Captain Obvious Tutorials

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Pepsi Ranger
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Captain Obvious Tutorials

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Are you an old user who knows the engine inside and out? Are you a clever sort who has discovered a neat trick to make development easier on you and anyone else you're willing to share your secret with? Are the things you know, or have recently discovered, an obvious trick that you're probably the last person to finally figure out?

Then share your knowledge in the...

Captain Obvious Tutorials Thread!

How does it work? Simple, you'll post a message in this thread with:

1. A Title (that we can index)
2. A Synopsis (so that we can decide if we want to read or watch it)
3. An Approximate Captain Obvious Level (optional)
4. If it isn't obvious, let us know what category the lesson fits in, and what type of format(s) we can find it in
5. A Link or Post (to your video, blog, forum post, etc. where we can check out your tutorial)

Why post a title?
So that we can build a table of contents for quick reference.

Why post a synopsis?
So we can decide if this is the thing we've been looking for our whole lives.

What's a "Captain Obvious Level"?
An arbitrary value representing the likelihood that others already know and use this technique, but may still be overlooked by some. You can basically make this value up, using whatever metric you want from numbers to letters to slime emojis. Do what you want.

Which is better, a link or a post?
Feel free to post your text lesson here if it's short enough (like a tidbit). But if it's 1000 words or more, consider writing it in a separate location and linking that location here. This can include blog postings.

What should we post about?
Whatever new tricks, lessons, shortcuts, etc. that you think your fellow developers would learn or gain value from.

Why "Captain Obvious"?
Why not? Some of these lessons, including the one I'll be posting immediately following this introductory post, might be obvious, even though it might have also just occurred to us. We can call these the "obvious but overlooked" lessons.

Should this post be stickied?
Yes, unless it bombs and nobody uses it.

Should we post replies to lessons in this post?
Sure. Though, it would be a good idea to open with a "Re:Title" slug line so that we know what the response is in reference to.

Is this a good idea?
Probably not, but we'll see.

Table of Contents

Lesson 1: The Captain Obvious Tutorial for Faster Global Variable Definitions (video)
Lesson 2: Using Scrivener for Game Design (blog post + video series)

I'll try to keep this table of contents updated regularly. Post your obvious but overlooked lessons now!
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Captain Obvious Tutorial

Title: The Captain Obvious Tutorial for Faster Global Variable Definitions (video)

Synopsis: Global variables are necessary for storing values of information across all scripts in an OHR game, but how many do we need, and how long will it take to define them if we have a large block of similar but different types (like we might have if storing a vast amount of information for a fake array, for example)? If we type them in manually, we could spend several minutes to several hours defining them all, depending on the job. Or we could spend less than 10 minutes defining hundreds of unique variables accurately and confidently. Would you like to save time on your definitions for complex systems using tons of global variables? This video will show you how.

Captain Obvious Level: 8 out of 10

Category: Plotscripting, Variables

Video:

[yt]6l2hbfUHL_Q[/yt]

Thanks for viewing. Hope this is useful. Be sure to use this technique for any lengthy list you don't want to waste too much time building.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Captain Obvious Tutorial

Title: Using Scrivener for Game Design (blog + video series)

Synopsis: Revised and reposted from the utilities thread, this lesson will show you how to include Scrivener, the writer's best friend, into your game designing regimen. Do you want to keep a game journal somewhere other than random places on your hard drive or the web? Do you want to have somewhere to store your research that's quick to review? Do you want easy on-the-fly access to your concept art, music files, or even plotscripts without having to scour your various folders and programs and Internets to find each of them? Then find out how Scrivener, the writer's best friend, can also become the game designer's best friend. Blog presents overview, with links to three demonstration videos inside.

