Dr. Fish

Sometimes i can’t sleep, so i just stay up as long as possible in order to tire myself out.

Winters air bereaves it’s chill, a wash of warm embrace. The silk that falls across the ground is gentle in this place. A path, a track, the trail leading back, become a sheet of ice. Encased within a snowy grace, these footsteps won’t entice. For who alone would want to leave, this beauty of a hill? Where strangers dance and voices trance and weather must be still. The stars above they watch with glee, though saddened can they only be. The stars that cannot move or speak, must live a life at best that’s meek. And of the trees? They shed a tear, when winter’s end is finally near. For then they know that once again, a silence falls within the glen.

Spring will pass without a sound, and summer will bring picnics ‘round. But not until the fall should come, will lively voices start to hum. Slow first, but building fast. The eyes that come arrive at last. To see a sight that none can spare, the view across the land from there. Speckled lights that break the dark, are beauty given lively spark. Even trees applaud the view, while winters wind is shifting through. But even this will come to end, as spring is just around the bend. The hearts and eyes will slowly crawl, until there are no hearts at all.

But trust the trees and stars they say, when winter brings a snowy day. The hearts and minds will come again, come to fill the lonely glen. To hear the sounds and shudder still. To see the sights on harvard hill.

Winters air bereaves it’s chill, a wash of warm embrace. The silk that falls across the ground is gentle in this place. A path, a track, the trail leading back, become a sheet of ice. Encased within a snowy grace, these footsteps won’t entice. For who alone would want to leave, this beauty of a hill? Where strangers dance and voices trance and weather must be still. The stars above they watch with glee, though saddened can they only be. The stars that cannot move or speak, must live a life at best that’s meek. And of the trees? They shed a tear, when winter’s end is finally near. For then they know that once again, a silence falls within the glen.

Spring will pass without a sound, and summer will bring picnics ‘round. But not until the fall should come, will lively voices start to hum. Slow first, but building fast. The eyes that come arrive at last. To see a sight that none can spare, the view across the land from there. Speckled lights that break the dark, are beauty given lively spark. Even trees applaud the view, while winters wind is shifting through. But even this will come to end, as spring is just around the bend. The hearts and eyes will slowly crawl, until there are no hearts at all.

But trust the trees and stars they say, when winter brings a snowy day. The hearts and minds will come again, come to fill the lonely glen. To hear the sounds and shudder still. To see the sights on harvard hill.

Once spring has come with leaves that bloom, summer springs clear skies and moon. The fall that follows sheds the leaves, and winter breathes a breath of ease.

I spent a good half hour trying to figure out what to type, but i just don’t know how to word it. There are things i want to say and talk about, but at the same time they are things that i don’t feel are important enough to talk about if they aren’t apparent to others. Which is to say that I’m not going to drone on about the things i hate, complain about how shitty my day was, or generally bitch about how stupid some of my decisions have been on my own volition.

I have a lot of time to think these days, it’s sort of like being in prison. There’s nothing to do from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed. So you just sort of think.There isn’t anyone to spend time with, no friends to socialize with, no one to ask you how your day went. Funny to think that this is exactly what i wanted several years ago. What a sad and pathetic existence it’s become.

Have you ever felt like you want to say something, but you want people to ask you about it first? It’s a really interesting concept. You want to discuss something, but you don’t want to be the one to address it. Somehow it feels different when the other person genuinely wants to know the answer, or at least they want to know enough that they ask the question in the first place.

But how can anyone ever know to ask the question?

-Fish

I know! I said yesterday that it was probably going to be a week or two, because normally I’m not great at staying on top of these projects. I was honestly not expecting to be done until this Friday at the very least. But here it is, so i guess everything went better than expected.

In even better news, I sorted out my compiling issue, and I’ve managed to upload a static .exe version of the prototype to Mediafire for distribution purposes. I’d love to get feedback on any bugs or tips anyone has.

Latest Build ——

Prototype Adventure Build 1.0

Prototype Adventure - 1.37MB

Changes ——

- Removed the “Defend” option, replaced it with the “Wait” option.

- Added enemy AI.

- Fixed a problem where the program would close immediately after the battle.

- Added a message which will display if the players dies.

Known Issues ——

- It’s a fucking dos game.

Possible Future Features ——

- VISUALS TO MAKE IT LOOK NICE!

- Different Enemies

- Player Classes with a variety of stats and skills

- Variety of weapons

A note on those last few features that i want to add later. The code already has support for different weapons and enemies written into it, it’s just a matter of implementing a system that will generate different enemies randomly. As for weapons, that’s just about adding more base damage to the player’s stats when you choose a specific weapon.

That’s about all for now! I’ll keep posting updates here, as usual. So keep checking back!

