Omnimaga

Omnimaga => Our Projects => Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth => Topic started by: Iambian on April 02, 2015, 05:36:47 pm

Title: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on April 02, 2015, 05:36:47 pm
Well... Aegis-Rin didn't pan out. Got bogged down by the details and tbh, was created to be a bit too general without any real knowledge on automating the build procedures that would be necessary to make using the system easier. So instead we started over again. With further in-depth understanding of Brass' macro system, we've got the whole thing eaiser to code and compile.

Oh. And we have an actual plan. A real. Plan. On a piece of paper. Showing what needs to be happening.

CURRENT STATUS
Quote from: Iambian on May 15, 2016, 09:40:07 pm
Update
* Most magic animations are now complete.
* Additional content added to Underdeep. It's now its own story arc.
* User and script-adjustable typewriter effect.
* Other things.

Demonstration of typewriter effect and some of the magic.
We have more down but I don't want to spoil too much.
(http://i.imgur.com/uj4yJkz.gif)

Notes
Battle animations would've/should've been done sooner, but some of these things take a while to animate in a way that satisfies the whole team. There's still a few things left to animate, but it won't be long now before it's all done. After that and a few visual/bug fixes we get to do...

Cutscenes! Geekboy1011 is hard at work at the moment putting all the cutscenes together between the time you choose the "New Game" option to the time you gain control of your character for the first time. When I finish the battle animations and find myself satisfied with the system as a whole, I'm going to be jumping in somewhere in the middle to get the game's story stitched together. Zera/Escheron mentioned that the cutscenes he's been working on as of late are encroaching into Golden Sun-length territory. This could be a good thing.

There's also now no way in hell we'll be able to fit this game onto a normal TI-83 Plus without modifications. There's just too much content we want to add and compression we have isn't doing a good enough job. I mean, it's doing a fantastic job so far, but we just have so much to put in. I'm entertaining the idea of creating a miniature OS that contains just the basic calc functions so I can reasonably distribute this game as an OS update instead of an app. Something that would, on the surface, look just like the TI-OS until you try digging into the menus and realize they're all empty. While I do want people to play this game, I also want their calculator be usable as ... a calculator. This is planned after a release for the TI-83+SE / 84+(SE) monochrome calcs.

The Underdeep will have static floors interspersed between randomly generated floors which will also be randomly, but not repeatably, chosen where fun events can trigger and backstory can be told. Yes. The Underdeep now has its own story to it which further enriches the world of Escheron. I'm not privy to all the details for the same reason I'm not looking too deeply into the scripts for the game: I want to be able to enjoy playing this thing without too many spoilers once we finish coding the game.

TODO
* Remaining skill/magic animations
* Cutscenes
* Specialized transitions
* Update the Underdeep mapgen scripts

Quote from: Escheron on May 24, 2016, 01:45:46 pm
Quick update on my end...

The game is now fully scripted. All of the character dialogs and cutscenes are written, but their actual incorporation into the project make take some time, since working with the cutscene engine is a nightmare in itself. (And luckily, that task falls upon Iambian and Geekboy1011 instead of me, since I'm not as technically oriented with the systems)


Planned builds

Current code is available here.
https://bitbucket.org/CFD_LLC/esor_bw/ (https://bitbucket.org/CFD_LLC/esor_bw/)
as well as updates and stuff cause commits and things. ~ geekboy
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Sorunome on April 02, 2015, 05:39:09 pm
looking nice, i sure hope that this will be finished :)
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 02, 2015, 05:53:29 pm
Good to see progress again. I have a question though, did you guys drop grayscale, or is that just not implemented yet?
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 02, 2015, 05:57:21 pm
We are dropping the grey scale in an attempt to make this...more sane to code? That being said we have some tricks up our sleeves ;) and 3 layer grey scale may show up. Who is to say still to early. But the projects current code name is E:BW or Escheron: Black and white.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 06, 2015, 01:43:27 pm
So, Iambian brought this to my attention. I don't really lurk the boards anymore, so I'm not quite up to date on things. I also keep forgetting the password to my old Zera account, but this account should be fine too.

I'll go ahead and start working on the assets for a B&W version, along with the design documentation. You'll have to give me at least a week to get the assets ready and send them your way. I hope this is fine.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 06, 2015, 01:48:08 pm
That's more than fine with me. I have been working with what you had given us concept wise to get Iambian stuff to work with. Thankfully that has been enough for now and it will continue to be enough for a while to go. That being said nice to see you around again.

Also I could reset your password again for you if you want I can also recommend updating your email for your Zera account as its still on your old email which seems to be defunct.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 06, 2015, 04:14:31 pm
Assuming we're basically porting the original game concept to B&W with the three-person party system and all, I'm thinking battles would look something like this. When a battle is initiated, you would see an overview of your party's status, and the pointer would allow you to select which character will input their command first.

Once a character is selected, the command menu would be superimposed on the screen. If you select commands like Magic or Item, an inventory would open. You'll notice a pointer at the bottom of the inventory - scrolling all the way down would jump to the next page of the inventory. When you've selected a command, spell or item to use, selection brackets would be superimposed on top of enemy sprites so you can select your target. Different spells have different targeting parameters. Those that target all enemies will superimpose individual brackets over all enemy sprites at the same time.

When all three party members have registered their commands, everyone then assumes their turn in an order specified by all participants' agility values. The bottom window that was previously used to display commands and status will read out a series of verbose actions, such as, "Maya attacks Gremlin A..." followed by a brief animation appearing in the enemy sprite section, if there's an animation associated with the action. Either way, when enemies take actions or take damage, their sprites flicker briefly.

That about sums up the gist of the battle menus. How does that sound?
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 06, 2015, 04:23:15 pm
Well currently we have been going by the info in this (https://www.omnimaga.org/escheron-bw/escheron-bw-planning/) thread. Which is really just a paraphrase of your "rewrite" of Escheron. Its a little simpler with the same main story AFAIK. You would know better obviously :P . That being said that seems reasonable enough to me. I as of now have no issues with it. That being said I have been directing iambian in a slightly different direction this time then battle engine first. We are trying to get the main engine,Story,Events,ect done first then worry about the battle system. This way everything fits together nicely instead of us coding around making spaghetti.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 06, 2015, 04:36:45 pm
You may want to hold off on coding anything just yet. Give me some time to put together a consistent design documentation so we can be sure we're all on the same page with this. It shouldn't take me very long, considering I just need to rephrase some of the existing documentation to fit the scale of this project. I'll be more proactive about posting back here with updates.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 06, 2015, 04:38:32 pm
Well like I said we are avoiding battle engine so far. And have been working on the raw engine as you can see from the screenshots above. We have been working on getting things for like cut-scenes and such in order. As well as the general overview of what an "RPG" needs to be well an RPG. Working text system menus and such really all the non "design" work lol.

Also any chance of getting you back on irc? Or is that a lost cause :P
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 06, 2015, 07:29:14 pm
I have no desire to use IRC ever. Sorry. It shouldn't be that much trouble to collaborate the details through email, though. (or even through this thread, actually)


That aside, something I always have trouble with is setting up a status screen. Here's a concept of what I have so far, but the text isn't actually aligned according to how the game would normally handle graphics tiles. I believe everything has to align to a 4x4 grid, but I moved some text over a couple of pixels in this case.

I want to have one ubiquitous status screen that outlines all relevant details, maybe including elemental and status resistance properties. I suppose those aren't absolutely necessary though.

EDIT: Actually, I messed around with the status menu some more, and I like the results so far. I've also worked out some ideas for other sub-menu screens, such as the equipment screen.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Iambian on April 06, 2015, 10:45:13 pm
Just a quick note, we're not limited to a 4x4 pixel grid anymore. We've got a real font routine going on and since this is a black/white game, speed isn't really that much of an issue.

That should make it easier to design stuff.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 07, 2015, 12:37:30 pm
I found a nice tileset earlier that I think I'll incorporate into the game. The dithering works well for purely B&W detail. I would like a second opinion, though. Do you think the character sprites go well with these tiles? I didn't dither any of the sprites because I was afraid it would cause them to blend with the background too much. I figure having more pronounced white pixels will help keep the sprites apart from the background tiles.

Incidentally, this tileset seems like an improvement over the one I was using previously. Areas look much less... square?

What sort of upward limit is there on the number of tiles in the tileset, and the resolution of maps? I may be able to squeeze 128 tiles, but a limit of 256 would certainly be generous. Maps should be no greater than 128x128, but I may be able to squeeze 64x64.

The number of maps may be slightly smaller since I have a new idea for handling indoor areas such as shops. For the most part, walking into a door leading to a shop will just bring up a shop menu instead of having you explore a small room and having to walk up to the shopkeeper to initiate the shop window. Given the resolution of the screen, it's actually very difficult to create a room that has both counter space and a shopkeeper standing behind it, because part of the tiles gets cut off. I figure my approach makes a bit more sense. Some areas will still have explorable indoors though, such as taverns.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Iambian on April 07, 2015, 03:51:52 pm
Given the images shown, I think the tileset looks nice. I'll wait for a third opinion (geekboy) and see what he's got to say. I personally like the dithering on the background tiles.

The engine allows up to 64 unique tiles per tilemap, but may have up to 256 different tiles to a tileset. It's entirely possible to support more than that (so long as we don't back-reference a previous 256 tile chunk, duplicates allowed to help avoid back-referencing) but then we'll be doing shenanigans. The engine supports shenanigans. Note that things such as NPC's and sprites don't count as tiles. Our engine supports completely separate sprite entities, so if you absolutely need to exceed that 64 uniques per map, you can shore up the remaining with positioned sprites. Up to 256 different sprites, tho we can do shenanigans with that limit too.

Tilemaps (at the moment) are only 32x32, but may be allowed up to 64x64. We'll have to drop all pretenses of support for the original 83+ to have 128x128 maps (not that we intended on supporting those calculators anyhow). Maps larger than that will require an addition to the map abstraction module in the engine. Totally doable, tho definitely not general-purpose.

As far as shops go, it's perfectly fine to try to allow shops to have counter space and a shopkeeper behind it. While we haven't yet shown it, We have hotspot-based camera panning and offset to let you see both at the same time. I'll have to whip up something to demonstrate this.

EDIT: The screenshot below demonstrates a modified version of geekboy's text engine, along with scriptable hotspots. These hotspot can (though not explicitly demonstrated) distinguish between activation via walk-on versus talked-to (2nd key interaction). Talked-to was demonstrated with the statue, and walk-on was demonstrated both by the black-square-on-walking-on-a-certain-path and the shop camera panning hotspots.

Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 07, 2015, 04:31:31 pm
128x128 won't be necessary. 64x64 should be generous enough for the world map. I assume looping around maps is still possible? Only the world map needs to support this feature.

I can't foresee any instance of a single map containing more than 64 unique tiles, but the tileset itself may be just under 200 tiles total. I'll try to keep it down to 128, but I can't say just yet. I'm trying to be a little more efficient with the world map tiles. Instead of 6+ tiles used to make one forest or a series of mountains, I'm going to reuse the cave tileset to create mountain ranges (which does look a bit like the mountain tiles from early FF games) and maybe 2 or 3 tiles for forests.

A couple of other things to note: There are no animated tiles anymore, and there's no need for sprite transparency ever. With the way the water tiles are dithered, the screen's intrinsic ghosting effects will make them seem almost animated. Plus it would be awkward trying to animate dithered tiles anyway. I mean, there are so many pixels close together.

As for sprite transparency, I just don't see the need. Since everything is B&W, I'd have to draw a white halo around sprites to keep them from blending with the background, which itself leaves only 6 or 7 pixels around the sprite that end up being transparent. Besides, all of the floor tiles are mostly white, with no solid-black floors anywhere in the game.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 07, 2015, 04:37:57 pm
The only issue I have with that tile set is it looks kinda bland/forced  with the dithering, But I think I will like it regardless! That being said I did like how the previous tilemap felt like it had more depth, But that is subject to tweaking I suppose.

As for the screenie iambian posted he just made it jump to the new coordinates. The system supports making it gracfully pan by the half tile. He just did not code it in. >.> quick screenie much :P

As for animated tiles. I like them but if we dont have them thats fine. But I have always felt they gave the RPG more life visually, And is something i definetily want to feel when I play this.

Ok thats the end of my nitpicking. Back to work on a font editor.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 08, 2015, 12:48:18 pm
(Sorry for the double post)

What sort of limits should we have in regard to inventories? For instance, how many spells each character can learn, how many unique items can exist in the game's database, the number of total enemies, the number of enemy parties that can be formed, etc. I'll break down some of the figures (and estimates) I have at the moment:

There are 24 unique spells that characters can learn. Some enemies have special attacks that are formulated in the same way spells are, so those may in fact be stored in the same routines. In effect, I guess that means there are more than 24 "spells" in the game. I would put the number more around... 32 - 40?

There are 61 total items, counting all equipment types, potions and key items. I have no plans to expand that. I was thinking the party's shared item inventory would allow storage of somewhere around 28 - 32 items. Items don't have stacking quantities, so any duplicate items obtained occupy their own individual slots, as seen in the mockup screen below.

There are 26 types of enemies so far, counting bosses. This value may increase slightly. As for the specific enemy formations that can be encountered, I've come up with only a handful so far. I would think a limit of 64 types would be generous enough. I believe there are only 15 unique enemy graphics. Most are 32x32 px, but some larger foes are 64x32. (See attachment below)


There are six recruitable characters who can be swapped in and out of the party, so the save file has to remember their current stats, which spells they've learned, and which items they have equipped. Characters have four types of equipment slots, and I was thinking of limiting them to knowing up to 12 spells each. As for character statistics, maximum and current HP, MP, Attack, Defense, Magic and Agility are all base values that need to be stored in the save file. Hit and Evade are strictly derived from the character's Agility and whatever items they have equipped, so they're not exactly tied to the character in a sense that has to be stored by the save information. So, in summary, a character should look something like this:

Code: [Select]
Identifier / pointer (to indicate which character)
Flag to indicate whether or not the character is in the active party

Level (value from 1 to 256)
Experience (value from 0 to 255)

Weapon slot 1
Weapon slot 2 / Shield slot
Armor slot
Accessory slot

Spell 1
Spell 2
Spell 3
Spell 4
Spell 5
Spell 6
Spell 7
Spell 8
Spell 9
Spell 10
Spell 11
Spell 12

Maximum HP
Current HP
Maximum MP
Current MP
(Base) Attack
(Base) Defense
(Base) Magic
(Base) Agility
(There are two guest characters who are recruited during specific events, but they don't level up, and their spells and equipment can't be altered by the player. It may not be necessary for the save file to keep track of those characters' properties.)

When I say "base" values, I mean the value before it's changed by equipment. Stat bonuses that are granted by equipment don't need to be kept track of by the save file, since those bonuses can be applied through a simple look-up operation whenever the save file is loaded. i.e. The game sees that the character is wearing a specific set of equipment, and applies that equipment's values to the character's stats accordingly. The "Hit" stat is determined by looking at the character's total Agility, then adding equipment bonuses. A character has a natural +1 point of Hit for every 8 points of Agility, including Agility bonuses from equipment. Hit caps at 99. Evade is determined in a similar way, except that the character gains +1 point of Evade for every 16 points of Agility. Evade caps at 33.

The "Level" and "Experience" strings correspond to hidden statistics. Characters gain seemingly random statistical boosts after battle, but in fact, they're actually gaining experience levels. Each enemy is worth 1 experience point apiece, and the required experience to gain a level is usually a very small number between 1 and 255, depending on the character's current level. Enemies also have levels associated with them for purposes of determining whether or not characters can continue to gain experience from that enemy in the first place. i.e. When your characters reach a sufficiently high level, fighting enemies of a much lower level will forfeit any experience that would normally be gained from the battle, to prevent the player from grinding exclusively on weaker foes.

Statistical gains during level ups are determined by two factors: Growth rates native to that character, and bonus growth applied by the type of equipment the character is holding. As an example, Maya always receives +1 Mag, +1 Agi, +1 MP and +1 HP when she levels up. If she happens to be wielding a sword-type weapon at the time, then she also receives +1 Str. If she happens to be wearing a suit of heavy armor, then she also receives +1 Def and an additional +1 HP. These level ups continue until Maya's stats reach their maximum values, or she somehow advances all the way up to level 256 without having obtained max stats in the process. (Which doesn't matter, since stats can also be increased through the use of stat-boosting potions)


On another note, I decided to revise some of the menus to do away with the 4x4 font elements. They never managed to fit in quite right, and I just don't see menu labels as being a necessity to begin with. I guess the menus look a bit cleaner without them. Also, the current font is attached, including equipment icons and menu frame elements. (Note: The characters for O and 0 use the same tile)
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Iambian on April 09, 2015, 11:40:59 am
Quote from: Escheron on April 08, 2015, 12:48:18 pm
[...]
What sort of limits should we have in regard to inventories? For instance, how many spells each character can learn, how many unique items can exist in the game's database, the number of total enemies, the number of enemy parties that can be formed, etc. I'll break down some of the figures (and estimates) I have at the moment:
[...]

Inventory max limit can be decided later. We're coding this such that if it needs to be changed, it can be done trivially (tho this might make save files incompatible between versions if we do it that way). Same for number of spells. For that, I'd just go with whatever would help make the game play the way you want it to.

Maximum number of unique items is generally agreed upon to be 256, but if you need 512, we can pull shenanigans for it (Lufia II for the SNES did that).

Up to 256 different encounter types per encounter zones, up to 256 encounter zones... well. 255. We're lumping monsters-in-a-box as an "encounter zone" for ease of implementation. An "encounter type" is defined here as a preselected sequence of monsters that can be encountered in an encounter zone. An "encounter zone" is an index to encounter types and is triggered via the hotspot detector in some manner.

A total of 256 different types of enemies or things that can be lumped together as an enemy object.

If we consider a spell to be similar to enemy special attacks with regards to implementation, this may make things easier. Regardless, up to 256 of them too. If you need more, shenanigans can be done.

----
As far as menu design is concerned, there are some unintuitive limits to such things as box sizes, since the menu frames are being dynamically generated via a real box routine and a pixel plotter for the white frame. The limits are mostly common-sense and probably won't be infringed upon. Either way...
Boxes must be wider than 8 pixels. Boxes must be taller than 6 pixels. All boxes must be created and contained fully on-screen.

Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 09, 2015, 02:39:54 pm
255 - 256 is definitely more than generous. None of the inventories, spells or unique enemy types or formations should even push 100, so we're in the clear there. Given the length of the game, there just aren't that many items to span out. i.e. There are few types of weapon or armor upgrades that can be bought, because there are maybe 4 distinct towns / villages you'll visit during the course of the main story, and most equipment upgrades are scattered throughout dungeons.

----

I've been working out some ideas for how shops would be implemented. Going back to my earlier suggestion, what I was thinking was that the player would walk into a building, then the player's sprite would disappear (as if they had completely entered the structure) and a welcome dialog would appear, along with the choices to buy or sell items.

The "buy" menu will consist of a small dialog box where the shopkeeper's dialogs would be displayed - things like, "What'll it be?" or "Your inventory is full!"

The lower box will display the shopkeeper's inventory (up to 4 distinct items) along with their respective prices.

For the "sell" menu, I was thinking the standard inventory screen would come up. Instead of listing sell prices beside items (due to not having enough space to maintain two columns and prices at the same time) a dialog box would be superimposed when an item is selected, and the shopkeeper would say something like, "How about 2200G?" or "No, thanks." (if the item can't be sold - e.g. if maybe it's a key item)
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 09, 2015, 03:53:07 pm
My only groan with the walking into doors and having a menu pop up is it feels kinda cheap. We most definitely have the space to store shops and such and the screen realestate to make it look good. As for the selling items I like the idea of them saying "I can sell this for X"

In the previous Escheron thread when you proposed the item system you had it designed as such that items in dungeons would respawn and such like that. Would this iteration follow suit? ,Or is it going to be one only?


EDIT: Returned post back to original status lol
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 09, 2015, 04:17:44 pm
Quote
My only groan with the walking into doors and having a menu pop up is it feels kinda cheap. We most definitely have the space to store shops and such and the screen realestate to make it look good. As for the selling items I like the idea of them saying "I can sell this for X"

We can do it that way. I was just thinking of ways to conserve space in the tileset. If the player has to walk into shops and explore the layout, then I'll have to create tiles for counters, decor, etc.

Quote
In the previous Escheron thread when you proposed the item system you had it designed as such that items in dungeons would respawn and such like that. Would this iteration follow suit? ,Or is it going to be one only?

Maybe both. Items such as ultimate character equipment shouldn't respawn, but in most cases, treasure chests will probably contain mundane items or quantities of gold. Maybe we can set a "do not respawn" flag for only a handful of chests that contain rare equipment or key items.

There may be an entirely easier way to do this though. Any one-time item you come across could have a "cannot drop / sell" flag, so if you try to remove it from your inventory, the game won't allow you. When you approach the chest you originally took the item from, the game could check to see if that item is already present in your inventory. If it is, then the chest will now contain something like a small quantity of gold instead. That would help reduce the number of event flags that the save file has to keep track of.


By the way, you mentioned earlier that you thought the tileset felt forced. I want to make sure every detail is just right, so are there any specific changes you would suggest? I posted a request thread here (https://www.omnimaga.org/art/request-for-tileset/new/#new). Honestly, I'm not very good with tile work, so hopefully there's someone with more expertise who can help me put together a nice-looking tileset for the game.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 09, 2015, 04:23:52 pm
Loved that accidental edit, I fixed my post with its original contents. As for you being appointed moderator, Well you are one of the projects authors right :P seems fitting to me!

That being said shops can be done in some kinda open floor layout if we do not want counters and such. That's something we can tinker with as time goes on.

As for items that would work and would give some re exploration reasons to dungeons other then grinding. With that part of the challenge is being able to lose that gear and having to go back and get it, That could get rather boring/worse then grinding though so will have to think of how that can be balanced I guess.

Tilesets. Yeah I am not much of an artist my self. I think my main problem with it is that its not balanced white vs negative space. And it feels rather bland/uninteresting consequently.  The older set that me and iambian started with, while blockish, has a decent balance to me and is appealing to my eyes. SO its just finding a good balance :/ With that yeah someone with expertise with spriting would be nice.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 09, 2015, 04:42:26 pm
Suffice it to say, SMF's posting tools aren't very intuitive :P

So, about that tileset. Should the tiles mostly be dithered, or do you think a mostly white tileset with basic black outlines would look better? I mean, I could always downcode some tile rips from Final Fantasy games to B&W. The game may end up looking like an NES FF title, minus any color detail.

----

Here's how I was thinking of formatting the equipment tables in the design documentation. I'm wondering if any of the various types of special properties attached to equipment may be too complicated from a coding standpoint. For that matter, I'm wondering how many simultaneous properties can exist on a single piece of equipment.

Code: [Select]
Under "OTHER NOTES," the "ITEM" flag indicates that a piece of equipment casts a spell if selected from the item inventory
and used in that manner.


SWORDS   | AT | DF | MG | AG | HT | EV | Crit. | OTHER NOTES
—————————+————+————+————+————+————+————+———————+——————————————————————————————
Broad    | 12 | .. | .. |-05 |+60 | .. | 1/32  | ..
Mythril  | 18 | .. | .. | .. |+70 | .. | 8/32  | ..
Coral    | 20 | .. | .. |-05 |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Thunder elemental
Ice      | 22 | .. | .. |-05 |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Ice elemental
Flame    | 28 | .. | .. |-05 |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Fire elemental
Ebony    | 16 | .. | .. | .. |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Inflict Poison
Vorpal   | 32 | .. | .. |-05 |+40 | .. | 8/32  | Inflict KO
Defense  | 44 |+05 | .. |-05 |+60 |+08 | 1/32  | ITEM: Blink spell
Revenge  | ** | .. | .. |-05 |+40 | .. |  **   | (1) Revenge sword effect
Blood    | 08 | .. | .. |-05 |+20 | .. |  **   | (2) Drain effect
Ragnarok | 56 | .. |+08 |-05 |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Holy elemental
         |    |    |    |    |    |    |       | (3) Unleash Thunder spell

** The Revenge and Blood swords cannot score critical hits.

(1) The Revenge sword's damage is equal to its wielder's current / max HP
 difference, and the damage output ignores its target's Defense power.

 Potential bug foresight: Could the Revenge sword's non-conventional damage formula affect a second wind attack?

(2) The Blood sword "drains" HP from enemies. For all intents and purposes,
 this simply means the weapon heals its wielder by an amount equal to the damage that the sword inflicted against its target.
 If the target has the Undead flag, then the Blood sword's damage / heal effect is reversed.

(3) There's a 1/16 chance that physically attacking will cause this weapon to
 cast Thunder on its target immediately afterward. The spell will function at full, regular efficiency.


STAVES   | AT | DF | MG | AG | HT | EV | Crit. |  OTHER NOTES
—————————+————+————+————+————+————+————+———————+——————————————————————————————
Staff    | 06 | .. |+05 | .. |+70 | .. | 1/32  | ..
Serpent  | 10 | .. |+10 | .. |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Inflict Poison
Hades    | 14 | .. |+15 | .. |+70 | .. | 1/32  | Fire elemental
         |    |    |    |    |    |    |       | ITEM: Fire spell
Healing  | 16 | .. |+15 | .. |+70 | .. | 1/32  | ITEM: Heal spell
Lilith   | 22 | .. |+20 |+05 |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Inflict Sleep
Zeus     | 28 | .. |+25 | .. |+60 | .. | 1/32  | Thunder elemental
         |    |    |    |    |    |    |       | ITEM: Tornado spell
Seraph   | 32 |+05 |+30 | .. |+70 | .. | 1/32  | (4) HP regeneration effect

(4) At the end of each round, the staff's wielder automatically recovers 8% of
 their maximum HP, unless they are KO'd.


SHIELDS  | AT | DF | MG | AG | HT | EV | OTHER NOTES
—————————+————+————+————+————+————+————+——————————————————————————————————————
Buckler  | .. |+02 | .. |-05 | .. |+08 | ..
Large    | .. |+04 | .. |-10 | .. |+12 | ..
Ebony    | .. | .. | .. |-10 | .. |+12 | Resist Ice
Mythril  | .. |+06 | .. | .. | .. |+16 | ..
Kaiser   |+08 |+06 | .. |-10 | .. |+12 | ITEM: Berserk
Aegis    | .. |+08 | .. |-10 | .. |+24 | Resist KO
Sacri    | .. |+12 | .. |-10 | .. |+20 | Resist Poison, Sleep and KO


MAIL     | AT | DF | MG | AG | HT | EV | OTHER NOTES
—————————+————+————+————+————+————+————+——————————————————————————————————————
Plate    | .. | 16 | .. |-20 | .. |-04 | ..
Mythril  | .. | 22 | .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
Ebony    | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
Flame    | .. | 24 | .. |-20 | .. |-04 | Resist Fire
         |    |    |    |    |    |    | Weak to Ice
Ice      | .. | 24 | .. |-20 | .. |-04 | Resist Ice
         |    |    |    |    |    |    | Weak to Fire
Gaia     | .. | 36 | .. |-20 | .. |-04 | Resist Poison
         |    |    |    |    |    |    | (4) HP regeneration effect
Diamond  | .. | 52 | .. |-30 | .. |-08 | Resist Lightning
Dragon   | .. | 40 | .. |-20 | .. |-04 | Resist Fire, Ice and Lightning
Mirror   | .. | 48 | .. |-20 | .. |-04 | Resist Lightning and Gravity

(4) This effect is identical to the effect already noted on the Seraph staff.


CLOTHING | AT | DF | MG | AG | HT | EV | OTHER NOTES
—————————+————+————+————+————+————+————+——————————————————————————————————————
Clothes  | .. |+05 | .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
Wizard   | .. |+08 |+10 | .. | .. | .. | ..
Blaze    | .. |+10 | .. | .. | .. | .. | Resist Fire
Power    |+12 |+12 | .. |+05 | .. | .. | ..
Mirage   | .. |+12 | .. | .. | .. |+16 | ..
Minerva  | .. |+16 |+15 |+05 | .. |+04 | Can be worn only by females
Spartan  |+08 |+20 | .. |+08 |+10 |+04 | Can be worn only by males

RINGS    | AT | DF | MG | AG | HT | EV | OTHER NOTES
—————————+————+————+————+————+————+————+——————————————————————————————————————
Bracer   | .. |+02 | .. | .. | .. |+02 | ..
Mythril  | .. |+05 | .. | .. | .. |+02 | ..
Fairy    | .. | .. |+05 | .. | .. | .. | Resist Poison and Sleep
Thief    | .. | .. | .. |+10 | .. |+02 | ..
Ebony    | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | Resist Poison and Sleep
Titan    |+10 | .. | .. |-02 | .. | .. | ..
Rune     | .. | .. |+10 | .. | .. | .. | Resist Sleep
         |    |    |    |    |    |    | ITEM: Life
Protect  | .. |+08 | .. | .. | .. |+04 | Resist KO
Cursed   |-05 |-05 |-05 |-05 | .. | .. | Weak to Fire, Ice and Lightning
Holy     |+05 |+05 |+05 |+05 | .. | .. | Resist all properties
To keep the level up system a bit more simplified, there are no longer various sets of stat gains attached to every specific item. (Iambian should know what I'm talking about) This time around, stat gains are more static, and attached to equipment types. e.g. All swords cause Attack power to increase by 1 point during level up. This will require that each item merely be categorized with a flag, such as "sword," "heavy armor," and so forth. Such flags should already exist for the sake of determining how items are fitted to equipment slots, so it won't really require any additional coding, I suppose.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: chickendude on April 11, 2015, 10:50:52 am
Is there any reason you aren't using smooth(er) scrolling? I imagine everything is still aligned, but it looks like you're shifting in blocks of 8, i imagine to make scrolling easier. But now that you've gone black and white smoother scrolling shouldn't be an issue. Scrolling 2 pixels at a time would be plenty fast and look much nicer in my opinion.

Anyway, i'm really happy to see this being worked on again. And it's nice to see you back Zera/Escheron!
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Iambian on April 11, 2015, 11:33:55 am
Quote from: chickendude on April 11, 2015, 10:50:52 am
Is there any reason you aren't using smooth(er) scrolling? I imagine everything is still aligned, but it looks like you're shifting in blocks of 8, i imagine to make scrolling easier. But now that you've gone black and white smoother scrolling shouldn't be an issue. Scrolling 2 pixels at a time would be plenty fast and look much nicer in my opinion.

Anyway, i'm really happy to see this being worked on again. And it's nice to see you back Zera/Escheron!
We're doing that because we wanted an engine now and an RPG is so much more than just its tilemapper. I promise I'll work on smoother scrolling later but we're trying to pull together all of what makes an RPG and RPG in a fairly quick manner. The extra bells and whistles can come later.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 11, 2015, 11:37:04 am
Quote from: Iambian on April 11, 2015, 11:33:55 am
Quote from: chickendude on April 11, 2015, 10:50:52 am
Is there any reason you aren't using smooth(er) scrolling? I imagine everything is still aligned, but it looks like you're shifting in blocks of 8, i imagine to make scrolling easier. But now that you've gone black and white smoother scrolling shouldn't be an issue. Scrolling 2 pixels at a time would be plenty fast and look much nicer in my opinion.

Anyway, i'm really happy to see this being worked on again. And it's nice to see you back Zera/Escheron!
We're doing that because we wanted an engine now and an RPG is so much more than just its tilemapper. I promise I'll work on smoother scrolling later but we're trying to pull together all of what makes an RPG and RPG in a fairly quick manner. The extra bells and whistles can come later.

On top of this we have some hidden plans in the works. Trust us this way is better for now ;)
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 11, 2015, 03:37:43 pm
Update on tileset. I'm thinking these mountain ranges may blend in better. I'm not very good at dithering though. This is an example of pretty much every type of tile that occurs on the overworld. Forests will just be any random combination of the three tree tiles I have.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 11, 2015, 06:44:45 pm
Quote from: Escheron on April 07, 2015, 12:37:30 pm
I found a nice tileset earlier that I think I'll incorporate into the game. The dithering works well for purely B&W detail. I would like a second opinion, though. Do you think the character sprites go well with these tiles? I didn't dither any of the sprites because I was afraid it would cause them to blend with the background too much. I figure having more pronounced white pixels will help keep the sprites apart from the background tiles.

Incidentally, this tileset seems like an improvement over the one I was using previously. Areas look much less... square?

What sort of upward limit is there on the number of tiles in the tileset, and the resolution of maps? I may be able to squeeze 128 tiles, but a limit of 256 would certainly be generous. Maps should be no greater than 128x128, but I may be able to squeeze 64x64.

The number of maps may be slightly smaller since I have a new idea for handling indoor areas such as shops. For the most part, walking into a door leading to a shop will just bring up a shop menu instead of having you explore a small room and having to walk up to the shopkeeper to initiate the shop window. Given the resolution of the screen, it's actually very difficult to create a room that has both counter space and a shopkeeper standing behind it, because part of the tiles gets cut off. I figure my approach makes a bit more sense. Some areas will still have explorable indoors though, such as taverns.

Quote from: Escheron on April 07, 2015, 12:37:30 pm
I found a nice tileset earlier that I think I'll incorporate into the game. The dithering works well for purely B&W detail. I would like a second opinion, though. Do you think the character sprites go well with these tiles? I didn't dither any of the sprites because I was afraid it would cause them to blend with the background too much. I figure having more pronounced white pixels will help keep the sprites apart from the background tiles.

Incidentally, this tileset seems like an improvement over the one I was using previously. Areas look much less... square?

What sort of upward limit is there on the number of tiles in the tileset, and the resolution of maps? I may be able to squeeze 128 tiles, but a limit of 256 would certainly be generous. Maps should be no greater than 128x128, but I may be able to squeeze 64x64.

The number of maps may be slightly smaller since I have a new idea for handling indoor areas such as shops. For the most part, walking into a door leading to a shop will just bring up a shop menu instead of having you explore a small room and having to walk up to the shopkeeper to initiate the shop window. Given the resolution of the screen, it's actually very difficult to create a room that has both counter space and a shopkeeper standing behind it, because part of the tiles gets cut off. I figure my approach makes a bit more sense. Some areas will still have explorable indoors though, such as taverns.

The first three mockups here look quite nice. However, the final one does have a few issues imo. There are a lot of sections of just white space for ground. I think I'd personally make some grass tiles or rocky terrain tiles to break up the white. Otherwise all the plain white space looks kind of overpowering. I'd also say that building in front of the Inn looks a bit odd, as if it's overlapping instead of in front of it. Just my two cents.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 11, 2015, 09:21:37 pm
Regarding the white tiles: Iambian actually made a similar suggestion earlier. I decided to add more patches of grass and dirt here and there. For the villages, I may cover the entire ground with grass. Actually, I'm in the process of redoing the entire tileset for villages.


I've also put together a draft of the 64x64 overworld using what I have of a tileset so far. I tried to intersperse bits of grass here and there, so I hope this doesn't leave too many white spaces. I didn't want to overdo it, but finding the right balance is difficult.

Of course, this is subject to change. Any suggestions or criticisms would be welcome. I want to ensure all the details are just right.

One thing I will note is that I plan to redo the tiles I used for the docks. They're hardly even noticeable right now.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 11, 2015, 11:03:47 pm
Yep, that's much better. If you apply that to the towns as well it'll be perfect! :D
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: chickendude on April 12, 2015, 03:35:34 am
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on April 11, 2015, 11:37:04 am
Quote from: Iambian on April 11, 2015, 11:33:55 am
Quote from: chickendude on April 11, 2015, 10:50:52 am
Is there any reason you aren't using smooth(er) scrolling? I imagine everything is still aligned, but it looks like you're shifting in blocks of 8, i imagine to make scrolling easier. But now that you've gone black and white smoother scrolling shouldn't be an issue. Scrolling 2 pixels at a time would be plenty fast and look much nicer in my opinion.

Anyway, i'm really happy to see this being worked on again. And it's nice to see you back Zera/Escheron!
We're doing that because we wanted an engine now and an RPG is so much more than just its tilemapper. I promise I'll work on smoother scrolling later but we're trying to pull together all of what makes an RPG and RPG in a fairly quick manner. The extra bells and whistles can come later.
On top of this we have some hidden plans in the works. Trust us this way is better for now ;)
Fair enough, i look forward to seeing what's planned.
Title: Re: Escheron: BW
Post by: Escheron on April 18, 2015, 12:51:54 pm
——Update 4/18——

Everything is progressing smoothly. I finished putting together the tileset, which incidentally consists of exactly 128 tiles. I've also finished the first major draft of the design documentation, which Iambian and geekboy have hopefully had time to review. I've designed a few of the major maps, but I'm going to hold off on any further map design until I've had a chance to discuss some technical details with Iambian regarding tile limits per map.

For the time being, I have some screenshots showing off various in-game maps and menus.


Title screen:

(http://s10.postimg.org/s2iasppzt/title.png)

Map exploration and cutscenes:

(http://s16.postimg.org/ypxctrb6d/asnoth.png) (http://s24.postimg.org/ae2i0hexh/airship.png) (http://s15.postimg.org/ko5nmeb0b/inn.png) (http://s21.postimg.org/qmm1d3q07/map.png) (http://s8.postimg.org/p9awd7qet/village.png)

Various menus:

(http://s29.postimg.org/bh3arg2w7/shop.png) (http://s3.postimg.org/m72af9scz/main_menu.png) (http://s12.postimg.org/mcv7t7jxp/magic.png) (http://s16.postimg.org/bo3hpp0t1/status.png) (http://s17.postimg.org/sq1c1pp1b/equip.png)

Battle screens:

(http://s7.postimg.org/9glsnfiuz/battle_input.png) (http://s11.postimg.org/5vprtloqr/enemy_select.png) (http://s28.postimg.org/75m6h04e5/battle_status.png)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on April 18, 2015, 01:06:18 pm
Does the topic name change mean it has a name now? Nice!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on April 18, 2015, 01:14:31 pm
Quote from: Sorunome on April 18, 2015, 01:06:18 pm
Does the topic name change mean it has a name now? Nice!

The project has always had a title, actually. I'm not sure why it was called Escheron: BW, unless Iambian or geekboy just wanted to distinguish it from the original grayscale concept. (which is now discontinued - the B&W version of the game will be the only and definitive release) At any rate, I edited this thread's title to reflect that.

This is generally the same game through and through. Just some of the assets are different. The original world, character and story layout I had planned is more or less the same, except expanded and more detailed.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on May 05, 2015, 06:15:35 pm
I knew about E:ToR from reading old threads, but I was not sure if that was a different spin off the same game or what. So I decided we would use the code name E:BW for now to just get the ball rolling and have something to call it. The major details could/Would be ironed out later. And hey look they have been!

That being said there have not been to many noteworthy updates some  major random asset changes have occurred I will get some of those up a wee bit later this evening. That being said the main engine is slowly coming along. Getting menus and hotspots working correctly is taking a good amount of expected time. With them the engine will be pretty versatile tho and will allow us to get actual content pumping out pretty quickly.

Ok no assets going up trying to spoil as little as possible. Instead I will post some information about enemies and their related mockups!

So first is the gremlin. A very basic enemy. I will leave the infomtion here for you all to decipher ;) tho its pretty self explanitory
Code: [Select]
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Gremlin                RANK 1     GP 00040     DROP: Potion          [ 16/256]

 —— PROPERTIES ——   —— RESISTANCES ——   —— COMMAND SEQUENCE ——     HP     32
 [ ] Fire               [ ] Fire             1.) Attack            MP     16
 [ ] Ice                [ ] Ice              2.) Attack
 [ ] Poison             [ ] Lightning        3.) Fire            ATT     12
 [ ] Sleep              [ ] Gravity          4.) Sleep           DEF      4
 [ ] Undead             [ ] Poison           5.) Attack          MAG      8
 [ ] Drain              [ ] Sleep            6.) Attack          AGI     16
 [ ] HP regen           [ ] KO               7.) Attack
 [ ] Double attack      [ ] Holy             8.) Attack        CRIT.  32/256
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
And here is a dragon a rather late game enemy :P
Code: [Select]
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Dragon                 RANK 4     GP 00900     DROP: Strength potion [ 16/256]

 —— PROPERTIES ——   —— RESISTANCES ——   —— COMMAND SEQUENCE ——   HP    600
 [ ] Fire     [O] Fire          1.) Breath   MP      0
 [ ] Ice     [X] Ice          2.) Attack
 [ ] Poison     [ ] Lightning        3.) Attack ATT     60
 [ ] Sleep     [ ] Gravity          4.) Breath DEF     30
 [ ] Undead     [O] Poison          5.) Attack MAG     30
 [ ] Drain     [O] Sleep          6.) Attack AGI     60
 [ ] HP regen       [O] KO          7.) Attack
 [O] Double attack  [ ] Holy             8.) Attack            CRIT.  64/256
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
yeah sorry not to much to post right now. But it is something

EDIT by Zera: Your enemy table info was slightly off. Fixed.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on May 10, 2015, 07:42:55 pm
Test/demonstration of: External save file loading (with debug save slot preloaded), main menu (base), saving, and reloading to ensure that save files stick and load properly.

(http://i.imgur.com/5h4GdEz.gif)

Not shown: Choosing to load from a new game will dump you off at the game's starting point.
TODO: Either adding more menus, or put more work into NPCs and how to show their dialogue when you "talk" to them. After that, adding in cutscene support, since I want to tell a story, not have an overglorified tilemap demo.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on May 10, 2015, 09:45:27 pm
Very nice!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on May 11, 2015, 04:27:31 am
Looking very nice indeed! :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on May 14, 2015, 10:12:22 pm
Added a complete spriteset and put in dialog boxes. The following was the original test. Don't mind the debug info on the top-left.
(http://i.imgur.com/RCuHaMO.gif)
Zera said that the text looked a bit cramped, and I was inclined to agree, though we haven't exactly changed the font yet to use the one specified in the project docs. Something about being unable to edit the font set as-is.
So what we did was changed the margins a bit for the textbox, increased line height by one pixel (to 7), and increased the amount of space a single space takes to 2px. Not shown was the menus I had to fix to cope with those changes, since these were global. Results appear much better:
(http://i.imgur.com/reFiHGn.gif)
Todo: Real NPCs and logic. And getting the whole village to say stuff.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on May 15, 2015, 03:59:18 am
Yes, I must agree, the dialog box in the lower version is looking better :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 15, 2015, 04:17:04 pm
I guess I should post an update on my end, as well.

I've been alternating mostly between map design and script / event planning, both of which are quite time consuming. I recently finished the spriteset, hence Iambian now has all the character directions and facings needed to implement full character movement in his animated GIFs above. On that note, most graphics assets are complete.


A new feature I decided to add is battle backgrounds. These are 16x32 bitmaps that are tiled behind enemy bitmaps, and in some cases, partially blended (in a non-transparent manner) with enemy sprites.

(http://s23.postimg.org/8fzbxq6zv/battle_input.png) (http://s15.postimg.org/j78tr3wqj/magic_select.png)

I figured this would give the battle engine more aesthetic quality.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on May 19, 2015, 07:20:57 pm
NPC chat logic (and position-aware box drawing for chatting) now supported, along with scriptable events for each. "Treasure chest" logic is now usable, though it's implemented as hotspots so just about any square that you can talk to can contain a treasure. Demonstrated is gold and item getting, and a very early version of an inventory menu (it supports scrolling). Also sped up warp points that don't require a map reload by not reloading the map (and all that it implies, unless forced to via script).

(http://i.imgur.com/4OJrRwi.gif)

TODO: Make the rest of the menus usable. Also. Shops.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on May 20, 2015, 09:08:42 am
This is just looking awesome! I love how well it all looks even though it is monochrome.

Can't wait for some demos!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Digital on May 20, 2015, 10:26:36 am
I'm with Sorunome, this project is awesome. I hope there will be more screens, some demos and a release soon.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 24, 2015, 01:58:36 pm
I guess I should post something to keep this thread active.

I suppose it's already been mentioned, but airship travel is a feature in this game. The first leg of Maya's journey is done on foot and sea travel, which is a fairly linear trek leading up to the party obtaining an airship. Once the party is in possession of an airship, the entire world opens up, including a few new towns and side quests.

(http://s23.postimg.org/8875azvzv/airship.gif)

Additionally, accessing some locations requires the player to fly their airship directly into it. One example is the Dreadnought air vessel belonging to Asnoth's forces. This is one of the smaller dungeons explored by the player late into the story.
(http://s24.postimg.org/yrmbftuip/2015_05_24_135050.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/yrmbftuip/)
(click thumbnail for full view)

The game world itself is turning out to be quite large. There's something in the area of 5 villages and 10 or 12 dungeons, a few of which are optional areas. Resolution-wise, many maps are between 32x32 - 64x64 tiles. There are a handful of areas that are broken into more than one map.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on May 26, 2015, 07:39:00 pm
Additional work on the menu system was done. The routines that went into the equip/status screens involve stat calculations that border on battle system territory. Hopefully, all the really hard work with regards to battle system stat calculations have been done by extension. There's a few holes in the menu logic at this time, especially when equipping things, but what we have down works well enough for now and can be fixed later.
(http://i.imgur.com/2jjKiX7.gif)

Proper camera panning and scripted camera motion (same thing!) is now in. An example of a cutscene I couldn't show earlier because this routine wasn't in place is demonstrated below:
(http://i.imgur.com/kmBSRpT.gif)

Not shown is the fact that a few maps were updated and added, and more sprites were added too. I was recently told that the opening cutscenes are long, and are designed to really set the mood for immersive (or about as immersive as it gets on this platform) gameplay. That may take a while to hash out, but when it comes, it'll be a mad dash to throw together enough for a first chapter playable demo... or something akin to that.

TODO: Shops and loads of buying stuff, and a method of tracking flags. And maybe a script system for scripted events. Oh dear. That'll be two script systems so far if I go that route...
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on May 27, 2015, 04:07:54 pm
Awesome updates, as usual ^.^
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on June 04, 2015, 07:33:27 pm
Work was done trying to get the NPC to move on their own power, which wasn't a trivial fix due to how much of it wasn't yet implemented (and how much of what I did was hacked in). Here's a couple screenshots of some of the tests that were done.

Test #2: Catching the speeding (bugged) Dwarf.
Yes, this is running at actual speed. I just reduced delays since I hadn't figured out what was causing NPCs to move that way at the time
(http://i.imgur.com/Kk77kFm.gif)

Test #3: Test Dwarf runs around in circles.
The code used to move the NPC in that manner is larger than I want to admit. Will need to address that.
(http://i.imgur.com/t4uPLLg.gif)

Also, I forgot about last update's TODO list. None of the tasks that were mentioned last time were added as I wanted to delegate some cutscene programming off to Geekboy1011 as soon as possible... which still isn't doable since I don't have flags ready to be used.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on June 04, 2015, 08:26:45 pm
Quote from: Iambian on May 26, 2015, 07:39:00 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/kmBSRpT.gif)
I lolled at this gif XD. But yea, RPGs are hard projects, hopefully I will be able to someday play a working version of this :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on June 06, 2015, 06:11:07 pm
So I was working on flag implementations (both permanent and temporary) and setting up what is needed to run cutscene scripts.

Also, Urist McTesty drank far too many 5 Hour Energy drinks...
(http://i.imgur.com/K4erbiL.gif)
Geekboy suggested I shared this. It's his fault McTesty achieved Warp 10.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on June 07, 2015, 12:10:47 am
I threw together an overview of the world map, for player reference. This outlines some of the game's major locations, some of which can't be reached until the party obtains a ship or airship.

(http://s30.postimg.org/qz3skdqgt/escheron.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/qz3skdqgt/)
(click thumbnail for full view)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on June 07, 2015, 04:31:42 am
Quote from: Iambian on June 06, 2015, 06:11:07 pm
So I was working on flag implementations (both permanent and temporary) and setting up what is needed to run cutscene scripts.

Also, Urist McTesty drank far too many 5 Hour Energy drinks...
(http://i.imgur.com/K4erbiL.gif)
Geekboy suggested I shared this. It's his fault McTesty achieved Warp 10.
Haahaa, the infinite circle walk!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on June 14, 2015, 03:28:11 am
Lets have some cut-scene magic. Now this one is a little more complicated then just making a person run in circles, and besides maya really wanted those 5-Hour energies back.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98196116/Esor/Open_test_remake.gif)
And because why not here (some ;) ) of the code that orchestrates this! Yes, I know it needs commends I plan on adding them >.>
Code: [Select]
script_start()
 
  res show_player_sprite,(iy+baseflags)
 
  ld hl,xy(33,3)
  ld (camera_pos),hl
  ld a,%00000001
  ld (camera_subxy),a
  res camera_follows_player,(iy+baseflags)
 
  ld a,ragnoth_mapid
  rcall(LoadNewMapInA)
 
 push_sstate()
  ld a,:Maya_intro
  ld de,Maya_intro
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
  find_sprite(Maya_intro_NPC)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_change_facing(sp_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)
 
 
  script_delay(100)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)
  script_delay(100)
  sp_change_facing(sp_up)
  script_delay(125)

 
  ld hl,xy(9,6)
  ld (camera_pos),hl
 
  SET_FLAG(RAGNOTH_ON_FIRE) ; Needs to be before map load
  ld a,ragnoth_mapid
  rcall(LoadNewMapInA)
 
  ld a,:Guard_1_dat
  ld de,Guard_1_dat
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 
 pop_sstate()
  script_suspend(86)
 push_sstate()
  ld a,:Guard_Fire_1
  ld de,Guard_Fire_1
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 pop_sstate()
 
 script_suspend(50)
 
 push_sstate()
  ld hl,xy(26,14)
  ld (camera_pos),hl
  ld a,%00000010
  ld (camera_subxy),a
  script_delay(1)
   
  ld a,:Guard_2_dat
  ld de,Guard_2_dat
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 
 pop_sstate()
  script_suspend(86)
 push_sstate()
  ld a,:Guard_Fire_2
  ld de,Guard_Fire_2
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 pop_sstate()
 
 script_suspend(50)
 
 ;Pan around village on fire and fixate on shadow lord
 ld a,17 ;rather long delay for Panning.
 ld (panvariabledelay),a

 push_sstate()
  pan_camera_to_NPC(ShadowLord_NPC)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)
 pop_sstate()
  script_suspend(50)
  ld hl,text_hive(h00_shadowlord_1)
  call dispDialogAuto
 push_sstate()
  pan_camera_to_NPC(Guard_That_Runs)
 pop_sstate()
  script_suspend(25)
 
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_Guard_That_Runs_1)
 call dispDialogAuto

 call panbackToplayer
 RES_FLAG(RAGNOTH_ON_FIRE)
 ld a,ragnoth_mapid
 rcall(LoadNewMapInA)
 set is_cutscene_done,(iy+stateflags)
 set show_player_sprite,(iy+baseflags)
 set camera_follows_player,(iy+baseflags)
 xor a
 ld (camera_subxy),a

 SET_FLAG(NEW_GAME_INTRO_FINISHED) ;Quit we are done
 script_end()
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on June 14, 2015, 07:05:13 am
That's looking amazing, though!
I love how you made it very easy to write your own cutscenes with such a general engine :)

Also it is so epic how those animated tiles all just work and stuff O.O


The more you tell me about it on IRC and the more i look through it i love it, how you like just say that the camera should move to that npc and stuff
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on June 14, 2015, 12:21:10 pm
I have been forces by the evil serf lords @Geekboy1011 and @Sorunome to post a replay, so here I am :P  ;D

The only thing I really have to say is about that code, I know it's asm code, couse I see it's asm code, yet with all the macros and stuff, it realy does not feal like assembly code  :-\
it's still great thou, no matter how you make this game, I still will want to play it :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on June 14, 2015, 02:48:39 pm
Quote from: c4ooo on June 14, 2015, 12:21:10 pm
I have been forces by the evil serf lords @Geekboy1011 and @Sorunome to post a replay, so here I am :P ;D

The only thing I really have to say is about that code, I know it's asm code, couse I see it's asm code, yet with all the macros and stuff, it realy does not feal like assembly code  :/
it's still great thou, no matter how you make this game, I still will want to play it :)

Good Keep posting!
And yeah the code is z80 but its filled with macros to make my life easier >.> SO much quicker to code stuff this way XD It does translate directly into assembly, Just takes the headache of having to remember things away.

@Sorunome. Yeah It allows me to have multiple things running at once. I can load a handful of NPC's and have them all move around with minimal effort. It's awesome!
Here is the remainder of this portion of the flashback cutscene. I am pretty happy with it. There are transitions missing. But they are not coded in yet soooooo yeah :P
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98196116/Esor/The_FlashBack.gif)

Added some more comments and included some data that you can see how I can move characters around Guard_1_Move is a good example.
Code: [Select]
;New game cutscene script is here.
NEW_GAME_CUTSCENE:
 script_start()
 
  res show_player_sprite,(iy+baseflags)      ;Hide player from View
 
  ld hl,xy(33,3)
  ld (camera_pos),hl
  ld a,%00000001
  ld (camera_subxy),a
  res camera_follows_player,(iy+baseflags)   ;Set Camera to Look cenetered on
                                                ;Graveyard
 
  ld a,ragnoth_mapid
  rcall(LoadNewMapInA)                       ;Load Ragnoth
 
 push_sstate()
  ld a,:Maya_intro
  ld de,Maya_intro
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
  find_sprite(Maya_intro_NPC)                ;Load a Maya Sprite
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)                     ;Move her half way
  script_delay(30)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)                  ;Make her turn around and "sigh"
  script_delay(30)
  sp_change_facing(sp_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_up)                     ;Have her stand by the grave Stone
 
 
  script_delay(100)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)
  script_delay(100)
  sp_change_facing(sp_up)
  script_delay(125)                          ;Do a jig for cinematics. (Turn around again)


  ld hl,xy(9,6)
  ld (camera_pos),hl                         ;Set Camera to First Guard
 
  SET_FLAG(RAGNOTH_ON_FIRE)                  ;Light Ragnoth on fire.
  ld a,ragnoth_mapid
  rcall(LoadNewMapInA)                       ;Load map on fire.

  ld a,:Guard_1_dat
  ld de,Guard_1_dat
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)                      ;Add first guard.
 
 pop_sstate()
  script_suspend(86)                         ;Delay long enough for Guard Move
 push_sstate()                                 
  ld a,:Guard_Fire_1
  ld de,Guard_Fire_1
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)                      ;Have guard light a fire
 pop_sstate()
 
 script_suspend(65)                          ;Delay for effect.
 
 push_sstate()                               ;Repeat above for second guard.
  ld hl,xy(26,14)                            ;Literal copy paste with coordinates
  ld (camera_pos),hl                         ;changed.
  ld a,%00000010
  ld (camera_subxy),a
  script_delay(1)
   
  ld a,:Guard_2_dat
  ld de,Guard_2_dat
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 
 pop_sstate()
  script_suspend(86)
 push_sstate()
  ld a,:Guard_Fire_2
  ld de,Guard_Fire_2
  rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 pop_sstate()
 
 script_suspend(65)
 .asm
 ld hl,xy(32,7)                             
 ld (camera_pos),hl                         
 ld a,%00000011
 ld (camera_subxy),a
 script_suspend(50)                          ;Set Camera shadow Lord and refresh
 
 push_sstate()
  find_sprite(ShadowLord_NPC)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)                  ;Turn to player
 pop_sstate()
 
  script_suspend(50)
  ld hl,text_hive(h00_shadowlord_1)          ;Have him order people
  call dispDialogAuto
 
 push_sstate()
  pan_camera_to_NPC(Guard_That_Runs)         ;Move to guard to Right
 pop_sstate()
 
 script_suspend(25)
 
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_Guard_That_Runs_1)
 call dispDialogAuto

 
 push_sstate()
  pan_camera_to_NPC(ShadowLord_NPC)          ;Turn to guard
  sp_change_facing(sp_left)
 pop_sstate()
 
 script_suspend(5)
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_shadowlord_2)
 call dispDialogAuto
 
 push_sstate()
  pan_camera_to_NPC(Guard_That_Runs)
 pop_sstate()

 script_suspend(5)
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_Guard_That_Runs_2)
 call dispDialogAuto
 
 script_suspend(5)
 push_sstate()
  find_sprite(Guard_That_Runs)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_left)                  ;change this later to make guard run down
  sp_change_facing(sp_right)
  script_delay(20)
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_left)                  ;change this later to make guard run down
  sp_change_facing(sp_right)
  script_delay(20)
  sp_change_facing(sp_right)
  setup_script_loop(6)
-:
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_left)                  ;change this later to make guard run down
  script_delay(6)
  script_djnz({-})
  pan_camera_to_NPC(ShadowLord_NPC)
  script_delay(15)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)
 pop_sstate()

 script_suspend(30)
 
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_shadowlord_3)
 call dispDialogAuto
 
 script_suspend(50)
 
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_girl_1)
 call dispDialogAuto
 
 push_sstate()
  pan_camera_continue(17,14)
  script_delay(30)                           ;Pan camera to Maya's Mother
 pop_sstate()
 
 ld a,:Maya_Child
 ld de,Maya_Child
 rcall(AddSpriteEntry)
 
 script_suspend(96)                          ;Delay for child maya to move
 
 pan_camera_continue(17,15)                  ;Move so we can see text box
 
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_girl_2)
 call dispDialogAuto
 push_sstate()
  find_sprite(mayas_mother_npc)
  script_delay(30)
  sp_change_facing(sp_left)
  script_delay(20)
  sp_change_facing(sp_down)
  script_delay(10)
  sp_change_facing(sp_left)
  script_delay(25)
 pop_sstate()
 ld hl,text_hive(h00_girl_3)
 call dispDialogAuto


 
 call panbackToplayer
 RES_FLAG(RAGNOTH_ON_FIRE)
 ld a,ragnoth_mapid
 rcall(LoadNewMapInA)
 set is_cutscene_done,(iy+stateflags)
 set show_player_sprite,(iy+baseflags)
 set camera_follows_player,(iy+baseflags)
 xor a
 ld (camera_subxy),a

 SET_FLAG(NEW_GAME_INTRO_FINISHED) ;Quit we are done
 script_end()
 
Guard_1_Move:
  setup_script_loop(4)
-:
  sp_move_sprite(dsk_left)
  script_suspend(14)
  script_djnz({-})
  sp_change_facing(sp_up)
  ret

Maya_Child_Move:
;need to move down 3 tiles
 setup_script_loop(6)
-:
 sp_move_sprite(dsk_down)
 script_suspend(14)
 script_djnz({-})
 ret

Maya_intro:
 sp_pos(33,4,sp_up,maya_sprbase,Maya_intro_NPC) sp_scr(doNothing,doNothing)
Guard_1_dat:
 sp_pos(10,6,sp_down,guard_sprbase,guard_1) sp_scr(Guard_1_Move,doNothing)
Guard_Fire_1:
 sp_pos(8,5,sp_down,flame_sprbase) sp_scr(FireAnimator,doNothing)
guard_2_dat:
 sp_pos(27,14,sp_up,guard_sprbase,guard_2) sp_scr(Guard_1_Move,doNothing)
Guard_Fire_2:
 sp_pos(25,13,sp_down,flame_sprbase) sp_scr(FireAnimator,doNothing)
 
Maya_Child:
 sp_pos(17,11,sp_down,mayachild_sprbase,maya_child_NPC) sp_scr(Maya_Child_Move,doNothing)

 
 
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 14, 2015, 04:36:11 pm
Wow, that is looking pretty nice! I'd suggest trying to make the character movements a bit more smooth though. They seem a bit off somehow? I think it's because they are jumping 8 spaces at a time.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on June 25, 2015, 11:05:27 pm
Although it's quite a ways off, I thought it would be worth mentioning that we do plan to produce a direct sequel to Escheron using the game game engine. I mean, we'll have a flexible game engine at our disposal, so why not use it to its full potential? I'm sure Iambian will likewise want to use the engine in future projects of his own.


(http://s14.postimg.org/fniuu0tjl/Image2.png)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on July 28, 2015, 07:57:22 pm
Shops sorta work now, for both buying magic and items. What isn't done is the ability to sell items, or to display descriptions for consumables instead of nonexistent stats sourced from overrunning the equipment table.

Demonstrated in the screenshot attached is buying (free) items from the primary weapon shop in Ragnoth, then walking across town to the primary magic shop, then buying things (also for free) there too.

(http://i.imgur.com/hddhbBr.gif)

I thought about entering the Pub to get to the shops in the Resistance base, but it's too long of a walk. Also, you can catch a glimpse of McTesty as he runs off at warp 10.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on July 28, 2015, 09:11:12 pm
Saw this in IRC yesterday. Looking great! :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on July 29, 2015, 05:52:34 am
This is looking great indeed, can't wait for a playable demo!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on July 31, 2015, 08:00:47 pm
My latest jaunt into bresenhamming kinda failed. I got this algo from Xeda which, from what I understood, basically does this:
Code: [Select]
;NOTE: these are comments in the main source
;setup: dx = 2*(x2 - x1) , dy= 2*(y2 - y1). Use (camera_pos) for x1y1 dir.
;do:
;if (acc >= dy) && (y1 <= y2):
;  y++
;  acc = acc - dy
;  if acc < 0:
;    acc = acc + dx
;elseif (acc >= dx) && (y1 <= y2):
;  x++
;  acc = acc - dx
;  if acc < 0:
;    acc = acc + dyThe wrapper looks like this:
Code: [Select]
ld (camera_pos_goto),hl
 scf
 rl L
 scf
 rl H  ;shift in 1's for each to extend to new mapping
 ld (_end_yx),hl
 ex de,hl  ;DE=dest
 ld hl,(camera_pos)
 ld a,(camera_subxy)
 rrca  ;shift out x
 rl L  ;put X into low
 rrca  ;shift out Y
 rl H  ;put Y into low
 ld (_cam_yx),hl ;CURRENT POSITION
 push hl
   push de
     ld h,0  ;x1 = L
     ld d,h  ;x2 = E. High bytes zero.
     or a
     ex de,hl
     sbc hl,de
     add hl,hl  ;dx=2*(x2-x1)
     ld a,1
     jr nc,{+}
     call _negHL
     ld a,-1  ;if carry, moving in negative direction
+:   ld (_cam_mover+0),a
     ld (_cam_dx),hl
   pop de
 pop hl
 ld e,H
 ld l,D  ;quick exchange instead of having to do ex de,hl. set high to low.
 ld H,0
 ld d,H
 or a
 sbc hl,de
 add hl,hl ;dy=2*(y2-y1)
 ld a,1
 jr nc,{+}
 call _negHL
 ld a,-1
+:
 ld (_cam_mover+1),a
 ld (_cam_dy),hl
 ld hl,0
 ld (_cam_acc),hl
-:
 call _iterateBresenham
 call key_input_mapper._test_variable_delay
 ld hl,(_cam_yx)
 push hl
   xor a
   rr h
   rla
   rr L
   rla
   ld (camera_pos),hl
   ld (camera_subxy),a
   call showMapFrameRoutine
 pop hl
 ld de,(_end_yx)
 or a
 sbc hl,de
 jr nz,{-}
 retNote: delta x and y are always positive. The increment/decrement is kept in _cam_mover high and low bytes (y an x respectively)

The actual implementation is as thus:
Code: [Select]
_iterateBresenham:
 ld hl,(_cam_acc)
 ld de,(_cam_dx) ;handle (acc >=dy) condition
 push hl
   or a
   sbc hl,de  ;carry if condition doesn't hold up
 pop hl
 jr c,_iBr_skip_to_elseif
 push hl
   ld hl,(_cam_yx)
   ld a,(_end_yx+1)
   sub H      ;handle (y2 >= y1). Carry if condition doesn't hold.
 pop hl
 jr c,_iBr_skip_to_elseif
 push hl
   ld hl,_cam_yx+1
   ld a,(_cam_mover+1)
   add a,(hl)
   ld (hl),a  ;y++ (or y-- if running negative y)
 pop hl
 ld de,(_cam_dy)
 or a
 sbc hl,de  ;acc = acc-dy
 jr nc,_iBr_collect
;if made it here, run if acc < 0
 ld de,(_cam_dx)
 add hl,de
 jr _iBr_collect
_iBr_skip_to_elseif:
 push hl
   ld hl,(_cam_yx)
   ld a,(_end_yx+0)
   sub L      ;handle (x2 >= x1). Carry if condition doesn't hold.
 pop hl
 jr c,_iBr_collect
 push hl
   ld hl,_cam_yx+0
   ld a,(_cam_mover+0)
   add a,(hl)
   ld (hl),a  ;x++ (or x-- if running negative x)
 pop hl
 ld de,(_cam_dx)
 or a
 sbc hl,de  ;acc = acc-dx
 jr nc,_iBr_collect
;if made it here, run if acc < 0
 ld de,(_cam_dy)
 add hl,de
_iBr_collect:
 ld (_cam_acc),hl
 ret

I was told that the implementation is supposed to get me a line going from point A to point B. What I actually get is a straight line going down, then a straight line going right. The loop never terminates since the algo doesn't advance to the final x,y coordinate (I examined it being just 1 off).



Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on July 31, 2015, 08:04:40 pm
Hmm I shall take a look in a moment why not.
@Xeda112358 Care to take a peak as well?

@Iambian if you missed it we have @ mentions how so if you need a specific person tag them with @<nick> so that they get a notification saying Hey this person wants you :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on August 01, 2015, 08:37:56 pm
Quote from: Iambian on July 31, 2015, 08:00:47 pm
-snip-
Your slang intrigues me. This is the first time I heard of "bresenhammering". And when you said "algos" the other night I had no idea what you meant so I made a joke in [grammaticly wrong] Latin telling you not to talk about grief ("Algo" is Greek for "sorrow" (the joke was that algos is Greek and I told you not to talk about grief in Latin lol))

Also I came upon Escheron.pdf on the interwebs. I don't know if you are still using the story line as found in that file, but hell, the first two paragraphs sounded like something from a Sumerian legend. O.O The only way you could have made it better is if you said the gods made humanity by molding them from clay and sacrificing one of there own to bring them to life.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on August 01, 2015, 08:50:43 pm
Can you by chance link that pdf? Also bresenhammering is a made up word of his to describe the code he is working on :P. And algos is short for algorithms because to be honest that is way to much to type out :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 01, 2015, 09:16:18 pm
@c4ooo :  You could always ask @Escheron what his influences were. He's the one that wrote the story and planned the scenarios. ;)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Xeda112358 on August 02, 2015, 11:11:06 am
Sorry, I never noticed the mention. I don't have a lot of time, so I am going to make it quick. I may have given you bad pseudocode, I dunno. Here is some tested and working BASIC code:

First the sub program which would be equivalent to the subroutine thing to get the next X,Y. It's BASIC, so I can't use the Y var, so I just use Z:
Code: [Select]
If A>=0 and X!=R
Then
X+E->X      ;X coord, E is 1 or -1 (or possibly 0, but we don't actually need that)
A-V->A
End
If A<0 and Z!=S
Then
Z+F->Z     ;F is like E
A+U->A
End
Now the actual program. In this case, I just use the X,Z to draw pixels, you would use it to render the map.
Code: [Select]
;;Input a list as any {X1,Y1,X2,Y2}, just make sure they are in bounds as my code doesn't check
Ans->L1
Ans(1->X
L1(2->Z
L1(3->R    ;x2
L1(4->S    ;y2
R-X->U     ;deltax
S-Z->V     ;deltay
(U>0)-(U<0->E   ;sign(deltax)->xinc
(V>0)-(V<0->F   ;sign(deltay)->yinc
abs(U->A
2Ans->U
2abs(V->V
Pxl-On(X,Z
Repeat getKey
prgmLINESUB
Pxl-On(X,Z
End

I hope this helps ^~^
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on August 04, 2015, 07:20:21 pm
Thank you very much Xeda112358, that TI-BASIC code translated to assembly works great, though I did have to add in some extra logic that would prevent the routine from locking if the accumulator is the wrong sign for the final iteration (it just flips it if the routine did nothing that cycle).

The calling routine pretty much did exactly what you did in the BASIC code. The only thing I had to change was where the "ld (_cam_acc),hl" instruction was located.

The actual algorithm, tho. This is what I got:
Code: [Select]
res did_it_bresenhamming,(iy+stateflags)
 ld hl,(_cam_acc)
 bit 7,h  ;sign check
 jr nz,_br_xfail ;skip if acc less than zero
 ld a,(_cam_yx+0) ;xpos
 ld c,a
 ld a,(_end_yx+0)
 cp c
 jr z,_br_xfail  ;skip if x1==x2
 ld a,(_cam_mover+0)
 add a,c
 ld (_cam_yx+0),a
 ld de,(_cam_dy)
 or a
 sbc hl,de ;acc-dy
 set did_it_bresenhamming,(iy+stateflags)
_br_xfail:
 bit 7,h  ;sign check
 jr z,_br_yfail ;skip if acc is non-negative.
 ld a,(_cam_yx+1) ;ypos
 ld c,a
 ld a,(_end_yx+1)
 cp c
 jr z,_br_yfail ;skip if y1==y2
 ld a,(_cam_mover+1)
 add a,c
 ld (_cam_yx+1),a
 ld de,(_cam_dx)
 add hl,de ;acc+dx
 set did_it_bresenhamming,(iy+stateflags)
_br_yfail:
 bit did_it_bresenhamming,(iy+stateflags)
 jr nz,_br_nofail
 ld a,h
 xor $80  ;flip sign bit to force next iter to do something
 ld h,a
 ld (_cam_acc),hl
; call _cmp_cur_to_end_pos
 jr nz,_iterateBresenham  ;reiterate bresenhammer.
_br_nofail:
 ld (_cam_acc),hl
 ret
The end result:

(http://i.imgur.com/ssg8RzD.gif)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Xeda112358 on August 05, 2015, 07:47:56 am
Okay, I have a few ideas for modifying this, and I'll try to figure out if I can optimize it further.

The only case where the algorithm does nothing is when it has reached the end of the line, otherwise it *always* does something.
Proof: When (x1,y1) != (x2,y2), then we have 2 case: bit 7 of HL is 0 or it is 1.
Case 1: It is 0. Then the first step of incrementing x1 is carried through (since x1 != x2)
Case 2: It is 1. Then the second step of incrementing y1 is carried through (since y1 != y2)

So basically, if you check bit 7 and it is 1, skip the X step and go straight into the Y step. You only need to check bit 7 for the Y step if you did the X step, and in that case, you can directly use the sign flag from the sbc hl,de... which by the way you can just negate the deltax value during the setup phase and use an add hl,de.

I also noticed the B register was unused, so instead of using flags, I just set b=1 in the beginning, then inc b instead of setting the flag. At the end, check if b is still 1, in which case nothing was updated, so the algorithm is done.


Here is how I modified it:
Code: [Select]
    ld b,1             ;use this to check if we bresenhammed
    ld hl,(_cam_acc)
    bit 7,h            ;sign check
    jr nz,_br_xfail    ;skip if acc less than zero
    ld a,(_cam_yx+0)   ;xpos
    ld c,a
    ld a,(_end_yx+0)
    cp c
    jr z,_br_xfail     ;skip if x1==x2
    ld a,(_cam_mover+0)
    add a,c
    ld (_cam_yx+0),a
    ld de,(_cam_dy)    ;negate this in the setup code
    inc b
    add hl,de
    inc b
    jr c,_br_yfail     ;skip if acc is non-negative.
_br_xfail:
    ld a,(_cam_yx+1)   ;ypos
    ld c,a
    ld a,(_end_yx+1)
    cp c
    jr z,_br_yfail     ;skip if y1==y2
    ld a,(_cam_mover+1)
    add a,c
    ld (_cam_yx+1),a
    ld de,(_cam_dx)
    add hl,de          ;acc+dx
    inc b
_br_yfail:
    ld (_cam_acc),hl
    dec b
    ret

So question: What is the range of values for the coordinates? Are they 0~127 ? (It seems like it based on the code).


EDIT: Here, this code might work. First routine is setup, second routine is the iteration.
Code: [Select]
br_setup:
;;(b,c) = (y1,x1)
;;(d,e) = (y2,x2)
    ld (_cam_yx),bc
    ld (_end_yx),de
    ld hl,0
    ld a,d
    sub b
    add a,a
    jr nc,$+5
    dec h       ;yinc
    neg
    ld (_cam_dy),a

    ld a,e
    sub c
    jr nc,$+5
    dec l       ;xinc
    neg
    ld (_cam_mover),hl
    ld h,0
    ld l,a
    ld (_cam_acc),hl
    add a,a
    ld (_cam_dx),a
    ret

br_iter:
;;return nc if br is finished
;;x1y1=x2y2  66
;;x1+       211 or 220, save 24~33cc
;;y1+       206 or 207, save 22~23cc
;;x1+, y1+  265 or 266, save 83~84cc
    ld hl,(_cam_end)
    ld de,(_cam_yx)
    or a
    sbc hl,de
    ret z
    ld hl,(_cam_acc)
    ld bc,(_cam_mover)
    bit 7,h            ;sign check
    jr nz,_br_doy
   
    ld a,c
    add a,e
    ld e,a
    ld a,(_cam_dx)
    ld c,a
    ld a,l
    sub c
    ld l,a
    jr nc,_br_done
    dec h
    jp p,_br_done
_br_doy:
    ld a,b
    add a,d
    ld d,a
    ld a,(_cam_dy)
    add a,l
    ld l,a
    jr nc,$+3
    inc h
_br_done:
    ld (_cam_acc),hl
    ld (_cam_yx),de
    scf
    ret
EDIT: There was an error in my latter code that should be ld (_cam_acc),hl as opposed to ld hl,(_cam_acc). The algo would still work, but this makes it work better.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on August 08, 2015, 02:15:09 pm
The original non-bresenham based algorithm produced this result:
(http://i.imgur.com/14ZWLI8.gif)
The algorithm that I called this done with, reposted here for visual comparison:
(http://i.imgur.com/ssg8RzD.gif)
The code from the post above (code below)
Quote from: Xeda112358 on August 05, 2015, 07:47:56 am
Code: [Select]
    ld b,1             ;use this to check if we bresenhammed
    ld hl,(_cam_acc)
    bit 7,h            ;sign check
    jr nz,_br_xfail    ;skip if acc less than zero
    ld a,(_cam_yx+0)   ;xpos
    ld c,a
    ld a,(_end_yx+0)
    cp c
    jr z,_br_xfail     ;skip if x1==x2
    ld a,(_cam_mover+0)
    add a,c
    ld (_cam_yx+0),a
    ld de,(_cam_dy)    ;negate this in the setup code
    inc b
    add hl,de
    inc b
    jr c,_br_yfail     ;skip if acc is non-negative.
_br_xfail:
    ld a,(_cam_yx+1)   ;ypos
    ld c,a
    ld a,(_end_yx+1)
    cp c
    jr z,_br_yfail     ;skip if y1==y2
    ld a,(_cam_mover+1)
    add a,c
    ld (_cam_yx+1),a
    ld de,(_cam_dx)
    add hl,de          ;acc+dx
    inc b
_br_yfail:
    ld (_cam_acc),hl
    dec b
    ret
Produced this result:
(http://i.imgur.com/CjEVOxq.gif)

That wasn't exactly the results I was looking for, tho since I dropped that in, I might have messed up somewhere?

When I transcribed the BASIC program into assembly, I did it to the best of my knowledge. The additional check that I added to determine if the bresenhammer did something that cycle was not of paranoia, but of an actual bugfix when the loop never exited. The loop exits when it sees that (x1,y1)==(x2,y2). I saw that no matter how many times the thing ran, it never reached y1==y2 and the sign on the accumulator was wrong so that would never get checked, so I added code that would flip that sign  to force the routine to do *something* so the external coordinate check might eventually exit.

As for the positional values themselves, they're all 8-bit unsigned with the range 0-255 (7bit map + 1bit subtile), which is part of the reason why the accumulator, and delta x/y are kept as words instead of bytes.

----
And in other news, minor work was done to slightly re-arrange the shop's buy-confirm prompt to make buying consumable items more meaningful and provide slight consistency between equipment and consumable purchases in light of that change:
(http://i.imgur.com/9lIKjPS.gif)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on August 08, 2015, 04:41:51 pm
It's moving so fast the water looks gray xD

Anyhow, looking awesome as usual ^^
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 08, 2015, 07:01:21 pm
So what was the point with trying the bresenham technique versus the original one? The original one seems to pan much more smoothly than the new one.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on August 08, 2015, 07:17:03 pm
Quote from: Sorunome on August 08, 2015, 04:41:51 pm
It's moving so fast the water looks gray xD

Anyhow, looking awesome as usual ^^
I suppose it does, though I think it's more of an illusion provided by how the water's dithered. Kudos to Escheron/Zera for that.

Quote from: Art_of_camelot on August 08, 2015, 07:01:21 pm
So what was the point with trying the bresenham technique versus the original one? The original one seems to pan much more smoothly than the new one.

Hindsight's 20/20, I guess. None of us would really know what it would look like until it happened, and now that it did, Geekboy isn't exactly sure this is any better either. We have the old panning algorithm sitting around in case that needs to be used once more, but we're also going to keep the bresenhammy thing in case we do so we'll have something if or when this project goes full smoothscrolling. I'm convinced that it would look far better there.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Xeda112358 on August 10, 2015, 08:43:33 am
Oh, the coords are 8-bit? Mine might not work for that in some situations.So did my code work? It seemed to scroll pretty smoothly and accurately.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 25, 2015, 12:38:51 am
Don't remember if it's been discussed before, but it came up while chatting with Iambian and Geekboy yesterday. Quicksaving would be a lovely addition to this game if it isn't planned already. By quicksave, I mean being able to quit and save most anywhere (aside from if you are involved in a battle). When you return, the quicksave restores you where you were, but is deleted immediately thereafter. Since this is a portable game that will likely be played in short(ish) increments at a time I think it is a must IMHO.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on August 25, 2015, 03:35:53 pm
Quote from: c4ooo on August 01, 2015, 08:37:56 pm
Also I came upon Escheron.pdf on the interwebs. I don't know if you are still using the story line as found in that file, but hell, the first two paragraphs sounded like something from a Sumerian legend.

The game's mythology wasn't inspired by any particular belief system, but is rather a mish-mash of elements from various mythologies - just whatever came to mind as I was trying to conceive a setting.

The game's creation mythology is a little complicated, but I'll try to detail it as thoroughly as possible.


There are four major planes of existence:

Escheron - The world of mortals
Arcania - The realm of the gods
Memoria - The mortal afterlife
The Netherworld - A sort of hell where mortals who were taken into service by the Rephaim became demons, and were sealed away by the Nephalim

Then there are three primary figures in Escheron's creation:

The Maker - The sole entity responsible for creating all life, including the lesser gods
The Nephalim - Lesser benevolent gods who used their powers to protect mortals
The Rephaim - Selfish gods who wanted to use mortals for their own agenda

The lesser gods were created with the purpose of governing mortals. To ensure that they would perform this task and act benevolently toward mortals, the Maker cursed the lesser gods with a symbiotic relationship: The lesser gods' life force would be sustained by the faith and dedication of mortals. If mortals didn't offer prayer and worship to the gods, then the gods would quickly lose their strength and eventually perish.

So, the gods had no choice but to earn the respect of mortals; but some of the gods were too proud to lower themselves. This caused the gods to separate into the two respective factions: The Nephalim and the Rephaim. The Rephaim ignored the Maker's orders, and in an effort to continue sustaining their own life force, tried to manipulate the mortals' faith by indoctrinating them with fear of retribution. The Nephalim intervened and attempted to suppress the Rephaim, resulting in a war that devastated most of Arcania and ended with the mutual destruction of the gods themselves.

Having witnessed this conflict, the Maker came to the conclusion that his creations were a mistake, and that the gods (and perhaps the mortals as well) were beyond salvation. He then departed the cosmos for good, leaving the mortals to determine their own fate.

It was then discovered that the life force of the gods didn't actually perish along with them, as this essence was indestructible. Coveting the power of the gods for themselves, many mortal men attempted to seize it. Conflict plagued Escheron for centuries to come, until an order of mages - calling themselves the "Arcanians" - appropriated the essence of the gods, keeping it out of mortal reach. Utilizing this power, they constructed great artifacts, including ships that could sail through the clouds, and a great tower that served as a gateway between Escheron and Arcania. Under the governance of the Arcanians, all conflict on Escheron had ended, and mortals flourished for many centuries.

7 years prior to the game's events, the kingdom of Asnoth put forth a declaration of war between the nations of Asnoth and Ragnoth. Under the counsel of a figure known as the Shadow Lord, Asnoth's ruler had become distrustful of the Arcanians' descendants and the secrets they were guarding. In the resulting war, most of the Arcanians' descendents were destroyed, and Asnoth's forces began seizing their artifacts and technology to bolster their own military strength. During the war, the last surviving member of the Arcanians - Maya Anson - was orphaned into a civil resistance faction at any early age. Seven years later, she's now grown up, and is setting out to avenge her descendants by overthrowing Asnoth and destroying the Shadow Lord. The game's events begin here.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Spoiler For Spoiler:
When Maya and her party confront the Shadow Lord, it's revealed that he's a demon from the Netherworld, who was once under the service of the Rephaim until he and the rest of his kind were sealed by the Nephalim's power. With the gods being mutually destroyed, the seal on the Netherworld was broken, and monsters came pouring into Escheron.

The Shadow Lord saw an opportunity to seize the gods' essence and become a god himself. To achieve this, he traveled to the summit of the Arcanian tower in hopes of using the gateway linking Escheron to Arcania. Once in Arcania, he would seek out the remains of the Rephaim and absorb them into his soul.

(The Arcanian tower serves as a beacon of magic for mortals. Because there is a gateway to Arcania situated at the summit of the tower, mortals can draw magical energy from Arcania and use it to manifest various phenomena.)

Maya's party defeats the Shadow Lord before he can activate the gateway, thus putting an end to his plot. Realizing that others may attempt to misuse the gateway, Maya decides to travel to Arcania and seal the gate from the other side. Because the tower serves as a source of magic, mortals consequently lose the ability to channel magic. Maya is also never seen again.



We're also planning a sequel set a few years after the events of Escheron, this time with Edmund cast as the protagonist.

MORE SPOILERS AHEAD:

Spoiler For Spoiler:
The game opens on Edmund - now the ruler of Asnoth - asleep in his chambers. In his dream, he sees a premonition of a goddess who warns him of a cataclysmic event. As Edmund awakens, he sees a vast darkness cover the land, and a strange beacon of energy emanating from the Arcanian tower. Edmund gathers his men and decides to investigate the tower ruins.

Upon arriving at the summit of the tower where Maya, Edmund and their allies once defeated the Shadow Lord, the energy in the tower begins to fluctuate, and the floor crumbles beneath Edmund's feet. Before Edmund's party can escape, they're swallowed up by a great chasm.

Edmund regains consciousness in new surroundings - a tower similar in design to the Arcanian ruins, but whose walls are comprised entirely of mirrors. As Edmund approaches his reflection, the image of the goddess reappears, and explains that she transported Edmund to the Arcanian realm just as the tower began to crumble. Here in the realm of the gods, the Rephaim have awoken and are mustering to reopen the gateway between their world and Escheron, previously sealed by Maya.

As the goddess explains, the Rephaim continued to abuse their symbiotic relationship with mortals even after death. Whenever mortals called upon destructive magic, the Rephaim would focus their essence into manifesting that phenomena, but in the process, they siphoned a small ounce of each mortal's soul, slowly empowering themselves with that energy. Unfortunately for the Rephaim, Maya's actions broke off this symbiotic relationship, preventing mortals from being able to channel magic ever again.

The Rephaim had not yet gathered enough energy to reform their physical bodies, but nonetheless felt that some decisive action needed to be taken with what limited power they had absorbed. To this end, they pooled together their remaining power and channeled it into the creation of an entity they call Exodus. Exodus became the physical manifestation of the Rephaim's collective will, and they are actively seeking to transport Exodus to Escheron to enslave mankind, cipher the rest of the mortals' power, and revive themselves from their previous destruction.

As part of the ritual to reopen the gateway to Escheron, the deities have called upon three God Princes - Matanbuchus, Beelzebub and Shaitan. The three entities stand at three focal points in the Arcanian realm, and are focusing their power into the center of the realm - the Ivory Tower. If the ritual is not disrupted, the gateway will soon reopen.

Now Edmund is tasked with seeking out and destroying each of the God Princes in their respective domains, then ultimately descending into the Abyss - the final resting place of the Rephaim - to banish Exodus and put down the Rephaim once more.

Maya's role in the story is more limited. Shortly after reaching Arcania, she became aware of the Rephaim's plans and managed to awaken the Nephalim goddess Isaria so she could establish a seal preventing the Rephaim from leaving the Abyss. The sealing ritual required Maya to sacrifice herself in the process, keeping her suspended near the entrance to the Abyss. To undo the seal and enter the Abyss, Edmund has to reclaim three key items from the three God Princes. Once Maya is freed from the seal, she joins Edmund in the final battle against the Rephaim.

And an early revision of the world of Arcania explored in the sequel:
(http://s22.postimg.org/ks9eala0t/2015_07_25_003333.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/ks9eala0t/)
(click to enlarge)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on August 29, 2015, 02:25:39 pm
For the past week or two (or three???), I've been hammering out additional details about the inventory menu, along with rearranging pieces of the project so I'll have enough space on page 0 to put all of this and more.

Equipment now has additional properties, such as elemental resistances, weaknesses, and attack. The confirm prompt in the shop is being reused to show item details in the inventory menu, and that confirm prompt is being upgraded to show off this information.

The screenshot below is not fully representative of what the final interface will be like. The confirm prompt is supposed to be paged, but I haven't gotten that far yet, so for now it just shows equipment properties. In the future, you'll be able to push up/down to cycle through equipment information.

(http://i.imgur.com/vsFqnAX.gif)

If you've noticed, weapons show an "ATTACK" string, while non-weapons show a "RESIST" string. This is because weapons are not allowed to have a resistance, and thus, have no need to show a RESIST alongside it. Likewise, armor/accessories are not allowed to have an attack affinity (not even shields) so they have no need to show an ATTACK.

Not shown: Some equipment, when used as an item in battle (Final Fantasy (1) style), can unleash spells for free. Unlike FF1, this will be listed on the 3rd page. Also, the game has eight affinities total, but only five are shown. It's up to the player to figure out what those are and what equipment has them, either via experimentation, or by reading the manual.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: CKH4 on August 29, 2015, 05:06:52 pm
Wow this looks really really nice. I can't wait for this to get finished (I've been waiting for like 3+ years). Don't rush though because this is starting to look sweet.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Eeems on August 29, 2015, 06:24:01 pm
Quick question, can armour be weak to certain elements? So basically negative resist?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on August 29, 2015, 06:30:38 pm
Quote from: Eeems on August 29, 2015, 06:24:01 pm
Quick question, can armour be weak to certain elements? So basically negative resist?
Indeed, it can. It indicates that by showing a '0' under the element instead of a '+'

EDIT: This is no longer true. Some discussion on IRC later, and it was decided that weakness is denoted as '-' and a no-effect as '.'
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on August 30, 2015, 11:39:39 pm
The map planning phase is almost complete. I just need to draw up details for a couple of maps and put some finishing touches on a few others.

We're still working out a consensus on how we're going to approach one of the game's optional dungeons. I wanted to implement a randomized or pseudo-randomized dungeon in this particular case, but if we can't implement some sort of logic for that, then I'll design a set of static maps instead.

On a side note, Escheron actually has more side areas than story areas. I didn't want the player to be forcibly tethered to the story progression at all times, so exploration and sidequesting are very abundant, and encouraged. You can in fact access a number of side areas from most any point in the story.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on September 01, 2015, 05:56:17 pm
Changes and additions, in order of appearance:

* Revised character status summary, also now able to display status effects
* Status effects show up on status menu top area
* Consumable item use and context-sensitive character selection
* Equip from inventory menu
* Resistance indicators in status menu (and that the logic works)
* Paging through equipment information
* Tossing items and attempting to toss items you can't part with

(http://i.imgur.com/aozotqU.gif)

Todo:

* Get equipping logic so you can't do things like equip four swords
* Make magic functional
* Probably improve equipping starting from Equip rather than inventory.
* Start planning a cutscene script system
* Maybe think about the battle system
EDIT, note for self: * Put in additional weapon type and update all equipment stats
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on September 04, 2015, 05:03:25 pm
It just now occurred to me that I should take the opportunity to outline some of the game's mechanics, for those who may be curious. (Although all of these details will be covered in the manual, as well)


Character growth

Characters don't gain experience levels like in conventional RPGs, rather their abilities increase at specific intervals based on the number and rank (challenge level) of enemies defeated.

How much power characters will gain depends on the type of equipment you train them with. For instance, having a character wield a sword will result in their physical attacks becoming stronger over time, and wearing heavy armor will make the character's defense power and hit points rise more rapidly.

With this in mind, the player has free reign over how characters are developed. Although Maya begins the game with extensive training in sorcery, the player could for example deck her out with a sword and a suit of armor. Over time, Maya's hit points, strength and physical defense would skyrocket, but at the expense of neglecting her ability to use magic.

Once a character reaches a certain degree of power, they can no longer benefit from fighting weaker monsters. The player will have no choice but to venture into more challenging areas to continue developing their party. Fighting boss enemies always results in the party being powered up, regardless of the boss enemy's challenge level.

Equipment and inventory system

The party has a shared inventory of up to 32 items max, and each character has four equipment slots: A weapon slot, a shield slot, an armor slot and a slot for armlets / accessories

There are no restrictions on which characters can use which types of equipment, but there are logical penalties involved in using heavier equipment. For instance, heavy armor will allow a character to absorb a lot of damage, but it hampers their reaction speed and limits their ability to invoke magic effectively.

Other rules and restrictions apply to weapon and shield usage. A character can actually drop their shield and grip a weapon with both hands, resulting in stronger attacks; or a character can wield two weapons at once, granted they have enough agility to perform such a feat.

Magic

Any character can learn any magic spell, provided they have enough MP to invoke the spell. Spells are purchased from magic shops scattered throughout the world. A character may memorize up to a maximum of 12 unique spells.

Unlike physical attacks, spells will always hit their targets), assuming the target doesn't have some kind of special resistance to that particular spell.

Character-specific skills and "trigger state"

Aside from magic, there are two other subsets of skills used by characters. First, every character possesses their own unique combat ability. For example, Maya has the ability to "chant" a random spell, but the result is usually marginal. Edmund can "rouse" the party to boost morale, resulting in all characters becoming physically stronger.

Characters additionally have last-ditch attacks that they will unleash when they're brought to critical health. This is referred to as "trigger state," as it triggers a powerful retaliatory attack the moment the character nears death.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on October 04, 2015, 10:45:07 pm
It's close to an alpha/early beta release. Over the past month or so, quite a few additions were made:

EDIT: For clarification purposes, some of the equipment/magic is not available in the actual storyline. The screenshots were made using a special save file crafted for debugging purposes. This includes any spell that has 0 cost and the "Circuit" series items.

* Magic menu fully functional and descriptive, including the "Teleport" spell (where applicable).
(http://i.imgur.com/lhp5XwM.gif)

* Shops now have prices.
* Inns now supported. They can't remove status effects nor revive people, but those who are still alive will benefit.
(http://i.imgur.com/O1OwX1U.gif)

* Vehicular travel fully supported.
(http://i.imgur.com/fLfXRmY.gif)

Not shown:
* Equip logic in place, so there's limits to what you can equip where.
* Enemy bitmaps and stat data in place.
* The world of Escheron is fully interconnected. It is possible to explore most of the world now.
* The world of Escheron is fully stocked on treasures.
* Tons and tons of tweaks to collision and maps.

TODO:
* Figure out if the cutscene script system is actually usable.
* Airship-as-NPCs for overworld atmospheric effect and cutscenes.
* Battle system.
* Maybe an actual title screen? I dunno.

Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on October 05, 2015, 10:09:58 am
Can't wait for a demo! I still think that when moving fast the water is looking gray :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: neuronix on October 11, 2015, 12:11:10 pm
When is a demo out?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on October 11, 2015, 08:34:27 pm
Great to see some progress on this  ;D Hopefully this will be finished before I die loose interest in calcs the next mosquito summer season  :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on October 12, 2015, 04:11:09 pm
A demo will be out When it is ready. Iambian and Zera are working really hard at getting all the things worked out so a closed alpha can be released. More on this when it happens. That aside internally we are currently working on getting most of the shops and stuff implemented as well as npc placement and such. And getting all of that tested and tuned.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on October 12, 2015, 04:30:22 pm
The world of Escheron is currently being populated and scripted. I've been taking care of the general area scripting while Geekboy has been working on the various cutscenes that helps greatly in the narrative.

We will have a closed alpha available once enough of the game is scripted such that it can be reasonably played from start to (hopefully) finish and feel comfortable enough in the ability to get to that content. The battle system has nothing coded in it apart from a debug display that dumps current encounter state, so that will be a whlie yet, tho thankfully, is not a necessary element to test the events.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on October 12, 2015, 09:56:44 pm
Not much to say other than keep up the good work guys. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on October 15, 2015, 06:03:19 pm
geekboy thought it would be a cool idea to show some statistics regarding the the code in E:ToR.

(http://i.imgur.com/Yya0Q4z.png)

The menu system contains the most lines of source code and is also the largest file. No surprise there. What is sorta surprising is that the support routines in _common.z80 for most of the menus comes up in 2nd place. The cutscene system comes in third and is still growing.

It must be said that none of the .inc files and none of the binary data are considered in this count, along with all the other non-text assets such as sprites, tilemaps, tilesets, and utilities (some of which I did not write).

Speaking of utilities, might as well show our statistics with regards to Python:

(http://i.imgur.com/MgmUczf.png)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on October 15, 2015, 09:40:33 pm
So lets have a minor(major) content update. Iambian has been working on the underdeep, an optional dungeon in E:ToR that is required to get some of the better equipment and loot in the game.

It is a psuedo-randomly generated dungeon each floor is randomly generated based off of a deterministic algorithm to ensure that all of our map requirements are met.

We were uncertain if the maps were being generated randomly enough. To verify this I wrote a small python script to extract some of the randomly generated maps. I exported 20 maps for you all to see :P

(http://i.imgur.com/OmYMgKm.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/ArghVAF.png)

More of them are in this album.
http://imgur.com/a/7Tgwj (http://imgur.com/a/7Tgwj)

The player is randomly placed on these floors. They have a moderate encounter rate, All of which will be with the strongest enemy formations in the game. The dungeon has 8 floors with a dungeon boss as the end. Each map will have an emergency exit and stairs to the next level. Dispersed randomly will also be treasure chests and pots.


For those of you interested in the python script. It is view-able here. (https://bitbucket.org/CFD_LLC/esor_bw/src/58aec4cf39a66d964c323c9008bc4853b9936b8f/Tools/UnderDeepDump.py?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default)

It reads out the raw tileset data and tilemap data from a wabbitemu instance then using the com object wabbitemu exposes. Then use Pillow mangle it into a PNG for your pleasure :p
Title: Re: &quot;Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth&quot; — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on October 16, 2015, 02:28:10 am
I absolutely love the concept! Will it be that all the random maps are stored on-calc or that the calc actually generates them?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on October 16, 2015, 07:49:59 am
They are pseudo randomly generated. There are 9 quadrants of which have 3 versions of each section. It then randomly assembles them on calculator following a set of rules to ensure that the dungeon is feasible.


So its half and half :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on October 18, 2015, 11:21:56 am
That pseudo random dungeon generation is sweet! :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on October 18, 2015, 12:46:00 pm
The Underdeep is home to one of two superbosses that can be found in the game. The idea behind the dungeon was to give the player something to do post-game. Since the floors and loot are dynamically generated, it's a slightly different experience every time the player enters. Incidentally, it's also a good spot to grind since the dungeon houses the strongest enemies in the game, and stat-up potions are littered throughout most every floor.

There are numerous other side-areas besides the Underdeep, and many of those can be completed much earlier in the game. In fact, game balance will sometimes require the player to do some exploring and retrieve equipment upgrades from optional areas before they'll be strong enough to advance through story areas.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on October 21, 2015, 06:20:13 pm
Two days ago, we were supposed to release E:ToR as a closed alpha, but then Zera had to ask a question that went along the lines of "Can we switch party members yet?" That led to delays when I attempted to implement that feature since doing so revealed some other bugs that absolutely had to be dealt with. What was added and fixed:

* Added party management and leader management by way of talking to various NPCs
(http://i.imgur.com/LPQJCC4.gif)
* Fixed empty character slot handling across the whole menu system.
* Added actual guest NPC loading and support
* With that support, locked out the ability to change magic/equips for guest NPCs.
* Added an event, fixed various spritemap locations, and ... something else?

So, where are we now?

Aside from other things that I may have forgotten about, and aside from the battle engine / major cutscenes, we should be done for the alpha release. Geekboy should have more info on the whole release thing.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on October 22, 2015, 10:11:16 am
Quote from: Iambian on October 21, 2015, 06:20:13 pm
So, where are we now?

· All maps designed and implemented
· All warp points integrated so that we have a fully connected world (aside from the Feywood, which Geekboy1011 has been drafted assigned to finish when he gets a sufficient amount of free time)
· Designed and implemented a randomly-generated dungeon
· All menu elements implemented
· All equipment and magic inventories implemented
· All shop inventories implemented
· Actual shop / inn routines implemented
· All villager NPCs and their dialogs have been implemented, and they can be interacted with by the player
· Party swap feature implemented
· Several minor cutscenes and sidequests implemented
· Working save system that actually keeps track of flags such as treasures and sidequests
· Some major cutscene elements implemented (but are actively being redone by Geekboy1011 since there were recent changes to the script system)

Alpha is imminent.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on October 22, 2015, 11:51:20 am
Quote from: Escheron on October 22, 2015, 10:11:16 am
Quote from: Iambian on October 21, 2015, 06:20:13 pm
So, where are we now?
Alpha is imminent.

 :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on October 22, 2015, 08:55:43 pm
This is looking really cool! I always love looking in this topic for new screenshots to be amazed by. Unfortunately, I don't personally own a monochrome calc but I will definitely reccommend this to friends.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on October 24, 2015, 07:43:55 am
And the alpha has started!
https://www.omnimaga.org/escheron-bw/etor-~-alpha-test-thread/

Sign up guys!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on October 28, 2015, 09:45:20 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/5nZDykd.png)

Lol bugs. Character I was talking do did not have all of the facings so it loaded a dead person >.>
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on October 28, 2015, 10:24:31 pm
That's pretty werid. Lol.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on November 09, 2015, 10:07:17 pm
So got a little board. Everyone likes color so we decided to slap mono2color support onto E:ToR. Mateo did a wonderful job with his software. The port to the CSE took less then an hour!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98196116/Esor/gbpal.png)

I choose the funny colors. I think it looks cool :P

That aside it runs about 75% speed as of now. But is definitely still playable. Nothing like adding another piece of hardware you can play this game on :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on November 09, 2015, 10:46:03 pm
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on November 09, 2015, 10:07:17 pm
So got a little board. Everyone likes color so we decided to slap mono2color support onto E:ToR. Mateo did a wonderful job with his software. The port to the CSE took less then an hour!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98196116/Esor/gbpal.png)

I choose the funny colors. I think it looks cool :P

That aside it runs about 75% speed as of now. But is definitely still playable. Nothing like adding another piece of hardware you can play this game on :P
Hey, like, gimme that.
No seriously though, when are you going to release that? I'll definitely test alpha if I have access to a color version. It looks amazing!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Sorunome on November 10, 2015, 03:42:37 am
Sounds nice! Is it still running at a decent speed, though?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on November 10, 2015, 07:25:18 am
It needs some tuning, It runs well enough but a lot of the delays are hardcoded to match the B/w lcd. So somethings run really slow and some things run really fast*. So once we go in and update that. Things will be better. Cutscenes run at about 60% speed. Ingame is about 75% speed. Still playable though. Just yeah. Obvious lag. The screen is Slowwww.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 10, 2015, 12:55:10 pm
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on November 09, 2015, 10:07:17 pm
So got a little board. Everyone likes color so we decided to slap mono2color support onto E:ToR. Mateo did a wonderful job with his software. The port to the CSE took less then an hour!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98196116/Esor/gbpal.png)

I choose the funny colors. I think it looks cool :P

I like the colors. That is basically how it would look if it were on the TI-82 or the TI-85. :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on November 10, 2015, 04:22:03 pm
I would be lieing if i said the Ti-82 style color was not my original intention. We decided those colors look a lot like an original gameboy as well :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on November 10, 2015, 05:49:28 pm
So you basically just change the drawing code and your done with the port? Thats pretty cool ;D To bad my second major game is written in Axe, so porting will not likely happen for it  x.x
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on November 10, 2015, 05:52:44 pm
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on November 10, 2015, 04:22:03 pm
I would be lieing if i said the Ti-82 style color was not my original intention. We decided those colors look a lot like an original gameboy as well :P
If you decide to include this version in alpha testing then I'll send an application promptly.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 10, 2015, 06:37:07 pm
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on November 10, 2015, 04:22:03 pm
I would be lieing if i said the Ti-82 style color was not my original intention. We decided those colors look a lot like an original gameboy as well :P

Yepp, not surprised. Also, for calculators, the Ti-82 reminded me the most of the old game boy as well. Those colors make for a pretty good middle ground between the two. ;D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: neuronix on November 27, 2015, 07:33:40 am
When it'll be published?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on November 27, 2015, 02:05:19 pm
Quote from: neuronix on November 27, 2015, 07:33:40 am
When it'll be published?

When it's finished. Unfortunately, we don't have an ETA on this. @Iambian is just now planning for the implementation of battle logic. @Geekboy1011 and I will continue to work on cutscene scripting and implementation, as often as his schedule permits it.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: E37 on January 18, 2016, 12:38:17 pm
is Escheron still being worked on?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Eeems on January 18, 2016, 12:53:40 pm
http://beta.chat.eeems.ca/1/3/2016-01-18#01:34:36
Seems like it is :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on January 22, 2016, 06:32:45 pm
Quote from: E37 on January 18, 2016, 12:38:17 pm
is Escheron still being worked on?

It most definetily is. @Iambian, and my self were/are taking a break because of holidays (...slightly extended I know), But after this bout of R&R we will be off again hammering out what needs to get done.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on January 22, 2016, 07:39:10 pm
Good to hear it! How large is the game so far? Too big and I won't be able to play it... I have a TI-84+.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: E37 on January 22, 2016, 07:52:31 pm
You probably should be able to play it, all the screen shots are on a monochrome calc (ti 83 - ti 84+)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on January 22, 2016, 07:54:39 pm
Currently the app is about 6 app pages large. That being said it may grow some more. We currently do not know :(
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on January 22, 2016, 08:33:47 pm
One of the goals of this project is to make a great RPG that's still playable on the venerable TI-83 Plus graphing calculator. In order to retain the ability to use the archive for user variables (read: Save files), the app must not grow any larger than 6 pages.

So yeah. 6 pages and we're going to keep it at that. While the app is currently 6 pages already, there's rather large gaps in some of the pages which allows us to fill in more content. The hope is that these are enough but...

For more info, this is what our build output looks like. Circled in red is size information relevant to the discussion
(http://i.imgur.com/BboXo2Q.png)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on January 23, 2016, 05:01:26 pm
That version of Windows looks old.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on January 23, 2016, 05:02:32 pm
Quote from: Dudeman313 on January 23, 2016, 05:01:26 pm
That version of Windows looks old.

Believe it or not he is running windows 7 he just uses the older theme because it uses less ram. Which his old laptop needs :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on January 23, 2016, 06:55:41 pm
Oh. I suppose because it's so old there's no way it could handle the W10 upgrade.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on January 26, 2016, 05:11:31 pm
Quote from: E37 on January 18, 2016, 12:38:17 pm
is Escheron still being worked on?

The project was in a short hiatus so everyone could enjoy the holidays, but things are picking up again. @Iambian and I have been laying out the groundwork for the action strings that appear during battle sequences, and I've been putting a few touches on the maps. Iambian has also implemented some of the logic related to how enemy sprites appear in the battle window.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on February 13, 2016, 10:44:07 pm
Minor update.

Battle system sets up and displays fight scene. Player actions are selectable for each character (but does nothing yet. Didn't get that far)

(http://i.imgur.com/zb2gDh7.gif)

TODO: Get the options to push actions to battle stack. Get enemies to do the same. Parse and display results of stack processing.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on February 14, 2016, 10:24:35 am
Looks good! :D Nice to see the battle engine starting to fall into place.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on February 14, 2016, 05:14:22 pm
Nice! Will there also be a CE port?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on February 14, 2016, 05:46:04 pm
As far as I know, there aren't plans for a CE port at the moment.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on February 14, 2016, 06:01:33 pm
I thought there was already a CE prototype of this ???
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on February 14, 2016, 06:31:46 pm
Quote from: Art_of_camelot on February 14, 2016, 05:46:04 pm
As far as I know, there aren't plans for a CE port at the moment.
There should be... :P
Quote from: c4ooo on February 14, 2016, 06:01:33 pm
I thought there was already a CE prototype of this ???
The one in this thread is for the CSE. I doubt something this complex could be in basic, so I doubt it's already compatible with the CE series, whether it uses libs or not.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on February 14, 2016, 07:16:33 pm
Currently there are no plans for a CE port due to lack of hardware on Iambian's side as well as we would have to rewrite 90% of the system to get it to work on the CE so yeah. Sadly probably not happening.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on February 14, 2016, 07:17:29 pm
Oh.  ._.
I was kinda hoping for such an awesome game to be the first non-basic full RPG for the CE.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on March 26, 2016, 11:47:54 am
Update.

The "Attack" and "Flee" commands now process. Battles can now be completed by way of either killing all enemies or running away. The following are implemented as part of the Attack command:

* Dual-wielding or 2H fight individual damage adjustments made.
* Dual-wield second attack or enemy-flagged double-attack support.
* Being able to actually damage the enemy.

What isn't yet supported in the Attack command:

* Elemental attack/resist calculations
* Critical hits
* Poison/sleep/KO status effects
* HP drain effects
* Counterattacks, including Second-Wind trigger abilities

TODO:
* Implement post-victory awards (gold, items, "exp", leveling up), storing relevant stats back to your character profile (HP, MP, etc).
* Implement Magic, Item, and Parry, and character-specific commands

So, here's a screenshot demonstrating a rather one-sided fight.

(http://i.imgur.com/Asgsiyd.gif)

Note: The lack of automatic retargeting was a design choice. It's not going to be implemented. We felt that it added to the challenge and encouraged players to pay more attention.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on March 31, 2016, 02:45:21 pm
This is some excellent progress. The battle engine is coming along very nicely. Let me note that Iambian has also implemented elemental modifiers and critical hits in the meantime.

It's not said often enough, but you've put a lot of hard work into this project, @Iambian, and I hope the community appreciates your level of dedication. Coding such a feature-rich game from the ground up in assembly is no simple task, and people better believe Escheron is functionally on the same level as games like Final Fantasy, which normally take an entire team years to develop.

I don't know if it's been pointed out yet, but my only role in the game's development is conceptualizing the setting, writing the game script and designing the game's maps. Iambian and @Geekboy1011 have taken on a disproportionate workload by comparison, so I think I should give credit where credit is due. Keep up the good work, guys!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: c4ooo on April 03, 2016, 06:28:10 pm
Yay progress :D
It would be awesome if you could get a open demo out by next september, good luck!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on April 05, 2016, 06:06:46 pm
I'd be satisfied with just a video of a 5 minute gameplay.  :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on April 09, 2016, 10:38:31 am
Update.

* Fight command fully functional (save for second-wind counterattacks)
* Magic mostly implemented.

(http://i.imgur.com/4qAFfNj.gif)

We have most spells coded and correctly functioning as of this post, and some of what we have is demonstrated in the above screenshot in one of the game's more difficult optional dungeons (The Underdeep). When I did the initial testing, I was quite surprised at the sudden difficulty ramp now that they are able to use magic. I mean, I kinda sorta expected it but it really hit home when I actually went there and started a fight and tried (and failed) to keep Maya alive. Going into that place unprepared, even with almost all max stats (and a few above max), is basically a death sentence. Worst part is, it's possible to accidentally stumble upon the place relatively early in the game. Guess this is why you get two save slots, huh?

What hasn't been coded yet is MP deduction in casting (testing purposes), four spells, enemy and guest NPC skills, special command abilities, items, and a few flags. Almost all of this can be tied into the same piece of code that runs all the magic.

Animations are planned, but only if there's nothing else (we (really) need/want) to do. Not much else to say other than that there's a small debate among the team about just *how* we're going to accomplish animations and with what.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on April 09, 2016, 11:36:32 am
Is this build on the secret build distribution website? I'd like to try this out :)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 09, 2016, 03:39:28 pm
I saw this in IRC yesterday. It's really looking awesome! Great work on pulling the battle engine together! :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Dudeman313 on April 09, 2016, 04:03:19 pm
I love the monster sprites. They look awesome! :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 09, 2016, 10:23:18 pm
Quote from: 123outerme on April 09, 2016, 11:36:32 am
Is this build on the secret build distribution website? I'd like to try this out :)

Seems like it is! It's not built for the CSE atm though. So black and white only for now ^^
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on April 17, 2016, 10:57:51 pm
Update.

* Map-to-map, and standard battle entry transitions were added.
* Magic, skills, and second wind mechanics are fully implemented. Battle system is basically done.
* Basic battle animations implemented.

(http://i.imgur.com/uAcaWFk.gif)

TODO:
* Magic and special battle animations.
* A way for the cutscene script system to take control of battle progression.
* Specialized transitions
* All. The. Cutscenes.
* Title screen and ending credits.

Official TI-83+ support has been withdrawn for now. I needed the extra space, but you can still probably load the game onto that calc if you don't mind not being able to use the archive anymore.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 18, 2016, 12:33:17 pm
That's freakin sweet Iambian! :D Sadface about the TI-83+ support for the moment.  :'(
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on April 18, 2016, 02:09:04 pm
Quote from: Art_of_camelot on April 18, 2016, 12:33:17 pm
Sadface about the TI-83+ support for the moment.  :'(

The lack of 83+ support isn't a definite thing. It's hard to say as of yet. Of course, Iambian and Geekboy1011 will probably try to optimize the code just before release to see if we can't maintain compatibility with the 83+. If worse comes to worst, we may consider cutting some of the game's optional content, but only as a last resort.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 18, 2016, 03:03:02 pm
Yea, that's pretty much what Iambian was saying in IRC the other day.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: E37 on April 18, 2016, 05:54:23 pm
Could you try compressing some of the code/data? A big lag occasionally is probably better than not being able to run the game at all.
(without reading the previous posts, I am assuming that size is the problem)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on April 18, 2016, 06:14:21 pm
Quote from: E37 on April 18, 2016, 05:54:23 pm
Could you try compressing some of the code/data? A big lag occasionally is probably better than not being able to run the game at all.
(without reading the previous posts, I am assuming that size is the problem)
You *should* read all the previous posts. Almost all the compressible data is already compressed. What isn't is either unworkable or we don't have the RAM for a destructible copy of it. As a point of reference as to what's compressed (as obtained from the build process):

Units in bytes.
Tilemap in: 60262, out: 20101
Tileset in: 4112, out: 2772
Enemy spriteset: in 3072, out 2582
Text 0 in 1259, out 843
Text 1 in 4077, out 2382
Text 2 in 2661, out 1386
Text 3 in 567, out 277
Text 4 in 1268, out 622
Text 5 in 5977, out 3404
Text 6 in 2759, out 1724
Text 7 in 5950, out 4241
Default save file in 386, out 152

Admittedly, a fair chunk of the bloat is from awful programming, but that's not something we can deal with right now. The most important thing to do is to get a game released.

EDIT: Console output from just the main build:
Code: [Select]
Brass Z80 Assembler 1.0.5.3 - Ben Ryves 2005-2006
-------------------------------------------------
Assembling...
Pass 1 complete. (3550ms).
Font Table Size: 928
Routine allocs: 12, total memory allocated: 14893 of 8811 max exec.
-------
Page 0 bytes 15934 used of 450 remaining.
Page 1 bytes 16172 used of 212 remaining.
Page 2 bytes 9056 used of 7328 remaining.
Page 3 bytes 15833 used of 551 remaining.
Page 4 bytes 15637 used of 747 remaining.
Page 5 bytes 15618 used of 766 remaining.
VERBOSE_OUTPUT not defined. To show more info, define it.
-------
Pass 2 complete. (3454ms).
Writing output file...
Errors: 0, Warnings: 0.
Writing list file...
Done!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on April 22, 2016, 12:03:56 pm
We're still mulling over the compatibility issue, but Iambian and Geekboy1011 have a few possible solutions in mind. One method is to write a custom OS for loading Escheron on the 83+. I'm not sure how tedious that will be, but it's something that may be considered later down the line when we approach release state.


