Topics

[What's Narrascope?]

Hello, I just wanted to quickly announce that there are a few talks related to AGS at Narrascope.

What's Narrascope?
Narrascope is a small North American conference for interactive narrative, adventure games, and interactive fiction, similar to LudoNarraCon. It started in 2019, and this year is being held in Pittsburgh, USA, and online.

https://narrascope.org/

Do I need to attend in person? Can I watch online?

Not at all. In fact, most of the conference attendees will be online. Register on their website (https://narrascope.org/) and watch the conference now or on different streaming channels. Online registration is free, but donations are welcome. The last day to Register is June 8.

What talks are related to AGS?

I will be giving an ambitious talk about the history of AGS! I can't include everything but will try to highlight as many of the milestones and games as I can.

The Little Engine That Could: The History of the Adventure Game Studio Engine, Games, and Community

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is one of the most popular point-and-click adventure game engines. Originally released to the public in 1997, it has a long history of updates, community, creators, and games. The engine has democratized the creation of adventure games. But nobody outside the community knows its history. How many of these games were not merely created by individuals working solo, but by a community who helped each other along the way?

Edit: Recording of the talk:

Jess Haskins (co-writer for Rosewater, AGS game fan, but not a forum member) will discuss worldbuilding in Rosewater.

How the West Was Many: Crafting a Culturally Diverse Western Adventure with Rosewater

At Narrascope and AdventureX, I've spoken about the importance of creating with cultural awareness, and why small teams and solo indies shouldn't be afraid of going "out of bounds" to write outside their own personal backgrounds. In this talk I will discuss how our team of two put this theory into practice in making our forthcoming point-and-click adventure. Rosewater is set in an alternate-history world inspired by the American Old West, but aiming to thoughtfully depict a diverse range of people and experiences often left out of traditional Westerns. I'll talk about what approaches worked, what didn't, the gap between theory and practice — and how we can do better next time.

Update: Recording of the talk (Warning: There may be a minor spoiler about Rosewater...)

As Jess mentioned, this is the followup to a previous talk:

Grundislav will talk about Rosewater's voice overs.

Going Union: How A Basement Indie Hired AAA Talent (And How You Can, Too!)

Plenty of narrative games feature voice acting. Smaller and indie teams tend to cast non-union actors. While this is a perfectly acceptable approach, the quality and professionalism that union actors offer is undeniable. In this talk, I want to dispel the assumption that working with union actors is prohibitively expensive, as well as clear up some common misconceptions.

Update: Recording of the talk:

Hey folks, I just found out that Simple / Philip J. Reed passed away less than a year ago on August 10, 2022, at the age of 41, in Colorado. Sadly, it was suicide. He was interred across New York City in his hometown in New Jersey. I couldn't find a post in the forum about this, so I thought I'd share.

Philip was the creator of the Larry Vales series. Larry Vales, along with Yahtzee's Rob Blanc series, were some of the first games that showcased what could be built with AGS, and which attracted members to our community. The last we heard of him was around 2009 when he was working on a Larry Vales remake (forum post.)

After his time as an AGS developer, Philip became a fairly known author, blogger, and pop culture writer. He was known for his reviews of episodes of the TV show ALF and a book about Resident Evil.

Obituary:
https://www.sbmortuary.com/obituary/Philip-Reed

His Blog Archive (Content Warning: the last post was a suicide note):
https://noiselesschatterarchive.blogspot.com

Here's Philip talking about Resident Evil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9LJ7LXQnW4

Articles remembering him:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/08/in-memory-of-philip-j-reed-writer-and-nintendo-life-contributor
https://bossfightbooks.com/blogs/news/remembering-friend-and-author-philip-j-reed
https://meblogwritegood.com/2022/08/18/rip-philip-j-reed-and-a-me-blog-write-good-announcement/
https://www.ganymede.tv/2022/08/philip-j-reed-rip/

Borrowed from one of the articles above:
"Philip used to fundraise for The Trevor Project, a charity providing mental health resources and free crisis prevention for LGBTQ youth. If you'd like to make a donation in his name, you can do so here."

 

[About]

About

The AGS Tween Module allows you to programmatically interpolate many of the AGS properties (objects, characters, regions, viewport, audio, GUI, GUI controls, etc.) over time in amazing ways. The term tween comes from the computer animation term inbetweening.



Don't depend on using while loops everywhere in your code to move something:

Code: ags

while (gIconbar.Y > -gIconbar.Height) {
  gIconbar.Y = gIconbar.Y - 1;
  Wait(1);
}

With the Tween module, can do graceful things like this:

Code: ags

gIconbar.TweenY(0.5, -gIconbar.Height, eEaseInBackTween);

Notable games using the tween module include Guard Duty, Lamplight City, Unavowed, Future Flashback, and Rosewater.

What are you waiting for? Start using the Tween module today!

---
What's new in 2.3.0?

TL;DR: This is a great new release that supports the new features in AGS 3.6.0, adds support for Point object tweens, and the long overdue support for Overlay X and Y. This module is compatible with AGS 3.5 or above.


