Triforce MUCK forum!
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Hi all. Work is slowly getting better. Our next project is in Java, which is way more modern and streamlined than the mainframe stuff we were dealing with before. Still, getting set up with a working programming environment and example code showing the style and framework our client wants us to use proved far more difficult than it should have. It took us nearly three weeks just to work out the kinks.
It's been another decent month of progress in Forgotten Gates. I've managed to work out several bugs in the combat plugin and get successful results with a few different types of skills: a single-enemy damage-and-stun, an all-enemy defense-reducer, and a single-ally heal. Right now I'm working on getting the basic Fight skill implemented. I say "basic" because that's how it is for the player, but systematically it's actually a little more complex than most skills because the animation involved depends on what battler is doing it and what weapon they have equipped, and some battlers have two weapons on top of that.
A funny (though costly in dev-time) anecdote which happened while I was testing the single-ally heal: I found that the DynBattleChoices plugin was not triggering event pages like it should be when I tried to use the heal on the actor casting it. For a while there I thought I had uncovered some onerous edge case in how RT2K3 handles things, and I was updating the DynBattleChoices readme file to warn other developers of this limitation. But when I tried doing a similar skill in the DynBattleChoices example project, it worked just fine. After quite a bit of headscratching at the code, I finally tried copying the status condition I used in my skill-that-does-nothing trick from the DynBattleChoices example project to the FG project, and lo and behold, that fixed the problem. By changing the attributes of that status condition one-by-one to match what I'd been using before in FG, I finally noticed what had been wrong: the condition (as I'd been using it in FG when I had problems) disallowed actions for the battler they were inflicted on. It wasn't easy to notice when the game is running because it was also set to abate immediately, but apparently if it was inflicted on the currently acting battler, it would mess with the action. Oh well, at least it wasn't really an unsolvable problem.
In regard to the attempt to start up Triforce MUCK RP again, I did post the start of a scene on the LJ community...then it occurred to me that I don't have the ability to add new members to the community. X) So I made a forum for it instead. It's actually a bit of an improvement, we can take advantage of board features and organization this way, plus it has a chat function. I just hope people get around to joining it and participating. X)
On NMR, Reina and Aburei happened across a town where the local doctors had been disappearing. Aburei of course cheerfully volunteered to fill in until they could find a new permanent medic. n.n That night Aburei was drugged and kidnapped, but Reina was able to track him due to a container in his pouch getting crushed as he was carried out the door and leaking chemicals. The serial killer turned out to be a former medical ninja who'd decided medical practice was weakening humanity in the long run and was trying to use this town as a test case to prove his thesis. An Evilutionary Biologist, basically. Reina ran him off and rescued the blissfully unaware bard-medic.
Sonic Colors:
This one is clearly a Sonic game for the sake of releasing a Sonic game, which isn't a bad thing. The plot premise is that Dr. Eggman has built an orbital amusement park ostensibly as a way of apologizing for all his past misdeeds. Sonic and Tails aren't fooled for a second of course, and gatecrash the place to find out what's going on. It turns out Eggman has captured a race of sprite-ish aliens that embody some sort of hyper-energy, and is of course building an army with them. Sonic must blitz through the park's various zones and destroy a number of generators to free the aliens. Tails shows up during cutscenes to appraise Sonic of his progress in communicating with the aliens and engage in humorous banter. The game doesn't take itself at all seriously, with lots of leaning on the fourth wall and tacit acknowledgement that yep, it's just another of Eggman's zany schemes and of course Sonic's going to smash it to smithereens no sweat.
In gameplay terms, it's a fusion of 2D and 3D platforming. You'll start out a stage running along a path in 3D (though usually a fairly linear area), then at some point you'll transition into an area where the camera swings around to the side and it's essentially 2D, then it'll go back to 3D again later on, etc. The general feel of it is pretty traditional Sonic fare, although you pretty much have to use a homing attack to jump-smash enemies, and the closest thing to rolling is sliding. The special mechanic of Sonic Colors is that you can occasionally free an alien from a pod, then activate a power based on, you guessed it, the color of the alien. Things like shooting off like a laser, or drilling through the ground, or blasting up into the air like a rocket. It's pretty situational, the best time to use a power is almost always immediately after getting it.
I haven't fully beaten the game, and I'm debating with myself whether I want to. Historically, I've found that the modern 3D Sonic games finally become fun for me when I start going for high scores on each stage. This isn't a fully 3D Sonic game, though, and the 2D segments feel very slippery to me. It would be hard to achieve high scores (mainly a matter of swift and precise execution) in such a system. On the other hand, there does seem to be a final zone still locked to me, and I do like completion...plus, the game does seem to be a lot more generous with its rankings than previous Sonic games. I got S-rank on several stages in my first try, some of them even with what felt to me like sloppy performances.
