I think you might like this...

http://www.axeuk.com/cgi-bin/gamesonline.cgi

Anybody can now play all the games on the Quest Games Archive from within their web browser - no need to download any additional software!

All you need is a web browser that supports JavaScript and Flash. So far I have tested on Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7.

Please let me know if you see any weird behaviour, or anything that doesn't look quite as it should.

This is the only place I'm linking to Quest Games Online at the moment - so please send me your feedback!

Alex,

I have Internet Explorer 6

I can launch the beta, and i get the java template with the inventory, object, and compass menus, but the game doesn't launch.

I'll try upgrading to IE 7 and try again.

-Doug

ALex,

I tried again with IE 7...

It works!

I'll play my game and see if I notice anything unusual vs. playing it from quest 4.0

-Doug.

Alex,

The mouse works fine in the "places & objects window." However, after you take an object into inventory, I can't seem to get the mouse to right or left click to use the object, or drag it onto objects in the "places & objects" window.

I can type in the command to do that, and can continue playing the game.

-Doug

Well, as usual, some javascript thing in firefox is preventing me from playing.

I get as far as the SetTimeout(...) right at the start of the "onload" function and it crashes.. I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly.

It promptly crashes Firefox under Linux.

Not sure why it's not working on Firefox under Linux - I'll need to investigate this further.

In the meantime can you try putting "index2.htm" in the URL, e.g.:

http://quest.servegame.org/index2.htm?escape\escape.asl

I've increased the delay here between loading the page and connecting to the server, which may help if the .SWF hasn't had time to load. Please let me know if this behaves any differently.

In the "Inventory" window, could you install icons, similar to the "Objects & Places" window icons (Look at, Take, Speak to), for the verbs LOOK, USE, DROP, and possible GIVE.

That would make it more like quest 4.0

thanks.

this is a wonderful idea Alex. Congratulations.

I went back and tried my old game, and found a whole of heap of stuff I don't remember programming . It's called Life for those that are interested (from memory it's the only game i actually ever finished. it was also my first one).

I will definitely use this a lot

Weirdly enough, I've had linux firefox go through the javascript a few times and crash at the point above... and then crash LOADS before it even starts running (or else it went straight past my breakpoints).

I haven't been able to test out the new page yet.. I'll try tonight.

I've now updated Quest Games Online so the Inventory panel has "look at", "use" and "drop" buttons. This means (I think) that everything you can do with the mouse in Quest, you can now do online.

Quest Games Online also supports images and sounds (MP3, WAV and MIDI, although not MOD) by the way.

Please give it a whirl and see if you can find a game that breaks it... Cheers!

Alex,

I saw you added the three icons to questonline beta. That helps a lot. There is the case, however, of when you want to drag and drop inventory items to objects in the room. For example, you have a car key in your inventory, and a car is an object in the room.

Currently, the best you could do is "Use car key" ...but that doesn't complete the logic. You would then have to type in "Use car key on car"

One way to get around the right clicking and left clicking in JAVA, may be to HIGHLIGHT the object, HIGHLIGHT the inventory item, then click the USE icon...

Just a thought.

just one more thought to tack on to my last post.

Since you could also use items on other items in the inventory, that means you need to be able to highlight 2 seperate items in the inventory.

If the car key and the "locked car" may both be in your inventory, the player is going to want to highlight the locked car first, then the car key, then click the USE to get "Use car key on locked car"

All this effort to promote laziness? Why not simply type the commands the way IF was meant?

I think Quest would benefit greatly from the side panel being taken out of it altogether.

S1aY3R wrote:All this effort to promote laziness? Why not simply type the commands the way IF was meant?

That is a good point. But I don't think it promotes laziness. I think it is possible to think of games as being mouse driven, or text driven, or a combination of both. Your computer comes with a mouse, why not use it? It should become obvious how to proceed as a player in each game, based on the way the game is devised. Some games are entertaining, with a minimal amount of verbs, so that you can play with the mouse only. As an example, if you are say 80% through a game and have only used your mouse, and then you introduce a verb like "eat"...and say it is the only instance it is used in the game...I think that takes away from game play. I made a mouse-driven game, but I alerted the players before starting of this, so that they could concentrate more on the minimal amount of verbs and push the keyboard aside. I had to risk the temptation of creating the verb "eat" for my game, so I compromised and developed a different game-playing strategy for the idea to proceed.

Now on the other hand, if you immediately start a game with verbs like "jump" "eat" "block" "grab" etc...you would probably push the mouse to the side altogether and play exclusively with your keyboard. I might try this approach in my next game to utilize a bigger universe of verbs and possibilities for the game player.

So really, I think you can have the best of both worlds.

That is a valid point. I'm just biased against point-and-click IF.

A lot of people like having the panes, and for people new to IF it provides an easy way in - which can only be good, I think.

Quest 4.0 gives a game author the option of disabling them though, so if you're writing a game that you think will be spoiled by the panes (e.g. if it mostly works through custom commands/verbs, or if the panes would give away game details such as object names) you can turn them off entirely.

And of course as a game player, you can turn the panes off if you want just by hitting the toggle button (not implemented yet in Quest Games Online)

That's a nice touch, Alex. Another question I had, which may perhaps be a feature request is: is it possible to edit menus on-the-fly? For example, can you add or remove options from an existing menu, or must it be done at its genesis?

Depends whether you're talking about selection menus (those that pop up in a window), or the other Quest windows. Actually, in either case, you can't edit menus on-the-fly at the moment, though it is on the "to do" list (both dynamic selection menus, and customising the right-click menus).

If you're talking about selection menus, one way you could hack it, if your menu always has the same number of options, would be to use a string variable or function as your menu item text, and then use some clever scripting.

String variables work now in menu's?

If I remember right - you couldn't have any script in the menu for sure, and I think variables weren't available either... This was WAY back when I tried to make that primitive fighter game which starred Alex, david, steve, and I (probably a couple of others too)..

Might be fun just to revive that for fun

I was going to ask you about that game a few days ago. I think you should since I'm not one to believe in coincidences. I was also unaware you could do that with menus, because it would solve a lot of my problems.

What was that fighter game supposed to be like?

It was extremely simple, and made with 2.x IIRC. It was more of a joke than anything, but for some reason I just couldn't get it out of my head a couple days ago.

Yeah, I just picked people from the forum and took their key personality.. Bloody brillient at the time.

Only half worked - because I could never get a scripted menu..
I think I'll go back to it when I get home tonight..... I wish I had the .zip file here because I have little else to do.

This is incredible. I love it! Good job Alex. It would be great to have this available to download in a simple template, as well as the multiplayer version too. If users are able to be more flexible with how they present their games, it could open a new door to a whole bunch of people.
Some people might not wish to install Quest on their machines, some people may prefer browser-based games (Telnet style) than installing games on their machine. So having this publically available would widen the users options.

Bugs:
Help window does not appear when you type 'help'

Once this works, HavenHold will most definity be using it. Btw, Alex, if you would like to see HavenHold you can. No-one else can though, lol. But I'd like Alex to see my work and if he likes it, and my coding, lol. I'm pushing the limits of version 3.53 quite some bit, and doing things never done before with quest . It's coming on quite nicely actually.

davidw wrote:I think Quest would benefit greatly from the side panel being taken out of it altogether.

Yes yes YES! My Dungeon is ment to be retro. The panes were OK in Quest, where you could remove them, but they'll ruin the game if they are always up online! BTW, when is Dungeon going to be set up for online?