[paragraphs]

I was discussing this late at night on Discord, so may have had strange ideas. I will try to explain my confusion with the images.

If you type Arabic text, using google translation for example, this is how the text appears:


In English this sais "I love beaches. The water is warm."
Notice there are 2 sentences. Not only the words & letters inside a sentence are revertse R->L, but also sentences themselves are reverse R->L.

Now, if I put this full text into the AGS script as-is, it will look like this:


Is this how it's supposed to be in script and translation file?

OR, should we require the sentence in the L->R order, and only text R->L? Like:



Now, let's assume that there are paragraphs in this string.

In English this sais: "I love beaches. The water is warm. \n The sun is high. \n"

How do we treat these sections separated by \n? In R->L or L->R order?




In regards to the line-splitting and text wrapping. If everything is treated R->L (sentences are R->L and paragraphs are R->L), then we basically just need to have a reverse splitting algorithm, that is: run the string from back to front and split like that.
That's the easiest solution.


After this there will still be a logical problem of string concatenation, e.g.:

Code: ags

String s ="احب الشواطئ."; // I love beaches.
s = s.Append("الماء الحار."); // The water is warm.
s = s.Append("الشمس عالية."); // The sun is high.

This will be displayed in a wrong order on screen.
But I guess we cannot do anything about it, unless we introduce a R->L aware "String.Concatenate" function?

[last]

This question is partially about syntax and partially about a technical issue in AGS.

There is a number of languages that are written right-to-left (Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, few others).

AGS has a built-in "Right to left" text mode, but it looks like it was meant strictly for ASCII method, and is not fully usable with Unicode texts. The thing is that unicode texts may already be written right-to-left (they may contain control characters for this, if I understand correctly).

The problem with AGS though is that the way it wraps the text assumes the text was originally written left-to-right (in script or translation files). In the Right-to-left mode the engine will wrap the text same way as for left-to-right, but then reverse each line separately.

This does not work at all with "proper" R-to-L Unicode texts. As they already are reversed, the line splitting may result in beginning of the sentence appearing on the last line.

My first thought was that a fix should simply be to revert the order of the split lines instead.
Or, more correctly: do the line splitting by scanning the text in reverse.

But then I started considering things like multiple sentences in the same string, or even multiple paragraphs in the same string, and got very confused.

My question is: supposing you have 2 sentences in, say, Arabic or Persian. How are those 2 sentences are written normally? Is their order also reversed? If yes, then the above fix will work... if not, then it won't work, because you will need to have first sentence arranged first (which may take multiple lines), then the second, and so on.

And then there's a case when you have a number of paragraphs in one string. Obviously, the order of paragraphs must not be reversed. But if a single sentence inside a paragraph is wrapped, then wrapping of that particular sentence will have to be reversed...
In other words, there may be groups of lines wrapped in reverse order, but groups themselves have to be arranged in original order...

So, thinking about this, I was coming to an idea that there's no trivial generic solution here.

Or rather, the only "trivial" generic solution is to write R-to-L languages completely left-to-right in the source texts, and let the engine revert them after splitting in lines.

Without this, the engine would have to parse the text's syntax using punctuation, finding where the sentences are (separated with fullstops), and where the paragraphs are (separated with manual linebreaks).
Well, this is not impossible, but at the same time things like that was not done in the AGS engine before.

Does anybody have ideas on this?

[without changing it]

Oh, if you meant the player issue, it's in a different room's AfterFadeIn function.

Code: ags

function room_AfterFadeIn()
{
  player.Move(40, 185, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);
}

But Move does not run walking animation, only Walk does (unless view is locked using LockView and similar).


In regards to ChangeView, it does not unlock the view from the previous LockView, but apparently may halt current Animation, if one was running.

Code: ags

cRich.ChangeView(21);
cRich.UnlockView();

I suggest changing the order of these commands, to avoid any weirdiness. Also, if 21 is already cRich's normal view, then ChangeView call is not necessary.
Overall, character Animation should be "guarded" by LockView and UnlockView calls. LockView overrides normal view without changing it, and UnlockView releases the locked view, returning the character to its normal view.

Code: ags

cChar.LockView(N);
cChar.Animate(...);
cChar.UnlockView();
// here it will return to its normal walking view automatically

Hmm, another thing that may cause this (i think) is if character was locked for animation, but then not unlocked back (LockView, UnlockView).

Are you certain that you are using Walk and not Move function?

An update: fingers crossed, the saves problem seem to be fixed to some "minimal necessary" degree.
(details are in comments to the ticket https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/pull/1922)

The latest code I wrote there is quite ugly, so I will take couple more days cleaning it up, and testing.

There are still certain things that you may do to managed structs that will break older saves. There may be potential solutions, but not all of these are worth considering at the moment (too much work, and likely not much use on its own).

For example, the biggest break is if you change the order of member variables inside a struct, and pointers will appear at different offsets. This breaks the structs in saves even without pointers, actually.

From a non-artist perspective, the ai-generated art seems like a good source of both placeholder and concept art for ideas. It looks like a randomizer that gathers everything found on the internet and gives you a random and semi-unique mashup. Sort of a kaleidoscope art.

[PS.]

If you're beginner in AGS, I also suggest using "Global Variables" panel in the project tree. It makes creating global vars easier, with the exception of custom types (it can only work with built-in types for the moment).

PS.
Regarding ChatGPT, from what I understand it learns from stuff found on the internet, and then generates the answer by merging common things together. I've seen examples of people asking it to write AGS script, and most times it writes a believable, but not accurate code. It often uses non-existing commands too, probably inventing them based on something found elsewhere. In other words, at this point it reminds a child who tries to imitate what adults do.

A temp build with a fix for above problem:
https://cirrus-ci.com/task/5255564800819200

I suppose I will delay for a week or two before releasing first patch to 3.6.0, in case something else is found.

EDIT: currently planning on early May. There were few fixes made, but nothing too critical so far.

[EDIT:]

Unfortunately, a problem is found in this version already, that was somehow missed earlier.

In short: if you had an object with a DynamicSprite assigned to it, and delete a DynamicSprite in "room leave" event, then the object will be invisible during transition (like fade out). EDIT: this is happening only to Room Objects (not even Characters, for some reason...).

It probably does not matter if your room transition is Instant, or you are scripting fade out yourself.

The problem here is that "room leave" event is called BEFORE the transition (fade out). This is something I did not pay attention to somehow... But apparently, for all those many years, AGS lacked a proper event like "room unload" (to match "room load"), called after the room is faded out and no longer drawn.