Bottom line? If you're a serious Sonic fan, it's worth playing...but then, you'll probably have played it already in that case. ;)
Click to viewHi all. Work is slowly getting better. Our next project is in Java, which is way more modern and streamlined than the mainframe stuff we were dealing with before. Still, getting set up with a working programming environment and example code showing the style and framework our client wants us to use proved far more difficult than it should have. It took us nearly three weeks just to work out the kinks.
It's been another decent month of progress in Forgotten Gates. I've managed to work out several bugs in the combat plugin and get successful results with a few different types of skills: a single-enemy damage-and-stun, an all-enemy defense-reducer, and a single-ally heal. Right now I'm working on getting the basic Fight skill implemented. I say "basic" because that's how it is for the player, but systematically it's actually a little more complex than most skills because the animation involved depends on what battler is doing it and what weapon they have equipped, and some battlers have two weapons on top of that.
A funny (though costly in dev-time) anecdote which happened while I was testing the single-ally heal: I found that the DynBattleChoices plugin was not triggering event pages like it should be when I tried to use the heal on the actor casting it. For a while there I thought I had uncovered some onerous edge case in how RT2K3 handles things, and I was updating the DynBattleChoices readme file to warn other developers of this limitation. But when I tried doing a similar skill in the DynBattleChoices example project, it worked just fine. After quite a bit of headscratching at the code, I finally tried copying the status condition I used in my skill-that-does-nothing trick from the DynBattleChoices example project to the FG project, and lo and behold, that fixed the problem. By changing the attributes of that status condition one-by-one to match what I'd been using before in FG, I finally noticed what had been wrong: the condition (as I'd been using it in FG when I had problems) disallowed actions for the battler they were inflicted on. It wasn't easy to notice when the game is running because it was also set to abate immediately, but apparently if it was inflicted on the currently acting battler, it would mess with the action. Oh well, at least it wasn't really an unsolvable problem.
In regard to the attempt to start up Triforce MUCK RP again, I did post the start of a scene on the LJ community...then it occurred to me that I don't have the ability to add new members to the community. X) So I made a forum for it instead. It's actually a bit of an improvement, we can take advantage of board features and organization this way, plus it has a chat function. I just hope people get around to joining it and participating. X)
On NMR, Reina and Aburei happened across a town where the local doctors had been disappearing. Aburei of course cheerfully volunteered to fill in until they could find a new permanent medic. n.n That night Aburei was drugged and kidnapped, but Reina was able to track him due to a container in his pouch getting crushed as he was carried out the door and leaking chemicals. The serial killer turned out to be a former medical ninja who'd decided medical practice was weakening humanity in the long run and was trying to use this town as a test case to prove his thesis. An Evilutionary Biologist, basically. Reina ran him off and rescued the blissfully unaware bard-medic.
Sonic Colors:
This one is clearly a Sonic game for the sake of releasing a Sonic game, which isn't a bad thing. The plot premise is that Dr. Eggman has built an orbital amusement park ostensibly as a way of apologizing for all his past misdeeds. Sonic and Tails aren't fooled for a second of course, and gatecrash the place to find out what's going on. It turns out Eggman has captured a race of sprite-ish aliens that embody some sort of hyper-energy, and is of course building an army with them. Sonic must blitz through the park's various zones and destroy a number of generators to free the aliens. Tails shows up during cutscenes to appraise Sonic of his progress in communicating with the aliens and engage in humorous banter. The game doesn't take itself at all seriously, with lots of leaning on the fourth wall and tacit acknowledgement that yep, it's just another of Eggman's zany schemes and of course Sonic's going to smash it to smithereens no sweat.
In gameplay terms, it's a fusion of 2D and 3D platforming. You'll start out a stage running along a path in 3D (though usually a fairly linear area), then at some point you'll transition into an area where the camera swings around to the side and it's essentially 2D, then it'll go back to 3D again later on, etc. The general feel of it is pretty traditional Sonic fare, although you pretty much have to use a homing attack to jump-smash enemies, and the closest thing to rolling is sliding. The special mechanic of Sonic Colors is that you can occasionally free an alien from a pod, then activate a power based on, you guessed it, the color of the alien. Things like shooting off like a laser, or drilling through the ground, or blasting up into the air like a rocket. It's pretty situational, the best time to use a power is almost always immediately after getting it.
I haven't fully beaten the game, and I'm debating with myself whether I want to. Historically, I've found that the modern 3D Sonic games finally become fun for me when I start going for high scores on each stage. This isn't a fully 3D Sonic game, though, and the 2D segments feel very slippery to me. It would be hard to achieve high scores (mainly a matter of swift and precise execution) in such a system. On the other hand, there does seem to be a final zone still locked to me, and I do like completion...plus, the game does seem to be a lot more generous with its rankings than previous Sonic games. I got S-rank on several stages in my first try, some of them even with what felt to me like sloppy performances.
Bottom line? If you're a serious Sonic fan, it's worth playing...but then, you'll probably have played it already in that case. ;)