Captain Obvious Level: 2 out of 10

Category: General, Organization

Blog Link: "Using Scrivener for Game Design" at Drinking Cafe Latte at 1pm

Hope you find something useful here.
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TMC
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Post by TMC »

Tutorials! More tutorials is always nice. I might write a couple on the wiki and link them here. About things like tips for using the Test Game feature, since there's lots of tips with regard to that that people might miss.

Re: 1.The Captain Obvious Tutorial for Faster Global Variable Definitions
I had a look at the video. I think you really buried the lead (or 'lede' if you prefer propagating intentional misspellings into general English) here, at about the 9-minute mark. I think it's better to put details like "use Excel" in the synopsis instead. Anyway, I just wanted to remark that it's possible to automate the generation of different combinations of bits of text in Excel, which you're still partially doing by hand. Search for "excel cartesian product" or "excel generate combinations", for example see here

(Maybe the obviousness level should be inversely related to the detail level of the tutorial? Although, using Excel to solve this is not an idea I'd ever had... because I structure my scripts differently to avoid this problem.)

Re: 2. Using Scrivener for Game Design
I've only had a very brief look at this (although that's something I'm definitely interested in, in particular some features would be useful to have in the engine itself). The videos are long, but the blog post is actually fairly short. Just wanted to remark that the screenshots are too small, you can't see what's in the side windows... but didn't you post the same screenshots in a previous thread?
Last edited by TMC on Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:13 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by Feenicks »

Your volume of global variable usage never ceases to terrify me, pepsi.
[I just make a false lookup table using overly large/nested switch statements myself, or use blank slices if I'm feeling really fancy, but if what you have there works for you...]
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

@TMC

That Cartesian Product looks super useful. Thanks for sharing that (and finding it). I'll have to give it a try the next time I implement another major redundant block of global variables. I think I do mention Excel somewhere in the description. I know I wrote it somewhere. But yeah, I could probably make that clearer in the beginning. I wasn't expecting the video to run 22 minutes. I figured I'd be done in about ten. Whenever money gets better, I'd like to invest in an editing program that will make recording and editing much easier and of better quality. That will probably take a while, as I'm still trying to fund my authorpreneurship, and that's no small feat.

I just got a comment today from someone thanking me for the Scrivener for Game Design video. The poster brought up an excellent point: it's perfect for those planning out text adventure games. The program is practically set up for them. I hope the makers of Scrivener realize they have an untapped market they can address through the program. I wouldn't be surprised if they were to figure out a way to develop a code template that could be easily exported into a format fit for compiling if they were to consider reaching out to the game designer market.

And you should totally post your tutorials here. The obvious rating is subjective. You could rate your tutorial three sheep out of five and I'd trust your judgment. ;)

EDIT: Oh, and the blog shrinks the pictures down. Don't think I can fix that. They are the same images as what I posted on Slime Salad, though.

@Pheonix

Yeah, it's daunting, and I'm still in the early stages of variable usage. James had to increase the limit to 50000 just to make sure I didn't bust the engine.

It won't always be this intense. I just need the volume I'm using until arrays are implemented. Most of my massive chunks are repeated categories with one small change that I still have to track separately from another small change. I don't use slices for this because, last I checked, slices don't restore data from load, whereas global variables store and retrieve data indefinitely. This is the kind of game that keeps track of permanent stats, and I can't afford the game losing stored information from load to load. One game day currently takes about ten to thirty minutes to complete, depending on how many times the player accesses a dialogue box that freezes time, assuming he doesn't fast-forward to the end of the day. In later versions, this will double as I extend the time blocks from two to four per day. Multiply by 60 and you'll get an idea how long it'll take to reach the end (currently, about 10-30 hours; double when the game reaches its first stage of completion). Nobody is going to play for that long straight through. And, this is only while the game is a single episode. I have plans to stretch it to six episodes plus a sandbox episode, running the entire story mode into the hundreds of hours range (potentially). The global variables are necessary. Well, so are the arrays. ;)
Last edited by Pepsi Ranger on Fri Oct 20, 2017 5:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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