AGS DICTIONARY
Dictionary developed by Andail and DGMacphee.
A
AC
Adventure Creator, the forerunner to AGS.
ANDY PENIS
1. Fictitious character (based on a combination of Andy Milonakis
and Little Willy) that personifies the spamming and the bad and
infantile language. A characteristic of his language is the
frequent use of exclamation marks mixed with 1's.
2. A song by Mods from the AGS Opera.
AGS
Adventure Game Studio (AGS for short) allows you to create your
own point-and-click adventure games, similar to the early 90's
Sierra and Lucasarts adventures. It consists of an easy-to-use
development environment, and run-time engine. - (from the AGS
Homepage)
AARON'S EPIC JOURNEY
Fantasy-game with very original handmade graphics, and with an
interestingly philosophical plot.
B
BACKGROUND
The base image for a room. An AGS game designer places the
interactive objects and hotspots upon the background.
BEN CROSHAW
See Yahtzee
BLUE CUP
1. The first object in the sprite manager of the demo-game. Has
become a common term within the AGS-community, primarily because
of the fact that beginners often fail in changing the graphic of
a desired object, and thus keep getting the picture of a blue cup.
2. The Blue Cup trophy is the prize for winning the annual AGS-awards.
3. An IRC-bot on #ags.
BUMP
To bump; to reply to your own post in order to keep it actual - i.e
put it on the top of the discussion-board again.
C
CHRIS JONES
The creator of AGS. Responsible for everything that is AGS-related.
Attributed to the title 'God'.
D
DEMO QUEST
The example game that comes with AGS
E
EZBOARDS
Or easy-boards; used by AGS before the change to
YaBB.
F
FUNTASY
A comedy in a fantasy-setting. Appeared in a description of The
Book of Spells.
G
GAC
The Greek AGS Community. Famous for being the first
company formed on the basis of nationality. Members include:
Helm, Spyros, and The Butcher. Responsible for games including
The Book of Spells series, SOL, and Robert Redford Saves The Day.
GLOBAL VARIABLES
A type of variable used in AGS that is transfered across room
scripts and global scripts.
GLOBAL SCRIPT
The main script that contains all initialisation, interface,
character, and inventory functions
GUITAR MAN
A comic created by Phil Reed, creator of the Larry Vales series.
See link: http://www.phil-reed.com/page.html
H
HOTLINE
The AGS file tranfer server managed by Chrille. The Hotline
server used to be a place you could upload/download games and
chat to other AGS users in the community.
HYPE
To hype; to raise the expectations of
something (e.g a not yet released game), or advertise in an
excessive manner.
I
INTERFACE
The method of control in an adventure game. Interfaces can range
from text-based interfaces, such as Zork, to Graphical User
Interfaces (GUIs), such as contempory Sierra and LucasArts games.
INVENTORY
Collection of usable items gathered during the course of an
adventure game
J
None |
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K
KING'S QUEST VGA
A windows remake of Sierra's classic game King's Quest featuring
VGA graphics.
L
LENS-FLARE
A lighting-effect that imitates the optical phenomenon that
occurs when directing a camera into a bright light. The frequent
use of lens-flare in order to quickly make a picture look
professional has made it a term for amateurishness.
LEET SPEAK
The technique of writing text without using the proper letters.
The technique is mainly used by people who are to write forbidden
words, and who thereby can avoid automatical language censors.
There are many types of leet speak, from rather obvious
replacements to intricate cyphers.
Example: 7l-ll$ l$ @ I)lc7l()/\//-\ry (This is a dictionary).
LITTLE WILLY
Mythical character whose existence is debated. Appeared early
autumn 2001 with intrusive, aggresive and numerous posts, similar
to Andy Penis (Also predated Andy Penis). Possibly created by
Phil Reed, creator of the Lary Vales series.
LOOP
1. A series of pictures that together make an animation. Loops
are often constructed so that the last picture resembles to the
first, so that the series of picture can be run repeatedly.
2. A part of a script that repeats itself a given number of times.
Loops should be handled with care, as they will crash the system
if set to go on forever.
LUCASARTS
Company that creates adventuregames. The makers of games like
Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and Sam and Max.
LURK
To lurk, to observe the forum without interacting,
in order to acquire a desired level of knowledge and experience
before starting to write post.
A lurker is someone who has not yet taken the step from observing
to conversing.
M
MAGS
Monthly contest where the competitors create short games under
special given conditions regarding plot, interface, game-size etc.
Originally held by DGmacphee, currently administrated by Magintz.
MATTGOBLE
Website that contains all released AGS-games as well as several
tutorials and useful tips.
MIDI
A music format that uses pre-defined instruments on the
computer's sound-card, and which therefore requires very little
memory. AGS lets all midi-files be included in the exe-file.
MIRC
Program that lets people communicate in real time. AGS has a
channel called #ags.
MITTENS
Annual real-life meeting for adventure-game-creators. The 2002
mittens takes place in England and is organised by Mods.
MP3
Compressed sound format, about ten times smaller than wave, but
still considerably bigger than midi-files. MP3 are not included
in the exe-files of AGS-games, but are built in a vox-file.
N
NIGEL MANNING SMITH
Fictitious character that symbolises attributes like prudishness
and conservatism.
NIGHT OF THE HERMIT, THE
A popular game created by Roy Lazarovitch. One of the first full-length
games with voices.
NIHILISM
An avant-garde game by Captian Mostly, famous for lacking a
discernible plot or even ending.
N00B
Also Newbie; a newcomer, who in addition to merely being a
beginner also acts in an annoyingly ignorant and nonchalant way.
O
OBJECT
An object is a mobile part of a room (i.e not a part of the
background or a character).
