Tag: programming

A Very Short Summary of May

Well, May has come and gone, which is sadly to say that I missed the regular deadline for Indiecade.  In my young naive eyes however, hope springs eternal; the late entry deadline extends to the end of June, so I’m not out for the count.  Plans haven’t really changed, they’ve just gotten a bit…bumpy.

There is, I have to admit, still quite a lot of work left to be done, and I fell quite short of my optimistic estimates.    But the deadline did keep me honest, and I managed to accomplish a lot.  The character art is coming around the home stretch, the tilesets for mapping the game environment are done, I’ve cut into the writing, the AI pathfinding/movement has been smoothed out…and I’ve finished implementing another important aspect to the game that I haven’t really talked about yet.  It’s a bit hard to describe in short, but it was a major goal that I’m happy to have behind me.

There’s a lot more to say and quite a bit to show, but for now I’ll end by just laying out some tile art, which is used to generate the rooms in the game.  It’s not the flashiest kind of art asset to show off by itself, so I’m just dumping a lot of it at once to make up for that.  The image isn’t exhaustive, that is to say there are a couple tilesets not shown that will be in the game, but this is more than enough to get the idea across!

Tilesets

An Update List on Why Am I Dead 2

I was hoping to have an update sooner than this, but programming goes at its own pace and no one else’s.  This should be the first, and last, major WAID2 update that lacks any visual or audible component, as I’m wrapping up the nuts-and-bolts development and moving into art and writing.

I’ve been on the fence regarding how early I actually start uploading material from the game.  I’ve decided recently that I’d rather hold off until I’ve moved past art/writing/assets that are “work in progress” (or worse, place-holders!) before I do so — any benefits of a greater sense of progress for me are outbalanced by the risk of making a poor first impression.

So, sadly, you’ll just have to take my word that all of the following have been done:

  • Completely rebuilt how dialogue is handled, which means…
    • Writing dialogue is way easier for me to write, and for others to read (hopefully)
    • Looping dialogue; before, all dialogue options inevitably led to an end.  Now some options can loop back around to previous parts of the conversation; convenient for menus or for revisiting information.
    • In-dialogue variables (eg. <player> tag in script will be replaced with whichever character the player is controlling)
  • Save / Load Function!  This would have been useful in the first game, but is a necessity for the second!
  • Game “props” (such as doors, tables, beds, etc)  have some extra attributes…
    • They can initiate dialogue when you try to talk to them, as sort of an “examine” function
    • They store information about which character can “use” them.  For example, some doors will be locked for certain characters, and open for other characters (who presumably have a key).
    • Some props will have different dialogue results for different characters.  One character might be bored by an object, and one might find it of great personal significance.
  • New possession ability mentioned earlier: some characters can be “fully possessed”, which allows you to talk as the Ghost through their body, opening up different sets of dialogues and effects!
  • Completely rebuilt how collision detection is handled, which allows for both smoother and more efficient movement.
  • Finished character AI, adding safeguards that should drastically reduce unwanted emergent behavior.

I think that’s all the major stuff, though there were some minor background changes that are much more boring.  Sorry this update is so colorless, but I wanted to get it out anyway.