10/26/97
Uh... ok.. so I'm kinda late on this update.. its been a long weekend. First of all, I've actually got my own machine now. I won't go into much detail right now, but its in my room thus I should be able to work on TLOT more... I am still setting the machine up to my liking so that will delay things for a while.
Ok.. secondly, this week I worked some on a few tile sets. I've also done some tweaking on my editors. I've found a lot of small and rather difficult to fix bugs in my editors. I don't really want to fix them cause they are easy to work around. Things like the NPC editor built into the map editor.. The map editor could be a LOT better, but I'm getting soo tired of writing tools ;)
Ok, most importantly now, I've got a GREAT link for everyone. I can't beleive I didn't find this page sooner! The Red Dragon Review is a fantastic site! Hopefully it will have a TLOT preview some day soon.. I did send Pendragon a few exclusive screen shots for Talibah.. perhaps they will show up on the site some day =) Anyway, go check it out, its worth it...
Well.. Its very late and I am VERY tired.. I'm cutting this update kinda short, I know.. I'll make up for it later somehow.. if I feel like it anyway.. ;)
10/19/97
Ok, take a look at this screen shot. That gray round thing is suppose to be a boulder. Originally, the TLOT enviornment was going to have sprites and solid objects.. and thats about it. Well, I've decided that I want to have some other elements to bring the world out just a little bit more. At first I was just going to have sprites that looked like objects.. and define the AI to act like an object. For example, this boulder would move every time you bumped into it. Well, that seemed like a good idea so I started playing around. Each sprite has 12 frames, three for each direction. I thought I'd just animate it so that the boulder would look as though it was rolling.. but the effect wasn't worth the memory lost for those frames. Then I thought I'd have 12 different objects (crate, boulder, whatever) and save them all in one sprite.. but I didn't like that idea cause I'd probably have to keep all 12 images loaded all the time, even when I'm only using a few.. SO, I've decided to put objects into the game.. they will really be a modified NPC. They will have only one frame. This will be used primarily for moving items such as a boulder blocking a pathway. I can develop very small puzzles such as those found in Bob. This should make the game considerably more fun. I also plan on somehow implementing switches that will open doors.. but I'm not really sure about that one yet. Anyway, I may also do one more little thing.. See this particular screen shot? See the long hallways running left and right? Well, I thought it might be cool to have a bouder rolln' down a hallway.. and if it hits you it will crush you.. so you have to get out of the way (like those guys are).. but... this doesn't fit into the realm of an RPG very well.. I mean.. dying instantly here would just kinda suck.. but its an idea I'm trying to develop into some fun gameplay.. Anyway, click on this image to see a sample of a boulder in front of a doorway.
On to other things. I am listening to InSoc's new album, "Don't Be Afraid". My friend Infovein managed to find a copy of it for me. A big thanx goes out to him for that. It was damn hard to find. One of the most special things about the CD is the fact that there is a special version of Bob on the Data Cd.. Yes, the Data Cd.. The album comes with two CDs and the case for them kicks ass.. its as thin as a single CD case.. Anyway, there is lots of other good stuff on there such as many .AVI files and a ton of .WAV files. There are also some proggies and such. The coolest thing so far is the tenth song.. It isnt' a song! Its a recoding of a modem... and its a somewhat secret message. Its the first key to finding a peice of the 10th song that really isn't on the album. Its a real life puzzle and its harder than hell. The whole damn CD is worth getting just to try to find the 10th song.. I'm working on the second peice right now, but I can't crack the encrypted zip file =(
Anyway, we're about to have another LAN game to beef up our gameplay for The Frag. I'm outta here..
10/11/97
Well, its been a very slow and a not so good week. I've been going through bits of code doing a clean up here and there, but mostly thinking about what I need to do. I've also been working on the sprite for the Aristocrat version of Seth. I had a lot of trouble with this one. I think I need to dress it up a little cause it doesn't look enough like a rich guy, but all in all I could call it complete. The screenshot is from the sprite editor (as I have done many times in the past) and the battle image is pasted on top of that. For those who will be using the Snazzy engine to create their own games, please don't think that the editor displays the battle art while you are working on it.
