Bay 12 Games Forum

Getting a bit off topic but still related to this release, I was going ahead and testing the assassination of the CCS Bosses. The Bar and Grill one was really easy, my sleeper got me past the guards and I stealthed my guy over to the Boss and killed him, no problem at all. So then I moved on to the Fallout Shelter. I had used seduction to get the location, but didn't grab the guy as a sleeper, just got the location and broke off the dating. Because of this, I couldn't get past the door. I didn't test it, but would you need 2 stealth guys to be able to get past the entrance undetected? There's always 2 door guards, so if you stabbed one of them, the other would see and you'd go to alarmed state. Since there's no other entrances, would the only way to assassinate the boss then be to have 2 stealth liberals? In any case, I feel that there should be some secondary way in, like maybe a back entrance with only 1 guard but a high-security door that's tough to open, just so that it's somewhat plausible to do one-man-army assassinations.

So how exactly do guitar attacks work? Is it just like a music and heart vs wisdom etc for the roll, and then you have a chance to convert?

I had suggested an alternate solution, wherein court cases last x amount of days, during which time you have an opportunity to say, go in and tamper with the jury and/or destroy evidence to affect the final rolls for the case to be more in your favor as an alternative option to actually having to bust your guys out. But killing the judge on the case feels like it could be a good idea too, just to give you more time to get your stuff together and figure out what you're gonna do, maybe have it be a rare encounter or something where you can see the judge on your liberal's case and have them marked differently (maybe have them spawn with their actual character name instead of just Hangin' Judge). Maybe even have a threaten judge option as another alternative for the trial to be pushed in your favor, assuming the judge on the trial isn't a sleeper.

Well, not sure if it's a bug or I'm not understanding the mechanic, but whenever I perform a successful sneak attack, it still immediately trips the alarm.

Was it on a single target? Because if you sneak attack 1 person in a group, the rest will notice. If there's more than 1 conservative present, you need an equal or larger amount of liberals able to sneak attack to take them all down without alarm.

As I recall, there's an upper limit on how high the armor value can go, take a look at the highest numbers on existing ones and keep adding from there and trying it out... Once you get past a certain number, for some reason it gets WORSE. It's just about finding the right number, I just can't remember what it is.... Fox mentioned it somewhere.

Quote from: BoxOfAids on February 13, 2013, 11:00:24 am

I've got a general question for you programmers out there. I'm dabbling in the field myself (degree in computer science, but not actively programming for a career), and I was wondering how one even starts making a game like this, like what steps do you take to actually get this to a working state? I'm sure you can't just start coding then figure it all out later, especially making ascii-based games requiring tilesets etc. I'm just wondering what order you do things in, the steps needed to get something like this working, and things like that. I'd be interested in making little games like this as a side project, but I just have no idea where to start or anything. Assume I'm not completely dumbfounded by programming, I have some minor experience in Java/C++ and a little bit of python, I just wouldn't know how to get everything to work together, or how to implement save states, or even how to make the whole graphics portion of it.

There are several ways (paradigms) of how to do it. And, surprisingly, one of them is (I'm over-simplifying) "start coding and then figure it all out later". Basically what that approach entails is that you always keep a working prototype (or rather minimize the times when it's broken) and add features to it as you go. This approach is great for game development, because there's always an alpha on hand to show people and get feedback. Getting that feedback (even if it's your own feelings on the game),  you can "figure it out" and take your project in a new direction.
If, on the other hand, you're pretty sure you know exactly what you want (like maybe you have a course assignment), then there's a model where you plan everything out, figure out how all the parts connect and build your application. This will make coordination easier, as well as testing, and you won't waste time on stuff you later decide is too complicated (or not enough) and have to replace. It's also, in my experience, less !fun!. 

Yeah, I would definitely be one to get it semi-working and then add stuff as I go. But I was more wondering along the lines of what exactly I need to do to get it working. I can code fine, but I have no idea on how to make it into a working exe or even where to start to actually have it do stuff. I can do logic and programming, but I don't know how to, say, make the whole game into a package that can be run and worked on, or even how to display anything graphically. I'm sure, using ZSS as an example, that I could do the actually gameplay elements like programming AI for zombies and stuff, but I don't know how to package it all together and get it to work, like I have no experience with compiling or anything like that.

What would you suggest for opening the RAR file? I can't figure it put for the life of me.

Winrar perhaps?