Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Unstructured ideas, requests and suggestions for the development of the game.
Canuck
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Canuck »

Interesting ideas, but I feel like we have enough stuff in AT, at least for the parts that currently exist -- there are far more special swords and armour items, for example, than there are different ways to play -- so I don't know if adding a new category like belts would improve game play all that much. I'd far rather see effort go into extending the story than into new item categories or ways to dodge the anti-BMP patrols.
Judoka
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Judoka »

I concur. Unfortunately, I am not an artist (as I wrote, I am a backend systems engineer). Extending the story would require much new art and new maps.

The ideas, above, were those that seemed, to me anyway, as the most straightforward first contributions given my comfort zones. They require few, if any, new maps and NPCs and very little art.

Plus, I am not privy to, and would not ask to be told, inside information, i.e., which parts of the story to develop and in which directions.
Canuck
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Canuck »

A good place to start might be to submit PRs cleaning up some of the dialogue. NPCs shouldn't keep asking about things that have already happened, for example (like soliciting help for Prim long after the conflict has been resolved).

I had hoped to do a bit of that, but another FOSS project (that I've been contributing to since the 1990s) has grabbed most of my free time.

I haven't looked at the AT code for 6 or 7 years, but I think that would still be a good way to get familiar with it. I seem to recall that much of that is in JSON config files, but I don't remember for sure.

In the process, you'd probably spot places where they had to do awkward workarounds because of limitations in the core game engine, and that would be the moment to put on your systems-engineer superhero cape and offer some Java fixes.
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Nut
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Nut »

Indeed we could use some engine changes tp realize new kinds of things.
E.g. the change of the hero sprite when being under the effect of an actorcondition.
Or letting an NPC walk to a determined place (at the moment they go randomly or come to the PC)
Maybe you'd like to try something like that?

The engine has its limitation indeed, and new possibilities enable us to create new kind of content.
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Judoka
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Judoka »

I am happy to look into the engine and dialogue this weekend.

I have a few questions:
  1. On which branch should the work be based, master or AT_Source_Next_Release?
  2. Are translations a concern when issuing PRs for the dialogue, and, if so, how should they be addressed at the P.R. stage?
  3. When allowing for the hero sprite to be changed, are we looking to layer multiple concurrent overlays with transparencies on top of the existing sprite, e.g. one for sustenance and another for weak poison while the player is affected by both, or just a static change from one sprite to a single other sprite?
I thank you for the direction,
by /s/ Judoka.
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Nut
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Nut »

1. the at_source_next_release branch would be better
3. just a static change from one sprite to a single other sprite. E.g. from kid to a giant berserker or an ant :D

2. For this answer i have to elaborate a bit.
We have in fact 2 repos: the Andors-trail that you know, it's for engine changes or drawables. And another one (in fact many) repo for the content.
Usually the content is developed with a tool ATCS, that uses the engine sources as base and reads/handles content changes in a separate repo.
(The decision to split these repos as pros and cons. Anyway we won't change it in the near future)

So content like dialogues, items, monsters are handled with ATCS, and by this the translations are automatically in scope.

New engine elements or menu options are done directly with the engine repo. Translations are automatically in scope too. (That's why there are 2 comonents to translate in weblate.) So translations is nothing you need to worry about.
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Nut
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Nut »

So for engine changes you don't need ATCS, you just compile the sources with Android Studio.

For content changes you would have to use the other repo, and for it best use ATCS. It's best to not mix these two. But I don't think you need this already.
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Judoka
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Judoka »

Just a quick note to say that I began the work on dynamically changing the hero sprite. I ended up with far less time this weekend for A.T. than I had hoped.

As Canuck implied, the core game engine leaves much to be desired. The player's icon identifier is directly referenced in several source files, and, throughout the java source, the player and monsters are not referenced polymorphically.

I am now curious as to the desired timeframe for this particular change, in order to gauge if there is time for a more thorough core cleanup. Please let me know,
by /s/ Judoka.
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Antison
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Antison »

There's no timeframe. There's never a deadline. This is a hobby project. Take all the time you need
"A home without a beagle is just a house"
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Nut
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Re: Fight the bonemeal patrols, add belts…

Post by Nut »

Judoka wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 12:11 am Just a quick note to say that I began the work on dynamically changing the hero sprite.
Great to hear 8-)
Judoka wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 12:11 am I ended up with far less time this weekend for A.T. than I had hoped.
That's normal ... :lol:
Judoka wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 12:11 am The player's icon identifier is directly referenced in several source files,
E.g. the statue of the hero after helping Guynmart always shows the original hero icon. You mean things like this?
Judoka wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 12:11 amthe player and monsters are not referenced polymorphically.
what do you mean with polymorphically?
Judoka wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 12:11 amI am now curious as to the desired timeframe for this particular change, in order to gauge if there is time for a more thorough core cleanup.
Feel free to make the coding better. Best only around the hero sprites, not in general - we would have to test it all after all :lol:

There is no hurry, like Antison already said. It's a hobby project after all, just for fun.
Nut
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