Why did it "work" in previous versions: in short - because of some coincidences (it happens alot in AGS).

In full length, with technical explanations: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/issues/1970

I found what seems potentially could be a fix to this in the engine, but will have to make few tests to be certain.

EDIT: The existing workaround is to fade out manually using script commands, before deleting the sprites (while optionally having room transition set to Instant).

In that case, if I need two or more walk-behind regions, only one can be an imported bmp, and the rest must be regions drawn with the AGS drawing tools, right?

You draw all of the walk-behinds on the same bitmap, using different colors.

@AGA thank you,
I noticed one problem: the button remains even though I removed the "in-development version" data (because there's no Beta version currently).

[Engine]

Full version released: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-engine-editor-releases/ags-3-6-0/

FYI there was one extra fix compared to the latest RC11:

Engine
 - Fixed FadeIn/Out and ShakeScreen prevent audio from starting if you started it right prior to them (it was starting afterwards).

[Download AGS 3.6.0 installer]

AGS 3.6.0

Full release number: 3.6.0.47

Download AGS 3.6.0 installer

Download AGS 3.6.0 as a .zip archive

For Editor

Spoiler

VC 2015 redistributable needed for AGS Editor on Windows

Download Color Themes for the Editor

[close]

For Android

Spoiler

AGS Player, suitable for running any compatible AGS game

NOTE: the Editor now includes Android build component letting you prepare your own games for Android

[close]

For Engine/Editor developers

Spoiler

AGS source code central repository

Debug symbols database (for analysing crash dumps)

[close]

Released: 1st April 2023

Previous stable version: AGS 3.5.1 P20 forum thread


This release is brought to you by:

- sonneveld (porting engine to SDL2)
- Alan v. Drake (improvements, fixes)
- Cameron Cawley [ccawley2011] (fixes, improvements to SpriteFont plugin)
- Crimson Wizard (stuff )
- Dominik Mierzejewski (fix)
- Donovan Watteau (fix)
- eri0o (updated Android port, Web port, Editor improvements, etc)
- fernewelten (new fonts outlining, improvements to script compiler, fixes)
- Francesco Ariis (fixes)
- Morgan Willcock (improving templates, help with CI)
- Pablo Navarro [panreyes] (fixes)
- ChamberOfFear (improvements)
- rofl0r (fixes, suggestions)
- Thierry Crozat (fixes, plugin update)
- vga256 (fixes)


Summary

AGS 3.6.0 is another big change to AGS.
First of all, this release presents a SDL2-based engine. For about 2 decades AGS engine was based on Allegro 4 graphic library, which was discontinued somewhere in the early 2010-ies (only received few patches since). There was an intent to move to to Allegro 5 or SDL since, but for various reasons this task was continuously postponed. Now it's done.
Secondly the Editor and Engine now have full Unicode support. This means that you may use any language whatsoever in scripts, object descriptions and custom properties, as well as translations; so long as you also provide proper unicode fonts.
Third, we have finally expanded a list of platforms that the Editor can build for: now this includes Android and Web (Emscripten) port.

There are much more changes and improvements in this release, check out the full list of changes below.
Also, please be sure to read "Upgrading to AGS 3.6" topic in the manual: https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/UpgradeTo36.html




What is new in 3.6.0

Common features:
 - Full Unicode support for all game texts: game properties, scripts, translations, input.
   ASCII/ANSI mode is still working, for backwards compatibility. This may be configured in the game project.
 - Extended sprite compression options: lossless storage optimization for 16- and 32-bit sprites; LZW compression option for sprites in addition to existing RLE compression.
 - GUI controls may now be told to clip their contents, which means that nothing gets drawn outside of their borders (as defined by X, Y, Width, Height properties). The only exception is Sliders, which are more complicated.
 - The historical TTF fonts' "fixup" that altered their height and vertical offset is now optional and works only if backwards compatible option is set.
 - Max number of AudioChannels is now 16 (was 8).
 - Removed game Cursors hard limit (was 20).
 - Increased Room Objects limit to 256 (was 40).
 - Discontinued "Windows Game Explorer" support in both Editor and Engine.

