Getting Started with AGS
So, you've downloaded AGS. You want to make an adventure game. But
where do you start?
(NOTE: before we start, this tutorial was made using v3.0
of AGS. If you have a newer version, there may be minor inconsistencies
in the screenshots where extra options have been added and so forth, but
most of what's here should still apply).
Creating the game
Start up the AGS Editor by double-clicking the
AGSEditor.exe file, and you should be greeted by the following
screen:

The "Welcome to AGS" dialog
Make sure that "Start a new game" is selected,
and click Continue. You'll be presented with the Create New Game wizard:

Create New Game dialog
So, without further ado, click Next, and you'll see the
Select Template screen:

Select Template dialog
Here, you need to choose which template you're
going to use for your new game. AGS comes with three, and you can find
others for download on the AGS Forums.
The "Default Game" template is what we'll be
using, as it comes with some default graphics to get you started
quickly. The "Empty Game" template is something you may want to use
later on when you're familiar with AGS - it comes with no default
graphics at all.
So, select "Default Game" and click Next.

Game Name dialog
Finally, you need to decide on what to call your game.
In the first box you can type the full name for your game. This is what
will be displayed in the game title bar when it's running in a window,
and it's used for a couple of other things too. For the purposes of this
tutorial, I'm going to call it the incredibly lame "Roger's Adventure",
but you can use whatever you like.
The second box asks you for the game file
name. This is only used for the name of
the folder that your game is created in, and the name of the final EXE
file you compile.
The third box allows you to choose where AGS
should put the game files -- the default is your My Documents folder,
and I'm going to stick with that.
Click the Finish button, and after a
short wait you should be presented with the main AGS Editor window:

The main editor window
So, there's your new game, ready and waiting for you to
create it!
Starting off
The main way that you navigate around the editor is using the
project tree in the top-right corner, which allows you to access all
the various parts of your game. Let's start by scrolling to the top of
the tree, and double-clicking the "General Settings" node:

The General Settings pane
This screenshot demonstrates three of the main editor
features. The project tree, as we've already discussed, gives you
access to the various parts of your game. The property grid, in
the bottom-right, is where item-specific properties are accessed. It's
not used in the Game Settings window, but we'll see it in action soon!
Finally, the AGS editor allows you to have several windows
open at once, and they are "tabbed" across the open windows bar
at the top so that you can easily switch between them. Use the Close
button to close a window once you're finished with it.
Now, since we're on the Settings pane, let's briefly examine the
various options we have in front of us. Make sure these options are
enabled to begin with:
- Enable Debug Mode - Since we are going to be developing the
game, we want the assistance of the debug features in the engine. This
allows you to do things like teleport to different rooms, give yourself
all the inventory items, and so forth. You would un-check this before
compiling the final version of the game when it's complete.
- Enable 'anti-glide' mode - without it, the character movement
can look somewhat silly.
- Pixel-perfect click detection - improves the game playability
by making sure that clicking transparent regions of objects won't
trigger them.
- Characters turn before walking - if the character is facing
right, and you click to move him left, he'll rotate round before
starting to move. This is what the Sierra and Lucasarts point-and-click
games did, and looks a bit more professional.
Personally, I would always enable these four options when starting a
new game. As you get a feel for AGS, you can decide what suits you best,
and change these options again later.
Colour choices
Now, at this stage we really need to decide whether we want to create a
palette-based (8-bit, 256-colour) game, or a hi-color (16- or 32-bit)
game. It's highly recommended that you go with 16-bit colour, or 32-bit
if you want to use alpha transparency.
256-colour games are much more complicated to make due to having to
deal with the palette, they are not supported by the Direct3D driver,
and may not run well on some modern graphics cards. Although they can
give you the authentic retro feel, unless you really need to use
palette-cycling effects, it's recommended that you stay away from making
new 256-colour games.
Still, I'll cover both methods briefly below; if you're not really sure which
to choose, go for Hi-color (16-bit) since it provides a good balance of
performance and ease-of-use. If you want to be able to use alpha-channel
image transparency, use 32-bit colour.
(NOTE: We need to decide now because when you import graphics, they
will be set to the game's colour depth. Should you change your mind
later, you would have to re-import all the graphics).
Creating a 256-colour game
Double-click the "Colours" node in the project tree. You should see
this:

The Palette Editor
The palette display has a grid with the 256 colour slots on
it. The first 40 colours are game-wide colours, which means that
those palette slots have a fixed colour throughout the game, in every
single room.
The remaining slots, marked "X", are background
colours and vary from room to room. This allows for different types of
background to use different ranges of colours.
The default palette setup is a little badly weighted. Your GUI and main
character graphics will have to use just the game-wide colours, since
they are shown in more than one room. Therefore, unless you want a
greyscale main character, the colours displayed are probably not enough.
So, let's swap some background colours for some game-wide ones. Select
the first "X" slot, then hold shift and click on the last slot in the
row marked "80". The screen should look as follows:

We have selected colours 42-95
We can now see the Property Grid in action. Change the "ColourType"
setting from "Background" to "Gamewide", and you'll see the selected "X"s
turn into various colours.
If you select one of these colours you'll see its RGB colour
values in the property grid, where you can adjust the colour of that
slot. If you don't want to do this manually for every colour, you can
set up slots 42-95 in another paint package, save a BMP file, and then
right-click on the selected slots and choose the "Replace selected slots
from file" option.
What colours you use is up to you, and depends on what sort of colour
scheme you're going for with your graphics.
 |
You should set up the palette as well as you can now,
because changing it later may require you to re-import some
graphics. |
Creating a 16-bit or 32-bit colour game
Back on the Game Settings pane, check out the very top option in the
list. It's called "Colour depth", and all you have to do is change it to
your desired colour depth. A warning message will prompt you to make
sure. Confirm it, and you're done.
Game Resolution
Having decided on our colour depth, the other important decision to
make at this stage is what resolution we want the game to run at. Higher
resolutions allow you to have more detailed graphics, but they need more
memory and run slower than lower resolutions.
Go back to the General Settings pane, and select your chosen
resolution from the "Resolution" drop-down list.
Go to part 2:
Creating your first
room
Tutorial created 26 August 2002; updated 11 August 2007.
Copyright (c) 2001-2007 Chris Jones. |