Re: [Adonthell-devel] More adonthell-0.3 updates

[Josh Glover]

Hi Kai,

I think achievements is a nice idea. I worked for a games company for
a year, and I know that our players were really motivated by unlocking
and earning new achievements.

It's cool that you're putting a little time into Adonthell. At some
point when I have some free time, I'd really love to port the game to
a modern engine. I think the gameplay and art and world design is
spectacular, and I'd like to focus on that aspect whilst offloading
the heavy lifting to some code I don't have to maintain. :)

Cheers,
Josh


On 3 May 2016 at 21:46, Kai Sterker <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 11:38 PM, Kai Sterker <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> I also compiled and tested it on the ancient iBook (gcc 3.something,
>> Python 2.3, SWIG 2.0.0) and it worked. Played it through one more time, but
>> it stopped during the outro, on the transition from mapview to the little
>> cutscene of the chest and Bjarns little hiding place. No error message
>> though, and since I played fullscreen not much chance but killing the
>> process.
>
>
> Actually that had nothing to do with the machine in question, or old or
> incompatible version of Python/SWIG. Instead it appears to be legitimate bug
> ;-).
>
> The one thing that seemed kind of odd, but I did not give much heed to it
> yesterday was that Bjarn was already standing next to his chest when the
> outro started. I believe that in turn caused his pathfinding during the
> outro to fail, which causes the script to endlessly wait for pathing to
> complete, which it never will. Played it through again today, and no trouble
> making it through to the end credits. Fix should be as simple as checking
> Bjarns location before triggering the pathfinding and skip it, if he's
> already near the chest. Must be quite a rare thing, though :-).
>
>
> I also am thinking about actually adding a settings window. Initially I did
> not think it would be feasible, due to lacking widgets, but I think I came
> up with a design that should work quite well and be simple enough to add.
> Might look like this
>
> +------------------------------------+
> |                                    |
> |  Display Mode       <  Window   >  |
> |  Master Volume      <    50     >  |
> |  Language           <  English  >  |
> |                                    |
> |                          OK        |
> +------------------------------------+
>
> Basically you'd use the up/down arrow keys to select one of the options or
> OK, then use left/right to cycle through the possible values (or in case of
> the volume increase or decrease the number). OK will close and save. Should
> be easy enough to write in Python, like the rest of the UI.
>
>
> The other addition that just came to my mind, after having played it for the
> 3rd time in a row (though mostly clicking through without reading) would be
> Achievements. While I personally don't care about those, I think they would
> be a nice extra touch and would really highlight the variance and different
> options of playing through. (It amazed me again, how reactive the dialogue
> is at times. I.e. try talking to Oliver before entering the Inn vs. talking
> to Orloth first. Or you can get Jelom to let Silverhair off the hook without
> talking to Erek and Bjarn and it will accommodate for that just fine. Or
> talk to Erek the first time when you already uncovered the gem. Or the
> difference whether you rat out Talan or cover him. We really put more
> thought into that than I remembered.) The thing is, all this effort goes
> largely unnoticed, unless you play a couple of times. Some kind of
> achievements could be an incentive to replay and discover all those little
> things. Effort would be greater, though.
>
>
> Lastly, I really would like to improve the helpfulness of Fellnir Kezular a
> bit. He was supposed to hand out some clues, but I think the conditions for
> his dialogue are really off. I never got anything out of him other than that
> he does not know a thing, even though in my first playthrough I really had a
> hard time uncovering Talan. Don't really want to add to his dialogue, just
> try and make what's already there appear when it would be most useful.
>
>
> Again, please let me know what you think, especially about the achievements
> idea. (A couple that come to mind are:
> * Talking to all NPCs during one play through
> * Tasting the wine from all 3 barrels
> * Ratting out Talan
> * Not ratting out Talan
> * Always being honest (i.e. never hiding your connection to Silverhair and
> the location where you found the gem)
> * Presenting the gem to Erek in the first conversation with him
> * Finishing the game
> * Trying to climb up the vine
> Don't have to be more than 10 in total, but other ideas certainly welcome.)
>
>
> And yes, need to be careful to not fall into the old trap of feature-creep
> again :-). I have about another 6 or 7 weeks to waste on this, afterwards
> time will be scarce again. So don't hesitate to say stop!
>
> Kai
>
> _______________________________________________
> Adonthell-devel mailing list
> address@hidden
> https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/adonthell-devel
>



-- 
Cheers,
Josh