demagogue on 30/9/2012 at 07:42
In honor of this historic occasion, I did some work on the Summerfields MC texture to fit it to Technic -- (
http://forums.technicpack.net/threads/request-32x-summerfields-pack-for-tekkit-technic.19322/page-2#post-213182) Link. It's my favorite 32x pack (EldPack is of course my favorite 16x), but the out-of-place textures were driving me crazy, and this reminded me I always did want to fix it up a little since no one else was doing it. I can see the appeal of this kind of pixel art. I only did a few things though, but maybe I can do more.
Al_B on 30/9/2012 at 19:12
That's excellent, Eldron - are you still able to continue with your game you've been working on in this thread?
Sulphur on 5/10/2012 at 03:22
Quote Posted by "Notch on 0x10^C"
"While I've been working on the engine, @eldrone [artist, Jonatan Pöljö] has been working on a test scene for the art style. Looking forward to merging the two!"
Congratulations, Eldron. And it looks like your first project with them's going to be something properly major. Awesome stuff! :thumb:
Yakoob on 11/10/2012 at 18:28
Inline Image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Koobazaur/Late/SMD06_writing_conversations.jpgAs I've been learning, writing conversations is a much more involved task than I anticipated... and it takes surprisingly more planning and fore-thought as well. I am beginning to understand why so many games follow the pattern "What is your question?" -> Tell me about X / Y / Z -> Go back to start. Trying to make a natural conversation that flows is... well, it leads to almost unmanageable clusterfuck:
Inline Image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Koobazaur/Late/SMD05_writing_conversations.jpg And that's after refactoring a bunch of times and still covering only about half of the needed info... might start a thread brainstorming those ideas; would love to hear from anyone here who has dialog-writing experience about their advice how to keep from going overboard while still hitting your key beats and ensuring the player doesn't miss key plot info buried in some random convo branch they never reached because they said they like blueberry muffins better than red velvet cake...
DDL on 12/10/2012 at 08:11
Don't ever, ever use conEdit. :P (Deus ex conversation editor)
Actually, do use it, just the once, to see how much better every other system is.
My best tip would be to keep what you want to say to the player to a bare minimum. Pare it down to a few key salient facts. Make the conversation tree that communicates those facts to the player as robust and solid as you can,
then play with incidental (i.e. actually fun) stuff.
Oh, and if you're going into the depths of flagchecking things like "did the player comment on liking pineapples back in level 2", just keep subsequent conversation elements that address those flags as simple as possible ("oh and by the way, I got you a pineapple"): most of the time the player will just be pleased that the game is paying attention to them, you don't need to have branches that end up in logic trees like
Code:
if(player.likesPineapples && (player.hatesGrapefruit || player.hatesUglifruit) && !player.isAmbivalentAboutFruit && fruitconvoplayed_once_already)
gotobranch("Oh by the way, I know I mentioned this already, but we got rid of those really citrusy fruits and bought you a pineapple instead");
because down that route madness lies.
Yakoob on 12/10/2012 at 17:27
Quote Posted by DDL
My best tip would be to keep what you want to say to the player to a bare minimum. Pare it down to a few key salient facts. Make the conversation tree that communicates those facts to the player as robust and solid as you can,
then play with incidental (i.e. actually fun) stuff.
Mmmhm, that's sort of what I've been thinking, especially since I tend to get distracted and spin into tangents cause they're fun to write (but dear lord do they make a mess).
Like, lay out key plot nodes (things that MUST be said) and then just add tangents from it, but always culminating in the next plot node. Kind of like "beats" and "scenes" in film script writing I learned about :p
THIS IS WHY IT PAYS OFF TO GO TO COLLEGE KIDS!
(wait my college wasnt a film school and I learned that on my own... and programming... and game design... and)
NEVERMIND COLLEGE IS A WASTE OF TIME!*
Quote:
Oh, and if you're going into the depths of flagchecking things like "did the player comment on liking pineapples back in level 2", just keep subsequent conversation elements that address those flags as simple as possible ("oh and by the way, I got you a pineapple"): most of the time the player will just be pleased that the game is paying attention to them, you don't need to have branches that end up in logic trees like
Good point and I agree, I love getting my actions noticed. I did "grouping" (gray squares in my image) so flag-checked tangents are somewhat contained (and maybe happen only once), but it sounds like you are simplyfying it even more (aka not creating a whole tangent or modifying the plot nodes, but just adding an extra node "btw got me pineapples" as an extra step that doesn't really affect anything).
Quote:
Code:
if(player.likesPineapples && (player.hatesGrapefruit || player.hatesUglifruit) && !player.isAmbivalentAboutFruit && fruitconvoplayed_once_already)
gotobranch("Oh by the way, I know I mentioned this already, but we got rid of those really citrusy fruits and bought you a pineapple instead");
Heh, this is what my prototyping looked like, where I wrote out a simple convo in text file where each node was just a line/function-like-object. It didn't take me a long to realize it was nigh on impossible to understand the flow, and that yes I really do need a graphical node editor for this.
I also remember fumbling with the NWN convo editor which would lead to some deeply nested collapsed items. I wanted to avoid that as it's very easy to "forget" about some loose ends that way. Don't have DX installed, how does its editor work?
* may not reflect the views of the poster
Schwaa2 on 15/10/2012 at 05:34
Quote Posted by icemann
Inline Image:
http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/60772_10151455288765760_1540383695_n.jpgWork continues when I have the time on version 0.50 on my remake of Dragon's Lair on the NES. Moving spike balls are in and unlike the original game cause damage on hitting the player rather than insta-killing them. Moving grey ghosts are also now in and damage rather than kill on contact. Crumbling block tiles are now in as well.
Two standard enemies remain to be added in plus the boss encounter with the Grim Reaper at the end of the level. Then I'll do an additional level as per usual then release it.
I've also since become aware that there were/are two differing versions of the original NES game. The US version which I had seen in the AVGN episode (the originator of my inspiration for the remake) and a PAL version with sped up game speeds for everything, extra enemies and an extra boss encounter. Those extra enemies and the boss I'll be adding in, in the next version. The extra enemies have given me inspiration for a better 1st level lead up to entry into the tower.
If you've played the 1st Actraiser game and recall the forest platforming stages, it will hopefully be something along those lines. Though not as elaborate. I look forward to the challenge.
That's awesome :)
I loved Dragons Lair 1 & 2 in the arcade. They were just so expensive and tough.
I actually found Dragon's Lair original on a CD for PC at one point but never played much of it, max res was 640x480. Such a tiny little window... I should dig it out though and retry.
DDL on 15/10/2012 at 09:07
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Don't have DX installed, how does its editor work?
It's basically a linear list of conversation "events" (speech, goto statements, flagchecks, camera angles), and for exactly the reasons you describe, it's damn near impenetrable at times*. It's all your node diagrams flattened into a single list. Also the scrollbar doesn't really work. :p
I like the node layout, incidentally: what are you using for that? I'm assuming from your descriptions that it's simply for you to visualise the connections in what you're writing, rather than an actual in-game editor, but either way, it looks nice.
*yes, I'm still DX editing. A man needs a hobby, right?
