ErikH2000
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They still got the chewing action, but it is harder to see their cute little faces when they're pointed away. Tradeoffs.

-Erik

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b0rsuk
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ErikH2000 wrote:

b0rsuk wrote:
You mean I can just ask and I'll be sent a CD with the demo ?

No, the demo would only be downloadable. But it is also quite a bit smaller. I think it was around 35mb.

-Erik

When people are using smileys like ;-), they're usually kidding.

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Rabscuttle
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What does Halph use to hit orbs?

Is Halph just controlled by bumping? So bump a door to open it, bump into him to get him to follow/stop?

What happens if he gets hit by a sword/hook/bomb?

Do Halph (and the Slayer) always go for the closest orb that toggles/opens the required door? So is it possible to have puzzles that involve positioning him so that he will hit one particular orb?

[Edited by Rabscuttle at Local Time:03-04-2005 at 01:09 AM: word order sense make]

Mattcrampy
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Rabscuttle wrote:
What does Halph use to hit orbs?

His hands, basically. Orbs are surprisingly easy to trigger, and that whole 'hitting it with a weapon' thing is just to save some time.

Is Halph just controlled by bumping? So bump a door to open it, bump into him to get him to follow/stop?

When he's under your control, yes. In some rooms, Halph will be doing his own thing, moving around by himself, talking, that sort of thing. But usually, bumping it is.

What happens if he gets hit by a sword/hook/bomb?

He dies, and you restart the room. Halph won't get chomped on, however. So you might be able to use him as a portable obstacle.

Do Halph (and the Slayer) always go for the closest orb that toggles/opens the required door? So is it possible to have puzzles that involve positioning him so that he will hit one particular orb?

I'm not sure. Mike? (This seems like a bug waiting to be found.)

Matt

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Stuwy
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I think Halph uses his hands/feet/rocks whatever it takes to open a door. I'm sure he'll figure something out eventually.

I think in some rooms he is programmed to do something at X location. I think that is.

Darn, Matt beat me to it already. His is probably more correct anyway's...

As a question to the Dev's:

In future versions of DROD (hopefully) Are you going to revamp everything (eg. graphics, sounds, music) or are the newer versions keep getting better from the previously released games?

[Edited by Stuwy at Local Time:03-04-2005 at 04:05 AM]

ErikH2000
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Stuwy wrote:
In future versions of DROD (hopefully) Are you going to revamp everything (eg. graphics, sounds, music) or are the newer versions keep getting better from the previously released games?

Oh, I want to say some things, but it's really a bad idea to make predictions beyond JtRH. I'll just say Mike and I have talked about keeping the releases updated as we go, and it is likely that it will happen.

-Erik

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AlefBet
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Rabscuttle wrote:
Do Halph (and the Slayer) always go for the closest orb that toggles/opens the required door? So is it possible to have puzzles that involve positioning him so that he will hit one particular orb?

I don't have a firm handle on how the Slayer handles it, so I'll just address Halph.

When you bump a door and Halph goes to open it, he looks for the closest orb (based on number of steps to get there) that will open that door. Naturally, whatever else that orb does will also occur, so you could make puzzles where you need to maneuver Halph to go for the proper orb to solve a particular problem.

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cheese obsessive
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Is there any way with the scripting to make like, a bunch of roaches walk back and forth in a straight line instead of attacking beethro right away? I came up with a few puzzle ideas if this function is possible to do on JtRH.

eytanz
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That depends on what exactly you mean. It's possible to script characters that look like roaches and have them move in pre-scripted ways and then turn to real roaches once they're done. But you'd be limited in that until they become real roaches they could only follow the script (even if Beethro is standing next to them, they won't attack), and once they become real roaches, they'll act exactly like normal roaches and can't be switched back.

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Skylancer64
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I was wondering about the feature where you could specify your own image for a room's floor.

Could this potentially be used to fake orbs, tar, gates, force arrows, etc. by adding the images of those objects into the floor image directly? If so, I imagine that this could lead to some highly interesting and devious puzzles.

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Schik
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Skylancer64 wrote:
I was wondering about the feature where you could specify your own image for a room's floor.

Could this potentially be used to fake orbs, tar, gates, force arrows, etc. by adding the images of those objects into the floor image directly?

Sure.

If so, I imagine that this could lead to some highly interesting and devious puzzles.

I agree, except for the interesting part. I'm sure people will put fake walls, fake monsters, fake... everything they can. Personally, I'll avoid any holds that use things like that in any required rooms.

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stigant
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I agree - I hate puzzles that rely on obscure passages that you won't notice on first look or lots of orbs especially if the orbs are not connected to anything, or invisible monsters...

Besides, it only works once. You can always reset the puzzle with your new knowledge. This doesn't make the puzzle fun or interesting, it makes it tedious. Also, fake walls wouldn't block monsters, so it would be pretty difficult to prevent them from giving away your secrets.

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Mattcrampy
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You could certainly do it with eg. orbs, pits, but the image floor will only replace the floor style, not anything else. So you probably won't be able to be too devious with walls.

And it's really, really cheap, as well. With great power comes great responsiblity.

