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Issues with inventory in Nine verb style

Good morning all. I've just started again in development with my game, which I do hope i'm not running before I can walk, I wanted to do with a scumm type ui. The Nine verb template was giving me some errors (now working thanks Chris!), so I thought I'd DIY but have run into some issues.

I created the appropriate interaction menus and created and assigned cursors to it and everything works great for interactions on hotspots. HOWEVER the verbs/interactions do not seem to work on inventory items. You can see that the items should work, as the Sentence is previewed above, but nothing happens when you click. Would I be correct in assuming that this is because the inventory box type is the wrong sort for this sort of behaviour? I can see in the template it uses custom script but wasn't sure if this was only because the UI was Unity and not AC in the example? Any help hugely appreciated.

Best
Guy

Comments

  • edited October 2020

    Are you relying on the provided "Verbs" menu, or have you created a new one?

    Best to check that the provided assets are working. First load up the 2D Demo, then double click the NineVerbs_ManagerPackage file to assign the new Managers, and then try the Park-NineVerbs scene. Do things then work?

    The Inventory menu does work through custom scripting, but that behaviour should be provided through the included ScummInterface script, which will need to be present in your scene.

  • Hi Chris, thanks for the swift reply. I did this all again from scratch creating the verbs etc. The provided assets definitely work (have tested in new, fresh project), I was just wondering if I'd missed a simple tick box in the UI for doing it myself without use of templates, but if it's reliant on use of the custom script I'll try again using that instead.

    Best

    Guy

  • It is reliant on the script, yet - but both that and the UI can be modified to suit your needs.

    While AC on its own can achieve a pretty close approximation of the classic LucasArts interface, a more accurate recreation needs a custom script for some of the finer details.

  • Hi Again Chris, I'm struggling a little to tweak things to my liking - blame my idiocy and lack of C knowledge... Is there a way to Just yank out the inventory behaviour from your template script as I have just about everything else to my liking, and am finding tweaking the template more challenging than I thought I might!

    For instance - I quite like the way AC handles the verb - object/hotspot interaction labels by default, and the conversation text behaviour too, disabling the verbtextline in a kludgey way by making both elements transparent is the easiest way I found to do this without getting too deep into editing the script, or do I just need to grow a pair and keep trying at it?

    best

    Guy

  • What is it specifically you want to change? The inventory and verbtextline are two separate elements, so I'm not sure what it is exactly you're looking to do.

    txtVerbLine is the Text component that's connected to the "Verb line" Label element in the Menu Manager's Verbs menu. To hide it, you can uncheck Is visible? in its list of properties.

    This can also be done at runtime with the Menu: Change state Action, or through script - just right-click the property's label in the Menu Manager to get an API reference to it.

  • edited October 2020

    In an ideal world, I just want to implement the inventory handling from the nine-verb template, as everything else is handled brilliantly from the front end of ac. As mentioned previous, all of this works perfectly without extension via script except interacting with inventory items, which is somewhat of an essential step!

  • Even without the template script, you can still interact with inventory items through verbs - or Interaction elements, provided your "Interaction method" is set to "Choose Interaction Then Hotspot", and your "Inventory interactions" is set to "Multiple".

    The template script makes a few tweaks to the window-dressing to get a more accurate emulation of the Scumm engine, but if you're just looking to select a verb and then an item, it's not strictly necessary.

    I'm not clear on how exactly you want your game to play, though. If you want more specific advice on how to achieve it, you'll have to elaborate on the finer details - this is a complex topic.

  • Thanks again Chris, apologies for being dense. That is how I have things setup currently, but for reasons I've yet to figure out the actions aren't being triggered, this works using your template - naturally! Help!

  • Pleas ignore me, I'm a total idiot. I made the verb menu and the inventory as separate items. They need to be in same menu. Thank you for your patience !

  • The script requires that it be associated with the verb menu, but it should be possible to move the inventory to a separate menu.

    If it now works, though, it works!

  • Some swearing after ticking the wrong box later, I've got my combine functions working as I expect, however, and it's a VERY minor thing, if just using default AC functionality, is there a way to get the Combine sentence displayed using the default hotspot menu, to update within the inventory box of the first item selected?

    Currently I click the Verb use, then click the first item and the sentence does not update until over another hotspot/item with which it can be combined, in fact, the Use verb disappears. This can be kind of confusing as it's like the use action hasn't executed!
    Many thanks as ever, apologies for noob questions

  • Is your Hotspot line now in a separate menu? If so, make sure it's beneath your Verbs / Inventory menu(s) in the Menu Manager stack - this'll ensure it's updated last.

    Otherwise, let's see your Settings and Cursor Manager settings. It may be a case of just having to check Only show label when over Hotspots and Inventory? in the Cursor Manager's "Interaction icons" panel.

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