AdventureJam

[gumby]

Progress report: 

By my reckoning, I'm about 50% done with the game from a puzzle standpoint.  Still have plenty to do and not sure how I'm going to get it done.  My goal is to have a fully playable (i.e. winnable) game by the end of the day tomorrow, though the game will still be in the 'rough draft' stages. 

I've got the room pic pretty fleshed out (it has been decided, it's a one-room game).  My views need lots of help, I still need to completely recreate the ego view and I stole one of Doan's characters from Betrayed Alliance for a temporary NPC that I'll also have to redo.  If anyone can point me to views in a fan-based or Sierra game where the actor is wearing a robe and an actor that is in a nurse costume it would help (or anything remotely close!).  That way I can just use those as a starting point and modify them as necessary.

Oh yeah, and as for the 'bed' I need to add some loops to the ego so he can push the bed around the room.  No sound as of yet, no titlescreen, none of the 'storytelling' has been implemented yet.

[gumby]

Somehow, looking good at this point.  There is something to be said about sacrificing sleep.

DONE:
- Game is playable/winnable
- Testing by 3rd parties has begun (wife and kids)
- Titlescreen and intro complete
- Scene transitions complete
- sciaudio wired in and music complete

NOT DONE:
- Death sequences
- Final win sequence
- Sound effects
- Right-click looking
- Redraw of ego & 1 NPC

Ran out of heap space this morning.  However I was able to completely free it up by running the CreateTextRes tool and it gave me 10K heap back.

[gumby]

I'm running into an issue with an animated view and displaying a print dialog over the top of it.  Has anyone figured out how to avoid the partial white 'border', which is displayed with each print statement?

I've attached a screenshot illustrating what is happening.  It's the white pixels to the left of the print window, partially obscuring the door view.

EDIT:  What appears to be happening is that part of the underlying view becomes transparent, and the portion of the pic underneath is displayed.  Still no idea what's causing it however.

[Cloudee1]

It is a common issue... the best solution that I have come up with, which I admit isn't a good one, is to try rewording the print statement so that the overdraw doesn't occur.

I think it is being caused by the font resource and different letters being different widths. I could be completely wrong here, but I am assuming that the background being drawn for the print statement is based off each character being the same width and so when it draws the background it is expecting a certain size, versus when the letters are actually drawn and take up less space.

As for a finding a nurse, the style of clothing in Colonel's Bequest may fit your needs. Change Laura's dress to white and draw a little hat on her and call it done.

[gumby]

Thanks Cloudee - especially for the nurse view, it'll save a lot of time.  Any ideas for an ego in a robe?  I'm thinking about using Doan's wizard from BA, that might work.

As for the print issue, I'm hosed.  I've got way too many print statements.  I may look into a fixed-width font to test out your theory.  Additionally, I could move the view further to the left which might avoid some of the print statements, but I think I've come up with a different idea:

It's a fairly static view here that is causing the issue (a door).  I could use addToPic to add it to room pic, that should fix the issue.  Then when I need to animate the door, just lay the animated door over the static door, perform the animation, then after the animation is done I can addToPic again.  I'll need to create some views of the underlying pic to reapply over the areas that need repainting after the animation is complete.

[Cloudee1]

You might also be able to get by with moving the position of the print statements, or possibly be presetting their width.... I think width is an attribute you can use.

[troflip]

I don't think I've ever seen that door issue before. For it to happen, does the door have to be actually animating when the print dialog comes up?  The white pixels on the left aren't even a box, the top part is "diagonal"... weird.

[Cloudee1]

It's showing what's drawn on the pic underneath the view... You'll notice the diagonal coincides with the top of the door, so in this case, it's the door area that just happens to be colored white. If it were red, you would see the red instead of the white.

It's really easy to replicate, just have a couple of views on the screen where the print statements show up, as long as they aren't addToPic then you should see it more often than not.

Sierra had the same issue.

[troflip]

Oh yup, I just realized that. I thought he meant that it stayed white after the Print dialog went away. I was gonna say it might be a bug in the template game, but you're right, it happens even in Sierra games. So frequent I guess I was just used to it


It looks like the white part edges are aligned to 8 pixel boundaries. So if you can ensure the left and right side of your print dialog end up aligned to those boundaries (that might take some work), you won't notice it.

Or, given that Sierra didn't even care, just ignore the problem and work on other more meaningful parts of your game.

[Collector]

If the white is from the door view becoming transparent why not simply draw the closed door as part of the pic and adjust the door view to include what is supposed to be on the other side of when it is to be open. Or maybe I am not understanding what is causing it.

[gumby]

Thanks for all the input guys - this is going on the 'nice to have' list. 

EDIT:  Both my actors are done now, the robed ego and the nurse.

[gumby]

Holy cow, there are already 55 games submitted for this jam!  Lots of competition out there.  I'll be polishing my game up to the bitter end (this Friday evening).

[gumby]

Still making progress, but getting horribly burnt out. I still have to put in sound effects, clean up the title screen and add credits. Then I can move on to the 'nice to have' list, but I don't think I'll get there as 'QA' will undoubtedly come up with a ton of changes to make.

[MusicallyInspired]

Wishing you luck, gumby! What sort of sound effects do you need? I wonder if I can help in any way...unless your goal is to accomplish it yourself.

[gumby]

Thanks MI, I appreciate it.  I think I'll try to do the sound effects myself, my goal is to finish this off by myself (with the exception of testing).

I'll make the deadline.  It certainly isn't the game that I set out to do, but I think it's not too bad.  I just want to make sure that I represent the community by creating a game that hopefully inspires others to pick up SCI.