Matt

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Stuwy
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Is it only one custom style you can create throughout your whole hold your building? Or can you make a differen't custom floor tile for each level/new hold?

b0rsuk
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...or room, or even more often ?

B0rsuk would abuse image floors to no end.

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krammer
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You can only have one custom floor type in a room, but you can vary it from room to room if you so wish.

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Malarame
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Is it possible to change the custom floor type in a room? Could you, for example, change the floor when Beethro hits a certain orb?

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mrimer
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Malarame wrote:
Is it possible to change the custom floor type in a room? Could you, for example, change the floor when Beethro hits a certain orb?

No.

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cheese obsessive
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eytanz wrote:
That depends on what exactly you mean. It's possible to script characters that look like roaches and have them move in pre-scripted ways and then turn to real roaches once they're done. But you'd be limited in that until they become real roaches they could only follow the script (even if Beethro is standing next to them, they won't attack), and once they become real roaches, they'll act exactly like normal roaches and can't be switched back.

That is exactly what I mean. Yesssssss...

Maurog
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In fact, you may be even sneakier and create characters that look exactly like roaches and make them move exactly like roaches, and turn to real roaches once they're close enough to Beethro, and the best thing is, nobody will ever know!

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agaricus5
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Maurog wrote:
In fact, you may be even sneakier and create characters that look exactly like roaches and make them move exactly like roaches, and turn to real roaches once they're close enough to Beethro, and the best thing is, nobody will ever know!

Since movement is based on absolute positions, you may not be able to do this if Beethro moves in an unexpected way, since you cannot script them to behave differently according to his relative position. It might be possible in certain situations where you can predict his moves in advance, but it probably will require quite a bit of clunky spaghetti code to do so.

[Edited by agaricus5 at Local Time:03-06-2005 at 03:03 PM]

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eytanz
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Well, it would be relatively simple if you could predict his exact movement relative to the roach: say, in this configuartion:

#####
    #
# #^#
# #^#
# #^#
# #^# 
#r#B#
#####

Where Basically Beethro can only move up or stay. But other than trivial situations such as this one, it'd be far more trouble than it's worth.

... Which of course means that once JtRH is out, we really need to come up with some sort of contest to see who can replicate roach behavior with a script in the most versatile way

[Edited by eytanz at Local Time:03-06-2005 at 05:08 PM: Typos]

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Rabscuttle
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Can't you just do it with 9728 cases?

"If you are here, and Beethro is in this rectangle, then go diagonally or vertically or horizontally or stay still" You could trick experienced smitemasters by switching the vertical/horizontal around.

---

Is it possible to reuse the same areas in different parts of a characters script? I have an idea for monitoring movement, but it involves dividing up the room into 4 or 9 areas

1212121212
3434343434
1212121212
3434343434

or

123123123123
456456456456
789789789789
123123123123
456456456456
789789789789

If I want to use these areas more than once, will I have to enter them more than once?

--

Also, do characters have any sort of internal state? eg
* If you are in state 1, do action A
* If some event happens, go to state 2
* If you are in state 2, do action B

Actually, the Neather is copyable so I'm guessing it is.

Actually, even if it isn't, it can be by having extra characters who represent states by standing in different squares. Huzzah!

eytanz
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I'm not sure on the exact answer to your question as it sort of depends on what exactly you mean. You are limited as follows:

- You can only use absolute coordinates, not relative coordinates of any type.
- There are no variables where you can store information. You can achieve different states by using conditionals (of either "if/then?" or "wait until" type), and branching code.
- Different characters' scripts are unaware of each other; you cannot use the same script to control two characters (except for the dialogue system which has some different rules but can't affect in-game behavior).

These limitations definitely make it harder to do what you're suggesting; I'm not sure whether they make it impossible, given the low amount of detail you provide and the fact that I haven't really tried to implement anything like that.

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Maurog
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You can check the location of, say, an invisible character using absolute coordinates, amiright? Because if you can, here are your variables right there

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eytanz
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Yeah, but you can't actually change the invisible character's location. You'd have to give the other character a script as well and make sure the two scripts are always coordianted. That's possible, but not necessarily simple (in essence, it's like having variables you can only update either before or after the rest of the script runs).


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Zaratustra00
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Do you plan to eventually add to the script system functionalities, or keep it small and simple?

mrimer
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Zaratustra00 wrote:
Do you plan to eventually add to the script system functionalities, or keep it small and simple?

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by this. Would you elaborate?

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Zaratustra00
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I mean whether you plan to add things such as variables, relative movement, etc. later.

Mattcrampy
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The scripting system was mostly designed to facilitate dialogue and do things like tutorials. The current design has drifted more towards being able to do actual puzzles (such as Neather rooms), but it's still rather difficult to do complex behaviours in the scripting system.

The rationale behind the scripting system is that it's almost by definition a system where the players don't know what's going to happen, and it leaves us open to a whole bunch of really cheap rooms and rooms where it's almost impossible to ascertain what's going to happen, which goes against the ethos of DROD. We've got enough potential for really cheap puzzles as it is without adding complex behaviours like variables into the mix. (That, and there's the old question of what, really, could one do with variables that one couldn't do without them.)

Matt

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