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[IndigoFenix]

Yeah, still some funny business going on with items I see.  Thanks for the reports.

Odd about the tiles...the whole point of loading rooms beforehand was to stop that from happening.  Going to have to go over that again.  And maybe see if I can streamline the process as well.  Right now the world loads all global objects when first entering a world, whether they are needed for the first room or not, which makes the loading take a lot longer than it should.  That can probably be improved on, though given the complicated nature of how objects can create other objects it can be rather hard to determine automatically exactly which objects need to be loaded for a room to function.

Potions do have the (still somewhat experimental) gradual decay going on.  On average, a potion should last for 7 days.  The exact mechanism used to calculate this is a bit complicated and is actually based on radioactive decay formulas.  Some of it might not be working right.

There's also the fact that sometimes it can be a bit hard to understand what's supposed to be happening due to the rather esoteric rules the system operates under when calculating item quantities while traveling from world to world.  Mostly this is related to ways of preventing world builders from just giving out a ton of items for free.  I intend to put some kind of meter allowing the player to see whether they are "overburdened".  That's not quite the right word.  Maybe "dimensionally stable" would make more sense.  All of these rules only apply to items that have prices though, so plot items (which should generally be free) won't run into this issue.

The Sealer Sword is probably going to have a heavy plot associated with it.  It's actually taken straight from a story I wrote when I was younger.  And yes, it is evil...you probably guessed that already though. 

[Kamani]

K.

Makes sense.

That makes sense (and I believe I had one lost that way), although I don’t know why that would affect shopping or use of potions.

Makes sense.

Yeah, red text involving destruction or killing related phrases has like a 99.9% correlation with being evil. Based on the name, I’d guess something malevolent and probably pretty powerful is sealed in it (possibly, based on the feed me style demands, one that needs to be used to get free? Something like that would be my current guess). Definitely not a Nightblood style sword.

Edit: Taking another look at interior walls: Not fully present in any other the indoor tiles (besides the stone walls in the lowres indoor tiles). In the LPC House Tiles for examples, there are no bottom of the room walls. Oddly, I found it difficult to find a good one on OpenGameArt (although I am bad at finding anything). I found a good looking one, but it was an RPG Maker set up one (https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-modified-base-tiles. Inside_A4), and those don't really work all that well for non-RPG Maker (it said it was modified for RPG Maker, but I was unable to find the original), so I am still stuck for now (this didn't come up with, say, the library, because every single wall is a bookshelf, thus you don't need a standard backwall). I guess I'll work on some character dialogue and take another shot at it later.

[IndigoFenix]

Huh...that is a pretty glaring oversight.  I didn't even notice.

Well, I made the Mana World tilesets public (I hadn't realized they weren't, since they were added to the system before the credits system was online.)  Those are the tilesets used in Protea, so they have walls.

[Kamani]

Okay.

Cool. I’m not sure how well they’ll fit with my world’s aesthetic (because I don’t remember the walls well and I am not currently editing), but if they do, great! Thanks.

Edit: Eh, I've had no luck finding anything, so this is close enough for now. Not quite what I was looking for, but I don't believe I'll find that right now, so this will do. Thanks.
Edit: The Mana tileset doesn't actually have proper sidewalls either. Shoot. Well, the way you managed it was good enough for now. Also, check the solidity of the walls in the shop. The forth tile from the bottom on the left isn't solid (although it would make a pretty nice secret area. It also has strange solidity set beyond that, but since I can't interact with anything in it, I am assuming it is still a missed spot, not a secret).

Edit: What rules are the Mana tilesets under? I did a rotation on them to modify them for my own use, so I need to know if that is allowed under its rules.
Edit: Plus, I might make some other small changes on them to make them more sidewall-y later, if allowed.

Edit: Got distracted from my project to work on chess themed monsters. Why? Not really sure, but hey, they might come in handy.

Edit: Is there a way to use absolute values? I tried taking the absolute value of 32 using |-32| for a test variable, but it just made 1. This would be useful for some more complicated stuff, so it would be nice.

[IndigoFenix]

My understanding of the Mana World license is that any modifications of original assets need to have a link back to their original source.  I'm going to have to go over the details, but it should be fine.

The "secret area" of the shop is where I like to test new items, actually.  Guess I forgot to close it off last time

There is no current single-line method for making absolute values, though there should be.  Honestly I should probably add a whole bunch of math functions to the scripting system.  It's pretty basic right now, and doesn't even do order of operations properly.

[Kamani]

Well, I don’t know what the original source is (I didn’t see a link on the original tilesets, although you could have added one while I was away from my project), but good to know. Thanks.

Ah, okay. Makes sense.

Guess I’ll just have to use < 0 tests for now. But yeah, improvements for the math functions would be nice.

Edit: I think I know how I’m going to redo the Shadowmage fight. Going to focus more on the shadow aspect than just a flat projectile mage. Should be a bit more interesting.

Edit: Based on my brief chess-themed distraction, there is now a rook style monster labeled Charger in my monsters package. Not of great interest, but it was neat enough in design that I decided to add it in. Might be interesting to make some similar projectiles for a boss. Worth considering.

