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So, yes, you can make a game of AGS games, you do so using the RunAGSgame command.

https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/Globalfunctions_General.html#runagsgame

I advise against though, unless really needed - say you got together with a bunch of people, each one made a game, and are looking into making a launcher for all games. Or you are making an episodic game and want to make a launcher for each episode. There are other usecases but other than this it is usually not very good idea - there isn't good ways to integrate AGS games.

Now, about Data dir, nowadays AGS can package arbitrary files (in general settings, there is an option in the Compiler section if I am not mistaken) and you can read them later by leveraging the $DATA$ token: https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/File.html#fileopen . Also this data token matching the other data I am going to explain later is just we are bad at naming things problem.

But before this, if someone wanted to send an arbitrary file (say you have a descriptor file for puzzle levels or some other config file you want to have in the same directory of the game or even just a readme), it had to be in the same directory as the game, externally.

So to ease debugging, testing and packaging of games using such approach, the way it works is any file that is not the own game .AGS file that is place in the Compiled/Data directory is then copied to all other Compiled/Windows, Compiled/Linux and so on. At some point before the Compiled/Data was also a different directory (I think in 3.4.1 and before), just the top level, so perhaps it made more sense then.

Any free files in the webport have to be in the same directory as the game, because in the simulated filesystem we have there , there are no directories. You can have "directories" inside AGS packages using the arbitrary file packaging. (But it's read only)

There's no such file from AGS Editor.

Either you placed files manually in the Editor directories, which I would recommend uninstalling/deleting your editor and getting a new one.

Or you added a file in Compiled/Data dir, any file that is added in Data dir is copied to all targets - there may be exceptions.

Or you are not using the Editor at all and is using something else. The way to build is to mark the platform in general settings and hit f7.

There's no standard name, if there's an extra .AGS file in the directory either you put there or you put in the Data directory.

There was at least four big Android Studio updates since I made the feature.

If you want to get to it asap I recommend using JetBrains Toolbox and downloading the previous version, Chipmunk, there's simply no way I will be able to keep up with Google forever and desync will eventually happen - as it did now.

For the specific version of Android Studio you have I don't know what to do until I have made a clean installation of it somewhere and experimented with it.

If you can use an older version, it should work, I tested up to Chipmunk. This is as much as I can say now 

Just checking

In the Building for Android topic in the manual, you did went through all the 4 steps of the Android Studio setup there is there, right?

https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/BuildAndroid.html#building-for-android


You met this screen too?:

Spoiler

You can create an empty file in several ways, you can save an empty text file with notepad and then just rename it entirely to sdkmanager (the file will have no extension)

You can also use the search inside that directory to see if it's there somewhere.

Ah, a question, have you installed anything through the Android Studio SDK screen you showed, that asked you to accept some license? I remember now there was this license thing sometime ago, but I think sdkmanager would still be found in the place it was in  Android Studio Chipmunk

Also, an alternative way is to use JetBrains Toolbox, it enables downloading multiple versions of Android Studio and having them side-by-side, I think it's still possible to download Android Studio Chipmunk using it - I could not find it easily in Android Studio website, but I use JetBrains Toolbox for this.

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It looks like the path is correct, I noticed that Game Maker also doesn't support this latest version of Android Studio (they are on Chipmunk) and reading the Android Studio Dolphin release notes they mention they changed something in the sdkmanager.

In this screen of android studio where there are some packages and things, you kinda don't need to click anything because once AGS Editor has the sdkmanager it can download things as needed using it - each six months Google changes some requirements for submitting to play store and I thought it was easier to just upgrade whatever was needed in AGS Editor itself and have the sdkmanager be used by it to automatically get it.

So in theory AGS doesn't really need SDK Manager to build the game, and if I am not mistaken you can make an empty file named sdkmanager and place in tools\bin\sdkmanager (creating the directories as needed) and AGS tries to build things - but it can fail if it doesn't find something the project needs.

Should I do all of that to make it work

No, don't follow their docs, they are wrong. I will check this tonight.

Android Studio already has those command line tools somewhere, the challenge is figuring out where.

If you don't use the Android Studio to install Android related things the environment gets way too confusing too fast, so the best thing is always figure out how Android Studio is working.

