Messages

Hey Baron do you think you can send us the source? Maybe we can work on different parts and send them into you.

That would get a little messy, in my opinion, since I would then have to reintegrate everyone's work into one game again.  Also, I'm not going to lie to you, this is a pretty hacked job behind the scenes.  It works, yes, but it's not pretty.  Frankly I'd be embarrassed to release the source to public mockery scrutiny.

No, what I'm looking for now is a group of writer/editors to converge on the written aspects of the plot and "optimize" them.

- Watching at the digital-lock will bring up the correct dialog plus 2 x the dialog (+ animation) for the cross.

Ah.  That's a conflict between my and Scarab's code.  It's now on the fix list.

- If you switch off the light and click on the door afterwards, he isn't walking to the door (it's more like being teleported).

The teleport was implemented because there was a suggestion that clicking on an (unblocked) exit should result in automatically going to the next screen, instead of waiting for Merrick to slowly saunter across the screen.  I was under the impression that we were moving towards this for all exits, but do you feel the teleporting breaks some of the continuity of the game?

- During the cut-scene of the twins the dialog-colour of the dark one should be done a bit brighter, because the part that appeared in front of the dark hair is hard to see.

Added to the fix list.

Regarding the carrots:
I think sucking one and then "getting its power" makes more sense in context. Okay, a carrots doesn't HAVE blood, but as far as I understand it, for Merrik it's "one suck, one-time power-up". So yeah, suck one carrot, turn orange. That also makes it easier for players who want to cross the UV light several times; we don't want them to go through a lot of carrots each time...

Without anyone to make a compelling case otherwise, I think this is sensible.

In other news, I've PMed all musician volunteers a list of our musical requirements.  We have six volunteers and sixish rooms, which will work out well.  Hopefully they will post their work here for us to appreciate.  They have been instructed to use JackPumpkinHead's work as a theme (which I am in favour of keeping for the title screen and possibly more, depending on what the musicians submit, of course).

As for finalizing the writing (messages, dialogs), I was wondering if anyone would be interested in forming a working group to haggle over the wording and content of the textual part of the game.  It is probably unrealistic to do everything as a group, but everything of substance shouldn't be that time consuming.  I envisage the group spending roughly an hour or two spread out over the week debating the merits of different approaches and offering suggestions for improvements.  I can compile a text script of exactly what's in-game to speed things up, so it will just require a bit of reading and correspondence.  Please post in the thread if you are interested (PMing makes you anonymous to the group and this is more of a high-profile role).

[AWESOME WORK EVERYONE!]

AWESOME WORK EVERYONE!
   These latest sprites fill in a lot of the gaps.  I've already implemented them in the LATEST BUILD



It's not quite a beta, but you can finish the game, such as it is.  There's music, I've fixed the corridor door bug, and the walking back through the courtyard bug, and I've implemented a rough version of the final climactic showdown (with animations where available).  Things I haven't done but should get to shortly: killing the scientists, a bunch of more visual tweaks (Sunlight, Secret Fawful's outdoor background in the final cutscene was missed...), etc.  We're getting close to the stage where we invite writers back to build some sense into the game (object responses, dialogs....).  Also, I've got like six music volunteers I have to contact (although I'm really liking JackPumpkinHead's MIDI for the intro theme -it's catchy!).

SWARM THINGS LEFT TO DO:
1) Those guards are still awkward.  They really should face the door, maybe kneel.  Standing is fine when shooting but it's a little unbelievable as it is now.  And the death "animation" really needs some help (play build, above, for details)
2) We need a control panel for that laser in the surgery lab -clicking on the laser itself is not in any way intuitive, given that it's about 30 feet above the main character's head.
3) We still need a background for the inside of the robot monster.  Not much will be visible around the vampire twin close-up portraits (see build, above), but we still need SOMETHING in there.
4) I'm still keen on having one scientist get up on the cabinets and attack Merrick with a broom for comic relief.  Anybody?
5) We need the charred remains of the base -abstract is fine- with a sprite of Merrick's hand coming up through the wreckage (for the very last scene).
6) A proper title screen is required.  I've been using the title "Byte of the Draculator II" in the builds as a sop to the strong 2nd place finish of "Byte" as a title, but as far as I'm concerned just "Draculator II" is fine (It won the vote, after all).  Contact me if you need graphics (or better yet screenshot them from the build, above!)
7) Sound Effects!  If someone could go through the build (above!) and make a list of sound effects that would add to the gaming experience and then post it here that would be awesome.  Then we can get the 50ish swarm members to all scour their resources and see what we can put together.
8 ) GUI -The default inventory pop-up has got to go, and it needs a speed slider and option buttons (quit, save, restore, about...).  We don't need someone to program it (although that'd be nice too!) so much as someone to draw a mock-up of what it should look like.
9) We also need a quick discussion about how the carrot pigment puzzle should work.  Should Merrick need to eat a lot of carrots (like a human) in order for his skin to turn orange?  Or can he just suck on one and turning orange is the "power" that he steals from it?

