Fafnir wrote:
Woohoo! Everything looks incredible, although I have no idea how Eytan found the time to work on both JtRH and EyAngband. 'A few' questions:
Well, I haven't done much in EyAngband for a while, though JtRH isn't to blame, my studies are. EyAngband requires a whole lot more out of me than JtRH did - for JtRH, all I did was design rooms and make feature requests/complaints to Mike, and then he and Adam did all the real work of implementing them. So I could handle that while also working on my research.
Had I been able to work on EyAngband as much as I wanted to, I probably wouldn't have joined the JtRH team.
How reliant is the commercial hold on scripting? IMAO it would be a shame not to have at least a few levels similar to the old DROD.
Scripting is used to introduce story elements. Very few rooms actually involve any sort of scripting in the puzzles, and those that do only use scripting in the puzzle setup (say, to have the puzzle start once Beethro is in the middle of the room), not in the actual puzzle.
So most of JtRH is similar to the old DROD in that regard, except that occasionally monsters speak to you or Beethro will comment on something.
Halph and the Slayer are both rather complicated elements different from anything that's in DROD 1.6, but neither actually depend on scripting - they're just monsters with rather sophisticated AIs.
How is the Slayer's whip handled? Is it like Beethro's sword in that it takes him a full move to rotate it 45 degrees and Beethro can be killed only by contact with the whip (not the Slayer)? If so, how well does the AI handle tricks such as backswiping when it comes to attacking Beethro?
It's actually a scythe-like weapon, not a whip. The slayer can kill Beethro both by hitting him with his weapon, or by moving onto him like a regular monster. And yes, it takes the slayer a turn to rotate his weapon, just like Beethro. As for the AI, you'll have to trust me on this, but the Slayer knows all the tricks
.
Orthogonal squares sound very interesting (and potentially very evil) - are there going to be any other new tile types?
One thing that Matt didn't mention in his article but I think isn't a spoiler - because they're on the very first level - are tunnels. You can go from one tunnel entrance to another in one move. Other than that, most of the new tile types are cosmetic rather than gameplay influencing.
Speaking as a severe arachnophobic, how realistic are the spiders now?
About as realistic as the serpents are.
Now you can see when roaches, long monsters and tar will spawn or turn or appear or whatever.
Does that mean the times at which long monsters turn are based off the spawn clock in DROD, or is that in relation to a new monster?
The times they turn aren't influenced on the clock, but the direction they prefer (horizontal or vertical) is, and this is already the case in 1.6.
You also said 'long monsters' rather than snakes - does that mean anything?
No.
Can you still cut bomb fuses?
No. That made it very difficult to design bomb puzzles since it's very difficult to control the sword direction without making the room very unforgiving. Trust me on this, bombs became a lot more fun once that was changed.
Is there some way of spotting secret walls? The idea sounds like searching for secret rooms could be reduced to touching every wall panel in hopes of finding a secret one.
If you look carefully you can see them. Some of them are hinted at otherwise. But there are no puzzles in the official hold which depend on you finding a secret wall to be solvable.
Will there be a step-through debugger for the scripting?
Considering the possibility of spaghetti code, I think it could be very useful.
No, and there really doesn't need to be one. The scripting isn't that sophisticated, and it takes a lot of effort to write a script that'll come close to being described as spaghetti.
Seriously, as for the scripting - don't build your hopes (or fears) up too much. It's not a programming language. In some ways, it's less powerful than the scripting Erik wrote for the 'neather. It's a lot more versatile, though, and can be used for a lot of cool stuff that would be impossible otherwise.
It's primary function, however, is to code NPCs, not puzzle elements.
You imply with the image floor type that you can use different floors within a room. Is that true?
Yes. There are 3 "
styles"
, each of which has several associated floor types. Each room is limited to one style, but there's a lot more room for variation within each style.
When you say the KDD ending won't be coming back, do you mean that there isn't a similar ending to JtRH, that the ending from KDD won't work on JtRH or both?
The ending from KDD won't work on JtRH. JtRH won't have a similar ending in the sense that we're not reusing the same idea.
[Edited by eytanz at
Local Time:11-21-2004 at 06:47 PM]
[Edited by eytanz at
Local Time:11-21-2004 at 07:19 PM]
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I got my avatar back! Yay!
Does tapping mean 'hitting it with your sword' or 'clicking with the mouse'?
)
