How to Create Your Own AGI Adventure Game

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How to Create Your Own AGI Adventure Game
By Jonozon

 

For this tutorial you will need AGI Studio and PicEdit.

 

Step 1: Writing the Storyline

For this example we will create a simple game called Bill's Quest. First of all you need to write the storyline of your game.

Here is the storyline:

D > Welcome to Bills Quest

I > Look

D > You are standing in a meadow, there is a shack on it.

I > walk to shack, open door

D > suddenly you feel overcome by nausea and you fall to the floor in a heap. You drift in and out of consciousness and gradually awake to find yourself in a locked room

I > look

D > You are in a locked room with a table, and a flickering candle

I > Look at table

D > There is a key on the table

I > Get key

D > You take the key that is laying on the table

I > unlock door

D > You unlock the door and walk out of the room

D > You Win

Scr > Shake

That is how I write a storyline. You may do it differently but this version works the best for me. Each of the letters in front of the line represent a different action

• "I >" represents something that the player has to do.
• "D >" represents a dialog or message.
• "Scr >" represents an action on the screen.

 

Step 2: Creating a New Game from the Template

Next create a new game from the template supplied with AGI Studio.

Once you have started up AGI Studio select New > From Template on the file menu. AGI Studio will ask you which directory to make the game in. Click on Create dir... then type in Bills_Quest Then Click the OK Button.

 

Step 3: Editing the Introduction Screen Code

Now you will edit the code for the introduction screen. At the top of the window labeled Resources you will see a dropdown Listbox this is automatically set to View click the down arrow at the side and select Logic from the list that appears.

Then select LOGIC.001 and Double-Click.

Looking at the logic you should see a line that says:

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> display(10,1," Intro/Opening screen");</syntaxhighlight>

Change this so it reads:

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> display(10,1," Welcome to Bill's Quest");</syntaxhighlight>

Then press the F10 key on your keyboard Then the logic will compile and your game will run.

 

Step 4: Drawing the First Picture

Now you will need to draw a picture for the first room with PicEdit. Download the Priority band .pcx file for this step. once you have unzipped the .pcx file into your PicEdit/AGI Studio directory, make sure that PicEdit is in the same directory as AGI Studio. The Right Click on picedit.exe and edit the program properties so that it looks like this.

Picedit.exe pribands.pcx

Now click on apply.

Once you have closed the properties for PicEdit go back to AGI Studio and click on the PicEdit button

When PicEdit has loaded press F10 and You will see the priority lines.

Now draw your picture using the tools at the bottom of the screen.

This is what your picture should look something like.

After I had added priorities.

Draw the priorities by pressing tab and switching between the two views. For a more full explanation of priorities click here. I do not know where this document came from, I just found it in my PicEdit directory therefore the links will not work.

Make the edges of the water Priority 2.

Save the image as PICTURE.002

Exit PicEdit.

 

Step 5: Inserting the Graphic into the Game

Click on any resource. Then on the menu select Resource > Add Resource

Select PICTURE.002 and press Open accept the default number for the picture.

The picture will then be added to your game.

Click on Run Game (Ctrl+G) to see your picture in the game.

 

Step 6: Editing the First Room Logic

Load the Logic resource for the first room (Logic.002).

Remove the following lines:

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> //Check What room the player came from and position them //on the screen accordingly, e.g: //if (prev_room_no == 5) { // position(ego,12,140); //} </syntaxhighlight>

Scroll down until you see this line:

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (said("look")) { print("This is an empty room"); } </syntaxhighlight>

Change it so it reads:

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (said("look")) { print("You are standing on a meadow which has a shack on it"); } </syntaxhighlight>

Add a line which reads:

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (said("look","shack")) { print("There is a blue door in the shack"); } </syntaxhighlight>

The if (said.... Line tells the interpreter what to do if a certain word is said e.g. look. These words are stored in the WORDS.TOK File.

Remove the following lines as well.

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (ego_edge_code == horizon_edge) { // ego touching horizon new.room(2); } </syntaxhighlight>

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (ego_edge_code == right_edge) { // ego touching right edge of screen new.room(2); } </syntaxhighlight>

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (ego_edge_code == bottom_edge) { // ego touching bottom edge of screen new.room(2); } </syntaxhighlight>

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (ego_edge_code == left_edge) { // ego touching left edge of screen new.room(2); } </syntaxhighlight>

These lines tell the interpreter to change rooms when the Ego hits the edge of the screen.

Now open the WORDS.TOK editor and click on add group.

This group is number "32".

Click on add word and type in Shack

Close the WORDS.TOK editor.

Compile the logic and run the game by pressing F10.

TOP

 

Step 7: View Editor Overview

Select the VIEW on the Resources menu then Double-click on VIEW.000 to open the view editor.

These are the descriptions of each section:

 

 
Main Drawing Window

 

The View Editor

This window allows you to edit the current view. Use the color palette to select a color right click to select a color for your right mouse button. The mirror Listbox tells you what loop this loop is mirroring. Any Changes to this loop will affect that loop too.

 

Cell/Loop Number

 

These allow you to cycle the cells/loops

 

Height/Width

Use These to change the height or width of your view

 

Description Editor

Allows you to Add/remove a description. Descriptions are used for looking at objects. you will be using this dialogue box later in the tutorial.

 

Transparency Color

Use this to change the Transparency color of the cell

 

Zoom

Use these buttons to Zoom In/Out

 

Step 8: Creating The View for the Door in the Shack

Click on the View Editor Button

Draw a Blue Door using the tools mentioned above.

Make it 10 by 35 pixels.

 

Also Draw the door in an open state by appending a cell to the view.

 

Draw this for the open door view.

Now Click View > Save to Game as... and save as View.002

 

Now Click View > Save to game to make sure that the file is properly saved. This is a bug in AGI Studio that does not save the view properly when creating a new one.

Your view will now appear in the resource box.

 

Step 9: Adding the Door view to the game

Now it is time to edit the logic to add the door to the Game.

Load Logic.002 again (this time you should be able to do it by yourself!)

Now we want to add the Door view to the Game. to do this there are couple of things we need to do.

First of all place the following Lines in the If (new_room) { section.

Load.view(2); - This is required before the view is assigned to any objects or used anywhere.

Animate.obj(o1); - This tells the interpreter to activate o1. You must do this before doing anything with the object.

Set.view(o1,2); - This sets the view with the object.

position(o1,4,130); - The position on the screen of object o1 is changed to X-4,Y-130.

set.priority(o1,12); - Object o1’s priority is set to 12. The object keeps this priority wherever it goes on the screen.

set.cel(o1,0); - The current cel of object o1 is set to 0.

stop.cycling(o1); - Stops the view from cycling, that is changing cels this is what keeps the door shut.

draw(o1); -Object o1 is drawn on screen.

Now the first part of your logic should look like this.

Code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="agi"> if (new_room) {

 load.pic(room_no);
 draw.pic(room_no);
 discard.pic(room_no);
 set.horizon(50);

 // The next 6 lines need only be in the first room of the game
 if ((prev_room_no == 1 ||    // just come from intro screen
     prev_room_no == 0)) {    // or just started game
   position(ego,120,140);
   status.line.on();
   accept.input();
 }

 Load.view(2); 
 Animate.obj(o1); 
 Set.view(o1,2);
 position(o1,4,130);
 set.cel(o1,0);
 set.priority(o1,12);
 stop.cycling(o1);
 draw(o1);

 draw(ego);
 show.pic();

} </syntaxhighlight>

Now Compile your Logic, run the game and check if the door is showing.

 

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