[DREAMWEB]

Originally Posted by AGA

I don't wanna get into a 'my engine is better' argument here, but what makes you say AGS's quality is limited?

By the way, there are only two commercial amateur adventures (if you see what I mean) that I know of - Eye of the Kraken (made in AGAST) and The Adventures of Fatman (made with AGS). Fatman is much, much, much better.

I say that because:

AGS can't work with more than 800x600 and You can only do games in 3 person perspective... may be you can, but I don’t see anyone. I think AGS is great and many wonderful games were made with it, but WME is a more powerful tool in my point of view.

[eriq]

Originally Posted by DREAMWEB

WME is a more powerful tool in my point of view.

There is a "clunky" feeling I get with the AGS system. It's definetely workable but the WME engine seems to be "smoother". I did, however, LOVE the Tierra King's Quest remakes and those were programmed in AGS right? It's definetely the engine for Sierra-type games. It's obvious in the right hands, each engine is capable of doing pretty much anything you want.

Since I'd like to replicate the interface and general air of Curse of Monkey Island as closely as possible, WME seems to be the direction I'm going. I especially like the 8 direction movement in the demo as well as the colored lighting. I am definetely after the coin interface and if WME offers a way to program this easily, I may end up using it. In the shipped demo with WME, there's no "game options" panel. Can you program one of these or does it ship with options to do so? How can you have the player adjust the sound and speed options within the game?

Which system offers better audio options? Or are the audio options generally the same across the board? I know AGS let's you do some cool stuff. How is something like Panning and Fading achieved in WME and does it support room specific mp3's and crossfading effects like LucasArts iMuse?

I'll have to keep playing and see what happens. Thanks for all the input though guys! It's great to see such a flourishing community. Tell me more. Tell me more!

[Marek]

I'm definitely no authority on adventure game engines, since I've only used AGAST for a few days and now WME for little over a weekend. However based on what little I've seen of the WME engine, I'd say it's a more modern day CMI/Runaway style (and soon Grim/TLJ style) DirectX-driven engine, so if you want to do something that's 1024x768 and uses avi videos for cutscenes and that sort of thing, WME is the engine for you. If you want to make a game with a more old-style 'DOS' feel, you should go for AGS or AGAST.

I do think WME's scripting language has some limits. For example, I'd like to make a hard cut from one scene to another, but WME forcibly inserts a fade. On the other hand, it is very easy to get into, and I'm sure the scripting language will be further extended. I've seen the Project Joe do stunning work with it, so it's already a good engine.

Eriq, FYI here's a snippet from the WME documentation:

Sound functions
PlaySound - Plays a sound. If the filename is omitted, the currently assigned sound is played (if any).
PlaySoundEvent - Plays a sound and triggers an event when the sound is over. If the filename is omitted, the currently assigned sound is played (if any).
StopSound - Stops the currently playing sound (if any).
PauseSound - Pauses the currently playing sound.
ResumeSound - Resumes a paused sound playback.
IsSoundPlaying - Queries whether a sound playback is in progress.
SetSoundPosition - Sets the sound's current playing position.
GetSoundPosition - Queries the sound's current playing position
SetSoundVolume - Sets a volume of the currently playing sound.
GetSoundVolume - Gets a volume of the currently playing sound.

The WME demo game already has a coin interface, so you can modify that. It also has a save/load/resume/exit screen that you can use as a template. It's definitely possible to make volume controls (I've seen it) and assumedly it's very easy (just a matter of using SetSoundVolume I guess).

[Erwin_Br]

You might also want to try SLUDGE. The language is a mix of C, PHP and a bit of JavaScript.

You'll find it surprisingly flexible.

www.hungrysoftware.com

--Erwin

[AGA]

Hands off Eriq, I've ensnared him in the AGS net, none of you other engines can have him! Muhahahahahahaahh!

[eriq]

Originally Posted by Marek

WME is the engine for you. If you want to make a game with a more old-style 'DOS' feel, you should go for AGS or AGAST.

I have AGA sending me some tutorials on the coin interface in AGS. I'll have to try to develop the same interface in both engines to see which will be smoother playing.

I agree, Marek, that the WME looks good for a more "Curse" feel. What I find especially appealing is the 1024x768 resolution. The demo was really really fast on my system. It can also use the Direct3d renderer for some neat lighting effects right? Can AGS do that?

Nobody replied about how sound and music are handled with these engines.

[eriq]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

You might also want to try SLUDGE. The language is a mix of C, PHP and a bit of JavaScript.

You'll find it surprisingly flexible.
--Erwin

Erwin, are you designing your game with Sludge?

