posted 02-06- 12:50 PM CT (US)        

When I started the AGAE (due to Dimon's idea of testing my own skills) I read Seth's development texts, looked into source files - everything seemed easy enough. But then I stumbled upon some game engine and dinkedit tricks… So I made some notes for myself, and hope it may be helpful to other people starting on this thorny path J.

If you think it immodest - well, don't read it.

If you know the source of a problem or think I'm wrong - please mail me.

1. Don't be keen on screenlocks. The game engine bug #1: if you try to escape the locked screen and move along the screen edge - you just walk through any hardness and then, when the monster dies and the screen unlocks, you are somewhere you shouldn't be, and can't get back. So the screenlocks are for the screens with completely open edges, else you shouldn't let Dink touch screen edge.
2. Don't ever use compile.exe from original dink - it's extremely buggy. Use windinkedit tools instead.
3. A couple of times I had the strangest glitch: when Dink's speed is above normal, you just crash on one particular screen, almost every time. The only solution achieved was deleting the screen completely and re-editing it, with all the same sprites and scripts. Don't know the bug source, but nothing else helps.
4. The graphics: don't forget applying dink palette when using ffcreate, lest your sprites will look very strange.
5. When using show_bmp procedure dink palette is necessary. And the problem with DirectX may arise if your bmp size is not exactly 640x480.
6. The compare_magic procedure just doesn't work like compare_weapon. Lost 30 min to discover that. Had to do it other way.
7. If your script generates a sprite, but you don't see it (it is there, it works but doesn't show) - it means the sequence is pushed out of memory cache. The debugger gives "bad pix in sequence" message. Just use preload sequence.
8. If you make burnable tree unburnable, bear in mind that fireball takes off its hardness, so the script must restore it (in the hit procedure).
9. Don't add monsters with the screen match mode on - they will keep appearing from the screen edges. If a sprite must be on more than one screen - let it be 2, not more screens, or it may be partly lost.

I hope it may be helpful to the beginners, and maybe someone would mail a hint to me. Don't flame me if you don't like this text.
Tyrsis (tyrsis@mail.ru)