Based on comments from the recap thread, now seems a good time to let everyone take a look at what myself and RI have been working on for the last month or so.
WARNING!!! This is nowhere near a finished piece of work - far from it. As of now, all you can do is wander around the town and surrounding areas, with a non-animated Roger sprite. Rough edges abound, such as missing walk-behinds, misplaced regions, and so on, all things that will be sorted in subsequent builds. However, what is assembled so far is rapidly approaching the most definitive and coherant iteration of the town to date, with almost every location from the existing games put together in a way that makes sense. Future builds will see dialogue for the background and characters, the characters themselves, and ultimatly some means of depicting a recap of the main events from the 'canon games'. Once we're sufficiently happy that a 'version 1.0' has been reached (all basic features implemented, sufficiently playable, no gamestoppers and accessible for RON noobs), then this will make its way to the 'In production' and ultimatly 'Completed games' threads.
BACKGROUND
For those who haven't been following the recap ideas thread, Virtual Reality is one of several ideas to come out of the need to provide potential RON developers with some help in bringing them up to speed on RON's locations/characters/story without having to play through all of the games in meticulous detail to find a background to printscreen, or a particular character's traits, or the order of key events. Ultimately, VR has the potential to act as an interactive map, a collection of character bios, and a recap of the current ongoing story all in one, as well as being constantly updated with new and updated artwork as the town continues to grow and evolve, along with changes to the dialogue to mirror events in future games.
HELP WANTED!
Although Renegade Implementor and myself have made a start, this isn't something we can do on our own. VR needs dialogue for each location detailing its backstory and key events. It also needs characters (preferably based on the newer sprites) and similar accompanying dialogue - who they are, their personality, key events from their lives, significant relationships with others, etc. Finally, we need a way to distill the important elements of the current RON story down into what any new developer would need to know and which respective game it comes from. An idea of a slideshow was bought up - if this is an idea that's followed through, it will also need animation and dialogue. In short, the chance of this project being a success will be hugely increased by community submissions.
This is the main reason why I'm posting what has been done so far now - rather than just having a select few decide what form this should take, this is something that, like RON itself, should grow and evolve based on input from the community as a whole. Plus I think this is a project that will really benefit from being something that we all can get involved with. If all goes to plan, I think this has the potential for solving many of the problems that caused the pipeline of new games to dry up following 2004.
DOWNLOAD
Virtual Reality v 0.5 (http://www.realityonthenorm.info/downloads/resources/res-vr-ron_vr_v05.zip) (uploaded 9/4/14).
(NOTE - you start the game with two maps in your inventory, a 'town' one and a 'world' one. Use these to get to areas not otherwise joined to an adjacent background.)
Looks very promising
Bumped for new version in OP. If anyone notices something that is amiss, then post it here and it will be resolved in the next build.
We're now thinking about adding room dialogue, so if you have any thoughts on implementation or want to contribute an entry, now's the time to bring them to the table.
If you leave Guido's house you get stuck partway in Scid's building. I haven't found any other problems yet :) .
Edit: If you enter The Pit from the left side (after coming around through the library) and try leaving the right side of the screen it sends you to the car lot instead of back to where you should be. Also, it's a bit weird having the library in that alley between the florist and the restaraunt, isn't it?
I believe that library is actually Albert Waeks Second Hand bookshop, as featured in Rend. The Anthony Hahn library is that white placeholder next to City Hall.
But yeah, other stuff will be fixed, thanks for spotting.
I downloaded, and you guys have really done a great job.
-A map GUI would be nice(with something saying, you are here)
Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 04/06/2009 12:27:53
-A map GUI would be nice(with something saying, you are here)
Would somewhat ruin the semi-running gag about map screens though.
Quote from: Hudders on Thu 04/06/2009 13:43:52
Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 04/06/2009 12:27:53
-A map GUI would be nice(with something saying, you are here)
Would somewhat ruin the semi-running gag about map screens though.
Indeed. Good point.
Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 04/06/2009 13:47:32
Quote from: Hudders on Thu 04/06/2009 13:43:52
Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 04/06/2009 12:27:53
-A map GUI would be nice(with something saying, you are here)
Would somewhat ruin the semi-running gag about map screens though.
Indeed. Good point.
Shame on me, but I completely forgot what that running gag was :(
I think I'd rather enjoy contrabuting some bits of dialouge and description, if that's cool.
Go right ahead that man. Any particular location you wanna bagsy before we get going proper?
Also, Prog, I've gone and fixed the bugs you've pointed out. With regards to the car lot thing, it's correct in relation to the map - to get back to The Pit, you're meant to go south/southeast from your current location. It'll be easier to tell this when we do the face location commands so you can tell which direction you've come from.
Bump for new version (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BSA0BTU6). Herein can be found:
- A new interface, utilising the new template.
- Test room descriptions added to several rooms (check the readme file for where).
- Some new backgrounds and updates to old ones.
- A new player sprite. A million points and a bucket of herring to the first one to get who it is.
Ignore any scaling/walkbehind issues for now. Feedback on the room descriptions (length, tone, detail etc) and the new interface will be probably the most helpful at this point.
Just a couple of points that don't need commenting on.
- The door in the hospital crossroads will reload the crossroads background if you click on it.
- Leaving DVE's basement takes you Startac instead of DVE's foyer.
- The walk-on regions for the open doorways in Baron W.'s victorian era manor are a bit finicky.
- Various walk-behinds need to be altered/added.
- Grammar & spelling mistakes/errors.
These issues will be addressed before the next build is released.
Try to add music. I think it should give the player the atmosphere of the places, not only the physical representation.
The new gui seems to work pretty well with the RoN backgrounds and setting, so far. I wandered around the city switching icons and such and I think it integrates fairly well.
I did notice in rooms with a height greater than 200 px (such as the hospital vending machine corridor), the inventory box didn't stay in the lower left corner of the screen. So if your character was near the top or middle of the room, the inventory box appeared mid-screen rather than sticking to the corner like it should.
Sounds like it needs GetViewportX/GetViewportY to keep the gui position static.
Aren't GUI coordinates based on screen (Viewport X/Y) coords anyway?
I think the GUI position IS static (at least, it's always at the same y coord), it's just where 0,0 is that changes. The taller rooms work relative to the top left of the screen, while the shorter rooms are placing the GUI relative to the top left of the image - not counting the 20 pixel border, so it looks further down the screen/window than in taller rooms despite being the same y position.
I think you could solve it by either having an eEventEnterRoomBeforeFadein that checks room height and moves the GUI accordingly, or maybe just by saving the shorter rooms including the borders in the image (bulking them out to 240 high).
I know this is an old topic but would it be possible to get the source code for this project? I would love to expand on it, not to take over the primer or anything but to fashion an interactive primer with an actual game attached to it.
I think RI was working on it last, so he probably has the "latest" version. He and I laid a very solid foundation that's ripe for further addition, so if you want to fashion something out of it, then feel free.
The download link is outdated, as MegaUpload has been shut down. Can the original author(s) please host the file on some other site and update the link, so that the game can be made available to all once more.
There's a new version of Virtual Reality that can be found at this link (http://www.realityonthenorm.info/downloads/resources/res-vr-ron_vr_v05.zip).
Just a reminder, this is still a work in progress.