Tilting at Windmills

I’ve been working mostly on maps this week; I plotted out the first disk of maps (of which the demo is just a small part). I had originally intended to have all world-type maps in one file, all town-type maps in another, but I had mixed them up for the Demo, and then I realized that it was a better way to go. This means that you should only have to swap disks when moving from one large region to another.

I’ve decided to revise my “map name” system that’s presently in the engine. I thought it was nice to have the map name change when moving into different areas, activated by invisible triggers. However, a 15-character description just isn’t enough, and I decided to use some of that freed-up text space for something better. My plan is that when you step on these triggers, a single sentence description will pop up on the screen, like “You hear growling ahead…” or “A bitter wind chills you to the bone…” to add some ambience and verisimilitude to the game.

I’m also in the process of designing the quest system. I had originally intended something pretty familiar, similar to what MMO’s like World of Warcraft does. However, an article I read (on Tales from the Rampant Coyote, see below) criticized modern games for turning your adventurers into glorified couriers and dogs bodies. That got me thinking that I wanted to do something different and unexpected instead.

An example would be this: In a modern MMO, you may get asked by an NPC to retrieve an object from a nearby cave. This isn’t terrible, but the player is less a hero and more a mercenary. What if, instead, the NPC complains about missing the object, some other clues around town hint it’s in the cave, so the player finds the object while exploring the cave, and returns it to the person? Now that sounds more like a hero!

However, a quest system is always tricky to program, and it ties into your NPC dialogue system. I decided very early on I did NOT want a cursor or keyword typing. I also decided that I wanted only certain NPC’s to be good information sources; most just have a single line of dialogue, as befitting your average serf being questioned by scary guys in armor. So the ideal system continues to elude me for now.

And now for some links…

As he saw fit to mention my blog, I decided to return the favor to Stu, creator of a GP2X game known at this time as “Fish Guts”. Development on a mobile platform share a lot of commonalities with vintage systems, along with some new headaches, like power consumption and video stretching. We’ve traded information, procrastinated on combat engines, and generally encourage each other’s efforts. Thanks, Stu.

Another good site is a blog of Rampant Games, an indy games developer, called “Tales of the Rampant Coyote”. Jay, the blogger, is working on a parody CRPG called Frayed Knights which looks to be very entertaining. He’s also written a wealth of articles on various CRPG subjects. You can spend several hours reading those.

Stu’s Rusty Bucket

Tales from the Rampant Coyote

Work contines on the game, albeit slowly… trying to keep from being unemployed in April. Although that would free up some time for game work, I can’t really afford to move back into my parent’s basement at the moment.

The major hurdle right now is to get the combat engine started on top of the existing interface. There’s a lot of unknowns, like code size and UI design, that could easily end up eating up what’s left of my available RAM. Which makes it easier for my mind to slip back to other less worrisome tasks, like map designs and whatnot. At this point, I’m feeling stubborn about cutting any more features so I will probably use the Supercart for the extra 8k to finish the job and do an AMS version later.

I was also examining some of my planned dialogue structures, and decided I didn’t want to have to go short on text. I’ve realized a CRPG is defined by the quality and amount of the dialogue, so I reorganized my file system with the full intent of giving the game plenty of room for it. My forecasted result is that the game’s data will take four 180k disks, three-quarters of a megabyte!

On that note, my next article will focus on text and dialogue, both the crunchy bits (how to compress text, etc) and the importance of it in the CRPG genre.

Been awhile since I posted… mostly because not much is going on. I’ve had real-life issues to deal with, including a job interview (which I didn’t get). I’m also beta-testing the Tunnels of Doom Reboot for Dream Codex, which is looking pretty snazzy!

I got some programming work done this weekend, but nothing substantial. At this point, I’ve the problem that I need to create a stable data set for combat testing, but not everything is defined yet. The first step is to be able to enter and exit combat mode from the rest of the game in a clean fashion. Then I can start adding actual combat functionality. I have set myself a goal of finishing the game by the end of this year… that’s not just the Demo, but the WHOLE THING. I’ve spent enough time dwaddling on it.

There’s always the fearful point, of course, of finding out that I won’t be able to complete the game in the memory I have. I can continue development, fortunately, using my SuperCart that gives me an extra 8k, but I was hoping to avoid requiring such a device to play the game, since they’re not common. (For emulation this is no big deal, just for the hard-core gamers who prefer original hardware.)

I normally don’t post links to other sites and news, but I may start doing so. Here’s a link to an interview with Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software. He’s an interesting fellow, especially in his avowed dislike of RPG’s. Then why, you ask, does he continue to make them?

GameBanshee Interview with Jeff Vogel

Tunnels of Doom Reboot