Gregg Williams
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« Reply #740 on: January 20, 2013, 03:36:24 PM » |
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Rally looks pretty awesome, seems like it would save a fair bit of time if your on a map that requires a bunch of movement before ever getting into engagement range.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #741 on: January 20, 2013, 09:40:27 PM » |
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Rally looks pretty awesome, seems like it would save a fair bit of time if your on a map that requires a bunch of movement before ever getting into engagement range. Thanks! That is precisely the idea.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #742 on: January 21, 2013, 09:58:54 AM » |
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All right, we're getting pretty far down the List O' Bugs! I have just a couple of AI snafus to work out, and then I'll be ready to release a updated alpha demo for this sucker. By popular demand, I'll be including a stripped-down snippet of local multiplayer in the new demo as well.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #743 on: January 22, 2013, 08:19:56 AM » |
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Fixed bugs, added support for map panning via WASD, added mouse wheel support to the map editor, and--hey, what's this? A dead bowman? Man, that's...kinda morbid. Someone should come and clean that up.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #744 on: January 22, 2013, 01:34:56 PM » |
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Working on a Give function for inventory items, so you don't have to Drop and move to transfer bandages or focus pills between characters. Short of loading individualized graphics to represent different inventory items, this'll be the last bit of functionality I need to code for the inventory system.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #745 on: January 23, 2013, 05:37:57 AM » |
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Two things: 1. The Give function now works with inventory items; transfer items to adjacent characters with ease! 2. I've updated the alpha demo! The Telepath Tactics alpha demo, in addition to featuring all of the cool improvements I've added into the game over the past month, now also has a very limited taste of the game's local multiplayer. Specifically: you can now play 1-vs-1 matches against the CPU on Little Lava Cave with Random Identical armies to get a taste of multiplayer play and the game's selection of 22 character classes. Pretty cool stuff, eh? Oh--and there's a new teaser video up talking about the latest changes to the game! Behold:
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #746 on: January 23, 2013, 12:41:53 PM » |
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The January 2013 Update has been posted! Check it out.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #747 on: January 25, 2013, 08:48:07 PM » |
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So! I just got yet another person confused about why we need Telepath Tactics when we already have The Battle for Wesnoth. Instead of having to explain over and over again why this game is radically different from The Battle For Wesnoth (which it is), I've begun writing an article that I can link to if and when this comes up again. A snippet: Why the comparison with The Battle for Wesnoth in the first place?
This confused me at first. "Why would anyone compare Telepath Tactics to Wesnoth at all?" I asked. After all, these games are about as different from each other as two games in the same subgenre can be. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that this is like demanding to know the difference between Risk and Chess!
After giving the matter some thought, it occurred to me that there are some similarities between these two games that people may be seizing on. Both games are turn-based strategy RPGs; both occur in fantasy settings; both are cross-platform; both support custom campaigns and modding; both have a robust map editor; and both support multiplayer.
I suspect that some people get as far as these features, then decide that the games are nearly identical. However, this is a little like observing that The Usual Suspects and The Godfather are both violent dramas about organized crime, that both are sold on DVD and Blu-Ray, and then concluding that they must be more or less the same movie. But of course, two works can share superficial similarities while still offering wildly differing experiences. As we shall see, this is precisely the case with Telepath Tactics and The Battle for Wesnoth. I'll post again when it's done.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #748 on: January 27, 2013, 06:48:15 AM » |
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The article explaining the difference between Telepath Tactics and The Battle for Wesnoth is just about done; I'll be making some final tweaks today, then posting it tomorrow morning. (Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be quite a long article.) Meanwhile, work has begun on a dialog editor mode within the Telepath Tactics map editor. (Reading about Twine inspired me to finally get started working on this feature.) Here's a really early picture showing my progress:
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #749 on: January 28, 2013, 05:05:49 AM » |
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The dialog editor is coming along, slowly but surely! It now displays the number of each dialog branch in the top-right. Moreover, you can now pan and zoom around the conversation tree, and click on any given branch to open up a new window where you can alter the text--just like in Twine! Behold: There's still a lot left to do; I need to have the editor register changes to the text and save the updated conversation, first of all. I also need to add in the replies, add in the scripted actions, make both of those editable as well, and then represent the flow of conversation with lines between the different dialog branches. One thing at a time, though, right?
