I've just noticed a font problem running Quest under Windows 8. The following game uses the Comic Sans MS font, as you can see if you try to play it online:
http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/e4hrqb_vpeo4np1a0jel9g/l-too-another-mathemagical-adventure
However, if you download it to play under Windows 8 a plain font appears instead? This does not happen on my laptop running Windows 7 and used to be fine on my desktop running Windows 8 when I last worked on the game about a month ago.
Any suggestions...apart from switching from Comic Sans MS :)

It looks like it only displays in Comic Sans MS if you actually have a font called "Comic Sans MS" on your system. If I play it online I see DejaVu Sans Light.

I'd suggest using a webfont if you want to be sure it will look the same on all OS/browser combinations.

Hi mrangel, thanks for the reply but I think that is another problem. I had rather assumed that if I select one of the 13 base fonts in Quest and didn't pick a web font, that the nearest available would be used. I'm not sure what happens in practice.

Quest suggests that selecting a web font overrides the base font but that isn't happening on my system either. No matter what font I select, I end up with the same plain font.

Is anyone else using Windows 8, as I suspect this issue arose as a result of a recent Windows update?

When you use a web font, Quest's embedded browser downloads that font from https://fonts.google.com/ when the game loads.

...and, as mrangel says, when you just select a base font, the embedded browser goes to it's default font when that font is not accessible.

What font are you selecting in the web font?

I'll dig up the Windows 8 machine I used to see around here sometimes and check it out.

(I bet you're seeing sans-serif. Mine goes to that.)

'Comic Sans MS', cursive, sans-serif

I think that means if Comic Sans MS isn't there, it tries cursive. If cursive isn't there, it tries sans-serif. (I may be mistaken.)

Yep.

...because it goes to cursive on my Android.

...and here is a good link which explains it:

https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_websafe_fonts.asp

Thanks KV, I'll research further.

Hi K.V. and mrangel, I think I now know better what should be happening so I may be able to explain myself a bit more clearly.

To control the appearance of a game, the designer should select a 'web font'. A 'base font' must also be selected from the 13 safe families offered (as defined by w3schools). The base font is only used if the game is played without an internet connection.

Within a game, it is also possible to change the web or base font and the font size dynamically.

The problem I'm experiencing, which I think just cropped up in the last week is that the Quest games I play on my computer, which is connected to the internet, all default to the same font and same font size (looks like Times 15). Also, if a game script attempts to change the font or font size it has no effect. I don't think this is a direct Quest problem as I have the same version of the Quest system running on my laptop and it is fine there. There was a Windows 8 update on 25 Jan, which may be the cause of this issue. Any suggestions for how to sort out this problem would be much appreciated!

BTW, I also see that the room name in the location bar uses the base font rather than the web font and that IS being set as selected?

Just a shot in the dark:

Does your options window look like this?

Sorry K.V., I don't recognise that screen. I develop on a PC offline.

I use the desktop version, too.

If you don't recognize that screen, it's probably not the culprit, but here's how to get to it:

Thanks K.V.! The "use default game font" box wasn't ticked on my desktop but was on my laptop. I probably changed it a long time ago when I was first starting as I normally just work directly on .aslx files and rarely see the general Quest screen. I have no recollection of ever seeing these options, never mind setting one of them.

By adding the tick all is now as it should be! I assume something in the dynamically loaded part of Quest was changed recently to make this an issue?

Hurray! It works!

I assume something in the dynamically loaded part of Quest was changed recently to make this an issue?

Not of which I am aware.

That was just a wild guess. (It was the only thing I could think of that would be an easy fix.)

Thank you for your intuition!