Twilight Software is proud to present its powerful AGE Adventure Game Engine.
Commonly referred to as AGE, the engine allows for the creation and delivery of commercial-grade first-person adventure games and other multimedia. The engine, which runs under Microsoft Windows 95, 98 and 2000, utilises Microsoft's DirectX and DirectXMedia technologies for maximum performance.
A hobbyist edition of the AGE Adventure Game Engine comes free when you purchase The Sydney Mystery for only $19.95. Click here to visit The Sydney Mystery website. You can also download a free demo of The Sydney Mystery, at the website, to see what the AGE Adventure Game Engine is capable of.
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Create your own interactive conversations... with characters captured in full-motion video! |
| Create as many action types as you want... and have graphical mouse pointers (with text prompts) to display these actions! |
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Scripting is easy... just type up simple files in Notepad, no programming experience necessary! |
When you create a game with AGE, it will have the following capabilities:
Here is a list of just a few of the engine's powerful internal features:
...In case you're wondering about the underlying style of game that is created with this engine, we present an extract from the extensive AGE Tutorial Document. This part of the document explains the general features available - these are the features that your adventure game will have when you use the engine...
The General Paradigm
| Having played through the sample game, you should
have a good understanding of the paradigm – the fundamental style – of a game
that is created for the Twilight Software Adventure Game Engine. This section will
formalise such an understanding. A game is based around scenes – still images with clickable regions. Scenes may have animations playing on them. The appearance of a scene may change based on the current game-state. The occurrence of animations may also depend on the current game-state. The availability of clickable regions may also depend on the current game-state. In a scene, the player may look at a region, pick up an object, use an object on a region, talk to a character (to enter a conversation) or enter a cutscene (which plays a video). Or they may carry out an action on a region, or they may enter a new scene. Additionally, by the use of changing game-states, a variety of puzzles can be built into scenes, including mechanical devices, machine puzzles and simple games. In fact, a virtually limitless manipulation of the environment can take place, for a wide variety of game play. A cutscene simply entails the playing of a video file. A new scene will be entered at the conclusion of a cutscene. A conversation is a set of video files that are played as "answers" in response to "questions" asked by the player. A welcome video is played, as is a goodbye video when the conversation ends. The availability of a question may depend on the current game-state. The player may also offer inventory items to the character being conversed with, the character will either refuse the object or may accept it. The player might also be given a new object after asking a certain question. The game-state is internally represented as a set of true/false "flags" (or values). For instance, the game state might be determined by: "player hasn’t met Goddess, player has picked up the golden ball, player doesn’t know he needs a silver ball". When the player progresses a little further, this state might change to reflect that: "player now knows he needs a silver ball". The current inventory of the player, along with the current location, completes the description of the current game-state. Such details will become clearer when the tutorial properly begins, in the next section. Suffice it to say that the adventure game engine is best suited to "first-person" adventure games. It is a very flexible engine however, and can be used in many ways that do not fit the standard interpretation of an adventure game. But if you want to make an adventure game, you’re in the perfect place. Read on, to learn how a real adventure game is made. |
It all adds up to commercial-quality games, with a cleanly-designed engine that's simple in design, but powerful in capabilities. The engine delivers games with a very simple user interface, which are particularly valuable in attracting new computer gamers, part of the massive new market for computer games.
If you're genuinely interested in making your own games, read about the licensing options, and find the one that suits you best. Then go to the purchase page, and embark on your journey. Twilight Software is glad that you're interested in the joy of making your own adventure game, and hope that you enjoy licensing the engine to make your very own adventure game!