That's all I can think of for now.  If anyone has any suggestions for improvements now's the time to offer them.  Do bear in mind that major edits are probably off the table at this point, but if you can offer an easy way to make the game more exciting/interesting/hilarious/sexy, I'm keen to hear it.

I'd disagree somewhat with the assumptions in Bror Jon's link.  It seems factually accurate -specific numeric figures add to the illusion -but personal experience dictates that a fundamental assumption has thrown off his calculations.  He states that the average human breathes 252L of air in an hour, and given his background numbers this seems roughly accurate.  He also states that 21% of air is oxygen -no arguing with that either.  But then he concludes that we need 53L of oxygen to survive in an hour (252L * 0.21 =53L), and this is plainly wrong.
      Consider the following: if you are trained in first-aid/CPR, they will at some point instruct you in assisted breathing -literally blowing the air from your lungs into a non-breathing victim's lungs.  This would clearly be a waste of time if you were using all 21% of the oxygen in the air for every breath.  A brief perusal of the internet suggests an absorbtion rate of somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of that for every normal breath.  This can reduce the number of plants you need by a factor of 3-5, depending. 
        Of course you would need permanent sunlight (or equivalent) to sustain full plant production all the time.  Since plants don't do photosynthesis in the dark, any down time would require a corresponding increase in the number of plants needed.

>Open Grate (?)

Don't lean too far to the left when you do it!

I am half man, half dutch.

For anything permanent my personal preference is at the bottom.

Nice.  Thanks!

Greetings Technocrats,
     I'm working with version 3.2.1, the one containing some of those marvelous open-source updates.  In general I offer praise and adulation to all involved.
     In some small matters, however, I'm having a bit of difficulty.  Consider the following:



I have a perfectly normal object (oHorn) with a perfectly normal interaction initiated in the properties window (in this case interact object).  This results in an oHorn_interact () function you see above.  I type some code and fiddle with a bunch of other things, then try to run the game.  BAM!  Error message (above).  For the longest time I couldn't figure out why the script wasn't working.  Finally I realized that oHorn_interact () no longer appears next to interact object in the oHorn property window -my best guess is that the script has somehow become uncoupled from the (now missing) link?  The code is sound, since I've just created a new object and pasted it directly into the new object's_interact () function.  I have no recollection of having anything to do with this part of the script before the error message, so I tentatively conclude that this was not a user initiated error.  This is not a high priority since I've worked around the problem and the few bytes of memory eaten up by the now phantom oHorn will (hopefully) not impede installations by future players, but it is messy and I live in dread of such a problem cropping up on a larger scale.  Is this a bug?  And if so, is there a remedy?  Or have I done something.... goofy :?  In which case, I implore you to teach me better.

   Also, but unrelated..... In building Draculator II with the default template in 3.2.1 I have a pre-existing repeatedly_execute_always function in my global script.  However, in my Curses & Castles project (started in 3.1.2 SP1 and upgraded to 3.2.1) I don't (this game used the "blank" template).  I notice when creating a game in 3.1.2 SP1 there is no rep_ex_always function, but it would be rather handy to have one now.  Is there a way to upgrade into rep_ex_always, can I just manually insert it, or am I S.O.L. in this regard?

Thank you for your collective assistance.

taxation = OH MY GOD NO WAY, I'M NOT PAYING TAX I DON'T CARE IF WE ALL DIE!

   Giggle.  But technically you've translated taxation into Republican Anglish, not the non-partisan American Vernacular.

[the list]

The robot shadow without an umbrella is probably the result of....

non-robust scripting (heading backwards through the exercise yard will not work), etc.  

  It's on the list of things to fix/improve.

  I like both of the vampire twin talking versions, but Tabata's is stylistically closer to the ones that already exist for Merrick and the scientists (although the evil surgeon in the first cutscene has quite a different talking animation, so maybe the more different styles the better?).

 

Nice!

[Precisely what we need to move forward is this:]

So I guess there's only one way I'm getting out of this   .....completion!

   The latest build: Draculator II July 28 Build.
   There's been some progress, mostly thanks to the heroic efforts of Scarab over the past several weeks, and I've polished a few things up this evening.  You can "play" the game up to *gulp*, but there are several things you can't do yet: bite the scientists, get stopped by light in the exercise yard (but you must use the umbrella or you'll crash the game when you exit the room), defeat the robot monster....  Many other things are lacking total polish: no music (not even some of the experimental tracks, sorry), missing animations, non-robust scripting (heading backwards through the exercise yard will not work), etc.  

