Reviving Mini Adventure

Java 2D
#81

Ah ha, this one I remember…

On any given zone you’ll get this dialog. It defines the actions that are available on that zone. For instance, if you had a zone over a door to house you might have…

Enter - move the player into the house
Examine - “the door is made of oak”
Talk - Enter conversation with door.

So, on the left side of the dialog you have the list of actions defined for the zone. On the right you have the details of the results of that action. To add a new Action just type in a new name and click Apply.

The default checkbox allows you to specify that this zone is the standard reaction to using a zone, i.e. double clicking on it. So, you might say that the default action for the door is to “enter”. The user double clicks on the door and it takes them inside.

Below that you’ve got the possible actions.

ShowSign - Shows a big dialog box with the specified text on. The background of the dialog box is specified by a image name which you’ll find in the resources. I had “document”, “wood” and “plaque”. I added this one explicitly because of the tendancy for RPGs to need to signs to explain things.

MoveToArea - moves the player to another area and zone. The area is the name of the area that we’re going to move to (doh!) and the zone is the zone in the new area in which we should appears (useful things these zones!)

RunScript - Starts a script thats downloaded from the server. Don’t think I got far with this.

Spawn - This is where I really started to get stuck. I was going to use zones for spawning monsters aswell… for instance, a zone covering a graveyard might spawn skeletons, a maximum of 5 and 1 every 10 seconds etc… never really got past filling this in.

Does that all make sense? :slight_smile:

Kev

#82

so … Enter, talk, examine are Action instances for this zone?
and ShowSign, MoveToArea, RunScript are action types(templates) ?

Also How does the user see what actions are available?

#83

[quote] MoveToArea - moves the player to another area and zone. The area is the name of the area that we’re going to move to (doh!) and the zone is the zone in the new area in which we should appears (useful things these zones!)
[/quote]
Does this allow for zones in other maps? Eventually we may want to have A building for example be its own map.

#84

Not templates, they are the actions. The only actions defined for the whole game :). Generalised things like showing messages and moving the player about are explicitly defined, stuff that happens client side without any particular need for crosschecking. Everything else should be a “RunScript” action. The list of action scripts available isn’t currently shown but should be pretty easy to add… its another tool in your IDE really… an action script definer. The intention was to cover the simple things with explicit tasks and leave the rest to action scripts.

Where I say area, you say map :). In fact in the firsts scenario I created there were lots of little buildings, each defined as its own map/area with zone linking them. A few people might even have seen that one :slight_smile:

Its probably a rarely case you want to link to somewhere on the same map/area.

Kev

#85

good that way map definition can be more manageable. So should the items in the dialog, (examine,talk,enter) be hard coded or user entered?

#86

[quote]The list of action scripts available isn’t currently shown but should be pretty easy to add… its another tool in your IDE really… an action script definer. The intention was to cover the simple things with explicit tasks and leave the rest to action scripts.
[/quote]
So no script editor exists as of right now correct. Maybe this could be launced from the RunScript tab in the ZoneDialog, and the already defined actions could be in a list on the RunScript tab?

#87

They should be user defined, in that you can’t talk to all things, enter all things all examine all things. Talking to a rock might be pointless. The “actions” that are predefined are the responses to these “operations”. So if you perform the examine “operation” on the door the response would be showSign “action”. There were only these couple of commonly used actions I could think of (showSign and moveToArea).

That would be really nice! I’m really looking forward to having a play with this new integrated IDE!

I must say, you’re doing a fine job! I just wish the community could get involved before the project proposal is accepted!

Kev

#88

[quote]So if you perform the examine “operation” on the door the response would be showSign “action”.
[/quote]
So how do players know what actions are available on an item?

And… Thanks for the compliments. I’m doing my best.

#89

Ah ha! I thought you meant designers before. If a player double clicks on a zone they get the default action (keyboard control - enter). If they right click on a zone (keyboard control - shift?) they get a little menu of possible actions to perform on a given zone…

Kev

#90

Now it is getting clearer… sometimes I’m really dense.
Thanks Kev. 8)

#91

NPC Builder integrated into IDE complete… Almost :wink:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/shots/npc.gif

#92

should the scren shown above actually draw the NPCs on the screen or would that be overkill?

#93

Putting the NPC might be pretty nice… being able to press “play” and watch the NPC follow their script would be even cooler!

The path should definitely be made up of arrows also.

Still no project approval?

Kev

#94

I dont see it here, but you need to pick a graphic for the NPC. While you could just type it in like I think you have now, it would be good to pick it graphically, prevents typos too.

If each step (node) of the walking path were represented as a dot (with arrow pointing to it), you could then click on it and move the mouse to a new space, click again, to adjust the path without typing. Content creators hate to type :slight_smile:

Its also good to be able to add nodes and delete them.

Click on node, hit delete key. (instead of moving)
Click on AddNode button, click on node to add after, click on space, new node is added between two existing nodes.

Toggle button to show/hide paths

#95

[quote]Putting the NPC might be pretty nice… being able to press “play” and watch the NPC follow their script would be even cooler!

The path should definitely be made up of arrows also.

Still no project approval?

Kev
[/quote]
Kev;… don’t spoil all my surprises, I already wanted that feature myself. As for the Project I e-mailed Athomas but have heard nothing. I know there are a bunch of projects under proposal now. SO hopefully he will approve us soon.

:slight_smile:

#96

[quote]I dont see it here, but you need to pick a graphic for the NPC. While you could just type it in like I think you have now, it would be good to pick it graphically, prevents typos too.

If each step (node) of the walking path were represented as a dot (with arrow pointing to it), you could then click on it and move the mouse to a new space, click again, to adjust the path without typing. Content creators hate to type :slight_smile:

Its also good to be able to add nodes and delete them.

Click on node, hit delete key. (instead of moving)
Click on AddNode button, click on node to add after, click on space, new node is added between two existing nodes.

Toggle button to show/hide paths
[/quote]
The path is toggled when a NPC is selected from the list. I will try to add dots and arrows for the path. You do not type in the path points you click in the map then click the add button. I am planning on also implementing a method to smooth the path( by calculating additional points automagically)

#97

Are there any sections/tools/modules/areas/stories/things that you could maybe mail to people seperately in advance to start work on? Or even the website?

Don’t want to end up losseing momentum on this :slight_smile:

Kev

#98

[quote]Are there any sections/tools/modules/areas/stories/things that you could maybe mail to people seperately in advance to start work on? Or even the website?

Don’t want to end up losseing momentum on this :slight_smile:

Kev
[/quote]
I could probably do that, just want to spend a few more days on getting the ide cleaned up. Once I do could you test it and make sure things are working as they should?

Than we can add in the new features.

#99

Should probably just make it an open test but I’m happy to try it out :slight_smile:

Kev

#100

BTW Kev… You would be suprised how hard I found it to find an example of an Arrow2D < a class I coud just instantiate and draw. I’ll keep trying though.