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No guesses? Another screen, then:

Not The Flintstones. Some mutation is involved, yes.

Just seemed really obvious that that was Jenna Fischer...



(I always used to think that this was a photo of a cigarette stub, but seeing if freeze-frame I realize it's a drawing.)

The Office

You can set a background color with SpeechBubble.BackgroundColor. You cannot set a background graphic.

Matlock?

Columbo?

I was gonna say that's obviously The Manchurian Candidate, but that's from 1962 and the mind control scene doesn't quite look like that. So now I'm curious...

Well spotted! Correct.

I was pretty sure it was.

Sticking with black and white:

Hmmm... I've definitely seen it, and given a link to the previous... is it The Killing?

All development of this module is on hold while I'm working on the AGS Awards Ceremony client.

To do text in multiple colors you have to break it up into separate strings that you render individually (using DrawingSurface.DrawString()), with the appropriate x and y offsets. There's an outline of how you might do it here.

To see how you're meant to be changing the tail, check out this post. Unfortunately there's a bug in the module which means you have to edit the internal initSpeechBubble() function instead, as shown in the post above.

The tail flipping depending on character angle is a feature I've been meaning to add, but it's not implemented. Basically, in renderBubble32() there are two calls to drawPixelArray(). The last two arguments are whether to flip the array horizontally or vertically, and both are set to false. If you set the second-to-last to true in both calls, it will flip it. So I would add a bool argument to renderBubble32(), and pass that along to drawPixelArray(). Then in the calls to renderBubble32() in realSayAtBubble(), SayBubble() and SayBackgroundBubble() you would set the argument depending on which way the character is facing.

You mean in the same line of dialog, on the same speech bubble, change the font so that some words are in one font and other words in a different font?

That is not a supported feature.

The only way I know to do that is to use SSH's old hypertext module (and when I say old, I mean it was last updated 10 years ago, so I have no idea how well it works in the current AGS version). There's a working link in this thread.

SayBubble() doesn't support inline text-replacement using tokens like %s. This is an AGS limitation. What you'll have to do is to use String.Format() to insert those arguments, like so:

Code: ags

player.SayBubble(String.Format("Nice %s", locationname));

[sidekick]

I had a thought about Guybrush. First, I'm not sure I agree that he's not a character just because he's not a very deep or well-defined character. I think he does have some personality, even if it's just a kind of blithely positive can-do spirit mixed with mild snark.

My thought, though, was that Guybrush's role in the games is actually more as a sidekick. More specifically, he's your (the player's) sidekick: the guy with the wisecracks and comic relief pratfalls while you go about the serious business of solving puzzles and so on. I think that's actually a quite ingenious piece of design.

Great module.

I'm having 2 issues, one blocking:

1) for some reason, the actual text is rendered 100% transparent. So I can see the layout of the text, and through it the background ! I copy pasted your settings into game start at global, and the ballons are updated, but the font keeps being transparent (using player.say works perfectly, so not sure what's going on).

That sounds like this problem. Probably some game setting isn't set to the right value: Color depth should be 32-bit, sprite and GUI alpha modes should be set to proper alpha blending.

2) This is probably something that needs to be implemented. I have scrolling backgrounds, and I can move the character while he is saying something (like LucasArts games), but the balloon is pinned to its current location, is there a way to make the balloon follow the character around ?

Yeah, this is something that isn't implemented. What you can do for now is provide a GUI as an argument to SayBackgroundBubble(), and then in repeatedly_execute() move that GUI depending on the position of the character.

Neat topics in the last two episodes! In 114, hurtful comments aside ( ), you even briefly address my earlier topic suggestion about changing a game after release.

As for well-developed protagonists in non-linear games, the one that comes to mind immediately is Tex Murphy in The Pandora Directive. Tex is far from a blank slate, but the game allows you to play with different styles, letting him turn into a noir anti-hero, a hardboiled detective with integrity, or a straight-up good guy.

I think the key to making it work is to (1) place the character at a turning point where you believe the decision might genuinely go either way, e.g. setting up a dilemma or conflict between two of your character's core values, and (2) make sure both outcomes tell meaningful stories with satisfying character arcs. The big decision in The Shivah feels like that to me: in my mind the dark path is the "canon" outcome, mainly because it felt like a better fit with the genre and tone of the game, and I really believe Rabbi Stone could go either way on that subway platform, but I suspect most players assume the good ending is the official one.

Yes.

Alright, alright, alright!

Is it any good? It looked pretty fun from the trailer, but then I never heard anything more and forgot about it.

Gold?

I remember McConaughey looking like that in the trailer...