Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[IndigoFenix]

I guess I'm being a bit too much of a perfectionist.  I want to create a framework that easily allows other world builders to add to it, while still creating a story within that framework that carries themes that are loosely related to the idea of creating worlds, and at the same time serves as a demonstration of the kinds of things the engine is capable of building.  The lore areas give some background information already.  There may also be some "public characters" but for the most part everyone is free to interpret things their own way...

Maybe a few isolated "short stories" would work better.  Sort of like Live A Live, a Square game from the early SNES era.  Or maybe Octopath Traveler, which I hear is a kind of spiritual successor to Live A Live.  Maybe I should look that up for inspiration.

A three-act structure... hm, that could work.  Actually making the game resemble a stage play could be an interesting angle for other reasons, since there's already a character who acts like he's in a stage play...

Edit: My Sculptor golem boss has inexplicably lost all of the skills I gave them. This isn't a huge loss, since I needed to redo them anyway, but it is probably best that it is figured out why, if possible, so it can be prevented from occurring. Might be a bug, might be my own fault. Just noting this in case I run into a similar issue in the future.

I've checked in on it a couple of times, and I've never seen any techniques on the Sculptor.  I thought you hadn't started.

[Kamani]

Yeah, that might be a bit tricky. Cool too though.

I’ve been watching someone play through Octopath Traveler (although I’m far from seeing the end). Based on a very brief read through of Live A Live, I could the similarities. Seems like a decent game so far, as well.

Sounds like a neat idea.

Huh. I had given them a rock toss, golem summon, and an auto healing based on delayed objects that could be destroyed. I guess I must have forgot to save. Shoot.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I mean this is just how I think, but even if the average player is NOT going to be aware of 99% of what's going on you should at least have an outline for yourself. Also, getting world builders to meaningful contribute to the story can be decidedly difficult. I see that the task of creating a story that is idiot/troll proof is kinda tough.

I mean... it does seem like quite a challenge to write a story when you literally have no idea what the characters are going to do and where they're going to go. Or even who some of the central characters are going to be, I guess.

Just an idea (idk, there are probably other ways to look at it), but it seems like you kinda have two ways you could approach it, you could just like give players a primer on the lore and let them decide how they incorporate it into their worlds (and hope some homestuck level of story tangle develops), or have some kind of meta plot that can happen no matter where you are. IDK.

[Kamani]

Okay, I definitely lost the Sculptor boss to not saving. I just realized that the GolemMB enemy I had made for the boss has also lost all of it's skills. Hope I didn't lose anything else important at the time...

[IndigoFenix]

I mean this is just how I think, but even if the average player is NOT going to be aware of 99% of what's going on you should at least have an outline for yourself. Also, getting world builders to meaningful contribute to the story can be decidedly difficult. I see that the task of creating a story that is idiot/troll proof is kinda tough.

I mean... it does seem like quite a challenge to write a story when you literally have no idea what the characters are going to do and where they're going to go. Or even who some of the central characters are going to be, I guess.

Just an idea (idk, there are probably other ways to look at it), but it seems like you kinda have two ways you could approach it, you could just like give players a primer on the lore and let them decide how they incorporate it into their worlds (and hope some homestuck level of story tangle develops), or have some kind of meta plot that can happen no matter where you are. IDK.

When I'm talking about the story, I'm talking about the story for the world that I'm building, not the meta-lore.  As far as meta-lore is concerned, there are some things for players to build off of (I've built a few small worlds like the Library to help give players a primer on that), but it's all fairly generic and easy to build off of.  (There are many worlds, the Void is the place between worlds, magic comes from the Void, people exposed to the Void sometimes turn into monsters but not always.)

There are no real central characters to the multiverse as a whole aside from the player, although it is possible to create "public" characters using the package system.  I can make, for example, a wandering merchant that sells particular items, or a particular enemy, and other people can just drop them into their world as they like.  Other players can also create these.  It's meant to be very flexible.

As for my own world's story, I do have a fairly good idea about the major characters and their plot developments.  It's the padding, the space in between the major developments, that it tends to fall short.  You can't just go from major plot twist to major plot twist without having anything in between.