OPERA, THE AGS
Project that lets people make songs about AGS. The project was
probably initiated by Goldmund and Helm, and is maintained by
Mods (on the screen7-server), who also has contributed with most
of the songs. The ags-opera is not competitative, and all
contributions are welcome.
OPERATOR
Person in an IRC-channel with administrative functions.
OUT-LINING
To mark the outer edge of something, often in purpose to
reproduce an image, or/and to make it cartoonized.
P
PALETTE
Colour-scale that holds the available colours for a computer
program. Managing the palette is a very important doing for
creators of 256-colours games, since the low amount of colours
need to be wisely portioned on background, characters, inventory
etc. A high-colour game (or 16-bit) does not need this kind of
attention.
PHOTOSHOP
A popular program for creating graphics.
PLEURGHBURGH
The winner of the Best-Game-nomination of the 2001 AGS-awards.
With over 120 screens, Pleurghburgh is one of the longest AGS-games
ever made.
POINT AND CLICK
Interface based on the mouse cursor (in contrast to e.g text
interface)
POLLS
Some messageboards have topics that are designed as polls, by
which people can vote by checking a box.
Q
QUANDARYLAND
Website that contains many adventuregames.
R
RESOLUTION
AGS handles 320x200 and 640x400 pixels. The game-world is divided
into two camps; those who prefer the lower and those who prefer
the higher.
ROGER
1. Roger Wilco is the main character in Space Quest, and has
become an important term within the AGS. He is also the default
character in the AGS-engine, and therefore often featured in
games made by beginners.
2. A IRC-bot on #ags
RON
(Reality On the Norm) A project where people create games based
on a specific setting, the city Reality, and where each game
follows the plot of the previous one, thus making a new chapter
to the original story. The project was initiated in early 2001 by
a group of AGS-members, among them Gravityy, Bspeers and Yahtzee
(who also released the first game). There are now more than
twenty RON-games released.
ROOM
A screen in AGS. Not necessarily a room in the conventional
meaning.
ROOMEDIT
The executable file to the DOS-version of AGS is named Roomedit.
S
SANTIAGARRO
Infamous ex-member of the AGS-community who spread
fundamentalistical messages and bible-quotes.
SCALE
To resize an image or a part of an image. Can be difficult to do
without changing the amount of colours.
SCENE
Background image in AGS, before it is saved as a room file.
SCREEN-DUMP
To save the image that the monitor shows at a certain moment to
an image-file.
SCREEN-SHOT
A picture of a game, movie etc. as it is like while playing it.
SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND, THE
1. By many considered to be the flagship of all adventuregames.
Created by LucasArts.
2. The name of the currently longest thread in the forums of AGS.
Revived every now and then.
SHAREWARE
A marketing strategy where commercial programs are available free
for a limited period of time, or/and by a low fee.
SIERRA
Company that created the first adventuregames. Sierra is behind
games like Kings Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit
Larry and Quest for Glory.
SIGNATURE
The static area below an ordinary message-board-post that can
include personal messages, quotes, pictures etc.
SPAM
To post or send plenty of messages in order to get attention or
to annoy people.
SPRITE
Pictures that are loaded in the sprite-manager. Sprites are every
picture in a game that is not a background.
SPRITE-JAM
A session where a group of people creates sprites (but more often
any kind of picture or scene) under given conditions regarding
theme, size and colour-depth. Can be done in real-time (e.g on
IRC), which has the advantage of letting every participator using
the same amount of time. The weekly sprite-jams are open to
everybody and the rules are set by the winner of the previous
session.
SQUALMAN
1. Member and game-creator of the AGS-community known for his low
age.
2. Song by Mods.
STICKY
A thread that is - because of its importance - positioned on the
top of a messageboard by a moderator.
T
TALKIE
Games that use real voices for the dialogs are often called
talkies.
TECHNICAL FORUM, THE
The messageboard that handles technical question concerning AGS.
THREAD
A thread - or a topic - is a branch of the messageboard that
contains a chain of posts. The initial post usually sets the
topic of the whole thread, where the following posts are replies
to the first one.
TITLES
A title indicates a special possition within the community, and
is shown under the user-name. The available titles are currently:
Member, Moderator (displayed only in the forum where the person
is moderator), Mittens Crew (given to those who have attended a
Mittens meeting), Respect my authority (Chris Jones' title).
Earlier, the boards had several titles that were acquired after a
certain number of post. This feature has however been disabled,
since it resulted in people posting solely for the purpose of
acquring a new title.
TOPIC
Another name for thread.
U
UNDERDOGS, THE
Very extensive community and website dedicated to adventuregaming.
UNILIN
AGS-member and game creator who almost never posts in the forums,
but who is a frequent visitor of #ags.
V
VERB COIN
Point and click interface based on a small area of icons that
appears after a click on a specific hot-spot, object etc.
W
WALK BEHIND
A mask that is painted on a background, to define where parts of
the background should cover the character.
WALKABLE AREA
A mask that is painted on a background, to define where a
character should be able to walk.
WALKING-CYCLE
A series of pictures that while being animated shows a character
walking.
WALKTHROUGH
The solution of a game, written to help people who get stuck.
WAREZ
The name of commercial games that have been made available free
by pirates. The use and distribution of warez is illegal.
WAVE
Un-compressed sound format. Not very suitable for AGS-games
because of its size. Wave-files are not included in the exe-file,
but is built in a vox-file.
X
None |
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Y
YAHTZEE
1. One of the first AGS-members who created a full-length game.
Also known for his spectacular parting from the community.
2. To do a Yahtzee; to leave a community by no apparent reason,
often in a pompous or bitter-sweet manner.
Z
None |
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