[IndigoFenix]

Hmm...well, it should be possible to make objects that actually move like chess pieces, by giving them specific tiles relative to their current position they can jump to.  Not sure if it would be worth the trouble though...

[Kamani]

Yeah, that's what I figured. Wasn't too hard to figure out how to manage rook, but knights, queens, and bishops wouldn't work so well (for me. The best I could manage for bishop without devoting too much time was moving the same number of vertical tiles as it did horizontal tiles, so it only moved in square distance diagonals. Not so great. Didn't even bother with knights or queens before I got back to working on my project), and I didn't really bother thinking about pawns at all (although it probably wouldn't be too awful with tile testing, where would I ever use it?). The rook style attack might come in handy for something later though, so there was a net benefit.

[IndigoFenix]

Absolute value has been added, just use _abs(number)

I've started working on more advanced ai that will allow objects to have more complex behaviors than mindlessly attacking objects on different teams.  They will be able to make allies or enemies (if their team is set to 0), run away from threats, and remember things that have been done to them in the past.  Right now the only effect is that neutral units like chickens will become hostile if you attack them.  There will be more custom personality traits soon.

There's a "threat rating" parameter, which will affect how other sprites perceive each other and evaluate their chances in battle.  What would be a good rating for the player, do you think?  It's all going to be relative, but I want something that feels intuitive.  Maybe 100, and a "typical" threat rating would be about the same as the sprite's max HP?

EDIT: Checking out Lusuria.  It's pretty cool - love the branching dialogue and the characterization!  (I loled at the idea of a mushroom monster who is sensitive about his age, and the clumsy dragon bartender )

A few minor quibbles (with the understanding that it's not done, of course):

Maybe put some of the longer dialogue into the dialogue trees instead of running it automatically when the player enters the room?  Some players want to read everything, but others will want to just get on with it.

I think you may be overusing the "one talkative character, one quiet character" dynamic a tiny bit; even though there's some differences between them it still feels a little repetitive.  (Unless it's meant to be an intentional theme... like the idea that monsters tend to find partners that represent the opposite qualities.)

Also, you can spice up long text with colored text, which can be nice when referring to important items.  I've added a section for text options in the tutorial.

I made a package called "Check Desk", which you might find useful for any time you want to talk to a character on the opposite side of a desk.
The layering issue with the inn can be fixed by making the front desk a sprite instead of tiles.

[Kamani]

Great. Thanks.

Cool. Should be useful.

Yeah, 100 would make sense.

Thanks. I think those two will be the only auto-acting dialogues (Remy is very gregarious, so it makes sense for them), and the last of the one talkative, one quiet, although I could change it to make it less prevalent if it is overused (I suspect I’ll change it when it comes to Gyre and Fraz already, so that should make a difference).

Colored text would look nice in some areas, so how do I add colored text on certain words in BoundWorlds?

On the layering issue: Thank you. I couldn’t figure out anything for that. I’ll take a look at the package next time I can get back to it.

Edit: Spent several minutes trying to figure out why something wasn't working. Forgot that I don't start with the quest item in my inventory. Well... that was a bit of a waste. Need to think of a good way to add that to my inventory for this kind of testing.

Edit: Do cutscenes stop jump actions? I have the cup set to jump, but ever since I created a cutscene there, it just sits there, freezing the entire cutscene up (even when I tried it with a cutscene exception). How can I avoid this, since apparently jumps won't work.

[IndigoFenix]

That's odd... it was working yesterday.  I'll check it out.

EDIT: Okay, figured out the issue.  Really weird stuff, but...essentially every time a textbox closed, the flowchart was being "passed" to the speaker, causing...several problems.  Also, apparently there's a problem with passing cutscenes to the next event in a flowchart, got to fix that up too.

[Kamani]

Could just be bad luck. I had some problems with the game not continuing after walk functions (set to continue on fail), so this scene has just been a bit unlucky with that. Not sure why.

Also, apparently, I should make a bird enemy. Having a large bird fly at your head while you hold a broom up in hopes it attacks it, not you, is terrifying. Good thing to remember for whatever dungeon is next, I suppose.

[IndigoFenix]

If bad luck causes stuff not to work, it's probably a bug.  Walk commands, cutscenes, and flowcharts still have their issues.  I'll fix things up as I find out about them, so keep me updated on any bugs you encounter.

A bird enemy would make a nice touch.  I was going to make a mission relating to a witch forcing you to fulfill a quest or else you get attacked by geese, but I suspect the joke may be too subtle.  Were you attacked by birds lately?   

[Kamani]

Fair enough. I was having problems where walk events that were set to stop on failure wouldn’t, but I don’t remember the exact situation and I fixed it, so I’ll tell you if it appears again.

I don’t get the joke, so... makes me think of (I think it was Baba Yaga?) that witch with a duck (or maybe another bird) footed house though. Admittedly, humor is something I am quite bad at, so... And yeah, a peregrine falcon attacked me when I was helping band them. Not so fun, all in all. That bird is apparently unusually vicious for the area.

[IndigoFenix]

I've fixed the issues with the cutscenes.  Now cutscenes that begin in flowcharts should endure between nodes, and should automatically end when the flowchart ends.

I've also fixed a bug where walk commands would fail if the sprite arrived at the destination point exactly.