Editor:
 - Editor requires .NET Framework 4.6 to run.
 - Added Android build target support (requires "Android component" installed).
 - Added Web/Emscripten build target support (requires "Web build component" installed).
 - Expanded UI color theme format, support global color options and allow missing entries.
 - Script editor works in unicode mode.
 - Added "Text format" option in General Settings which lets switching between ASCII/ANSI and Unicode (UTF-8) modes. This defines which format the game texts will be written in, when saving the game project and compiling the game.
 - Added "Use old-style keyboard handling" option to the General Settings, which lets select between classic key press handling and new one meant for unicode chars support in scripts.
 - Supports compiling UTF-8 translations. TRS file now has "Encoding" setting that tells how to interpret this TRS text.
 - Added support for building multiple speech voxes, by taking files from the Speech subfolders.
 - Added support for adding custom files into the game package. This is done by assigning a list of directories to "Package custom data folder" option in General Settings.
 - Editor now copies a acsetup.cfg file from the project's root folder (if one is provided by) as a base for generating default config file. Settings from Default Setup will be written over, but other found options won't be removed.
 - Added "Sprite file compression" option in General Settings, replacing "Compress the sprite file" option. The new option allows a selection of compression algorithm used for sprites.
   Currently supported: None, RLE (old default compression) and LZW.
 - Added "Enable sprite storage optimization" option to the General Settings, that permits the editor to repack sprites in a different storage format, reducing their disk size whenever possible. This option may be used alongside with the sprite compression. Note that this does not change how the sprites work in game.
 - Added "GUI controls clip their contents" option to the General Settings.
 - Added "TTF fonts height used in the game logic" option to the General Settings, that makes your game use real font's pixel height when arranging text and text-based UI elements, as opposed to the nominal font's size.
 - Added "Touch to Mouse Emulation", "Touch to Mouse motion mode" and "Display FPS on Screen" to Default Setup. Removed few deprecated options.
 - Added "TTF font adjustment" property to Fonts, as well as to General Settings where it serves as a project default for the new fonts. This property lets you choose between "no changes" and backward compatible TTF fixup meant to keep fonts made for AGS displayed as they were meant to.
 - In the "Import TTF" dialog added a choice to import the size closest to the given pixel height.
 - Fonts now have Auto Outline Style and Auto Outline Thickness properties.
 - Fonts now have a readonly Family Name field, that lets user see the original name of a font they've imported (if available).
 - Added IdleDelay property to Characters that lets you set time needed to pass before IdleView is activated. This is equivalent to the Character.SetIdleView script function.
 - Added Character.IdleAnimationDelay property to let setup idle view's animation speed.
 - Added Cursor.AnimationDelay property to let setup cursor's animation speed.
 - The TextWindow edges now have distinct names in the dropdown list of the property grid.
 - Rooms created from a Blank template will now have default background of a game's resolution.
 - When creating new room objects they will now have their script names set to some default value.
 - Added Room.BackgroundAnimationEnabled property to let have disabled animation on room load.
 - Editor will now create an empty sprite file if one is missing in the game project. Any existing sprite descriptions in the project will be kept, letting user to reimport these from sources.
 - Added "File -> Restore all sprites from sources" menu command.
 - Added "Apply" button on editor's Preferences dialog.
 - In Preferences replaced "Import Color Theme" with a "Open Theme Folder", as a temporary solution for managing theme files.
 - Select script editor's font in the editor's Preferences.
 - Added "Help" option to the editor pane's tab context menu.
 - Upgraded script editor to Scintilla 3.21.1 and ScintillaNET 3.6.3.
 - Cursor's position in script is now displayed on the status bar.
 - Dialog scripts now too can open help topics for keywords or script functions under cursor on F1.
 - Added zoom controls for the Sprite Manager, Character, Cursor, Inventory and View panes.
 - Sprites may now be imported by drag'n'drop into the Sprite manager.
 - In sprite manager's context menu added command "Create source files for all sprites with missing / external sources..."
 - In sprite manager's context menu added (restored) command "Replace sprite using previous files".
   Also made "previous file" remembered consistently whenever a sprite is imported or replaced.
 - In sprite manager's "export all" dialog added "skip if inside project's folder" option.
 - In sprite manager's "export all" dialog added "reset tile settings" option.
 - On the View pane the frames having set delay and linked sound will be now indicated with icons.
 - Editor no longer errors and fails when opening a game project with some script files missing.
 - Editor no longer errors on empty translations when compiling the game.
 - Editor now exports values of the string type Custom Properties to translations.
 - Editor no longer prevents exporting string arguments from Get/SetTextProperty calls to TRS file.
 - Editor now cleanups spritefile on game load, identifying any data not referenced by the project and marking it for deletion.
 - Fixed editor silently enabling all available Build Targets when upgrading a pre-3.4.0 project. This could be very inconvenient as there are several of them supported now.
 - Fixed open folders in the Project Tree were collapsing whenever you create a new subfolder or change an object's name in properties.
 - Fixed editor was not preventing from entering Character's and AudioClip's ScriptName too long for the engine to handle.
 - Fixed Image and View properties in various objects were allowing negative values.
 - Fixed some of the object previews (at least GUI) could crash if user entered a non-existing sprite's number as an Image property.
 - Fixed editor displaying unhandled exception if the script which user is trying to open was missing. Instead it will now open a blank script.
 - Fixed room editor was suggesting to save the modified room even if no changes were made.
 - Fixed a recently imported sprite could be displayed incorrectly scaled up in the room editor for high-resolution games, if the "Allow relative asset resolutions" was enabled in General Settings, and the sprite 0 had "Resolution" property set to "Low".
 - Fixed program crash occuring on sprite's import if failed to open a source file for any reason.
 - Fixed View animation preview stopping at frame 100 (if loop contains over 100 frames).
 - Fixed going to a "find all" result in dialog script did not highlight the found text, and sometimes did not scroll down to it.
 - Fixed "Goto Definition" not working for Enums and Defines (macros).
 - Fixed script autocomplete sometimes was not updated right after opening a script.
 - Fixed script autocomplete for function calls was mistreating commas in strings and inline comments as if they were separating actual parameters.
 - Fixed script autocomplete was not displaying members of extended structs if the parent struct was declared in another header.
 - Fixed script autocomplete was not working for enum names.
 - Fixed structs and enums were not highlighted if declared inside a script's body.
 - Fixed in dialogs numbers inside names were incorrectly highlighted as numeric values.
 - Fixed matching or mismatching braces were not highlighted consistently at all times in regular and dialog scripts.
 - Fixed crash occuring when user was trying to set breakpoint on the very last line in script.
 - Fixed few editor panes were not opening correct help topics in F1.
 - (Possibly) fixed error message text in the runtime error popup could be drawn partially beyond the popup borders if the user's system has text scaling option enabled.

Compiler:
 - Support unicode character literals.
 - Support using float literals when defining default values for function arguments.
 - Support hexadecimal number literals (e.g. "0xABCDEF").
 - Removed 500-characters line limit.