-Fish

I haven’t posted anything about my text adventure game in about a week (maybe a little more) for a good reason, i swear. See, it’s all about efficient code.

It’s a long story to explain what I’ve been fiddling around with over the past week, but the short of it is that i had written the entire game in one source file. Apparently, as I’m told by my computer science instructor, that’s not a good thing to do. So i had to split it up into a header file, a library, and the source file. While that sounds easy enough, it really wasn’t, as i had written all of my basic (attack, skill, defend) as Void functions, rather than Int functions. For ease of use, i declared a few global variables (another apparent no-no, as I’m told.) So basically, i had to rewrite the whole program.

But hey, it’s all good now! I’ve sorted that out, and all that’s left is writing a basic enemy AI (Then of course a defend function, but that should be a breeze after all of this.) I brought my gaming rig home from the office, so that should cut out a few distractions i was having while there. This means that I’m looking at a fully functional prototype in the next week or so. I’ll be sure to keep you posted!

-Fish

I had been planning to post about the skills menu tomorrow, however, i finished it earlier than expected, and on top of that, it’s a lot more complex than i thought it would be. So it really should go in it’s own post. I’ve also made some visual changes which, in my opinion, make things easier on the eyes. Let’s start there.

As you can see, I’ve modified the menu’s to be more readable. I’ve also added HP and SP meters to make keeping track of those things a little easier. As is also apparent in the above image, I’ve finished the skills function.

Skills

(If you aren’t interested in the mechanics behind skills, skip to the images below)

So, let’s talk about the way skills work compared to the way attacks work. It’s pretty simple really. Basic attacks are randomized and then added to the players base damage to calculate the damage inflicted. So in theory, your damage could be as high as 12 + (base player damage), or as low as 2 + (base player damage). That’s a pretty wide area in my opinion, so i decided to implement skills that could also be used.

Skills calculate damage on a more consistent basis. That is to say that skills do a set amount of damage each time. For example, all skills add a set amount of damage to the players base damage for one attack. Essentially, the higher the SP cost, the more damage you are guaranteed to inflict. Naturally, these attacks also differ by more than just the amount of damage done. They each make you do different things.

These are examples of the first two skills, I’ll look at the last one in a minute.

Furious Blow:

Meant to be a reference to the generic skill attacks in many RPG adventure games of old. This skill only adds six damage to the players base damage, making it the weakest of the three skills. Of course, because it’s the weakest, it’s also the cheapest.

Shazdot:

A reference to the Tribes:Ascend beta that is currently underway. I play it a lot and i find that “Shazbot” has worked it’s way into my daily conversations. This skill adds eleven to base damage.

Galo Sendan:

I’ve saved the best for last of course. If you are feeling a little out of the loop on this reference, then allow me to officially induct you into the loop. This is a reference to a viral Youtube video that a friend showed me a while back. It has also worked it’s way into our daily conversations in one way or another, and so it’s only naturally that i find a way to work it into my work.

Problems

As you may have noticed, i used that last skill which cost four SP while i only had three SP left. I need to add some validation into the switch, but i can work on that tomorrow. This means that currently, it’s possible to use Galo Sendan as many times as you want and still remain at zero SP.

I’m also having trouble figuring out how to compile the prototype in a way that i can distribute it. Earlier i compiled and it ran fine on my computer, however i had a friend who was unable to open it because he was missing a library that i used. Once i figure this problem out, I’ll be able to distribute what i have to testers.

It’s pretty late however, and I’m going to head off to bed for now. I have class in the morning and i don’t want to be late to programming, though honestly i feel like i don’t really need the class at the moment.

-Fish

So i finished coding a prototype of the combat system I’m going to be implementing in a future text based game. It’s still got a long way to go, but so far the prototype includes the following features:

- A basic attack function

- A relay of the damage you inflict each turn, as well as a recount of the enemies hp

- A damage function which rolls two dice then adds them together to determine attack damage.

- A critical range (and notifier) for attack damage.

Here’s a screen grab of the beginning and end of a battle as things are

As you can see, the enemy hp is relayed each time you attack, and so when it drops below 0, the value is relayed before the battle ends, so you receive a notification that the enemies hp is below 0. It’s a simple issue I’m going to fix after this post, but for now I’m content to say “It’s an issue i know about.”

Some features I’m going to be adding to the prototype before completion are as follows

- A skill attack which will do a set amount of damage rather than a random amount of damage each turn.

- The ability for the enemy to attack you each turn as well

- A Defend option which will allow you to take less damage from enemy attacks while giving up the option to attack that turn.

- Perhaps a list of different enemies so you aren’t always fighting a kobold in the prototype, but that’s a non-issue right now.

That about sums this little preview up for now. I’m looking forward to being able to post more at a later date, and eventually an actual link to the prototype itself. Keep checking back for updates!

-Fish