Hi to this new forum.
I once wrote adventure games when I was a kid/teenager. Even then I couldn't write adventure games to the limitations that was. I had to push. I did many firsts in adventure games including digitised pictures. 2 player game etc.
Now I can't just write an IF game. Luckily Catventure purred acrossed my path.
TAB is the cutting edge of IF creation.
My game/world is called Emily's Dream.
I keep rewriting elements as Phil enhances TAB weekly.
The idea of my game is to get out of a feverish dream of Emily Bronte (wuthering heights) just before she writes her book.

With Catventure's help I want to write the most advanced If game to shock the IF world.

Jason

Hi MidKnight (Jason),

Your game in development, Emily's Dream, is interesting being based on a real-life historical person and set in the times and environment of her life...
And I know there is lots of interest in the Brontes family on the net with many websites dedicated about them.

Thanks for letting us know about your adventure project and warm welcome to the forum.

Best regards,
catventure.

PS. If you ever do a youtube preview you can embed it direct into the forum using the 'film' icon when you create a message or reply.

Hi Phil,
Exactly, there is a massive interest in the Brontes. It will bring IF games to a whole new audience. On the disc of the game will be footage of the Bronte area. Even parts of the game will have footage.
Of course a nominal fee for the game will have to be paid for. help further development.

I will be doing a You Tube preview when I get to the same stage I was in CAT.

Jason

Hi Jason,

I agree.

Interactive Feelies is an interesting site that might give you some ideas on packaging extras if you're not already aware of such services.

catventure.

Yeah, I clocked the Interactive feelies site. Interesting idea. Not that I would use them. Me and the IF community don't get on that well. Never met an arrogant self destroying community bunch in my life. Might sound harsh but that is what I have learn't from newsgroups and ignorant emails. I am very dyslexic and often write nonsense which I tried to correct rereading what I write. One big wig IF member told me I shouldn't write IF games if I can't spell and should be educated.
Fine, I am uneducated. Working on building sites and have probs spelling but it doesn't mean I don't have the right to write IF games in their community. I wrote IF games before most of them was born.

Sorry about the rant Phil!

I have ideas for some of the feelies I will be offering and some involved with the game.
Dried Heather from the very Bronte Moor! (freely available to me!)
Small stones from the bronte moor (again freely available)
The Americans I believe will love them sort of feelies. I even thought of peddles from the Bronte Waterfall that Emily use to write at. Perhaps even small vials of Bronte waterfall water!

I was also thinking of cut scenes. I doubt it but if a DVD was in someone's PC could TAB run a movie file if was a player including on the disc? Or if there was option in the player menu to run a cut scene movie from disc?

Happy weekend,
Jason

Hi Jason,

MidKnight wrote:

I was also thinking of cut scenes. I doubt it but if a DVD was in someone's PC could TAB run a movie file if was a player including on the disc? Or if there was option in the player menu to run a cut scene movie from disc

What kind of movie files do you mean?

In thinBasic there exists a module called TBGL which can be incorporated into a thinbasic program. With TBGL commands it is possible to show mci.video "cut scenes" like mpegs, window media files and I think .avi movie files with or without sound of course in a special TBGL window.
I've been able to play a small mpeg and one of those windows demo video wmv's of the bear in the river... (about 12 secs) using very little code...

This is without any special media files or players present on a DVD at all.

I really think it possible for an ACTION command in TAB to show this window and play small cut-scenes such as you suggest eg:

[acts]playmoviebear.wmv[end]

I hadn't thought of showing movies in TAB much until your post so I'll investigate and see what can be done this week, Jason.

Phil, This is really exciting.
Any media file format is good for me. Without a player too is great.
I only suggested it as a long shot. No idea it could be done.
Please look into it Phil.
This is what I wanted a different step in IF games.
Depending on how fast and how it plays it can be used in many ways.
Where does the media file play on the TAB screen? Can it be defined to play in like the location graphic part? I would presume it plays the entire TAB screen size.
I can have cut scene to begin the game. Cut scenes of the actual place you see in the location pictures. Cut scenes of examing objects which I can connect with the feelies. Say a cut scene of collecting heather from the moor and when you open the surprise feelie there is the heather! A cut scene of Heathcliff reading a letter from cathy and there is the letter to read in your hands.

IF this can be done it will be move like an IF movie. Used wisely of course. With the Bronte theme it could be a big seller.

Let me know what you find out, thanks,

Jason

Hi Jason.

Great News.

Whoo. I have the bear video (windows media file) up and running right now playing in TAB in picbox1 (top right graphicbox)
Also made an action as discussed above to call the movie file (its home is in gfxfolder with other graphics)
When video finished - press RETURN to clear it - up returns current location graphic!!! - carry on with game. Great!!

Only problem now is to RESIZE the video file to be the dimensions of picbox1.... as presentlly can't view entire action scene...

Don't have software to do that - YET

catventure.

That's brilliant!
I'm really excited about this is possible.
What software you need to resize?
I can get my hands on just about any software.

thanks
Jason

Hi Jason,

Well I found this free video converter progam here:

http://www.nchsoftware.com/prism/index.html

Small compact program. Easy to use.

It also lets you resize the files.

I've only tried action "playmovieX$" with windows media files (.wmv) but it works.

Seems there's plenty of converters from other video formats to .wmv format around on the net as well...

I'm not very good with these programs - but after resizing a few times, just couldn't get it quite right and ended up "cropping" the video file to the size I wanted... but end result looks good!!

So yes - you will be able to show clips after actions - it could be like an IF movie as you describe






Regards,
catventure

Hi Jason,

I discovered that it's not totally necessary to resize a clip.

I've now used some code that auto-shrinks the .wmv file to the dimensions of the TAB picbox(es).

I made a little movie in Windows Movie Maker with pics, titles, credits, effects and transitions etc..

Worked great.

I'm still experimenting. The .avi format does not appear to be supported any more by Media Player - or maybe a codec is missing.

Actions now:

playmovie1FILENAME$ - play movie in picbox1 then restore location pic

playmovie2FILENAME$ - play movie in picbox2 then restore logopic

movie files are put in the same graphics dir used for static pics.

Best wishes,
Phil

UPDATE - Made it so when video clip finished adventure game continues as normal OR you can press <RETURN> to exit the movie at any time to continue the adventure. Works good.