Messages

@FocusHillGames That's all really interesting, thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

@FocusHillGames would you be willing to talk in more detail about your process of using Stable Diffusion? I have a LOT of feelings about AI-assisted art, but I'm interested in learning how people have used it successfully (which is to say, your backgrounds look great). I don't feel super comfortable using it for my own art, but I find it fascinating.

Did you have detailed ideas for each background ahead of time? What kinds of prompts did you use? How much would you say you were able to get it to look the way you wanted? How much did you need to modify afterward? How did you decide what styles to tell it to use?

I hope that's not too many questions.

This may be resolved by implementing a script module database, or perhaps a in-Editor menu for looking up for script modules in a list of repositories.

This would be really helpful! I spend a lot of time searching the forums for relevant modules that are not outdated.

2. New GUI editor - to have more modern features such as button customization with 9-point images, group/align objects, change button background color, mouse wheel scroll support, etc.
3. New Dialog editor/dialog scripts. The way modern dialogs are designed is very different nowadays, it's more of a tree structure than a bunch of questions right off the bat. It's also frustrating to not be able to reorder the dialog options.

Seconded for both of these!

Right now I spend so much time drawing different sizes for the same button style, and if during later testing I decide to change the text of a button, I then have to go back and redraw the button image to fit the new text.

And having a tree structure for dialogs could hugely accelerate the user experience there.

Spoiler

I'm assuming @edmundito that this structure would mean a kind of built-in automation of "selecting this option activates this next set of options and deactivates the parent option", i.e., that that would be an inherent property of the "child" options. (Perhaps deactivating the parent option would optional, like a checkbox).

And this would integrate with dialog script somehow, which would still be needed to include any additional actions besides opening child options, like playing animations and so on when the dialog option is selected by the player.

Obviously these details are too specific for this "roadmap" thread, hence the spoiler section. Just wanted to put that out there, though.

[close]

Just a couple more days until voting! If anyone wants to throw in another solution, now's the time.

Huge thanks to all the entrants so far! 

[DINER DISASTER]

All right, this is a real groaner, but here goes.

DINER DISASTER

One day the owner of a chain of breakfast diners got a call from his loyal sous-chef, who told him several people had gotten food poisoning because they'd eaten undercooked sausage links at several of the diners. What was more, the state health inspector had been ordered to come through to investigate whether the diners would still pass inspection.

The owner rushed in to figure out the source of the problem. "Don't we test every batch to make sure the sausages are up to the required temperature?" He asked the sous-chef.

"We do. We've been using those brand-new high-tech meat thermometers and ovens since last week. We test a few sausage links in every batch, every time."

"How much time until the inspector comes?" the owner asked the sous-chef.

"Two hours."

When one of the industrial ovens beeped the completion of its cooking timer, the owner rushed over to test the batch of sausages. The meat thermometer read 165F.

"That's not possible," he said. "Look at these. They're only half-cooked!"

He dug around until he found one of the old, low-tech thermometers they had used previously. It told him the sausages were only 130F inside. "The new gadgets are faulty!" he said. "How long was the oven timer set for?" The sous-chef responded with the correct amount of time.

The owner then tested the over temperature itself. "It's only 300F! It's set at 450! The sausages will take forever this way! We won't be able to serve orders!" He called the other diners in the chain, and sure enough, all their thermometers and ovens, which had been made by the same company, had malfunctioned.

The owner shook the sous-chef by the shoulders. "There's no time to sue them before the health inspector gets here!" He wracked his brain, on the verge of panic over the prospect of losing his entire diner chain. Then he froze. "I've got it! Boil the sausages instead of baking them, then brown them in skillets! That'll ensure they're cooked through with enough time to serve out customers!"

The sous-chef barked orders around the kitchen, and soon all the line-cooks stood over pots of boiling water filled with sausage links.

The health inspector arrived. The owner followed inspector around, peering over the shoulders over line cook to make sure every sausage was fully cooked.

"You need to back off and let them cook normally," the inspector said. "I need this inspection to be accurate. Stop hovering."

"Hey now," said the sous-chef. "Don't judge a cook by his hover! Fortune favors the boiled, and this diner chain is only as strong as its weakest link!"

@Creamy your solution is so involved it's almost an entire game in itself!  I had a lot of fun reading it. Thanks for jumping straight into the deep end on this one! It's great to have another entry.

You're on the right track...

Oh dear. Tell me it isn't Allah-peno.
 

I'm surprised by the missing activity in this competition. I thought more people would come up with fun ideas.

I'm wondering if the rules post and room post were too long. Maybe for the next round I can make an abbreviated version of the rules with a link to the full rules post.

Also, my room description may have been too involved. I wanted to err on the side of more possibilities, but maybe I went too far. If you end up being the only entrant, maybe you can write a simpler room prompt for the next round. 

In general I'm trying to treat this as an experiment at first, and to see if things can get refined slightly as more rounds happen so that the contest becomes as accessible as possible. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for the response! I love learning clever little tricks like this. The UI can really make or break the gameplay and this method felt very natural in your game. Much appreciated! 

Hey @AbsurdumCodice , one quick coding question. 

I really like the inventory item cursor getting highlighted when it's over a hotspot. How did you implement this? Did you have separate sprites for each item or do it through script? I'd love to know since I don't like using cross hairs, and this is a great way to get around that. 

It looks like you don't have {} brackets inside the if statement.