Script API:
 - Expanded `on_key_press` callback, now supports two parameters: key code and key modifier flags.
 - In the new key handling mode `on_key_press` is called for each actual key press;
   e.g. combinations like Ctrl+Z will result in two `on_key_press` calls, one with eKeyCtrlLeft and second with eKeyZ; added support for "NEW_KEYINPUT_API" macro in scripts.
 - Implemented new `on_text_input(int ch)` callback which is called when the engine receives a printable character. This callback is essential for handling unicode chars in script.
 - Similarily, expanded `dialog_options_key_press` with the third `mod` argument, and implemented `dialog_options_text_input` callback for receiving unicode chars during the custom dialog options state.
 - Implemented `dialog_options_close` callback which is called when custom dialog options are removed from the screen. This allows to perform any required cleanup.
 - Added eEventEnterRoomAfterFadein event for `on_event` callback, which corresponds to "enter after fade-in" room event.
 - Added eKey constants for Shift, Control and Alt keys.
 - Added eKeyMod enum for key modifiers constants.
 - String.AppendChar(), ReplaceChar() functions and String.Chars[] property are now working with the unicode characters.
 - String.Format("%c") specifier will now be able to print unicode characters.
 - Extended Button.Animate() to have blocking style, direction and starting frame parameters, thus matching other Animate commands (of Character and Object).
 - Extended all Animate() commands by adding "volume" parameter, that defines volume of the frame-linked sounds for the duration of this animation.
 - Added Character.AnimationVolume, defining volume of the frame-linked sounds.
 - Added Character.IdleAnimationDelay to let control idle view's animation speed.
 - Character.Scaling is no longer limited by a range of 5-200 (now supports 1-32767).
 - Hotspot.Name and Object.Name may now be set in script.
 - Added Object.ManualScaling and Object.Scaling.
 - Deprecated Object.IgnoreScaling (use Object.ManualScaling instead).
 - Object.SetView default loop & frame values are now 0 (was -1 which retained loop and frame indexes from the previous view, often unexpected to the user).
 - DrawingSurface.DrawImage() and DrawSurface() now support optional source rect coordinates.
 - Added functions for getting DrawingSurface of room masks: GetDrawingSurfaceForWalkableArea(), GetDrawingSurfaceForWalkbehind(), Hotspot.GetDrawingSurface(), Region.GetDrawingSurface().
 - Added new delay parameter to Mouse.ChangeModeView() to let control cursor's animation speed.
 - Added Game.ChangeSpeechVox() and Game.SpeechVoxFilename, support switching the voice-over pack.
 - Added Mouse.AutoLock property that toggles automatic mouse lock inside the game window.
 - Added Room.Exists().
 - Added System.Log().
 - Added SkipWait() that skips any active Wait() function.
 - Added WaitMouse() to complement existing Wait functions.
 - Added InputType enum which defines input devices and lets create their sets as flags.
 - Added WaitInput(), a more generic and extendable function that accepts a combination of flags telling which input types to wait for.
 - All Wait* functions now may have infinite timeout if you pass a negative timeout parameter.
 - All Wait* functions now return the reason they were skipped: a combination of InputType flag and a respective key or button code.
 - Added GUIControl.Transparency property.
 - Added Overlay.CreateRoomGraphical and CreateRoomTextual. Use these two functions to create "room overlays": that is - overlays that display a sprite inside the room, sorted among other room objects, characters and walk-behinds.
 - Added readonly Overlay.InRoom property that tells if this is a room or screen overlay.
 - Extended Overlay.CreateGraphical() with a new "clone" parameter that tells whether to assign a sprite index, or make a sprite's copy owned exclusively by this overlay. The former will save program memory but make overlay update if the sprite is edited later. The latter is meant primarily for backwards compatibility.
   Overlay.CreateRoomGraphical has the same param.
 - Added Overlay.Graphic property that lets you change overlay's sprite after it's created.
 - Added Overlay.Width and Height properties, that let you freely scale existing Overlay.
 - Added readonly Overlay.GraphicWidth and GraphicHeight properties that let read original overlay's graphic size, as not all overlays hold a sprite reference (e.g. textual overlays).
 - Added Overlay.Transparency property.
 - Added Overlay.ZOrder property that lets you sort Overlays among themselves and other objects in the same "game layer": screen overlays are sorted among GUI, while room overlays are sorted among room objects, characters and walk-behinds.
 - Added Speech.TextOverlay and Speech.PortraitOverlay for accessing blocking speech overlay and portrait overlay respectively.
 - Added Game.BlockingWaitSkipped which tells the result of the last blocking wait skipping, also including result of the blocking speech skipping.
 - SkipSpeechStyle now supports eSkipNone mode; when used it will disable any kind of skipping, such speech can be only skipped by a direct command from script.
 - Extended Screen.ScreenToRoomPoint() with an optional "restrictToViewport" argument, which lets to choose whether tests over empty place result in conversion through the default viewport or a null pointer.
 - Added AudioClip.PlayOnChannel().
 - Added AudioChannel.Pause() and Resume() functions, and IsPaused property.
 - Added AudioChannel.SeekMs(), complementing PositionMs (as the Seek() function interprets position differently depending on the audio format).
 - PlayVideo() now supports an option to play both game's and video's audio track simultaneously.
 - Added File.WriteRawInt() to complement ReadRawInt().
 - File paths in script now support $DATA$ token, which tells to read files from the game package. This only works for read operations. Functions that support this token currently are:
   File.Open(), DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile(), ListBox.FillDirList().
 - Debug(2, 0) command that displayed walkable areas is superceded by Debug(2, n), where "n" is a mask type: 0 - none, 1 - hotspots, 2 - walkbehinds, 3 - walkable areas, 4 - regions. This command also works as a toggle switch, calling it with the same mask index will turn it off.
 - Debug(5, n) command that displayed character's walk paths now also works as a toggle switch.

