ArcadeGameSelector 2

AGS2 is a joystick controlled menu program for the Amiga.

Download

Downloads are available on the releases page.

Discussion and Help

EAB Forum Thread

What's New

For users of version 1 a number of things have improved:

• AGA and OCS support.
• Subdirectory support, up to two levels deep.
• Configurable screen layout.
• Better control over colors.
• Screenshots are loaded in a background task, keeping the interface responsive.
• Support for screenshot slideshow.

System Requirements

The minimum requirements for for running AGS2 are:

• 68000 CPU
• 1 MB of RAM
• OCS chipset
• Kickstart 2.0
• A hard drive or CD-ROM drive
• iffparse.library and lowlevel.library

However, games compatibility with the minimum setup will be low. The recommended minimum is:

• 68020 CPU
• 4 MB of fast RAM
• 1 MB of chip RAM
• WHDLoad

Installation

Copy AGS2, AGS2Helper, AGS2.conf, AGS2Background.iff, and Empty.iff into AGS:. Copy Startup-Sequence to S: for AGS to start automatically. For each game that you wish to run, create a script with the commands necessary to start it and give it a .run extension. You can also add a screenshot with a .iff extension and information with a .txt extension.

Place AGS:AGS2 in the Startup-Sequence after SetPatch, Assign AGS: and whatever customizations you need:

C:SetPatch >NIL:
C:NoClick NOCLICK
Assign AGS: SYS:AGS

AGS:AGS2

; Startup-Sequence continues here if no game is selected.

Usage

• Joystick, gamepad, or cursor keys Up/Down to select.
• Fire button, CD32 Red button, or Return key to start a game or enter a directory.
• CD32 Blue button, Escape key, or RAmiga + Q to quit menu.

Subdirectories

Subdirectories that end with .ags are included at the top of the game list, and they can also have a .iff screenshot and a .txt info file. Subdirectories are currently limited to being two levels deep.

Screenshots and Colors

The menu's screenmode, depth, palette, and colors are configurable. By default the screenmode and depth are copied from the background image, and text is rendered with the last color of the palette (255) and the second to last color (254) is used for the text's background. All of these can be configured in AGS2.conf. When screenshots are loaded the palette is also loaded, so to keep the screenshots from changing the colors of the user interface you can use the lock_colors options to lock the last colors in the palette.

AGS2 also implements a slideshow feature which allows you to use multiple screenshot images for each entry. The format to use for the filenames is [ENTRY_NAME]-[X].iff, where [X] is the numerical index (e.g. Agony-1.iff, Agony-2.iff etc). If the slidehow feature is enabled, AGS2 will look for indexed images within the configured numerical range. If no matching indexed images are found, or the slideshow feature is disabled, then it will attempt to find a file with the standard naming of [ENTRY_NAME].iff (e.g. Agony.iff). For optimum performance, it is recommended to use non-compressed (non-RLE) images if storage space is not a primary concern. Furthermore, although AGS2 can support mixed resolution screenshots, having the images in a standardized resolution will also produce the best visual results.

Configuration

AGS2.conf allows you configure the following variables:

Background image and screen mode

background = AGS:AGS2Background.iff
mode = $29000
depth = 4
lock_colors = 4

By default depth and mode are automatically copied from the background image, only set them if you wish to override.

Font selection

font = topaz.font
font_size = 8
font_leading = 0

Menu layout

menu_x = 24
menu_y = 8
menu_height = 30

The menu's width is fixed at 26 characters, plus two characters of padding. With Topaz/8 the menu is 224 pixels wide.

Screenshots

screenshot_x = 304
screenshot_y = 8
empty_screenshot = AGS:Empty.iff

# Slideshow delay in seconds
# Set to zero to disable the slideshow feature
slideshow_delay_secs = 3

# Any image with an index greater than or equal to this value will be displayed
slideshow_start_index = 1

# Any image with an index less than or equal to this value will be displayed
slideshow_end_index = 7

Information text display

text_x = 304
text_y = 144
text_width = 40
text_height = 13
text_color = 255
text_background = 254

Miscellaneous

# Valid options are "quit" or "none".
blue_button_action = quit
# Set to 1 to hide navigate to parent dir links ("..") 
hide_parent_dir = 0