[Kamani]

Possibly a bug: When I was using a shake effect for my Sculptor's Earthquake attack, sometimes the entire thing starts switching between everything being as normal and everything freezing (about equally long).
It seems to have stopped doing it now, but I don't really know why, as I didn't change the shake effect.
I'll tell you if I see it again I guess? I was getting it repeatedly, so I thought I'd be able to give a set of actions that led to the occurrence, but that seems to be impossible.

Oh, also, if an object's animation frame would change at the same time as it would die from lifespan, you can see the frame switch over for just an instant before it actually dies. I don't know if this is intentional or not, so I figured I would check. I need to know so I can set up my animation vs. lifespan timing.

[IndigoFenix]

Oh right, I kept forgetting to fix that lifespan timer bug.  It's fixed now.

Let me know if you figure out how to reproduce the shake effect glitch.  If it appears to freeze but allows you to open up the menu and then updates everything at once, it's probably a Javascript issue.

[Kamani]

Oh, okay. Thanks.

Oh, so that is what causes those freezes? Never knew. But no, this one alternated like a half second of total freezing and a half second of working fine. Anyways, I’ll tell you if I figure out how to recreate it.

[IndigoFenix]

I've added a new feature: textbox voice typing sounds.  Little beeps and so on.  They only really work when the textbox has a typing speed.  You can find them under the Dialogue Boxes tab.

I'm also making an experimental day and night cycle as an object.  This will probably be released as a package.

[Kamani]

Oh, neat. I’ll have to take a look when I can.

Also neat.

[IndigoFenix]

The day and night cycle object now works (I had to fix some issues with flashes; setting _r,_g,_b, or _a on a flash object automatically "freezes" it until you set its _t value).  It also has an option to synch with real world time.  (Did I mention that there is a _game._clock object which lets you get things like the date, weekday, and time from the player's system clock?  It's a bit gimmicky I suppose, but you can do things like make things that only appear on certain days of the week.  If you want to do stuff like that.)

[Kamani]

Cool. Don’t think I have much use for a day/night cycle, but it should be useful for others.
Glad that the bug got fixed.
I feel like you mentioned _game._clock a long time ago, but not recently.
Maybe I’ll use the clock to make some alternate Lusuria inn conversation groups post dungeon. Not as something required, just as a thing for people who replayed the dungeon for other reasons. Either that or I could random it. I’ll think about it once Desert is done.

Edit: The odd glitch relating to the game alternating freezing and then unfreezing in like 20ish frame sections that I thought was related to shaking isn't actually related to shaking. It just happened for no apparent reason when I started testing Droom3's entry object, and, on an identical tests, it didn't reoccur. Unfortunately, I don't have any idea of why it occurs, seeing as the situations it has occurred in don't really have anything in common. I am completely lost on this one.
Edit: Many attempts later, for no apparent reason, it happened again. Still no ideas.

Also, I'm having a bit of a tough time with the already mentioned entry object. As far as I can tell, the Droom3FirstTimeCheck object should be changing the opacity smoothly during each loop for spawning and despawning each version, but instead, only the first fades in, and the others just switch over instantly (even before I added the set to 1/set to 0s). They are all set up the same, but it seems like the waits after the first are being ignored. Any clue what could be wrong? I don't really know if I just made a mistake or if there is something else going on, but I can't figure it out either way, so I could use the assistance if possible.

[IndigoFenix]

3 issues for the latter bug: There are two copies of Droom3FirstTimeCheck, there is an extra decimal point in the number where you are increasing and decreasing the opacity, and the second and third Hiekka objects do not start out with 0 opacity.

That other bug seems odd.  I guess I'll have to run some tests of my own.  Is it possible that it's related to having two cutscenes active at once?

[Kamani]

Wow, I really messed that up. Thanks, I was totally lost.

Can’t be because of cutscenes. Last time I got it, it was during miniboss testing, and I hadn’t added a cutscene to that at all yet (and the room, as far as I know, was otherwise empty). It seems to be happening unreliably and with no obvious links between cases. I really don’t get this one. Most other things at least can be easily reproduced. Ugh.

[IndigoFenix]

Hmm... well, next time it happens, try pressing F12 and checking the "Console" tab for errors.  That probably won't help much since the Javascript is encrypted, but at least that way I'll know if it's a scripting bug.