▲technothrasher4 hours ago
[-] Anybody else fondly remember the earlier Adventure Construction Set from the 1980s? It was similar, though more crude, software but for creating tile based adventure games. I remember breathlessly waiting for it to arrive in the mail one summer when I was a young teen, and then my brother and I spending countless hours creating games for each other to play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Construction_Set
Yes! Until I saw the box cover illustration, I had totally forgotten that a high-school friend of mine and I worked months to build a Gauntlet clone on our 64K Apple ][+ machines due to the money it was costing us to play it at local game store/nerd magnet, "Dragon's Lair".
reply▲I loved that thing. I don't know how many hours I spent on that. I wish I could my kids interested in anything half as creative.
reply▲I think that Wadjet Eye Games studio still uses AGS for their games, and most (all?) of the games published by them seems to use AGS as well.
I highly recommend checking their catalogue. While the first installements of Blackwell series didn't age that well I still think they are a quite nice starting point – they are short and memorable.
Gemini Rue is probably one of the best game stories I have ever seen. What Joshua Nuernberger did there is amazing. The "twist" that occurs there in the final third is something else. And it's built using AGS.
reply▲Another great AGS made game is Technobabylon. That and Gemini Rue are my two favourite Wadjet Eyes Games
reply▲darthcircuit2 hours ago
[-] Gemini rue is one of my favorite games ever, not just point and click.
reply▲Yes! my love for The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is what led me to AGS.
reply▲Wow, I haven't heard about AGS for a while - glad to see it's still alive and well. It should be noted that it's open source and still sees regular updates (20+ years later!)
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags
RobotToaster3 hours ago
[-] If anyone was concerned about the nonstandard license, the FSF says this:
>This license is a free software license, compatible with the GPL thanks to the relicensing option in section 4(c)(ii).
Blast from the past. In my mind, the Adventure Game Studio is forever tied to the ancient (German) Maniac Mansion Mania website [0]. Yes, that Maniac Mansion from Lucasfilm Games.
To this day, they’re are releasing fun new adventure episodes in the Maniac Mansion universe.
[0] https://www.maniac-mansion-mania.com/index.php/en/
that was my first game... damn good years.
reply▲AGS is cool but I wish they'd make a version for macos. You need to use wine to run it
reply▲I have never tried AGS, but I cut my game making teeth on Klick and Play and RPG maker back in the day. I think I was intimidated by the amount of art and the level of story telling needed to craft an adventure game. I wish there was a mac version of this, since I refuse to go near windows at this point.
reply▲plagiarist36 minutes ago
[-] I had that! I wanted to write a game like Monkey Island but couldn't work out how to do an inventory system with what was available. I found some blog on the internet where an enterprising soul with the same issue described using prime numbers and a modulo calculation to make an integer act as a bitfield. I wish I could reread that for the nostalgia, seemed like magic at the time.
I moved on to RPG Maker and that was more my speed. I was really into JRPGs at that time.
I accomplished absolutely nothing with either software. I was stuck on imagining the perfect art and perfect story. That inaction remains in me to this day.
I've created my own adventure game engine starting in the late 1990s. Only learned about the existence of AGS many years later. Although my own engine allows much more flexibility than AGS, there is no userfriendly IDE and besides the runtime, it's mostly just a bunch of separate tools. I have to applaud Chris Jones for going all the way, it's really quite impressive.
reply▲Man, around 20 years ago, when I was a teenager, I used to noodle around AGS. I think I made a couple of "games", but never released them or anything. Glad to see it's still around!
reply▲npsomaratna5 hours ago
[-] Didn't they remake Quest for Glory II and a couple of the Kings Quest games in this? Fun times.
reply▲This reminds me of OHRRPGCE
reply▲robertlagrant2 hours ago
[-] I remember making a very simple adventure game from scratch in BBC Basic in the mid 90s. Good times. Code immediately lost on reboot.
reply▲Oh wow completely forgot about AGS, awesome that it’s still alive and kicking! Brings back memories of Gabriel Knight, Broken Sword, Monkey Island and many other awesome adventure series!
reply▲there are also several oss editors for the original sierra agi and sci formats.
reply▲I remember looking at it about 20 (?) years ago and came back disappointed that I could not use it on my Mac.
Well, at least I was able to revive this feeling today... :-(
reply▲newsclues58 minutes ago
[-] Surprised it isn’t on linux
reply▲At least the engine seem to be able to output linux games. IOS is also possible but not the Mac...
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