Re: [Adonthell-devel] More adonthell-0.3 updates

[Kai Sterker]

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:38 PM, Kai Sterker <address@hidden> 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