Engine:
 - New SDL2-based backend for graphics, audio and input.
 - Hqx graphic filters discontinued (could be temporary).
 - Windows-only DirectMedia video playback discontinued (could be temporary).
   Only OGG/OGV videos are kept supported at this point.
 - Support resizing game window on desktop systems.
 - Support "borderless full-screen window" mode in addition to the real (exclusive) fullscreen.
 - Support for switching vertical sync at runtime with Direct3D/OpenGL renderers. Also enable vsync in windowed mode too.
 - Unicode (UTF-8) text support: engine can now switch between ASCII and UTF-8 text mode. This is controlled by both game's OPT_GAMETEXTENCODING setting and translation's "Encoding" setting: they tells whether to interpret game texts as UTF-8 or ASCII/ANSI.
 - Support optional translation's "GameEncoding" setting: it hints the original game's codepage to help with their conversion. This is mostly meant for translating existing older (ANSI) games.
 - Engine now supports using real pixel height of the TTF fonts when arranging text and UI elements on screen; using nominal import size of the font is used as a compatible mode for the old games.
 - Also supports separate "normal" and backward compatible "fixup" modes when initializing TTF fonts, letting to display both common TTFs and ones made specifically for AGS in the past to display as they were meant to be.
 - Supports scripts using functions and variables from any other scripts, regardless of the script module order in the project.
 - Removed limit of simultaneous Button animations.
 - Removed limit of Character followers.
 - Removed Overlay limit.
 - Character.SetWalkSpeed() is no longer restricted by an arbitrary limit of 50.
 - Process character's idle view based on real game speed, not hardcoded 40 fps.
 - Improved file writing times (e.g. when doing a game save) by using buffered file stream. Initial tests showed 50% faster file writing.
 - Engine now renders GUI controls as separate textures when using hardware accelerated renderers. This may significantly improve performance in the high-resolution games and games with large number of GUI elements on screen.
 - Engine now shares the video texture data for all game objects on screen sharing same sprite. This improves performance in case there are multiple objects which use same image.
 - Various performance optimizations for both raw drawing and texture updates (Direct3D/OpenGL).
 - Engine now ensures that in threaded audio mode the AudioChannel's state only changes once the game is updated, and not while the game script is running. This prevents situations when the clip could begin playing before all properties are set in script, or when AudioChannel's properties' values (such as Position) could change while running a game script.
 - 24-bit wav PCM support, comes with the new sound library.
 - File.ReadRawLineBack() now always reads full line, and not limited to 200 characters anymore.
 - Debug displays, such as showing room mask and character walk paths, are now implemented as non-blocking translucent overlays, allowing you to keep playing the game while they are on.
 - Implemented debug key controls for calling a built-in save and restore game dialogs. These controls have to be set in user config as "save_game_key" and "restore_game_key" in "[override]" category. These may be used by testers if the game is missing a save function or one is bugged.
 - Engine now supports loading compiled scripts as separate files packed along with the game, along with those embedded into the main game data or inside room files.
 - Engine no longer bails out with error if the chosen translation cannot be loaded on startup.
 - When reporting script errors, engine will print callstack for all the active script "threads": for example, if there's Wait() function called and error happened in repeatedly_execute_always, then it will print both actual error's location, and Wait() call's location.
 - Engine config now has graphic modes defined as a simplier string options: "[graphics] fullscreen" for the fullscreen mode setup, and "[graphics] window" for the windowed.
   Fullscreen option can explicitly define a "borderless full-screen window" mode.
 - Added "emul_mouse_mode" and "emul_mouse_relative" options to config in "[touch]" category.
 - Added "cache_size" and "stream_threshold" options to config in "[sound]" category, they setup the rules for sound caching and choosing whether to load a clip fully into mem or stream one.
 - Added "load_latest_save" and "show_fps" options to config in "[misc]" category.
 - Added "background" option to config in "[misc]" category, that defines the starting run-in-background (aka multitasking) mode (may later be changed by SetMultitaskingMode()).
   Added "--background" command line option for the same purpose.
 - Added "--sdl-log" command line option for setting up SDL2 library output verbosity. The engine log config now has a new "sdl" group meant for SDL2 messages.
 - Support "--user-conf-dir" command-line arg (and "user_conf_dir" config option) superceding "--localuserconf"; the new option directly tells the location of user config file.
 - Path related command-line and config options, - such as "shared_data_dir", "user_data_dir" and "user_conf_dir", now support $GAMENAME$ token in path which is resolved to the game's title.
 - Added "--clear-cache-on-room-change" command-line arg (and similar config option).
 - Don't error when DrawingSurface.DrawImage has bad transparency parameter (warning instead).
 - Don't error when detecting bad format in File.Read* functions (warning instead).
 - Added stubs for agsshell plugin (a contemporary cross-platform variant of ags_shell).
 - Added stubs for agsappopenurl plugin.
 - Fixed potential crashes if a room-related API function has been called in "game_start"; this is achieved by having a dummy room placeholder object. Still results of such calls are undefined and should not be relied upon.
 - Fixed potential crash on room load if the walkable area mask contained color values above the supported range.
 - Fixed dialog script's "goto-previous" command not working if used from the first sub-topic run using "goto-dialog" (a very-very old bug).
 - Fixed AGS_EngineInitGfx plugin callback was not called during OpenGL renderer initialization.
 - Fixed Direct3D/OpenGL renderers were displaying plugin's raw drawings in a wrong position in the scrolling rooms, if the drawing was done on AGSE_PRESCREENDRAW or AGSE_POSTROOMDRAW events.
 - Fixed overlay may fail to be created sometimes, if previously another overlay had been forcefully removed when changing rooms (this is an ancient bug which existed for many years).
 - Fixed ListBox.RowCount reporting 0 if called before the control was displayed once.
 - Fixed GetTextWidth would still return a size of an outline for an empty text string.
 - Fixed text may be misaligned in gui controls, as its outline thickness is not counted.
 - Fixed some TTF fonts could be cut at the bottom when the speech is displayed.
 - Fixed scheduled sound fadeout effect was not cancelled by skipping a cutscene.
 - Fixed OGV Theora videos positioned incorrectly if they have certain sizes or aspect ratios.
 - Fixed game fps sped up if SetGameSpeed() is called repeatedly in game script.
 - Fixed game not reacting to system close commands when stuck in script, which made it impossible
   to close the "hanging" game by usual means (other than terminating the process).

Engine Plugin API:
 - Added IAGSEngine::GetGameInfo() function which returns information about the game, such as its title and GUID.
 - Added new render callback AGSE_POSTROOMDRAW, for handling drawing inside the room above all room objects.
 - Added IAGSFontRenderer2 interface, expanding the original font renderer interface, improving font plugins support.
 - Added ReplaceFontRenderer2() and NotifyFontUpdated() functions.

Compatibility:
 - Fallback to the first loop with frames if current character's loop does not have any.
 - Use the dummy frame if current character's speech view loop does not have any.
 - Ignore character having view/loop with no frames while it's not in the current room.
 - Legacy behavior of MoveCharacterBlocking's return value.
 - Fixed walkable area's continuous scaling was broken for high-res rooms in old games.
 - In pre-3.* games force player to walkable area after changing rooms, this is to emulate an unintentional effect created by the old engines.
 - Fixed pre-3.4.1 anti-aliased TTF fonts display (their vertical position was broken).
 - For pre-3.5.0 games support old behavior of coincidental dynamic sprite replacement on GUI backgrounds (and few other places) without explicit assignment; that is - when the new DynamicSprite is created right after deleting an old one.
 - Support Label.TextAlignment with legacy alignment constants for pre-3.5.0 games made with the custom engine from "Clifftop Games".
 - Support native resolution hack for games made with "Clifftop Games" custom engine, where 640x400 games are run as 640x360.

Android:
 - Rewrote universal AGS game launcher/player using up-to-date Google guidelines. The former "launcher" is now called "AGS Player".
 - Implemented single game project template meant for building your own signed APK.
 - Implemented two touch-to-mouse control scheme (selectable in config), for one finger emulating LMB only, and for two fingers emulating LMB and RMB.
 - Support relative motion speed setting for touch-to-mouse emulation.
 - In AGS Player added "Browse" button to the game folder selection, which opens default system file picker.
 - AGS Player now searches for games recursively, in all the subfolders.
 - AGS Player now has preference button per each game, which opens individual game's settings.

OSX:
 - OpenGL renderer is now supported on MacOS.

Web / Emscripten:
 - Initial port release.

Windows:
 - Installer will create program links with three-digit version in the name.
 
Plugins:
 - Added SpriteFont plugin to the list of builtins, for ports that use ones.
   SpriteFont plugin is updated to support custom "Clifftop Games" font variants.

WinSetup:
 - Added "Fullscreen as borderless window" checkbox.
 - Remade sound options to reflect the move to the new audio system in the engine.




Known issues

* Although Unicode text is supported overall, some languages may still not be printed correctly automatically. Firstly, those that require "letter linking", such as Arabic or Persian, do not have the proper linking on its own. This may be worked around using special text converters and fonts. Another issue is that texts printed right-to-left in the source (where print direction is done using Unicode's control characters) are not wrapped correctly and may require manual placement of line breaks, or scripting their split in game.
* MIDI no longer plays on its own on Windows. For MIDI you (and your players) must install "sound banks" (also known as "sound font"). Please refer to this article: https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/MIDI-playback.html
* AudioChannel.Position and AudioChannel.Seek do not work for MIDI and MOD sounds. Try sticking to PositionMs and SeekMs for now.
* There are reports about Direct3D not being able to restore the fullscreen mode after alt+tabbing occasionaly.