   Precisely what we need to move forward is this:

   1) Baron needs more free time!
   2) Merrick's skin needs to be tinted orange from beta carotene overload.  Just the skin mind -I thought about tinting the whole thing too, but that would just look silly. (Completed by Buckethead)
   3) Merrick also needs a side take animation -this should be pretty easy.  Here are the relevant frames:
   4) Merrick needs a BITING animation.  I love Igor to death but I think he's too busy for this gig.  Using the back-facing sprites above Merrick should lift his cape out to the side and dip his head menacingly towards his victim.  This will probably have to happen in both directions (still facing back, but cape-lift/bite left and cape-lift bite right).
   5) The soldiers need to pose better:  Specifically they must face the menace behind the door.  
   6) The soldiers must also collapse after they are bitten.  I envisage a two-three frame fall, starting from their door-facing poses (dependent on #6, above).
   7) From their current positions, the soldiers must also shoot.  This would probably just require a second frame for each of them with a flashing gun-muzzle and the gun inclined slightly: played quickly this should give the desired effect.  Oh, here are the relevant frames all in one place:
   8 ) If someone really wants to do a Merrick fall-and-die this would be your time to shine.
   9) Our small vampire-twins require talking animations.  Just an open-mouthed frame will suffice: (Completed by Buckethead)
   10) Still outstanding is a laser console for the surgery lab
   11) Also still outstanding is a plan for the inventory/menu GUI.
   12) Tabatha must also send some extra cockroach frames to get them implemented (PMed)

  ....and I'm sure there are still a couple things I'm forgetting, but I think the above will pretty much get us to a working beta.  I myself will undertake the light in the exercise yard since it will be finicky (must correspond to shadow coding).  Otherwise please post to tell the world if you are working on something.  

Just one more big push!

Although if I remember correctly, for a while there, someone had stolen his tag line.  8)

Those were indeed the darkest of days.... 

Not until there's a Charlie Foxtrot 2!

Not EVEN then!

I think Baron just wanted to point out that he hasn't changed his avatar for years too (or ever?).

Not EVER.  You can pry that pixelated Prussian out of my cold, dead, virtual hands!

Whoa, whoa, whoa....  We can CHANGE our avatars?

[Snakes of Avalon]

Usually when I start working on a new game project I pick a codename first.

This is usually how I work, too.  The actual name will probably occur to you somewhere in the middle of the process: like women, you'll know the right one when she comes along.  My pet process entails a "Project" name, giving the whole enterprise a spy-thriller kind of glamour.  Then, when the right name comes along, the project name gets ditched.  So Project Albion (named after a bar I used to frequent) eventually became Snakes of Avalon, and Project Hengest (named after an obscure historical figure) has morphed into Curses & Castles.  I agree something distinct will help your game stand out, but since any examples I can give have already been done that's a task best left to your own creativity.

Maybe if Baron makes another demo then we could see how everything is looking.

Yes, that would be easiest.  Except if you happen to be Baron.... 

In all seriousness, I am juggling projects and am currently hugely focused on Curses & Castles.  Scarab has returned the Draculator game files to me and it is entirely my fault for not getting back to the swarm with a status report.  Basically you would be correct in assuming that not much has happened on the Draculator II front for the past month.  I know this developmental pause has been frustrating for everyone who has committed time and energy to the project, especially in light of the fact that even a month ago the finish line seemed to be in sight.  The factors contributing to this slow down are myriad and sundry, but mostly it was my vacation away from the internet and complete focus on my other project that has put the brakes on.

So, what's to be done?  I am still determined to dedicate most of my spare time to Curses & Castles, since that is where the momentum is for me at the moment.  That doesn't mean I won't have any time for D2, but not nearly as much as in May/early June.  I can delegate to another "game builder", if someone is eager to take up the torch (post here if you're interested!), or I can putter away at D2 when I'm not otherwise occupied (the next "window" of opportunity looks like it will be Thursday).  Provided I am still leading the project, I'll get back to everyone in a couple of days with a more detailed status update.

Seriously, judging from the last beta- Baron, how are we hour-wise? Did you theory work out?

I don't know: I need to hear from Scarab.  I don't think we'll make the 60 man hour mark, though: I utterly failed to plan for the time required to coordinate contributors and trouble shoot (programming, compatibility issues, etc.).  However, that knowledge itself is progress.

As for the music, I like elements of both contributions.  I do like the argument for that "MIDI sound", since we're going ultra low-res, but the constraints it might impose may discourage some of our musician volunteers.  What does everyone else think?

....and I'm back!  What'd I miss?

Oh no! I forgot to post and now a precious invite has been wasssttteeed!

I actually invited Baron shortly after he posted.

Now boys, there's plenty of me to go around!   

Boo, Facebook!

I'm keen to get an invitation to the ball: vanwijst *$~(gmail)~$*dot=com.