Comments for Tilting at Windmills

Comment on Monster Mash by Dintent

Dintent — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:27:00 +0000

Yeah, the added information is just me. I will have to check out Questron / Legacy of the Ancients / Legend of Blacksilver games, that might be what I am remembering.

Comment on Dramatic Presentation by Tim

Tim — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:59:58 +0000

Very nice

A long time ago I ran into a similar problem displaying text in one of my utilities. I ended up testing for a word-wrap condition: if I needed to wrap text, and there was only one space between the two “words”, I assumed the space could be removed should the next character fall in the first display row. I considered a word anything more than one character in length but excluded a range of punctuation. Not sure if you have the same scenario but thought I’d pass along. Keep up the great work – it is fun reading your progress!

Comment on Monster Mash by JonArkanix

JonArkanix — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:48:12 +0000

@DIntent: Initially your description sounded like the Questron / Legacy of the Ancients / Legend of Blacksilver games (trading and talking instead of combat), but all the added info kills that idea.

Comment on Monster Mash by adamantyr

adamantyr — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:31:55 +0000

It has the sound of old school gaming for sure… the old AD&D books had “other adventuring party” as a random encounter option. In a lot of ways, the old school DM’s liked to think of it like an elaborate MMO.

In my game, though, non-combat encounters occur in travel mode, and involve dialogue. I decided I wanted to not try and “game” interactions out, because inevitably it leads to one class only being used because they’re a good negotiator, and are otherwise useless.

Likewise, player decisions depend entirely on actions they take or don’t take in the actual gaming world. In a lot of ways, the dialogue will just illustrate the outcome of what they do, rather than attempt to mimic an interactive conversation. (Which is really hard to do even on a modern platform, much less a vintage one.)

Comment on Monster Mash by DIntent

DIntent — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:30:34 +0000

What I forgot to mention is that when the player was done with them, you could remove them just like any other monster encounter. (awarding zero experience, of course.)

Depending on how complex you were going to make the game, this could be an encounter that a magic user or thief could really shine in. The magic user could cast spells that reveal how much the other party has to trade or reveals their true intentions, and the thief could pickpocket them from behind while the rest of the party distracts them with “conversation.”

Comment on Monster Mash by DIntent

DIntent — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:26:59 +0000

I was thinking more along the lines of a “monster type” that is another adventurer or adventurer group. You could barter with them for more health potions, weapons, gold, whatever… the quality of which would depend on the level.

Comment on Monster Mash by Stu

Stu — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:45:55 +0000

I remember the whole PoR schtick, Parlay Sly/Haughty/Nice/Meek thing and different monsters worked with different settings.

Comment on Monster Mash by adamantyr

adamantyr — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:32:59 +0000

Tunnels of Doom had the ability to negotiate with monsters, which was a flat percentage chance different for each monster. (Animals, for example, had 0% chance.) This would result in the monsters demanding a bribe (the amount determined by the level of the dungeon) to let the players leave the room in peace, but you couldn’t use anything in the room like fountains, chests, etc. If you re-entered the room, the monsters would attack again.

I did consider such a mechanic, but since monsters are tracked on the map as stationary or mobile (guarding) mobs, it creates complications. Do the monsters just disappear like you defeated them? Or do they wander off for awhile? Tying negotiation attempts to the monster type is also unrealistic; guards should NOT accept bribes to happily go away, but the same monster type wandering around may be more approachable.

Comment on Monster Mash by DIntent

DIntent — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:20:59 +0000

Are all of your encounters fights? I cannot remember the name of the game, but I seem to remember an RPG a while back where you could encounter random groups that would trade with you or have a conversation instead of fight.

Comment on Monster Mash by adamantyr

adamantyr — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:50:04 +0000

Yeah. I wrote up the code for the announcements last night, and it wasn’t too bad. I should be able to keep it in there.

I do remember, though, another reason I stalled out… I couldn’t quite fit all the data I wanted into the monster array into 32 bytes, but 64 bytes is too much. Argh!