Thanks to everyone who contributed to and tested this version!

I might be wrong, but I believe this is your only option, because that is what you are in fact trying to do: a dialog system where you pick inventory items as responses is pretty much the archetypal example of custom dialog options.

Theoretically, one could use regular dialogs, with an option to "select item" which starts a custom GUI, and then restarts a previous dialog.

But, since this also may be useful in other situations, the String variables may be printed like:

Code: ags

Display(LookKey);

Or, using "formatting":

Code: ags

Display("%s", LookKey);

notice the %s command, it means "put string there".

More about formatting:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/StringFormats.html

In this particular case you don't need to use global variables at all, you may just do

Code: ags

Display("It's a red key");

We also have this list of obsolete script commands, with suggested replacements, it may also be useful when working with old projects:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/ObsoleteScriptAPI.html

[Download AGS 3.5.1 installer]

AGS 3.5.1 - Patch 20

Full release number: 3.5.1.27

Download AGS 3.5.1 installer

Download AGS 3.5.1 as a .zip archive

For Editor

Spoiler

VC 2015 redistributable needed for AGS Editor on Windows

Download Dark UI Theme for the editor

[close]

For Android

Spoiler

Android launcher (APK signed with Debug key), suitable for running any compatible AGS game

Native engine libraries, for making your own signed APKs

[close]

For Engine/Editor developers

Spoiler

AGS source code central repository

Debug symbols database (for analysing crash dumps)

[close]

Released: 29th March 2023

Previous stable version: AGS 3.5.0 P10 forum thread


This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v. Drake
- Crimson Wizard
- Donovan Watteau (fix for big-endian systems)
- eri0o
- fernewelten (fixes)
- James Duong (implemented "--console-attach" option for Windows)
- Morgan Willcock
- Nick Sonneveld
- rofl0r
- Pablo Navarro (fixes)
- Thierry Crozat (bug fixing)
- vga256 (bug fixing)



Summary

3.5.1 is a minor update after 3.5.0, which contains mostly utility additions, fixes and perfomance improvements.


Changes in the Patch 20:

Engine:
- Fixed AudioClip.Play allowing to place clips on a crossfade channel in general case; there's still a backward-compatible case where it's allowed to do so for audio types with reserved channels that exceed the normal channel limit. (Regression since 3.5.1 Patch 11)


Changes in the Patch 19:

Engine:
- Fixed System.Volume is not correctly applied after restoring the save. (Regression since at least 3.4.0)


Changes in the Patch 18:

Engine:
- Fixed background speech and textual overlays may disable GUI when being continuously created in repeatedly_execute* kind of functions. (Regression since previous patch).


Changes in the Patch 17:

Editor:
- Fixed GUI.Visible property was resetting to false when PopupStyle is switched to Modal.

Engine:
- Performance improvement in Direct3D/OpenGL renderers, related to plugins which subscribe to render events.
- Fixed renderer error occuring if room background frames are of different sizes.
- Fixed software renderer may have an unpainted black line at the bottom, if there's a GUI or Overlay positioned partially offscreen.
- Fixed GUI buttons could retain mouse-over pic after interface is disabled then enabled (this is a regression since recent patch).
- Fixed crash occuring when user creates too many Overlays in script; will report a scripting error instead.
- Fixed memory leak occuring when the TTF font is drawn partially outside the DrawingSurface.
- Fixed Parser.Said() could lead to a program crash in case there are space-separated words following the comma (e.g. "climb,get in bed").
- Fixed crash occuring if a plugin tried to call SetVirtualScreen().

Plugins:
- Fixed SnowRain plugin drawing particles only in 320x200 bounds.


Changes in the Patch 16:

Editor:
- Fixed autocomplete crashing the editor if there was an import declared with type and variable having identical names, and user tries to type that variable's name and a dot to access its members.
- Fixed newly created Views taking free IDs in the middle of the list in random order instead of a straight one (after you previously deleted some Views).

Engine:
- Added missing "DrawSprite" function for "agsblend" plugin stubs.
- Fixed loading pre-3.5.0 games on big endian systems.
- Fixed GUI buttons not displaying the mouse-over image if the interface state was toggled to enabled state while the mouse was over the button.

Updated the manual with certain fixes and corrected examples of using Camera and Viewport structs.


Changes in the Patch 15:

Editor:
- Fixed crash that could occur when changing View's ID to an unused number in the middle.
- Fixed comments and string literals were styled incorrectly in dialog scripts.
- Fixed unterminated string literals in script were not considered as errors when processing scripts for translation update and autonumbering of speech lines, leading to wrong results.
- Fixed Editor was updating translation file even if errors were found while scanning the scripts, which could cause a TRS corruption.
- Fixed Editor could overwrite changes done manually to TRS while the editor is open and if you run a translation update right after.
- Fixed potential program crash on exit in case an editor's plugin has mistakes in "shutdown" callback. Instead editor will report a component's error, but still close properly after.

Script API:
- Removed a rule that Viewport and Camera with ID 0 can't be deleted.


Changes in the Patch 14:

Editor:
- Do not error when compiling a 256 colors game if Direct3D or OpenGL are selected as a default graphics driver (display a warning instead).
- Fixed crash when trying to import pre-2.60 game projects.


Changes in the Patch 13:

Engine:
- Fixed room object does not update its texture if it had a dynamic sprite assigned to it, and that sprite was unassigned, modified or recreated with same ID, and then reassigned again, - all within the same game frame.
- Fixed normal font renderer is not reinitialized correctly in the engine if a plugin uses IAGSEngine::ReplaceFontRenderer(), passing original renderer's pointer (which it received from the previous ReplaceFontRenderer call).


Changes in the Patch 12:

Engine:
- Fixed GUI textual controls don't redraw when the game translation changes until player clicks on GUI (regression since previous 3.5.1 updates).
- Fixed multitasking mode persisting if the game was switched from windowed to fullscreen mode (even though it's not supposed to work in fullscreen).


Changes in the Patch 11:

Editor:
- Fixed batch sprite export with "Set exported file as sprite source" option was assigning new source paths without file extension.

Engine:
- Perfomance fix: GUIs changing Transparency or Visible state should not redraw their surface.

