The other suggestion I have for you is to start the movie playing and then have two or three lines of dialogue before the next
scene statement.
That way, the cutscene/movie plays in the background while the player is reading the new lines of dialogue.
If they are the sort of player who wants to get to the next section of the game without waiting... they can.
If they accidentally skipped 1 line of dialogue... that's okay... the movie is still active in the background while the other lines of dialogue are being displayed.
And if they want to watch the whole animation/movie before they move on... they can do that too.
You also have the option of using
with Pause() as part of your
scene/
show statement.
You say your animation is 25 seconds long, but you want to give the player at least the first 5 seconds of it before they can move on...
You could do something like...
Python:
scene black with fade
mc "just about to start the animation"
scene anim_my_animation2 with Pause(5.0)
mc "animation still playing, but game continuing"
mc "another dialogue line... animation still playing (or not if it ended already)"
scene black with fade
"*** THE END ***"
It won't STOP the player skipping the first 5 seconds... but it will pause before showing the next line of dialogue for 5 seconds. That might be all you need to give the player reason to watch the rest.
A "normal" player will see the first 5 seconds and then the dialogue will appear. They can choose to watch the rest of the movie before advancing or advance as normal. Either way, those two following lines of dialogue won't stop the animation playing while the player is reading.
And if it's the sort of player just clicking through things like a nutball... well... let them.
The
with Pause() is especially useful for people playing with auto-advance switched on. It tells the game to only auto-advance when the timer = (with_pause_time + normal_autoadvance_time). Players missing images can sometimes be because there's no dialogue to show and the auto-advance advances before the animation really gets going. Hell... use
with Pause(25.0) if you really want to... the game will show the full animation before continuing... unless the player clicks... in which case... sod 'em if they can't take a joke.
Edit: For reference... my preference would be to use with Pause(2.0) or with Pause(3.0) and then at least 1 line of dialogue before the next scene statement. Nothing stops the playing advancing, but that brief pause lets the player know an animation has started playing so they can choose whether to click forward or not. If I were using a 25 second animation, I might have 4 or 5 lines of dialogue after the 3 second initial pause. It's very much a "play it by ear" thing and maybe the scene would be ruined by dialogue.... in which case, your only other option would be a longer pause.