[AGA]

AGS has pretty advanced music support, with capablities for things like crossfading (although I dunno much about music, so you'd have to ask someone else (on the AGS forums would be best) about it).

AGS has support for lighting, and recently support for 32-bit images and alpha-blending were added.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by remixor

Regarding your edit: why?

(because he's a programmer)

[Erwin_Br]

Originally Posted by eriq

Erwin, are you designing your game with Sludge?

Yes.

A good showcase for this game would be Out of Order, downloadable from http://outoforder.adventuredevelopers.com

--Erwin

[AGA]

Some people are purists and like their IDEs to be as basic as possible, in order to have total control of what they're doing. Think of people who code their websites in Notepad instead of using Frontpage/Dreamweaver, it's the same sort of thing. Personally I like a few extra features like debuggers and error logs, but still like almost total control over what I'm doing (like AGS does - you can make your game without ever touching a line of code, but you can't make the game very good then...)

[Igor]

Originally Posted by AGA

AGS has support for lighting, and recently support for 32-bit images and alpha-blending were added.

Yep, colored lighting in AGS works great. Also, this new 32-bit support is amazing... character can now use alpha-channels, which means they can have smooth edges (yes, even CMI didn't have that ) and you can play around with motion blur, etc.

WME looks very prommising though and i might even give it a try sometime... but as with all new engines i'm a bit skeptical... not because i'd think it's not good enough (heck, adventures are adventures, you can't really invent earth-shaking things there), but because of bugs. There's nothing more annoying than bugs. At least AGS has evolved so much that i know it's "safe". Plus, the tech support you get on AGS forums is unsurpassed.

I must have said this at least 100 times, so i'm feeling like a freaking parrot... but just for the sake of argument, heh: it's not the engine, it's what you do with it

[Erwin_Br]

Originally Posted by Igor

I must have said this at least 100 times, so i'm feeling like a freaking parrot... but just for the sake of argument, heh: it's not the engine, it's what you do with it

I must sound like a parrot too, but I'm going to say it anyways:

I agree!

That's all, folks

--Erwin

[AGA]

And I'm gonna sound like a parrot too:

squawk!

[eriq]

thanks for all your help guys. I shall investigate and report my findings. They all seem like good engines.

[Deshrill]

Originally Posted by eriq

thanks for all your help guys. I shall investigate and report my findings. They all seem like good engines.

One last word of advice on engines, eriq... Take your time learning them and have patience and a stack load of tutorials and you'll be OK. If you can look at source code, that helps a lot too, but it depends on your programming knowledge.

[eriq]

Deshrill,

you're making a game too?

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by AGA

My latest game has a verbcoin that's very similar to CMI's. This can be done with a lot of scripting, but fortunately there are tutorials and pre-made templates you can use to make it easy on yourself (like I did),

I created a complete CMI-like interface with inventory and it works like a charm. Though I looked at most of the stuff that was already made for one's perusal, I did go back and created one from scratch. I am vain like that.

Originally Posted by AGA

Some people are purists and like their IDEs to be as basic as possible, in order to have total control of what they're doing. Think of people who code their websites in Notepad instead of using Frontpage/Dreamweaver, it's the same sort of thing. Personally I like a few extra features like debuggers and error logs, but still like almost total control over what I'm doing (like AGS does - you can make your game without ever touching a line of code, but you can't make the game very good then...)

Erm, cough, cough... Guilty as charged. I like control... although I like anarchy as well. I like control when the strings are in my hand, let's put it that way.

I have been abusing AGS lately, haven't touched any other engines because, quite frankly, I fell in love with the AGS documentation at first sight. I am the kind of guy who, when shopping for pickles, for example, buys the first jar that his hand falls on.... and then tweaks the pickle juice to his liking... er... this analogy isn't going anywhere. So I'll just stop.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by Jake

(because he's a programmer)

Hehe, yeah. On the other hand, I also use POVRay.

I'm quite sceptical about GUIs. As Mnemonic imself has stated, he created the heavy GUI because the scripting language became so difficult. GUIs always try to hide something...

I definitely disagree about Agast being oldschool.

The music support in most engines is quite bad. We have tried to get seamless looping in WME but it hasn't worked. As far as I know, Agast doesn't even support looping from the middle of the file.

How's AGSs looping support?

[Mnemonic]

Originally Posted by deadworm222

I'm quite sceptical about GUIs. As Mnemonic imself has stated, he created the heavy GUI because the scripting language became so difficult. GUIs always try to hide something...

Yeah, but the point is to only hide stuff that doesn't need to be edited by hand anyway, such as the scene regions/waypoints in case of WME.
Most development environments do that too, more or less.