So if doesn't appear the "Found On Config!" for SDK path I can't try to build it right?

EDIT: ok no problem btw I can't find any of this inside the SDK directory "cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager"

So Google invented a new place to put this that doesn't match their documentation. Awesome, I will check later what they did on this Android Studio version to match in the Editor.

I think it won't work. I added some more information in my previous post, please read.

Also, just please, check that is indeed the SDK path that is pointed by Android Studio. The problem I had when making this feature is these weren't matching.

I copied the behavior from Game Maker: https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001368727-Setting-Up-For-Android

That's interesting, I need a fresh install of that version to check.

Google documentation says some things are in specific directories in their SDK, but at the time I made this, the documented locations were incorrect and I used what was true for my Android Studio installation at the time - I also checked previous versions and they matched.

My guess is they finally moved things to the correct place.

The incorrect place of the SDK Manager that was before, and where we look into in AGS Editor was in tools\bin\sdkmanager, inside the SDK directory.

@Vincent unfortunately, if this is the case, this means that I need to fix this before you can proceed.

Also, just checking, the correct path should be:
cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager

Reference: https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/sdkmanager

Inside the SDK directory.

The problem was that the SDK installed by Android Studio didn't used to have the SDK Manager there, only if you downloaded separately, but then it wouldn't work with Android Studio tools.

Cool, so you can just use this directory there for the SDK path and a Found On Config! should appear.

In the previous message you sent here https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=60517.msg636652579#msg636652579, on top of that window it should be a textbox that says SDK Path: and follows with a directory, so you can always check there in case you need or have installed in a different place.

One thing at a time, let's figure out where that was installed.

First, the default location is usually

C:\Users\vincent\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk

Is it there?

OK, so you got from Google. Now, I believe this one installs in Program Files, does the following directory exists in your computer?

C:\Program Files\Android\Android Studio\jre

(if that exists, that should be your JAVA_HOME, you can set it in Editor Preferences)

ok, let's roll back a bit, how did you install Android Studio? Are you using the JetBrain Toolbox or did you install by using a installer somewhere? Can you tell me from where you got it?


Also which version of Android Studio do you have?

@Vincent does the "Found On Config!" prompts next to these variable names appears in your install, like in the image above?

To use the default you have to set those environment variables in Windows itself, as it needs the environment variables to load that. (you can check this by loading cmd.exe and typing echo %JAVA_HOME% )

The screenshot I am interested is the Editor Preferences but the keystore generating window is obscuring that. I will block that button until the other variables are set correctly.

@Vincent , first, yes this should not crash but report a proper error, but I don't know what exactly is going on so lets check things together here to figure out what is going on.

First thing, to run this, AGS will need some tools to be installed

Have you followed the steps here?

https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/BuildAndroid.html#building-for-android

In the Editor Preferences, the Android preferences there, if I remember correctly, ANDROID_HOME and JAVA_HOME will report a "Found on Config!" message directly in the preferences if they are correct. I need this to find the tool that is used to create the keys.

Spoiler

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https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/EditorPreferences.html#android

I just watched Glass Onion too, I just want to comment that I did like it very much

Spoiler

and I picked all the little things Miles said wrong while watching so I was thinking "this is a nod that Andi is the smart one"

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I really liked the writing, the midpoint and watching it, I got very curious how they will spin the next movie!

For some reason Detective Blanc (Daniel Craig) feels for me like the anti-Poirot.

Spoiler

just, in the first movie, my memory is that his character was not very smart, and in this second movie for me it felt like they retconned as he is smart but lazy

[close]

One thing I loved about both Knives Out is that they are original movies with original characters, it's good to have new movies that are movies!

You can either use F1 and search in the Editor manual or in the online manual you can go to the index and go from there.

If what you want is from dynamic sprite you can go to the dynamic sprite page there. You can probably also just write it in the script editor, highlight and press f1.

@Athanor , hi, I need to ask again, because I have a complete different behavior.

The global settings, the one on top of preferences, none of them are working for me, they don't save, presumably because they aren't found in the first place. But the individual game settings all work correctly.

Can you confirm that you have this behavior or do you have the behavior reported above?

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For Your Consideration

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