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TMC
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Post by TMC »

That's a lot of additions! So you're releasing the demo when the first chapter is done? How long is this game planned to be, and how complete is it?
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guo
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Post by guo »

I'll probably release in chapters/episodes. Gameplay wise atm it takes me about 3-4 hours for a playthrough, maybe a bit longer if you don't know where everything is! I've planned for 5-6 chapters, so still a wee while away from fully finishing. I'd say we're about 15-20% complete.

If I wasn't about to go overseas I'd probably have the demo out as soon as I've finished the score - everything else is basically done at this stage, barring a few bits here and there.
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guo
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Post by guo »

Quick update:

~Alluring new enemy encounter scripted and implemented
~Editing of old cutscenes - dialogue changes, camera, sound effects
~more dialogue options
~New flavour dialogue when certain characters are in certain areas
~minor balancing of enemy stats, and attacks
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guo
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Post by guo »

Looking for some input regarding whether to add a run button or not.

There are some larger open areas in the game, and I'd like the player to be able to traverse them quickly to avoid tedium. To that end, I think adding a button that increases the player's walk speed to 5 is a good idea, but I have a few concerns.

Enemies appear as NPCs in this game, and pursue the player or patrol a set area. Part of the on-map gameplay is navigating these enemies. Most have the same walk speed as the player (ie 4), but some are speed 5 for difficulty purposes. Obviously, the problem I'm going to have with a run button is that it makes encounters with speed 4 & 5 enemies much easier. The next (non-messy) walk speed is 10, which is a big step up.

I guess the other option is to increase the framerate, but I'm afraid of what that will do with ticks for cutscenes & other scripts.

Open to suggestions & ideas!
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

Add the run button and make sure areas with enemy NPCs have enough environmental obstacles that it's still a challenge to navigate through even at higher speeds.
TMC
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Post by TMC »

Walk speed 5? That's not running. If you hadn't already assumed a move speed of 5 everywhere, I would just save the player the trouble of holding down the key and make the walk speed 5 permanently. Some games like SoJ used 5, and it probably is a better default.

What about not allowing running near enemies or in certain areas?

Note, keeping the walkspeed at 4 and increasing framerate to 25fps is equivalent to walk speed 5.5.
Changing the framerate shouldn't break anything, it should only speed up animations and decrease pauses (e.g. for textbox waits). There are some waits you want measured in ticks (all wait(1)'s, probably not any others), and the rest in seconds. So if you do a search-replace with a script like:

Code: Select all

script, waittick, standardticks = 1, begin
  if &#40;standardticks <= 1&#41; then &#40;wait&#40;1&#41;&#41;
  else &#40;
    variable&#40;until&#41;
    until &#58;= milliseconds + standardticks * 55
    while &#40;milliseconds < until -- 10&#41; do &#40;wait&#40;1&#41;&#41;
  &#41;
end
I think it'll be what you want in nearly all cases.
It's really too bad we don't have a waitsec (or waitms, to allow fractional seconds?) command builtin.

(Beware though, this does break the Shift-Tab debug key, as well as key-recording/macros)

Or what if there was a command to dynamically adjust framerate (affecting tile/etc animations too), which you could use for running? That's been requested; I've been meaning to add it. However I think that as an implementation of running, in most games it would be inappropriate or would seem weird.
Last edited by TMC on Fri Jun 15, 2018 4:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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guo
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Post by guo »

Thanks for the script, TMC. Game is running at a smooth 24fps.

This week:
~Improving/polishing/redrawing many of the main sprites.
~Balancing and playtesting (in most cases making the enemies a little stronger), as well as rudimentary battle AI using conditional chains.
~Beginning to implement PepsiRanger's "scenery sounds" scripts
~Having mad fun creating new sound effects for PepsiRanger's "scenery sounds" scripts
~Reworking old scripts
~General bugfixing, tweaking and polish
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TMC
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Post by TMC »

Ah! Did you just want to increase the framerate to speed up movement, not to make the game smoother?. Does this make the chase-you enemies harder?

I still haven't read through Pepsi's scenery sounds scripts to figure out what's really going on there. I'm surprised it's got lists of (simultaneous?) sound effects which are compared to each other. Did you get it working?
Last edited by TMC on Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

The scripts that compare sounds are there to turn off any sound that shouldn't be playing within the hero's current position. One of those scripts is meant to stop the sound as soon as the map changes. Where the script could fail is if the previous map's sound becomes the stored sound on the new map before it shuts off, which I tried to write in such a way that the stored sound would always turn off before a new one would get assigned. I haven't had trouble with it yet, but I also haven't tested it on Powerstick Man XE, which would be the one game that would stress its ability to the max.

If we ever get sound effects volume control, I'll adjust the script to account for sound range.
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guo
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Post by guo »

The script works well, but I've run into a problem:

Code: Select all

script, local sounds for map, map, begin 
	switch &#40;map&#41; do
	&#40; 
		case &#40;14&#41; do
		&#40;
			local sound loop &#40;1, 36, 9&#41;
			limited sound loop &#40;1, 37, 5&#41;
			limited sound loop &#40;2, 37, 6&#41;
			limited sound loop &#40;3, 37, 7&#41;
			limited sound loop &#40;4, 37, 8&#41;
		&#41;

	&#41; 
end
The local sounds work for zone 9, but the limited sound loops only work for zone 8. The other ones don't play at all.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Hmm, I'm looking at the script, but I can't see why the others wouldn't play. You're sure you have the other zones defined? Have you included at least 4 spots on "fixed sound range"?
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guo
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Post by guo »

If I set each zone to play a different sound, it works. Very strange.

Edit: Tried it again today. Sure enough, if I have multiple checks for different zones to play the same sound effect, only one of them will work (seems to be randomly determined). If you have different sounds set, then it works fine. I have just imported 4 of the same sound to use as a workaround for now.

To explain further, what happens in game is that when the player walks on long grass, there is a chance that an enemy will spawn nearby and give chase. I have 3 separate zones mapped out (with their own spawn points, rates and encounters), but wanted them all to play the same sound effect (limited) using this script. The 4th zone is reserved for long-grassy areas that I don't want to set off encounters.
Last edited by guo on Fri Jun 29, 2018 2:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I'm wondering if you're overlapping zones and if the engine is trying to decide which one to designate as source for the sound effect. I don't think you can double-trigger the same sound effect in the OHR, and the only thing that makes sense to me is that you're somehow trying to double-trigger them in your map design. If not that, then I'm stumped.
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TMC
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Post by TMC »

Yes, you can't play the same sound multiple times at once. Yet.
(Actually, the OHR's sound effects originally did allow that, but those script commands were declared obsolete and replaced with the current ones, which are much easier to use)

The problem is that the scripts call "stop sound (X)" if according to one of the "limited sound loop", etc, calls sound effect X should not be playing, even if the same sound effect should be played according to some other zone the hero is standing in.
To fix that problem, the scripts would first have to draw up a list of sound effects that should be playing, another list of all sound effects that are zone-triggered, and only then stop any sound effects on the second list but not the first.
The "compare new and old sounds" script does something similar to that, and at first I thought that was its intention. But to actually do it properly you would need to either use sorting, or have an array whichs mark each sfx id as either to-be-played or not.
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guo
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Post by guo »

There might be 1 or 2 squares that accidentally overlap, but that's it. I'm happy with the workaround though, and the script was really easy to implement. It's made the long walks on the beach much more atmospheric. Thanks, Pepsi.
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