My Adventure Game Engine - Making Way For Adventure Engine 2

[napco]

Uh, ok. I'm still a newbie and my game development approach is RPGmaker2000 - like. By the way, where did you get all these infos about RPG development? I'd like to learn too...

Uh, to return ON-TOPIC, i'm really curious to see your game!

[Robin]

NPC's should be treated as actors. One per game.

I gather you won't be using stock NPCs then? I like that.

I'm very interested to see your progress with this.

[Jasoco]

I have a weird ability to see the world as code. When I'm playing a game, all I can think about is "How was this done? How did they do that?" In the 90's Macromedia put out a print ad for Dreamweaver that talked about "seeing the world in code" and ever since then I havn't been able to not see things and wonder how the code looks.

I've been programming since my QBASIC days in the mid-90's, but only recently got into the deep stuff last year when I programmed my QBASIC version. In 12th grade I took a piece of graph paper and drew out a world I would create if I could program a Zelda style game. I lost the paper, but the idea stuck in my head.

Games like this are mostly trial and error. If you don't know how to do it, try something and play around until it works.

When you see my code you'll understand how this stuff works more. I look forward to showing it off.

I played around with RPGMakerXP on a PC a few months ago to see how they did their stuff and the program was so confusing I didn't even want to bother. I prefer to do things my way from scratch piece by piece, character by character. If I can't do it my way, I don't want to use it. Löve gives me the freedom and speed I need.

[Robin]

Funny. Reminds me of how I started game programming (and indeed programming altogether). Although I don't see code, but (game) logic.

Games like this are, as you say, about trial and error. They are also about being just a little bit over-ambitious. You have to be, to make something epic. I'm looking forward to seeing further progress.

[Jasoco]

As long as I don't go batpoop crazy like Bob did and program a game for 5 years with the intention of making Nintendo bow to my l33tness thinking my game is the greatest thing in the world, then put up a fit when Nintendo denies my game access to their DS and doesn't give me a DS development kit for my trouble then trash my room on webcam, and stage viral videos in the New York Nintendo World Store while dressed like an outcast from the Black Parade all the while posting ambiguous videos to YouTube to keep people wondering "just what the hell is this guy doing?"

I'll be fine.

[Jasoco]

Hotzones are in place.

A public Alpha tryout is looming ever so closer. I know you're excited.

Edit:

I also implemented a way to call functions and stuff when a map is loaded by including a file with the same name, but as a .LUA file in the Maps directory with the .MAP file.

Basically you'll have the .MAP which gets loaded first, and is parsed and all set up. Then the game checks for a coresponding .LUA file. If it exists, it is loaded. This file will include miscellaneous map related functions. Like setting up the Hotzones for that map, or creating enemies at their specified locations. Or whatever. Anything really. Much more flexible than what I was going to do which was create my own XML style definitions files. Bah. This is much better.

I have a neat little "cutscene" in place for the demo that consists of a conversation taking place between two sisters having an argument. This occurs--- no, I don't wanna give it all away. I'll let you all discover it for yourselves when I release the first public Alpha. Or pre-Alpha. Whatever I decide to call it.

[Jasoco]

Yes, you read that right!

That's right. On 09/09/09 I will release whatever I have as an Alpha to try out.

That's less than a week to tweak things and make it look all pretty. It will probably be 0.5.0 compatible so keep that in mind. I will update if I end up making any 0.6.0 progress. But for now it's 0.5.0.

Some latest tweaks:

My scripting system is now based on names, and not numbers. In other words, I can name a script with a filename that helps identify it, like "npc_barkeeper" or "house_frontdoor_in" or "path_to_garden" instead of 1 or 4 or some other confusing number. And the best part is they can be categorized into sub folders. Currently I have folders for what NPC's do when you talk to them, story based and warping based. (i.e. doors or map changes) I plan on doing the same thing with maps today. Was easy to do the scripts. I assume it'll be easy to do it with the maps too. This way I can name the maps things like "house_floor1" or "shed" or "garden".

I hope to spend this next partial week whatever hours I am not working squashing all the icky bugs that I have left.

[TechnoCat]

Yes, you read that right!

That's right. On 09/09/09 I will release whatever I have as an Alpha to try out.

I look forward to trying it out. I also look forward to playing with the scripting system if possible.

[Jasoco]

I'll have to post some simple documentation on how to use it.

But remember that it might change over time.

I moved from a proprietary scripting system and a parser to an "include" based system that loads in actual Lua files consisting of table inserts. This allowed me to do more calculations and manipulations right in the script. I can set flags, use real if/then/elses to check game variables and insert the right table rows depending on the state of the game. It's so much more flexible.

I even have what I call "post scripts" which aren't really scripts, rather Lua files that get loaded after the map data is loaded to set up all the hotzones, add the enemies, whatever before the player gets to run around in it. This way you can once again check flags to see whether a hot zone should be created or not, or other stuff. The possibilities will be endless.

Right now I have a sample "world" to wander in with five maps. Two outside, three inside..

Future plans, if I don't get them done by Wednesday, include what I will call "timed scripts" where the script items will be called at specified times along a timeline, instead of one after another in rapid succession. I'll use these more for story telling cut scenes rather than in-game scenes.

I also need to rewrite my camera controlling system. It's a little buggy.

[napco]

As i would say it in italian: "Non vedo l'ora!" (i can't wait anymore to see your game!)