Well, my official project in my Technical Writing class is to create a Technical Document for TLOT. Basically, we had to create some kind of "manual" for anything we wanted. I told the prof that it was a "manual" for designing a specific game. The problem is the fact that it has to be 15 to 20 pages and a good Tech Doc would run me several hundred pages so I will have to give her the short and sweet version.
I went ahead and added a little varity in speach (they all said the same thing) to some of the NPCs I had stuck in the game and they very quickly started to have their own characters about them. I'm very excited about the final game design, once the code is almost finished and the editors are more polished. I've got to add some more features to WRDEDIT... and AFAIK, those are the only changes my editors really need.
I won't go into major detail about my personal problems this week, but I will say that this week has sucked pretty badly. Everything from school to problems with the dealership I bought my truck from.. Even some relationship problems tossed in to mix things up. I'm still fairly upset and I'm trying not to spend much time on my game until I cool off. Beleive me, its best that way..
I thought I'd try a new tune on the page again. I hope it sounds
ok on SB16.. I also thought it would be cool to see all 9 party
sprites grouped together. Here they are:
 
 
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10/5/97
Holy cow, its already October! I can't beleive time continues to move so fast. Last month sure shot by me. Christmas is right around the corner. I guess I could go ahead and start shopping with the money I don't and never will have.
Anyway, this week I created the sprite for Seth as a Knight. I really like the way it turned out. I tried to do the Aristocratic version this evening and failed. I probably spent the last 3 hours working on it and I have nothing really to show. I'm so slow... 12 images that are 20x20 take me all day long to do. Anyway, I did some code stuff this week, not much. I also played around with some sounds. All and all, there isn't a lot to show for the week.
I think I will do a new demo soon. This one will have some characters in it that speak. I think I'll also have you start off with 1 character in your party, and if you talk to other characters, you can add 2 more members. I want to design maps just for the demos to show off as many of the completed tile sets as I can. I still have some major code tweaks before I can take the time to put the demo together so it will still be a while. If I'm feeling really frisky, I might even put in some sound effects. I would like this demo to be a LOT more polished than my previously released demos.
I worked pretty hard this week on a Technical Document. Most of everything is stuffed in my head and being that I'm really the only person working on TLOT, its not that bad. BUT, I thought that I should produce a Tech Doc for several reasons. First of all, I've had a handful of good ideas escape me recently. I want to start keeping better records. Right now I have 3 notebooks half full of little scribbles and 50 loose sheets of paper with stuff written all over them.. some of my TLOT notes are on peices of paper with notes from school or other irrelavant info. Secondly, I want to have the document there for those people who want to use the Snazzy Engine in a game. The Tech Doc will be over both TLOT and Snazzy. I would think that it would be very useful. Finally, I want to Submit the Tech Doc along with the demo I mentioned in the previous paragraph to some publishing houses. I may wait a little bit longer, until I have a demo with battle scenes.. I'm not sure yet.
At the end of this month, I'm heading to The Frag to kick some butt and maybe promote TLOT a little. It would be nice to have a good running demo of TLOT for the event, but I donno if I can get one done in time. I'm hoping to run into Nicholas Pleis from Cataract Software while I'm there. Tom Hall from Ion Storm will also be there. He's the fellow doing Anachronox. It should be a fairly cool place to be for Halloween.
I also did some updating of the web site this week. You'll notice some navigation links at the top of each weekly update now. Also, I put a NEXT and PREVIOUS link on all the updates. I will most likely do some other stuff after I write this weekly update..
One last note, I ran across a game titled "Project Eco" thats pretty damn cool. The author decided to restart the project, but there is still a demo of the old project available. If the Eco link doesn't work, try this link and look around. I was very impressed with the art and animation in this game. The graphics engine is very impressive as well. I could complain about a few things, but overall I was extremely impressed. Its worth the download.
