Minor narrative progress, sorting out which concepts I want to use in the engine demo and which of those I want to use in the larger 'full game'.
Now that the level editor is nearing completion, I'm working on refactoring. After the editor is fully finished, I plan to work on dialog trees. As I envision it, dialog should leave the player in full control of their normal gameplay, but add contextual features to some mechanics, such that walking away is just as much an option, and just as fluid as stopping to chat. No more, "Tell me more." > "Goodbye." Nonsense.
Hopefully, a non-blocking dialog system will allow the game to feel more fluid, and less clunky.
@saluk I've actually not seen your work, what you've done is pretty awesome! Your system honestly looks great. I suppose we've just had a similar train of thought? I'm laughing a little bit right now, here I am drafting an idea that you've already gone and implemented! Ahaha.
In either case, I think that what I'm working on should be different enough mechanically as to not tread upon your work. Your dialogue system is tied right into your core mechanic, mine is much more contextual, restricted only to dialogues that the player must first enter into with a button press. Considering even that our games shall be in different genres (Platformer Vs. RPG), I think that that should suffice to differentiate.
If you still have concerns, I'd be glad to discuss it with you. There are obviously more mechanics to dialogue than just the default "press A to continue" that I'm trying to avoid, and I think that it is of no great loss should I have to rethink my own mechanic. I'd love to discuss and come to a mutually agreeable decision, such that I don't overstep my bounds, in a sense.
:)
Mass refactoring has made me realize how short sighted the original design for my editor was. So I'm now planning to rework it all, but better. Started towards that today, likely more tomorrow.
Spent some time designing clothes for the main characters, settling on a basic design theme and motif for the general direction I want to take the art. Won't show drawings until they're more finalized as I am a horrible artist.
To talk a little more about the art direction, think a cocktail of early 1900's style with a good infusion of magitech and militaristic design. Mechs and neon lights.
Nothing too big. Just small fixes and maintenance to code.
Porting an older personal audio lib forward and updating it to reflect my current coding style. In addition, more refactoring of the level designer and some work on story details.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Decoupling more code and breaking previous scaffolding into scalable objects.
Nyuu myukunyinyo kuu ku nyui nyo. Yomyuo konyooki nyi yu myii nyiunyo. Nyo younyi myu myuurri sonyi so nyu.
Nothing of substance insofar as rules of grammar or script, but I have a fairly strong idea of what I want it to sound like, and how it would affect the accents of the alien folk. In the meanwhile, drafting a magic system where you grab objects that are on screen, convert to runic form, and spit it back.
See a lightning strike in the background? Press Y, stop time, get that glyph - add a gun - boom, lightning blaster.
Missed almost a week due to real world fun(!), But I'm back.
Today's update is mostly lore, instead of actual code. Solidifying a lot of concepts with the setting and game world's characters. How would magic change the modern day, rather than the past? What about the future? What if we have found life on other planets, and for once, it's not hostile? What if other planets found life on Earth? What communication gaps, technological gaps, cultural gaps, &c would we have?
A little bit of work went into creating a runic script, because everyone loves their conlangs. Probably going to solidify more tomorrow.
Added... this. Not quite floodfill.
How to fix: Trace upwards to find the first non-empty block and copy its X-Coordinate. Compare against that coordinate when generating new columns.
When to fix: Not today.
Previously, indexed sets of tiles only loaded from specially formatted tile strips, with height equivalent to the tile's height. Now tiles can be loaded from images extending in multiple directions. Mostly back-end stuff, so no pretty pictures today.
Added chunks as an object in the code - this allows me to make a level editor game state with proper chunks - before they were placeholder datum until the editor design was finished.
Next up: Adding ecosystems (larger states containing smaller sets of related states which share information)
daily from
@notencore - No no no, sorry to give you the impression that I was concerned! I actually think it's really cool that we are been thinking along similar lines (even across a very wide genre boundary). There are so many things in games that are just taken as a given - "this is how dialog works" - why is that how we have to do it? Couldn't there be other ways? I spent some time thinking how conversation works in real life, and how many actions are actually available there which aren't well represented. I think games far too often take the majority of their inspiration from other games rather than from life or other media.
Looking forward to see your take on things :)