Compatibility:
- Allow AudioClip.Play to to place clips on a crossfade channel, which is normally unaccessible from script. This prevents errors in some games that relied on this behavior.


Changes in the Patch 10:

Engine:
- Fixed crash when visible viewport does not have any linked camera.
- Fixed ListBox.FillSaveGameList() may include save slots with negative slot number (e.g. when the save file has "*.-01" extension).
- Fixed potential crash after failed RunAGSGame() call.
- Fixed search for the game data by GUID when restoring a save belonging to another game;
  this was implemented in 3.5.1, but appeared to not work correctly.


Changes in the Patch 9:

Editor:
- Removed restriction on max dialog topics in the project. The dialog limit in the engine was removed in 3.4.1, but remained in the Editor by oversight.
- Fixed Audio Clip items in the project tree not displaying their IDs right after being renamed.

Compiler:
- Fixed crash occuring when compiler tries to report "Already referenced name as import" error.

Engine:
- Added "--translation" and "--no-translation" command-line arguments.


Changes in the Patch 8:

Engine:
- Clearer error messages for Get/SetProperty functions.
- Fixed PlayFlic() command fails to start the video (regression in 3.5.1).
- Fixed DrawingSurface.DrawSurface() not applying transparency parameter correctly if the drawn surface has alpha channel.
- Fixed OVERHOTSPOT is not updated immediately when character's name changes while cursor is above that character.

Templates:
- In BASS template fixed right click not dropping currently selected item if cursor was hovering over another item.


Changes in the Patch 7:

Editor:
- Added "Layout -> Reset to Defaults" menu command.
- Editor will now reset panel layout to default state if loading layout fail for any reason.
- Default config is now saved also when the game is run in debug mode (F5). This ensures that the test run is using the latest Default Setup, if the user's config has not been created yet.
- Editor will now display an error if user tried to reserve too many channels for audio types.
- Fixed Editor failing to start if user preferences file is corrupted.
- Fixed "Use old-style custom dialog options API" was not set when importing pre-3.4.0 projects.
- Fixed comboboxes' drop-down arrows were not painted with the right color from a color theme.

Engine:
- Fixed program crash occuring if the game reserved too many channels for audio types.
- Fixed potential crash occuring when player loads a save made in a multi-frame room, but the room was since edited and no longer has as many frames.
- Fixed character may have incorrect Frame (property) values while turning.


Changes in the Patch 6:

Editor:
- Added line numbers in the dialog script editor.
- Fixed Dialog script loosing changes if the pane is closed or redocked.
- Fixed controls arrangement on the Dialog pane getting broken when it's redocked.

Engine:
- Fixed filepaths in scripts that have backslashes ('\') fail on non-Windows systems.
  All the (script) File functions will now convert backslashes in filepaths into forward slashes for compatibility.
- Fixed engine was still creating standard directories for game saves and data, even if user provided the custom paths for these.
- Fixed TextBox control crashing the game if it's empty and player presses Backspace.
- Fixed controls on a fully transparent GUI were not interactive (this is an original AGS behavior, which was unintentionally changed in 3.5.0 by mistake).

Compatibility:
- When running 3.5.0 games, treat fully transparent GUI as non-interactable.
  In AGS transparent GUIs may be still interacted with, but 3.5.0 introduced an unintentional (and undocumented) change to this, which was reverted in 3.5.1.

Android:
- Support global engine's config file when the game is run from the Launcher: it's located in the AGS games' parent directory, same place where android.cfg is.

WinSetup:
- Added "Custom game shared data path" to complement "Custom save path" option.


Changes in the Patch 5:

Contained no changes and was a formal re-release with only fixed program build instructions for Linux.


Changes in the Patch 4:

Editor:
- Fixed swapping of inventory item's numeric ID could lead to errors.
- Fixed crash when importing pre-3.* games with multiple script modules.
- Renamed "Enforce object-based scripting" setting to "Enforce post-2.62 scripting". This is for clarity.

Compiler:
- Fixed potential memory corruption when user script reaches max nested if/else blocks.

Engine:
- Also tell module name and approximate source line when reporting script import errors for the variables and local functions.


Changes in the Patch 3:

Editor:
- Fixed sprite file over 2 GB could not be loaded (regression since the last patch).

Engine:
- Further improvement to GUI perfomance: don't redraw GUI when the mouse cursor is hovering over or interacting with controls not leading to an actual visual change.
- Fixed ListBox items could become unaccessible if its font or height is changed leading to a disabled scrollbar.


Changes in the Patch 2:

Engine:
- Fixed speech lipsync getting disabled after loading another game with RunAGSGame().
- Fixed MOD/XM clips fail to play (regression).
- Fixed certain OGV videos fail to play (regression).
- Fixed software renderer was not updating game screen correctly when running a game with legacy "letterboxed" feature (regression).


Changes in the Patch 1:

Editor:
- Fixed script compiler sometimes was not specifying actual Dialog number when reporting errors in the dialog scripts.

Engine:
- Fixed Game.TranslationFilename always returning empty string (regression).
- Fixed GUI controls which were toggled from disabled to enabled state not responding to the mouse clicks until the mouse is moved (regression).
- Fixed OpenGL did not apply a Linear filter when "Render sprites in screen resolution" option is off.


What is new in 3.5.1

Editor:
- Added "Attach game data to exe" option to General Settings. This lets you to package game data separately from the game.exe (only important on Windows at the moment).
- Deprecated "Limit display mode to 16-bit" property in Runtime Setup as it's no longer used by the engine.
- Display aspect ratio in game resolution dialog.
- Implemented classic Color Picker dialog for the Color type values in the property grid, instead of the default one which does not allow user-defined colors.
- Improved tab switching performance for script windows.
- Editor will now enforce full game rebuild after upgrading an older project, this ensures that all scripts are recompiled with the new version rules.
- Fixed room lists in property editor were not updated after room number is changed.
- Fixed importing pre-3.* projects broken by incorrect assignment of "Game file name" property.
- Fixed importing Characters and GUI without sprites still created empty sprite folders.
- Fixed crash when exporting/importing Characters with no Normal View.
- Fixed translation compiler did not correctly save some of the escaped sequences, such as "\n".

Scripting:
- Implemented correct parsing of a "const string" function return type.
- Fixed implementing imported functions was forbidden in the room scripts.

