Arcage Game Selector
AGS is a joystick controlled menu program for the Amiga. It
requires a joystick in port 2 and an AGA Amiga.
Installation
Put the
ArcadeGameSelector somewhere in the path, like in
C:.
Assign AGS: to a directory where you intend to
keep your start scripts, or alternatively assign it to
RAM:AGS
and copy the scripts there. Oh yeah, start scripts -- all AGS does is
search AGS: for a bunch of files ending with
.start, and then
displays them in a menu. When the user selects something it copies the
relevant script to
AGS:.run and quits. A small script like
this should do the necessary magic:
C:SetPatch >NIL:
MakeDir RAM:AGS
Assign AGS: RAM:AGS
; Substitute SYS:AGS to wherever you keep your AGS scripts
Copy SYS:AGS/#? AGS: ALL QUIET
Lab loop
ArcadeGameSelector
IF EXISTS AGS:.run
Execute AGS:.run
Delete AGS:.run
Skip loop
EndIf
Save the script to
S:Startup-Sequence and you have a
dedicated game machine.
Scripts, Screenshots, and Info
As just a list of filenames would be a bit too bland AGS loads a
background image called
AGS:SelectorBKG.iff. It should be a
640x256x8 bit ILBM. For each game AGS looks for a .txt and a .iff file
with the same base name.
name.iff should be a 320x128x8 bits
image using the same palette as the background image.
name.txt
should be a text file with max 40 characters per line and 12 lines of
text. The first line will appear by itself and should contain the full
title of the entry. The 11 following lines are printed in the info box
below.
Download
- ags101.lha, 44 kB LhA archive
- AGS 1.0.1 and some example files. Double-click on AGS to run the
test script.
To do
Make it OCS/ECS compatible, ability to choose a different screenmode,
arbitrary placement and size of screen elements, config file. Oh, and
get a real screenshot instead of that old mockup up there.
Troubleshooting
- If AGS complains about missing libraries, make sure that you
have iffparse.library and lowlevel.library in LIBS:
History
- Version 1.01
- Fixed wrong game being selected when you had more than 30 entries.
Fixed lockup when having more then one start script starting with the
same letter.
- Version 1.0
- Initial release
Source
AGS is written in AmigaE. The source needs to be cleaned up and
commented but in case you want to look at it anyway, here it is:
arcadegameselector.e.