Game Maker now saves!

And . . . yeah, that's all I did.

My life has been mugged and beat over the head recently. Far too much stress.

My wife is pregnant, and we just found out that there is a 1/200 chance of it having down syndrome, so we need to change our schedule around for further testing.

We've put an offer in on a house, but even if it gets accepted it will be in a secondary position, in case the current offer on the house falls through. My wife and I are sick and tired of looking at houses, and so we're trying to figure out what to do if this one doesn't work.

Work has been busy because we're just about finished with the games we're working on (but since they still haven't been announced I can't say what they are.)

I've been getting crap on how my lesson plan is set up for my Japanese class, so I need to meet with a professor of Japanese today which might make me miss teaching class tonight, which is bad because it's lesson 1.

Also, I haven't wanted to work on chapter 4 on my book because it directly relates to my meeting today.

....

And you want me to work on a game too?


-Califer

Map Maker finished!

The Map Maker is now working! Now it's time for me to take a little break and work on the book a little. I've just about finished chapter 2, but there are a few things I want to add in. Since I've spent a lot longer on Darkened Dreams than I have on the book recently I'm going to get chapter 4 finished before I get to making it so that we can walk on the map that just got made. Should take me a few weeks, it's a very busy time of life for me.

But it is happening!

-Califer

Map Maker: Round 2

Last time what I showed you was a picture of what I wanted to have happen. It does draw lines but those lines are meaningless since nothing is being written to map data. Now writing actually works and you can make new maps and all that. I just need to add two fairly simple things and it's all good.

I could have finished last night but I was busy celebrating my third anniversary and going over details of houses that we are looking at buying. Many women, when pregnant, get cravings for different foods. My wife seems to get cravings to play board games with me. So if I get enough time I can finish the Map Maker tonight. If not I'll finish it later.

After that I need to get back to my book for a little bit. I still need to rewrite chapter 2 so that I can have people read through it again.

-Califer

Map Maker!

Here it is! The Map Maker works for the most part, and I've even got a picture to prove it! When making a map you choose an image to use then draw all over it. In the picture here I'm drawing a boundary along the edge of the sea, so that in-game you couldn't just walk on water. It's like 1000 times faster than how I was making it in Darkened Dreams 1!

You can also make different regions and locations. Regions are larger areas and hold different information for your reputation, how NPCs in the region react, as well as weather patterns. Locations can hold information about what kind of plants grow, what kind of creatures are randomly generated, and where NPCs go during the day. For example, an NPC with a farmer job would go to the farm that is just to the right of what you can see on the map there during the day, and return to his home at night.

Lastly, about the interesting thing that I ran into in Daggerfall that I mentioned last week. I had just found the NPC contact that I was looking for and finished my minor little quest. I thought I'd see if the innkeeper had any food that I wanted, but as soon as I talked to him, he accused me of stealing his amber. He then disappeared and a warrior came through the door to get me. I had been framed! It was difficult, since I was only a level 1 character, but I managed to beat the warrior and snagged his stuff. I was pretty hurt, but I thought it would be safe to try and track the guy that accused me down. Everyone seemed to think he was still in the inn that I had come from.

Eventually I went to the other inn in town to rent a room. That innkeeper called the guards on me but slipped me a note. I was too hurt to try and fight, but I managed to slip through and went to the house that was in the note. It was locked. I had no lock picking skills. I bashed the door down, getting the guards attention again, and talked to the guy who let me know that I had been framed by the leader of this town. He let me know where her stash was and where her house was.

I went to the house first. Unfortunately no one was there (I was in the mood for a fight . . . if I could survive it) but I did find a note that proved I was framed and also explicitly mentioned who I should take the note to. Found him easy enough and then I just had to go into a dungeon to find the amber and clear my name. It was all unexpected, and I had a blast doing it. Coyote at rampant games had a similar experience.

So what do you think? What if there were random quests that just jumped at you like that every once in a while? Would you feel it was interesting, or would you just groan and reload your last save?

-Califer

Being taught a lesson

The lesson that I'm learning is to not let the readers of this blog know when I've got a grand plan for finishing something by a certain date. Last time I said I would have the map-maker finished by now, but because I said that I ran into all sorts of trouble. On Friday I worked a double shift. That left me tired for Saturday, and we also went house shopping. Then I realized that in order to do a really good job on my book the rewrite would take a lot longer than I thought. Then when I was just getting ready to get going again, Monday reared it's ugly head and I ended up working until 4:30 in the morning. I got Tuesday off but I was so tired I just managed to finish cleaning up chapter 1.

That's not to say that I didn't still get some work done on it! I managed to figure out all the drawing methods, though they're all going to change code-side once I get actual map data behind it all. Peter's working on a few buttons to help with making it all look nice, and I think that once I have the map data behind it all and am able to change the size of the area depending on the picture used for the map it should all be downhill from there.

On another note I started playing Shadow of the Colossus (Which was in Peter's top ten game list) and I've got to say, I'm really enjoying it. I've only killed two of them so far though. I've also started playing Daggerfall again. I get about 45 minutes a week with it. I need more free time!

Next time I want to talk about some stuff I found in Daggerfall that I think would make things more interesting in Darkened Dreams 2. Stay tuned!

-Califer