Script API:
- Added GUI.Shown readonly property that tells whether GUI is active on screen. This is primarily for GUIs with "Popup At Y" style, because they hide themselves regardless of Visible property. Note that since 3.5.0 GUI.Visible only tells a script-set value.
- File.Open() now supports $CONFIGFILE$ tag which will try to open user config file for reading or writing regardless of where config is located on disk.
- Added System.SaveConfigToFile() which writes current engine settings to the user config file. Only the options that can be changed at runtime are written back at the moment.
- GetTranslation() now returns "const string" (was "string"). This is to prevent modifying returned string using old-style string functions, such as StrCat(), as this string may be allocated in the internal engine memory for its own use.

Engine:
- Support loading audio and video from data packages larger than 2 GB.
- Improved game data loading times by introducing buffered file stream. Initial tests showed 3-4 times faster file reading.
- Improved game perfomance by not reupdating all of the GUIs each time anything changes, instead only affected GUI will be updated each time.
- Some improvement to general script perfomance.
- Some improvement to script Dictionary and Set types perfomance.
- Room Object's Graphic property now can be assigned a sprite with index over 32767 and up to 65535. This restriction is due to internal data format, which cannot be fully fixed without breaking compatibility with plugin API. This may still be worked around by assigning a View, as View's frames may contain sprites of any index available.
- Similarily, Object's View, Loop and Frame can now be assigned a value over 32767 and up to 65535; not that this was ever an issue...
- Removed arbitrary limit of 1000000 dynamic array elements (now supports over 2 billion).
- Dialogs with no enabled options left will be now stopped, instead of raising script error.
- Engine will not longer quit the game when failing to write a save, but simply display an error on screen (...why this was a thing in the first place?!).
- When restoring a save engine will now try to match game pack by GUID rather than using exe/pack name. This resolves potential problems when game package may have different name in distribution to another system. Also makes saves in multi-game collections more reliable.
- In Debug game mode allow to toggle infinite FPS mode (prior it could not be turned off).
- Expanded text parser error messages for easier debugging.
- Adjusted all the command-line options to have consistent prefix convention, where all full-name options must be preceded by double-dash, and one-letter options by single dash.
- Added "--localuserconf" command and similar global config option which tells engine to read and write user config in the game's directory rather than using standard platform path. Game dir must be writeable for this to work.
- Added "--conf" command which forces engine to read only explicit config file on startup.
- Added "--user-data-dir" and "--shared-data-dir" commands for setting save game directory and shared app data directory from command line (this corresponds to existing options in config).
- Fully configurable log output (in both game config and command line) allows to set up which message types and groups are printed by which output methods (sinks), including: file, system console, in-game console. "warnings.log" is now created only if file log was not requested by user.
- Added "--log-" set of command line options for setting up log output.
- Added "--tell-filepath" option for printing known engine's and game's file locations.
- Added "--tell-gameproperties" option for printing some of the game's general settings.
More information on log config and --tell commands currently may be found in following text file: OPTIONS.md
This has to be added to the manual eventually.
- Support proper lookup for Allegro 4 library resources (such as its own config and digital MIDI patches) in the game directory.
- Engine will no longer precreate directories for common files: saves, user config, shared files and so forth, - before actually having to write these. This ensures that no new directories are created on your disk without actual need. Also this fixed a problem that could happen if someone deleted e.g. a game's save directory while game was running.
- Fixed running game from another directory by passing its relative filename as command-line argument: in this case engine was incorrectly using its own directory to search for external game data, opening files for reading by script command, and so on.
- Fixed some of the engine's own hotkeys (such windowed/fullscreen mode toggle) not working during certain skippable game states.
- Fixed overlay was set to wrong position if it were using TextWindow gui and either its text or X, Y properties got changed.
- Fixed crash occuring when the speech is using text window gui with zero Padding and the speech text is an empty line.
- Fixed characters and room objects were not updating their looks if their current graphic was a Dynamic Sprite, and that sprite was modified with ChangeCanvasSize, CopyTransparencyMask, Crop, Flip, Resize, Rotate or Tint function.
- Fixed Views' frames keeping reference to deleted Dynamic Sprites causing crashes. Now they will be reset to dummy sprite 0 for safety.
- Fixed engine crash when button's graphic is set to sprite out of range.
- Fixed animated cursor's normal graphic reappearing in between animation frames if mouse mode is being repeatedly reassigned, for example in rep-exec script.
- Fixed certain interactions did not work with GUI if it was made fully transparent.
- Fixed ListBox.FillSaveGameList() search pattern, it included files which contain save filename pattern but do not exactly match; for example: "agssave.001_".
- Fixed engine was ignoring audio files in game directory when running games which use old audio system.
- Fixed crash in Direct3D and OpenGL renderers that occured if game uses a plugin that performs software drawing on screen, and one of the rooms is smaller than the game's resolution.
- Fixed Direct3D was assigning wrong fullscreen refresh rate sometimes, slowing alt-tabbing.
- Fixed "--test" mode was lost upon restoring a save.

Engine Plugin API:
- Added IAGSEngine::GetRenderStageDesc() function which returns current render stage parameters. As of this version these parameters include 3 transformation matrixes, allowing any 3D render plugin to stay compliant to engine's scene rendering.

Compatibility:
- Fixed engine was trying to read unnecessary data when loading pre-2.72 games.
- Fixed "upscale" mode for old games (was broken in 3.5.0). Also engine will now try to detect if "upscale" mode wanted by reading old config options (if they are present).
- Fixed GUI.Visible not returning expected values for GUIs with "Popup At Y" style in pre-3.5.0 games, breaking some older games logic.
- Fixed potential buffer overflow when reading pre-3.1.0 games with old dialog script texts.
- Fixed engine was applying player's position too early when ChangeRoom was called for 2.72 and earlier games, which could result in wrong placement in the new room if the character was walking right before the transition.

Android:
- Corrected game scanning in AGS launcher, now it will work consistently with the desktop ports, and detect any compatible game data files named "*.ags" or "*.exe".

OSX:
- When looking for game files engine will no longer use hardcoded filename, will search for any compatible pack file instead.

Windows:
- Windows version of the engine now reads global configuration file. It is looked up in "%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games/Adventure Game Studio/acsetup.cfg"
- Default log file location is now also in "%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games/Adventure Game Studio".
- Added "--no-message-box" command line option to hide message boxes when alerts are raised. These messages will be still printed to log (if one is enabled).
- Added "--console-attach" command line option to try attach to the parent process's console. This is useful if you run game from command line and want to see engine's log in the console.

WinSetup:
- Fixed changing fullscreen mode from "use current desktop" to explicit resolution on save.







Thanks to everyone who contributed to and tested this version!

@PERXEO I updated the list in the first post by that link, now it should mention more modern games too.
Try those that has a source on github, there's a chance they have more contemporary script.