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #750 on: January 28, 2013, 01:11:53 PM » |
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The map editor now saves all changes to the speaker and dialog text whenever you close an Edit Dialog Branch window! Next up: display (and permit editing of) the Reply data for each conversation branch.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #752 on: January 30, 2013, 08:47:24 AM » |
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The dialog editor is coming along nicely now. You can right-click the background to add new dialog branches, and you can add and remove replies and scripted actions from each individual branch when editing. All of this stuff is now fully functional; the only things left to do now are (1) allow deleting of dialog branches, (2) display replies in the branch preview window, (3) add in the ability to edit dialog triggers, and (4) draw lines between connected branches to show the flow of conversation. The conversation starts empty... ...then you right-click to add your first dialog branch... ...and before you know it, you're editing a fully-fledged dialog tree!
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Gregg Williams
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« Reply #753 on: January 30, 2013, 09:02:19 AM » |
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Very nice. The hard part I suppose is deciding where to stop with the triggering or even potentially scripting support in these types of systems. *Wonders if I'll be making one of these down the road myself.*
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #754 on: January 30, 2013, 08:00:08 PM » |
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Thanks!
I'm just making trigger types as I need them. The way I see it, if the community has a need for more types of triggers down the road, I can always patch in more of 'em.
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #755 on: January 31, 2013, 04:25:59 AM » |
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Update: different conversations are now labeled and grouped by their associated triggers! Changing a dialog branch's trigger now automatically sticks that branch onto the end of the associated conversation; or, if there isn't one already, creates a new conversation for that trigger. This, incidentally, is how you make multiple triggered conversations within a scene. Also, for the sake of visual clarity, I made it so the dialog map auto-highlights a dialog branch when you are editing it in a pop-out window. There are only two new changes I feel I have to make to the dialog editor before it will be complete, those being a Duplicate and a Delete function (for when you want to auto-copy-paste or delete a dialog branch). I've decided that displaying each individual conversation as a branching tree, with its own lines connecting each window with the replies that lead to it, would be really cool--but, at the same time, probably way too time-consuming to implement. (I have other, more pressing needs to attend to once the dialog editor is fully functional.)
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #756 on: February 01, 2013, 08:40:09 AM » |
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Work has begun on a custom variable system to allow players to create, set and check custom variables from within the dialog scripting system. (You know, in case you want player choices to have consequences that stretch beyond a singular branch in the conversation.)
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deadlyhabit
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« Reply #757 on: February 01, 2013, 10:56:19 AM » |
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Work has begun on a custom variable system to allow players to create, set and check custom variables from within the dialog scripting system. (You know, in case you want player choices to have consequences that stretch beyond a singular branch in the conversation.) Aww yeah bioware romances here we come
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #758 on: February 01, 2013, 11:19:25 AM » |
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Updates! The game now has two new functions that you can call using a scripted dialog action: - SetVal -- this first checks the game's table of custom variables to see if the player has created a variable with this name before (if not, it creates one), and then set its value according to one of 7 possible operations: set directly (=), add(+), subtract while keeping value at or above 0 (-), subtract with negative values allowed (--), multiply (*), divide (/) and multiply by percentage value (%). All custom variables are integers, so decimal values will be rounded.
- IfValGoTo -- this compares the value of a stored variable to an amount specified in the script using one of 5 possible operations: exact match (=), value greater than amount (>), value less than amount (<), value greater than or equal to amount (>=), or value less than or equal to amount (<=). If the value falls within the bounds specified, this game skips to a different branch of the conversation dictated by the player.
On top of that, I also added in a GiveItem script type, with which you can name a character and an item to be spawned directly in that character's inventory. Aww yeah bioware romances here we come
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Craig Stern
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« Reply #759 on: February 01, 2013, 11:12:12 PM » |
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After some testing, I now have custom variable modifiers working not only in dialog, but also with item pick-ups. So this, for instance, is a script action that will give you money when you reach a certain dialog branch: <Action>SetVal/Money,+,250</Action> But you can also now stick an unlimited number of custom value modifiers in between the Item tags when defining item classes, with each unique variable modifier delimited by forward slashes. Here is a Money Pouch item that adds 250 to the Money variable: <Item name="Money Pouch (Medium)" useable="automatic" endsStatus="" addsStatus="" grantsAtk="" consumedAfter="1" fxLast="0" hpPlus="0" pspPlus="0" maxHPPlus="0" maxPsPPlus="0" spdPlus="0" dodgePlus="0" strPlus="0" perPlus="0" psyPPlus="0" psyDPlus="0" prcResPlus="0" slshResPlus="0" crshResPlus="0" mnResPlus="0" htResPlus="0" cdResPlus="0" ltResPlus="0" shResPlus="0" poiResPlus="0" ctrLimitPlus="0" commonality="5" description="Contains a sizeable amount of money.">Money,+,250</Item> And of course, what with dialog now supporting checks for whether the player has a variable at or above a certain amount, this means the game now supports scripted shop encounters. Pretty nifty!
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