GRAC -making games and resources

[amigapd]

Hi,

I've always been interested in making a point and click adventure using GRAC but have been put off by thinking the software is very clumsy and hard to access.

Recently I have download the software and started making a tutorial on how to create a game with it. I have been making slow but steady progress. So far, I have

1. created a character
2. loaded a room
3. edited the script to include conversations between two characters
4. edited the script to make the player move between locations

What I was wondering, was whether other people are interested in learning how to make a point and click adventure, using this software or whether they would be willing to contribute music, characters, rooms, plot ideas for a small adventure (my initial idea is a small survival - B movie theme of a school boy fighting off either a zombie or alien invasion in a leafy suburb)



If there is enough interest, I will add resources to this thread such as room graphics, character graphics and mini guides on how to use GRAC.



In the meantime - below is hopefully a screen shot which has resulted from me working through the tutorials included on the GRAC user disk.

[locksmith]

interested in learning how to make a point and click adventure, using this software or whether they would be willing to contribute IN ANY WAY I CAN
im not a programmer but I willing to do or learn in any way I can

be nice to get involed with you and anyone els

[amigapd]

Cool - the first thing is probably to start thinking about a basic story and some puzzles - I am quite keen on the idea of a Zombie theme - as it could be fun to animate zombies and draw them - The main character is a schoolboy who lives with his parents and Zombies take over his local town in typical B movie style - In terms of characters I was thinking of

A policeman
A girlfriend
A shop keeper - newsagent
A pub landlord -
A vicar
A cook
mum
dad

In terms of locations I was thinking of:
Street
Woodland
Cafe
Church
Church Yard
Pub
Newsagents
Bedroom
Hallway
Living room

In terms of help - all help is welcome - whether it is suggestions for a story - ideas for puzzles - Help with drawing the room locations (I will upload some examples of room and confirm screen size and pallettes) help with drawing characters (I will upload a template showing animated frames and confirm pallette) - also help with sound effects and in game music will also be greatly appreciated.

In terms of the tutorials - I will upload ones as we go along and cover the main things like adding characters - adding objects - adding rooms to GRAC and then explain the script routine which is a set of basic commands to make the characters complete tasks and tell the game how they interact with the world.

[locksmith]

i was thinking news papper shop to get information to help people in the town
by helping them complete a part of the game eg stuff you need or information or where to go in the game or just to gain things (more people you help further in the game you get)
or each person obtain things from them or to get a objects for the game

maybe hav a video game shop to gain points or something like that eg fruit mechine to get you money to buy stuff from shops or a number game or a jigsaw puzzle to get a message
mayb intrest people who want there suff in your game .. plus you get them to make part of the game for you
just say you may or may not use it give more resson for them to do more or make stuff for you.
i even message them for see if they got anything you can use
......places to to hide or blend in like the pub lol
also have a room in your house to go to... load each place of the game like pub shop woods ect... so you can loads scrips for each place in the game or a time mechine or a radio to listen to the aliens
make a smell or a object to protect you from the zombies lol
i good at making pictures for other pictures could use some amiga logo about the places it a bit early to think at the moment
like to help out in any way i can i even have a go at making stuff for the game
well keep at it up you get there mate

[mjnurney]

i have briefly tried this ...

but I'm not done with my backbone masterpiece yet , one game to rule them all...

maybe.

i thought you were using Reality software?

[amigapd]

Ok - I ve attached some files which are useful for those wishing to help out with making a short GRAC game or just wanting to learn how to use this game creator software.

The plan is to produce a set of short tutorials showing the different aspects to GRAC and how to create a short adventure. The first tutorial will be to show how to add rooms within Grac. I will try to add this over the coming weeks to this thread.

Attached is version one of GRAC - you can download the later version from Aminet.

Also attached is the User disk which I have been saving my experiment Grac game to.

Also attached is a template of the street location picture for those interested in helping with graphics and creating new screens for the proposed game - the first 16 colours can be changed for each new location if required - the last 16 have to remain constant as they are used for the characters and therefore can't be changed otherwise their faces and outfits will change colours with each location which wouldn't be good.

- In reply to the question from the previous post - yes I was making a game with reality - I made Kingdoms of steam with it using the shoot em up disk - and I also produce a demo of a Dizzy clone game - Dylan and the Green Smelly Aliens from Mars using the Adventure skeleton disk - I will probably return to finish off the Dylan game later but I need to think about the final puzzle and end to that game. In the meantime I keen to look at the potential of GRAC and hopefully encourage some new adventure games for the Amiga.

[Ozzyboshi]

I am currently writing a technical ebook that describes how to use GRAC2, I am studying the game "epsilon 9" and maka a manual out of this, my goal is to write my own game but I really lack of creativity and above all I am terrible at drawing, if someone is still interested in this project please contact me especially if musicians or pixel art painters.

[AmigaRob]

I had Grac in the 90s and was working on a game with a friend of mine, but the thing that stalled any progress was that I could not work out how you actually created any kind of compiled or standalone game at the end of it. It was probably obvious.

[ant512]

IIRC you save the game from GRAC2, add an icon to the file, set the default tool in the icon to be "gracplayer2", then double-click it.

Compiling a disk to distribute was a little harder, as you had to make sure you included all of your data files, any fonts you'd used, the various libraries that GRAC needed (you could copy these from the GRAC disk itself), an installer, and go through the tedium of creating a disk that would boot into a minimal Workbench.

On top of that, you could have some fun adding non-GRAC stuff to the game. The Experiment had an intro sequence written in AMOS that would execute the GRAC player when it was finished. Entity had an intro sequence written in Blitz 2 that started some kind of bridging program that in turn kicked off the GRAC player when it was done.