Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

development tool primarily used to create

graphic adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based ...

s. It is aimed at intermediate-level

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

s, and combines an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

(IDE) with a

scripting language In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...

based on the

C programming language C (''pronounced'' '' – like the letter c'') is a general-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of ...

to process game logic.

History

Adventure Game Studio was created by British programmer Chris Jones in 1997 as an

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

program entitled "Adventure Creator". Jones was inspired by

Sierra On-Line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game ge ...

's adventure game interface, specifically as showcased in ''

Space Quest IV ''Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers'' is a 1991 in video gaming, 1991 graphic adventure game by Sierra Entertainment, Sierra On-Line, and the fourth entry in the ''Space Quest'' series. The game was released originally on floppy di ...

''. The first version of Adventure Creator allowed users to create only low- resolution keyboard-controlled games. ''Lassi Quest'' was released as the first complete AGS game in late 1999. The engine gained popularity with the release of

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw Benjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw (born 24 May 1983) is a British journalist, video game critic and developer, author, and humourist. He is best known for his video game review series '' Zero Punctuation'', which he produced for '' The Escap ...

's '' Rob Blanc'' and Philip Reed's ''Larry Vales'' games in 2000-2001. Version 3.0 in January 2008 included a complete rewrite of the editor using the .NET Framework and an update to the game engine to support 3D hardware acceleration. On 26 October 2010, Chris Jones released the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

for the editor under the terms of the

Artistic License Artistic license (and more general or contextually-specific, derivative terms such as creative license, poetic license, historical license, dramatic license, and narrative license) refers to deviation from fact or form for artistic purposes. It ...

, version 2. On 27 April 2011, the runtime engine code was released under the same licence. By 2015, community developers were maintaining and improving the engine and IDE, and began to implement cross-platform capabilities as well as support for more modern screen resolutions (4:3, 16:9 and custom high resolutions).

Capabilities

The editor and runtime engine were originally designed for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating systems; the runtime engine was ported to Android,

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

after the release of the source code. Prior to AGS 2.7, an

engine was also available; this has since been discontinued. It is not yet possible to run the editor on

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s other than Windows without an

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run sof ...

or API wrapper such as

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

. AGS can create games with a graphical range from 256 colours and a resolution of 320×200, to truecolor games with any higher resolution supported by the player's graphic adapter and an

alpha channel In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate pass ...

. It also supports graphics filters:

nearest-neighbor interpolation Nearest-neighbor interpolation (also known as proximal interpolation or, in some contexts, point sampling) is a simple method of multivariate interpolation in one or more dimensions. Interpolation is the problem of approximating the value of a ...

(2x, 3x, and 4x), and hqx (2x and 3x). Version 2.61 supports the following multimedia formats:

mod Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US * ...

wav Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...

, xm,

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

ogg Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...

mp3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

avi Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram (given name), Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail (name), Abigail. People with the given name include: * Avi (author ...

. Version 2.72 also supports

Impulse Tracker Impulse Tracker is a multi-track music tracker (music sequencer). Originally released in 1995 by Jeffrey Lim as freeware with commercial extensions, it was one of the last tracker programs for the DOS platform. In 2014, on its 20th anniversary, ...

and

S3M ''S3M'' (Scream Tracker 3 Module) is a module file format, the successor to the STM format used by the original Scream Tracker. Both formats are based on the original MOD format used on the Amiga computer. The S3M format has many differences com ...

Community

The AGS community is based on the AGS Forum, the AGS Internet Relay Chat channel and Discord channel. There are real-world meetings of the community each year, known as "Mittens".

AGS Awards

The AGS Awards were founded in 2001 and are awarded annually to the best games created with AGS, in multiple categories. The AGS Awards were once an important barometer for indie adventure games, receiving coverage from sites like ''

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. Histor ...

'', ''

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by ''Eurogamer'', in May 2017. History ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' ...

'', '' IndieGames'' and ''

GameSetWatch ''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...

''.

Reception and usage

Thousands of games have been produced using AGS, among them commercially successful games such as ''

Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine ''Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine'' is an adventure game created by Himalaya Studios for the Personal computer, PC. Development ''Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine'' pays homage to the classic Point and click, point-and-click adventure g ...

'', '' The Cat Lady'', or '' The Journey Down''.

Wadjet Eye Games Wadjet Eye Games is an American independent video game developer, voice casting/directing contractor/subcontractor and publisher which specialises in point-and-click adventure games. It was founded in 2006 by Dave Gilbert as a means to publish ...

is an

indie game developer An indie video game or indie game (short for independent video game) is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A ...

that has created most of its commercial titles using AGS, such as the ''Blackwell'' series of games. They also publish AGS games by other developers, such as ''

Primordia A primordium (; : primordia; synonym: anlage), in embryology, is an organ or tissue in its earliest recognizable stage of development. Cells of the primordium are called primordial cells. A primordium is the simplest set of cells capable of tr ...

'' by Wormwood Studios, ''

Resonance Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...

'' by XII Games, and '' Gemini Rue'' by Joshua Nuernberger. Development teams

AGD Interactive AGD Interactive (AGDI), limited liability company, LLC. is a non-profit company given a fan license to enhanced remake, remake Sierra Entertainment's popular classic adventure games from the 1980s and early 1990s. History The Company was found ...

and

Infamous Adventures Infamous Adventures (commonly referred to as IA) is an amateur game development company, founded in 2004 by Shawn Mills and Steven Alexander, and is dedicated to making games in the classic adventure style made famous by the releases of Sierra Ente ...

have remade and updated ''

King's Quest ''King's Quest'' is a graphic adventure game series, released between 1980 and 2016 and created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following ...

'' and other Sierra releases. LucasFan Games have done the same with

LucasArts Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game brand licensing, licensor, former video game developer and video game publisher, publisher, and a subsidiary of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George ...

adventure games.

References

External links

* {{Video game engines 1997 software Adventure game engines Free game engines Formerly proprietary software