Shouldn't it look like this?

function hWardrobe_UseInv()
{
  if (player.ActiveInventory==iFlashlight)
  {
  player.Walk (390, 578, eBlock);
  player.FaceDirection (eDirectionUp, eBlock);
  player.ChangeView (3);
  player.Animate (3, 40, eOnce);
  player.ChangeView (2);
  player.Say (" Hey, I can see the car keys! I cannot reach them though.");
  CarKeysSeen = true;
  }
}

@cat I like how your solution is extremely simple and makes very short work of what appears to be a complicated setup. I certainly wouldn't have thought of it!

If anyone else is thinking of entering but isn't sure where to start, combining inventory items is a good way to dive in, even if your solution ends up elsewhere.

And remember, there are no "wrong" solutions! If it gets the job done, it's valid!

Holy-peno?

[ROOM]

Welcome to PUZZLE MAKING PRACTICE!

Please see the Contest Rules above. 

This round's scenario is as follows (please note: future rooms are allowed to be much simpler )

ROOM:
A large, high-ceilinged section of an old power plant. A large entryway leaves the room open to the weather and lets in natural light. (You have already collected all useful items from outside.)

What does the room hold?
- A few waist-height carts full of coal.
- Two shovels on the ground next to the carts.
- A fenced metal second-story catwalk around the perimeter of the room.
- Ladders to the catwalk have rusted away and fallen. They lie in pieces on the ground.
- Up on the catwalk is a door that leads to another section of the power plant.
- The door opens with a simple handle but it is rusted shut.
- On the wall of the ground level is an electrical panel. A large switch set to "ON" with a dark lightbulb next to it that shows there is no electricity.
- Various small holes in the wall provide many entrances and exits for rodents.
- A pile of old wreckage including large, heavy chains, a spare metal wheel for one of the coal carts, some sheet metal, and several long pipes.
- A giant ground-level furnace with a human-sized door.
- On the outside of the furnace are a few pipes with valve handles. The pipes extend to the ceiling and within reach of the catwalk but do not have obvious footholds. The handles on the valves can be operated. It is unclear what they do.
- Through the furnace door is a mini-room with a pile of ancient ashes and a powerful fan out of reach in the ceiling to pull smoke up into a smokestack. The fan is not running.

GOAL:
-Find a way to reach the second-story catwalk and open the locked door to get to the next area.

AVAILABLE INTERACTIVE ELEMENTS:
- Everything mentioned in the room description
- A rat (NPC) that comes in and out of the various holes in the wall, and sometimes runs across the catwalk.
- Items in your inventory:
    -Lunchbox containing an apple, a piece of cheese, a bottle of water, and a sandwich
    -Two old computer speakers, each containing a magnet that may be removed
    -Crowbar
    -Can of lighter fluid
    -Umbrella with curved handle
    -A brick
    -Superglue
    -Sledgehammer
    -Greasy rag
    -Box of fish hooks and fishing line

Play around and come up with a solution! Remember, it doesn't have to be complicated – as outlined above, it just needs to use at least 3 elements. The point is not only to practice your puzzle design skills but also to have fun! 

Please submit your solutions no later than January 31!

[a puzzle design competition to practice your skills at creating logical solutions to constrained situations]

EDIT: The results are in! We have winners!
-----------------------

Hello all,

I've been given the go-ahead to resurrect a long-dead competition from almost twenty years ago: a puzzle design competition to practice your skills at creating logical solutions to constrained situations. It's just like playing an adventure game except you get to make your own solution!

Here are the rules:

The host provides a narrow scenario:

A. No more than two rooms, described in detail. For example, if the rooms is indoors, what type of building is it in? Are there windows? Is there furniture? Shelves attached to the walls? Pipes? Describe everything that is part of the room itself, especially things that might be interacted with, like control panels, climbable trees, openable air vents, and so on.

B. A very specific goal to accomplish. Escape the room? Burn it down? Find a specific hidden item? Open a safe? Restart a car? Convince an NPC to leave? Convince an NPS to give you needed information? The goal should require multiple steps.

C. At least 10 specific items, NPCs, or available interactions. This includes inventory, logical things that would be lying around, people, and room components as mentioned above. This should be a long enough list that participants can come up with multiple solutions. There should be no intended "correct solution."

Participants write entries that must do the following:
1. Use at least 3 of the provided elements (inventory, NPCs, a piece of the room like a cabinet or faucet etc.).
2. Give a step-by-step walktrough of your puzzle solution.
3. Don't add new elements. For example, if the room is a forest, breaking a thin branch off a tree makes sense unless the host said the trees were huge and tall. But adding a hollowed-out stump with a bear sleeping in it is too specific. Assume all important elements have been mentioned by the host.
4. Keep any dialog elements summarized rather than typing out the whole conversation (for example, "threaten the mailman", "ask the child for advice", and so on, instead of giving every spoken line).

Each contest runs for two weeks to allow for a good number of entries, and then it switches to voting for one week. The participant whose solution gets the most votes gets to come up with the next scenario! (Please also provide a link to these rules).

Voters use the criteria of
a) how logical the puzzle seems
b) how creative or unexpected (but still sensible) is the use of elements
c) how satisfying is the solution (Is it too simple? Way too complicated? Or just right?)

Since I'm hosting the first round, I'll provide the first scenario. I'll check back to answer any questions and can moderate future rounds if needed. The first scenario is below, in its own post, to provide a model for future hosts.

@Gilbert excellent, thank you!

Hey @Gilbert just wondering if you saw my post immediately above this. Any thoughts?

I have an idea but I'm not going to have time to make it. If anyone wants to run with it, just DM me and it's yours.

Great work, @Wesley ! Thanks for your response!

This article presents some pretty damning results. The further you get into their investigation, the worse it gets.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright