New RPG: "Insert Cool Sword Name Here"

[Super Speler]

After "War" got lost and I spent a extremely boring two hours starting the reprogramming process I realised it wasn't gonna work. I program for fun and well... this was hisiously boring. So I'm working on a new game with Lunar Wolf Demon, who yes is still working on Militown or whatever it's called.

First I will give a speedy discription of the game:

Demon pulls brother into dark hole... you wake up in cave... touch stone realesing wizard... wizard dies giving you info on how to save world... blah blah blah... you must find sword to save world.

There is much more in between but I won't give it all away.

Engine's are extremely efficiant and pretty different from anything else most of you will ever see.

Summary of map/scrolling engine:

I have not tested this in a scrolling form but it should work.

I store map to str1 when game is first played. In order for game to run you may not run any programs that use str1. I then check the position and display map using sub(. This requires no clearing and looks very clean. It also allows for me to alter the map slightly ingame as the storyline progresses.

Summary of combat engine:

Inside the program we have several sets of directions for drawing each enemy. One set for each enemy. We run the directions before combat and store as a picture.

The storyline engine is extremely origanal efficiant and remarkable. I will not share it untill I reallease a game.

Here are the problems that have come up:

-I need a way to Goto*value of variable* without brute force if statements.

-I need a way to display all rows of the map similtaniously on the graph screen... keep in mind the map is stored in a linear form and the different rows of the screen being displayed are not right next to each other.

[Rezek]

[Super Speler]

[Liazon]

[DarkerLine]

All the capital letters, and some other common symbols, are the same width.

[Arcane Wizard]

I'd rather have a huge loading time where the program is loading a list into a temp str than loose information I stored.

[elfprince13]

List's are the way to go. Just store the map list internally, and have an external saving list.

[Radical Pi]

What will you have at the Goto's?
I suggest something in the terms of an assembly program that copies "prgmZ"+value into a temporary program and execute that. (The value can be made a string with the routine found here.

[Super Speler]

I developed a program that saves your map to a list in the following way:

The following code will be part of save function:

First you have LMap and unarchive it
for(x,1,size of map
you find out what the value of the character being saved is. By value I mean
what character it is.
you find what number from starting point it is in "abcdefg... etc."
you store that that number to the next place in LMap
end

The program then archives the map.

When you quit the game it deletes Str1

Because of the ammount of memory required to run save I may devide it up amoung 3 or 4 lists.

Wait output works on the graph screen?!?! Holy $$@#$!!! If only I knew that before!!! I don't have to use text!!! I am so happy!!! Or did I just mis-understand you.

So that it does not matter what size the letter stored is I will be using -1

Also, I'm thinking about making two maps that overlap using the storepic1 recallpic1 normally used in letter sprites for characters. Would this be effective?

[Radical Pi]

1. Output doesn't do graphscreen, because it's cool that way.
2. For the same effect of Output, do this:

[Liazon]

strings are faster than matrices I think.

[Radical Pi]

I'm not sure about string speed, but they require a lot less work.

[Super Speler]

No you misunderstand...

[Radical Pi]

So layer 1 = hit detection, and layer 2 = grafix?

And no text routines for graphscreen can wrap.

[Weregoose]

Writing out 128 characters to the graph screen first and then storing, followed by the second layer and then a successive recall would be much faster than the aternative approach. The user would obviously see what's going on, though.

[Radical Pi]

Which is why I'll be doing one row at a time.

[Super Speler]

No, layer one and layer two are both gonna be graphics... but layer 1 will have the benifit of also being hit detection Graphics and hit detection will become one.

ps can i do if x=(4or5) or something of that style, for hit detection (im gonna be using the effician a-(k=24)+etc... for movement but I want to build hit detection in and there are gonna end up being several possible things that will stop movement on layer one.) What I may do is steal Radical Pi's half screen idea (with his permission of course :biggrin: ) except change it over both side and bottom, do you get what I'm saying. Would this help lag? Storyline engine is gonna be awsome. And combat graphics that have been developed look very prommising, we'll put some of the combat screenshots up the second It's buetified but that could be over any period of time. Could be tommorow could be two weeks.

<unrelated to anything ever talked about on forum>The people in Toyfare, InQuest and Wizard scare me. There a bunch of old men who base there life around games, toys and comics!!!! I mean cmon!!! Even I do other stuff!!!</unrelated to anything ever talked about on forum>

[Radical Pi]

Just remember the bottom of the splitscreen is the homescreen, so only one layer at a time, unless your willing to do advanced string switching with flickering...

This is starting to look more and more like my RPG...

[Super Speler]

No... I want to use splitscreen to show status of characters. That way you don't have to pause... status... etc. You just look at the bottom of screen.

I'm having trouble getting it to display text at a good speed you see the scroll very acutely. Any advice?

[Radical Pi]

Do the scrolling maps on the bottom, where output wraps for faster scroll...