Hi Kai, I think achievements is a nice idea. I worked for a games company for a year, and I know that our players were really motivated by unlocking and earning new achievements.
It's cool that you're putting a little time into Adonthell. At some point when I have some free time, I'd really love to port the game to a modern engine. I think the gameplay and art and world design is spectacular, and I'd like to focus on that aspect whilst offloading the heavy lifting to some code I don't have to maintain. :) Cheers, Josh On 3 May 2016 at 21:46, Kai Sterker <kai.ster...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:38 PM, Kai Sterker <kai.ster...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I also compiled and tested it on the ancient iBook (gcc 3.something, >> Python 2.3, SWIG 2.0.0) and it worked. Played it through one more time, but >> it stopped during the outro, on the transition from mapview to the little >> cutscene of the chest and Bjarns little hiding place. No error message >> though, and since I played fullscreen not much chance but killing the >> process. > > > Actually that had nothing to do with the machine in question, or old or > incompatible version of Python/SWIG. Instead it appears to be legitimate bug > ;-). > > The one thing that seemed kind of odd, but I did not give much heed to it > yesterday was that Bjarn was already standing next to his chest when the > outro started. I believe that in turn caused his pathfinding during the > outro to fail, which causes the script to endlessly wait for pathing to > complete, which it never will. Played it through again today, and no trouble > making it through to the end credits. Fix should be as simple as checking > Bjarns location before triggering the pathfinding and skip it, if he's > already near the chest. Must be quite a rare thing, though :-). > > > I also am thinking about actually adding a settings window. Initially I did > not think it would be feasible, due to lacking widgets, but I think I came > up with a design that should work quite well and be simple enough to add. > Might look like this > > +------------------------------------+ > | | > | Display Mode < Window > | > | Master Volume < 50 > | > | Language < English > | > | | > | OK | > +------------------------------------+ > > Basically you'd use the up/down arrow keys to select one of the options or > OK, then use left/right to cycle through the possible values (or in case of > the volume increase or decrease the number). OK will close and save. Should > be easy enough to write in Python, like the rest of the UI. > > > The other addition that just came to my mind, after having played it for the > 3rd time in a row (though mostly clicking through without reading) would be > Achievements. While I personally don't care about those, I think they would > be a nice extra touch and would really highlight the variance and different > options of playing through. (It amazed me again, how reactive the dialogue > is at times. I.e. try talking to Oliver before entering the Inn vs. talking > to Orloth first. Or you can get Jelom to let Silverhair off the hook without > talking to Erek and Bjarn and it will accommodate for that just fine. Or > talk to Erek the first time when you already uncovered the gem. Or the > difference whether you rat out Talan or cover him. We really put more > thought into that than I remembered.) The thing is, all this effort goes > largely unnoticed, unless you play a couple of times. Some kind of > achievements could be an incentive to replay and discover all those little > things. Effort would be greater, though. > > > Lastly, I really would like to improve the helpfulness of Fellnir Kezular a > bit. He was supposed to hand out some clues, but I think the conditions for > his dialogue are really off. I never got anything out of him other than that > he does not know a thing, even though in my first playthrough I really had a > hard time uncovering Talan. Don't really want to add to his dialogue, just > try and make what's already there appear when it would be most useful. > > > Again, please let me know what you think, especially about the achievements > idea. (A couple that come to mind are: > * Talking to all NPCs during one play through > * Tasting the wine from all 3 barrels > * Ratting out Talan > * Not ratting out Talan > * Always being honest (i.e. never hiding your connection to Silverhair and > the location where you found the gem) > * Presenting the gem to Erek in the first conversation with him > * Finishing the game > * Trying to climb up the vine > Don't have to be more than 10 in total, but other ideas certainly welcome.) > > > And yes, need to be careful to not fall into the old trap of feature-creep > again :-). I have about another 6 or 7 weeks to waste on this, afterwards > time will be scarce again. So don't hesitate to say stop! > > Kai > > _______________________________________________ > Adonthell-devel mailing list > Adonthell-devel@nongnu.org > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/adonthell-devel > -- Cheers, Josh _______________________________________________ Adonthell-devel mailing list Adonthell-devel@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/adonthell-devel