Added Overlay TweenX, TweenY, TweenPosition
3.5.0: Added Point TweenX, TweenY, TweenPosition
3.6.0: Added Character TweenAnimationVolume
3.6.0: Character.TweenScaling is no longer limited by a range of 5-200. Now supports 1-32767
3.6.0: Added GUIControl TweenTransparency
3.6.0: Added Object TweenScaling
3.6.0: Added Overlay Width, Height, Size, and Transparency
Internal: Updated how managed tweens are created to support Point and Overlay tweens
Added function documentation where extra properties such as ManualScaling, Visible are also updated

---

Download from:
https://github.com/edmundito/ags-tween/releases/tag/v2.3.0

Documentation:
https://edmundito.gitbook.io/ags-tween/

Financial Support:
Happy to take tips or donations through my Ko-fi site: https://ko-fi.com/edmundito

Chat in the AGS Discord server:
https://discord.gg/vmuCyWX

Issues and feature planning:
https://github.com/edmundito/ags-tween/issues

[Latest Version is 2.3.0 - See the Tween 2.3.0 thread for more details!]

Latest Version is 2.3.0 - See the Tween 2.3.0 thread for more details!

About

The AGS Tween Module allows you to programmatically interpolate many of the AGS properties (objects, characters, regions, viewport, audio, gui, gui controls, etc.) over time in amazing ways. The term tween comes from the computer animation term inbetweening.




Ten years ago you probably depended on ugly while loops everywhere in your code to move something:

Code: ags

while (gIconbar.Y > -gIconbar.Height) {
  gIconbar.Y = gIconbar.Y - 1;
  Wait(1);
}

Today, with the Tween module, can do graceful things like this:

Code: ags

gIconbar.TweenY(0.5, -gIconbar.Height, eEaseInBackTween);

Notable games using the tween module include: Guard Duty, Lamplight City, Unavowed, Future Flashback, and Rosewater.

What are you waiting for? Start using the Tween module today!

---
What's new in 2.2.2?
Bug fixes. More info here: https://github.com/edmundito/ags-tween/releases/tag/v2.2.2

What's new in 2.2.0?

First, a brand new format for the documentation: https://edmundito.gitbook.io/ags-tween/

TL;DR: This is a great new release that supports all new features all the way AGS 3.5.0 beta 5. Additionally, it fixes a few bugs and removes compatibility with older AGS versions prior to 3.4.0.

Fixed Region StopTweenTint result parameter (was not used)
Fixed Region tween tint saturation to 1-100 and luminance clamping to 0-100
Fixed exception when using Button.TweenTextColorRed
Removed compatibility with any version below 3.4.0
Replaced internal #ifver checks to check based on SCRIPT_API_v* to improve compatibility
Replaced Region.TweenTintEx with additional luminance parameter in Region.TweenTint
Removed TweenSystemGamma and StopTweenSystemGamma in favor of using existing System.TweenGamma and System.StopTweenGamma
Removed TweenSystemVolume and StopTweenSystemVolume in favor of using exiting System.TweenVolume and System.StopTweenVolume
Added TweenTextColorRGB for Button, Label, and TextBox
3.4.1: Added Character TweenTint (+ Red/Green/Blue), TweenTintSaturation, TweenTintLuminance
3.4.1: Added Object TweenTint, TweenTintRed, TweenTintGreen, TweenTintBlue, TweenTintSaturation, TweenTintLuminance
3.5.0: Removed limitations of GUI tweens to screen width and height
3.5.0: Replaced old Viewport tweens with Camera TweenX, TweenY, TweenWidth, TweenHeight, TweenPosition, TweenSize
3.5.0: Added new Viewport object tweens TweenX, TweenY, TweenWidth, TweenHeight, TweenPosition
3.5.0: Updated Tween1Compatiblity module to support legacy Viewport tweens (via Camera)
3.5.0: Added Tween2Compatiblity module to support legacy Viewport tweens (via Camera)
3.5.0: Added GUI TweenBackgroundColor (+ Red/Green/Blue/RGB) and TweenBorderColor (+ Red/Green/Blue/RGB)
3.5.0: Added ListBox TweenSelectedBackColor (+ Red/Green/Blue/RGB), TweenSelectedTextColor (+ Red/Green/Blue/RGB), TweenTextColor (+ Red/Green/Blue/RGB)

---

Download from:
https://github.com/edmundito/ags-tween/releases/tag/v2.2.2

Documentation:
https://edmundito.gitbook.io/ags-tween/

Chat in the AGS Discord server:
https://discord.gg/vmuCyWX

Issues and feature planning:
https://github.com/edmundito/ags-tween/issues

10 years of Special Thanks to:

Crimson Wizard for continuing to support AGS and adding new features like Camera that inspired this version of the module
eri0o for worshiping this module and using it to its fullest potential
MattFrith for supporting the Discord channel in what became the AGS Discord server
Tzachs for expanding the original module to support most of the properties in AGS
Grundislav for the Ben Jordan games that inspired the creation of the original module
Dualnames for promoting and creating very inspiring work with the module since the very beginning
Blackthorne who made so many great games with this module and his overall encouragement motivated me to create Tween 2
jwalts37 who I met in person at GDC 2014 and told me how much he liked the module
Vince Twelve who wished he had this module in Resonance and for showing me some advanced code that was the inspiration for Tween 2's startDelay
Calin Leafshade for giving me more insight into scripting best practices, and everyone in the forum for reporting problems and making games with this
Dave Gilbert for praising the tween module every time I see him in person
TheJBurger who I kept exchanging emails about the module during the development of Gemini Rue
ThreeOhFour who early in the first of tween module suggested a feature that would later become custom tweens
Pumaman for reasons