In other news, I decided to redo some of the game's maps since I wasn't very happy with my original designs. One of the more major changes was to the game's overworld. This was much to Iambian's dismay, as we had to redo all the warp coordinates, and the overworld is linked to several other maps - practically everything in the game. We nonetheless have the new maps and coordinates implemented.

We may be approaching open beta soon, so hopefully I'll get some feedback on the design of the game world. Attached is a current reference to the game's (revised) overworld. I'll probably be applying minor tweaks in the meantime - expanding forests and mountain ranges, arranging corners, etc. I'm not sure if the current amount of white space is an issue, but I may try to cut down on that.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on April 24, 2016, 10:25:41 am
Double post, because why not?

I've been working on some mockups of how the animated title sequence will go, although its implementation may be a ways off. Iambian and Geekboy1011 seem rather superstitious about rendering the title screen until the game approaches release state. Something about other projects ending up development hell. Anyway...

(http://s31.postimg.org/67r83k1wb/title.gif)

The in-game rendering may differ slightly, but this is the general idea. I may do a further mockup including the "New game / Continue" screen that follows, then additional mockups of the opening backstory text that proceeds any in-game cutscene rendering.


In related news on my part, I'm working out a few ideas to expand upon the Underdeep. Currently, the dungeon consists of nearly a dozen pseudo-random floors that all follow the same theme. What I plan to do is have the dungeon randomly select a few static floors that will be interspersed between the pseudo-random caverns that account for most of the dungeon. These static floors will have fixed positions where treasures can randomly spawn, and in some cases, the system will select groups of NPCs and mini-quests to be present on these floors. The execution is going to be similar to the bonus content found in the "Dawn of Souls" version of Final Fantasy I.

Due to some existing concerns about space constraints, I decided to orphan one of the maps and event sets from an optional area that was planned to appear in the game. Personally, I felt the area was superfluous and didn't really add anything to the already numerous side-areas available. The quest is nonetheless going to be integrated (in a slimmed down form) into one of the Underdeep's static floors, so it's not actually cut from the game after all.


Quote
"Yeah, yeah. That's nice. When the fuck is this game going to be released?!"

We're actually not that far off from release state. What's left? Iambian and Geekboy1011 have the groundwork for battle animations implemented, and are working out details in regard to the actual animation sequences spells will use. After that, we have to finish rendering the rest of the cutscenes in the game, balance out character statistics versus those of enemies, slap a title screen onto the game, and presto! Everybody will be playing Escheron in all its glory.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: SpiroH on April 28, 2016, 05:31:52 pm
Quote from: Escheron on April 24, 2016, 10:25:41 am
...
Quote
"Yeah, yeah. That's nice. When the fuck is this game going to be released?!"
...
Hmm, I don't seen that quote anywhere, or is it implicit in @c4ooo comments? Anyways, still plenty of time until next September,  IIRC :P

Is coming along quite nicely, tho. Please do keep it up! :thumbsup:
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 29, 2016, 03:13:02 pm
@SpiroH There is no such quote, that's just Escheron having a bit of fun. ;)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 03, 2016, 07:34:02 pm
We're slowly progressing through the spell animations. The logic is there, but now we have to render suitable bitmaps for animation frames. Iambian and Geekboy1011 have done a great job of animating some spells so far, but there's still much left to do.

In other news, I went ahead and put together a PDF manual for the game, which I've taken the liberty of attaching to this message. It's pretty barebones, but I think it does an adequate job of explaining the game's mechanics and prefacing the basic plot details.

EDIT: Updated manual to fix errata and expand on a few things, namely status effects and character-specific skills.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: aeTIos on May 11, 2016, 03:23:42 am
So I'm not here for some time and I come back and this thing is almost completed. O.O Looks very final fantasy esque, looking forward to see this released. Mad props for actually coming back to finish this ;D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on May 15, 2016, 09:40:07 pm
Update
* Most magic animations are now complete.
* Additional content added to Underdeep. It's now its own story arc.
* User and script-adjustable typewriter effect.
* Other things.

Demonstration of typewriter effect and some of the magic.
We have more down but I don't want to spoil too much.
(http://i.imgur.com/uj4yJkz.gif)

Notes
Battle animations would've/should've been done sooner, but some of these things take a while to animate in a way that satisfies the whole team. There's still a few things left to animate, but it won't be long now before it's all done. After that and a few visual/bug fixes we get to do...

Cutscenes! Geekboy1011 is hard at work at the moment putting all the cutscenes together between the time you choose the "New Game" option to the time you gain control of your character for the first time. When I finish the battle animations and find myself satisfied with the system as a whole, I'm going to be jumping in somewhere in the middle to get the game's story stitched together. Zera/Escheron mentioned that the cutscenes he's been working on as of late are encroaching into Golden Sun-length territory. This could be a good thing.

There's also now no way in hell we'll be able to fit this game onto a normal TI-83 Plus without modifications. There's just too much content we want to add and compression we have isn't doing a good enough job. I mean, it's doing a fantastic job so far, but we just have so much to put in. I'm entertaining the idea of creating a miniature OS that contains just the basic calc functions so I can reasonably distribute this game as an OS update instead of an app. Something that would, on the surface, look just like the TI-OS until you try digging into the menus and realize they're all empty. While I do want people to play this game, I also want their calculator be usable as ... a calculator. This is planned after a release for the TI-83+SE / 84+(SE) monochrome calcs.

The Underdeep will have static floors interspersed between randomly generated floors which will also be randomly, but not repeatably, chosen where fun events can trigger and backstory can be told. Yes. The Underdeep now has its own story to it which further enriches the world of Escheron. I'm not privy to all the details for the same reason I'm not looking too deeply into the scripts for the game: I want to be able to enjoy playing this thing without too many spoilers once we finish coding the game.

TODO
* Remaining skill/magic animations
* Cutscenes
* Specialized transitions
* Update the Underdeep mapgen scripts
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 20, 2016, 11:10:33 am
So, is there any sincere interest in this project, guys? I keep pushing Iambian to post these updates so the community can be up to speed with our progress, but here we are with little to no community feedback. We practically had to beg for beta testers, and trying to solicit any bug reports was like kicking a dead horse. The whole ordeal only detracted from the game's development. I've since taken on the additional workload of handling all the testing myself.

It gets under my skin, really. Iambian (especially!) and Geekboy1011 have poured their hearts and souls into realizing this project, and very few people can be arsed to offer them any positive encouragement? A little lip service here and there isn't doing anyone any favors. We'd love to see some real feedback for a change.

In case it's not clear, we ain't churning out some BASIC + xLIB "Super Autism Quest!" shit - Escheron is a goddamn behemoth of an ASM app that was forged from the blood of dragons, and you better believe Iambian's busted his balls off to get this game where it is now.

Let me reiterate that this project has come a very long way. All the underlying groundwork is there, and now all we need to do is finish scripting cutscenes and balancing the game's difficulty level. I do apologize that the biggest delay has been finishing up the writing, but Escheron has a novel's length of character interactions. Unless I start dropping amphetamines, I can't type this shit up any faster than I already am. But rest assured that Iambian, Geekboy1011 and I are proactively working our asses off to get this game off the ground.

tl;dr - A little encouragement goes a long way toward boosting morale, especially when games of this magnitude demand such an extensive amount of time and energy that they practically consume your entire life. Also, let me impart a word of advice to other aspiring indie devs: Be prepared to sacrifice your soul in the name of whatever creative vision you may have, assuming you don't want to settle for anything less than a *good* game.


(Also, don't take my little tangents personally. I'm just tired from all this goddamn writing. And I really, really need some caffeine right now.)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on May 20, 2016, 12:29:22 pm
Quote from: Escheron on May 20, 2016, 11:10:33 am
So, is there any sincere interest in this project, guys? I keep pushing Iambian to post these updates so the community can be up to speed with our progress, but here we are with little to no community feedback. We practically had to beg for beta testers, and trying to solicit any bug reports was like kicking a dead horse. The whole ordeal only detracted from the game's development. I've since taken on the additional workload of handling all the testing myself.

It gets under my skin, really. Iambian (especially!) and Geekboy1011 have poured their hearts and souls into realizing this project, and very few people can be arsed to offer them any positive encouragement? A little lip service here and there isn't doing anyone any favors. We'd love to see some real feedback for a change.

In case it's not clear, we ain't churning out some BASIC + xLIB "Super Autism Quest!" shit - Escheron is a goddamn behemoth of an ASM app that was forged from the blood of dragons, and you better believe Iambian's busted his balls off to get this game where it is now.

Let me reiterate that this project has come a very long way. All the underlying groundwork is there, and now all we need to do is finish scripting cutscenes and balancing the game's difficulty level. I do apologize that the biggest delay has been finishing up the writing, but Escheron has a novel's length of character interactions. Unless I start dropping amphetamines, I can't type this shit up any faster than I already am. But rest assured that Iambian, Geekboy1011 and I are proactively working our asses off to get this game off the ground.

tl;dr - A little encouragement goes a long way toward boosting morale, especially when games of this magnitude demand such an extensive amount of time and energy that they practically consume your entire life. Also, let me impart a word of advice to other aspiring indie devs: Be prepared to sacrifice your soul in the name of whatever creative vision you may have, assuming you don't want to settle for anything less than a *good* game.


(Also, don't take my little tangents personally. I'm just tired from all this goddamn writing. And I really, really need some caffeine right now.)
I'm definitely interested in this project. It looks amazing so far and it will continue to be. I have been very busy. Not even my own projects are getting much attention because I'm too wrapped up in life right now. If I can find time, I'll definitely text some more
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: E37 on May 20, 2016, 03:34:47 pm
The only reason I don't post is that I get too much hype when I think about it. Seriously. I looked over all the files and lost several hours after that to excitement!
Since I only know basic asm code I can't really help...
I can draw really good blobs but that is about it.
Is there anything I can do to help out.
I can defiantly send some incuragement! (where to? this thread or somewhere else)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on May 20, 2016, 03:36:52 pm
Quote from: Escheron on May 20, 2016, 11:10:33 am
So, is there any sincere interest in this project, guys? I keep pushing Iambian to post these updates so the community can be up to speed with our progress, but here we are with little to no community feedback. We practically had to beg for beta testers, and trying to solicit any bug reports was like kicking a dead horse. The whole ordeal only detracted from the game's development. I've since taken on the additional workload of handling all the testing myself.

It gets under my skin, really. Iambian (especially!) and Geekboy1011 have poured their hearts and souls into realizing this project, and very few people can be arsed to offer them any positive encouragement? A little lip service here and there isn't doing anyone any favors. We'd love to see some real feedback for a change.

In case it's not clear, we ain't churning out some BASIC + xLIB "Super Autism Quest!" shit - Escheron is a goddamn behemoth of an ASM app that was forged from the blood of dragons, and you better believe Iambian's busted his balls off to get this game where it is now.

Let me reiterate that this project has come a very long way. All the underlying groundwork is there, and now all we need to do is finish scripting cutscenes and balancing the game's difficulty level. I do apologize that the biggest delay has been finishing up the writing, but Escheron has a novel's length of character interactions. Unless I start dropping amphetamines, I can't type this shit up any faster than I already am. But rest assured that Iambian, Geekboy1011 and I are proactively working our asses off to get this game off the ground.

tl;dr - A little encouragement goes a long way toward boosting morale, especially when games of this magnitude demand such an extensive amount of time and energy that they practically consume your entire life. Also, let me impart a word of advice to other aspiring indie devs: Be prepared to sacrifice your soul in the name of whatever creative vision you may have, assuming you don't want to settle for anything less than a *good* game.


(Also, don't take my little tangents personally. I'm just tired from all this goddamn writing. And I really, really need some caffeine right now.)
I've been in love with this project since it was Lost Legends, and I think you guys know how awesome you are for making this beast. It's amazing to see it have come this far. :D In regards to testers, people only have so much free time to volunteer. I know it sucks, but that's just how it is. I've mentioned it before to geekboy, but if you guys really need more testing done I am willing to help. Spoilers will suck, but if it's needed and will help with getting the game out, I'm here.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 21, 2016, 12:10:07 pm
I appreciate your replies. In so many words, I guess I'm just asking for more detailed feedback about the project so that I can better incorporate what you guys want to see. I've gone over a lot of details about the game engine, and we've put out numerous builds so you guys could explore the game and get a feel for the characters and the world design - but no one seemed particularly interested in commenting on any of that. (Although I should note that I have redone several maps along the way, so any older builds still attached to earlier posts in this thread are likely very dated and should no longer be used for reference)

I don't want to see a sudden influx of negative feedback upon release because nobody could be bothered to point out any concerns with the game's design back when we did alpha testing or open beta. Escheron is the first semi-major project I've undertaken. This is a kind of trial run for me before I move on to bigger things, so I want to learn from my experience / mistakes here.

...

Maybe I'm being a bit premature though. You guys really aren't getting the full picture until we actually incorporate all the dialogs and cutscenes, and you can naturally progress through the story as it was intended.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on May 21, 2016, 03:43:43 pm
Yea, it's hard to say at this point. I really do like how everything looks, feels, and plays in the current build though. I do think an in game map to show where you are in the world would be a big help, and I mentioned this to Iambian yesterday. I will also mention that I was a bit worried about how the battle system would play/feel. After playing though I have to say those worries seem to have been unfounded. I like it quite a bit. What will be the real test though will beto see how natural leveling up is as you play through the game, and if the difficulty curve needs to be adjusted any. It'll also depend on what skill set the characters actually have, and how soon they get them in game. We aren't really at that point yet though.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 24, 2016, 01:45:46 pm
Quick update on my end...

The game is now fully scripted. All of the character dialogs and cutscenes are written, but their actual incorporation into the project make take some time, since working with the cutscene engine is a nightmare in itself. (And luckily, that task falls upon Iambian and Geekboy1011 instead of me, since I'm not as technically oriented with the systems)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on May 24, 2016, 04:02:50 pm
Quote from: Escheron on May 24, 2016, 01:45:46 pm
Quick update on my end...

The game is now fully scripted. All of the character dialogs and cutscenes are written, but their actual incorporation into the project make take some time, since working with the cutscene engine is a nightmare in itself. (And luckily, that task falls upon Iambian and Geekboy1011 instead of me, since I'm not as technically oriented with the systems)
That's awesome! Another step, huh? And how recent is the new CSE build on le secret beta build distribution site?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on May 25, 2016, 03:45:43 pm
Quote from: 123outerme on May 24, 2016, 04:02:50 pm
Quote from: Escheron on May 24, 2016, 01:45:46 pm
Quick update on my end...

The game is now fully scripted. All of the character dialogs and cutscenes are written, but their actual incorporation into the project make take some time, since working with the cutscene engine is a nightmare in itself. (And luckily, that task falls upon Iambian and Geekboy1011 instead of me, since I'm not as technically oriented with the systems)
That's awesome! Another step, huh? And how recent is the new CSE build on le secret beta build distribution site?

Very  outdated due to page 0 being overfull...by about 319bytes! Whoops will try to get a fix later tonight!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on May 26, 2016, 12:16:31 am
Ya'll keep up the good work! I've been watching this for about a year now, and I can't wait till its finished. It really looks amazing! It really is inspiring to see such a well thought out quality game unfold. The graphics are the best I've ever seen in a calc game. There's a lot of time spent on plot and character development. I wish I had half the talent ya'll have, I'd be programming all the time. This will very likely be the most advanced calculator game that will ever be made.

I do have a question though. I remember ya'll saying it will be too big for the TI-83+, but would it work for the 83+ Silver Edition? I presume it will work fine on the TI-84+. I have all three, I was just wondering.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 26, 2016, 10:18:31 am
Quote from: coops on May 26, 2016, 12:16:31 am
Ya'll keep up the good work! I've been watching this for about a year now, and I can't wait till its finished. It really looks amazing! It really is inspiring to see such a well thought out quality game unfold. The graphics are the best I've ever seen in a calc game. There's a lot of time spent on plot and character development. I wish I had half the talent ya'll have, I'd be programming all the time. This will very likely be the most advanced calculator game that will ever be made.

Aw, shucks.

Quote
I do have a question though. I remember ya'll saying it will be too big for the TI-83+, but would it work for the 83+ Silver Edition? I presume it will work fine on the TI-84+. I have all three, I was just wondering.

Possibly. We'd like to maintain compatibility with the 83+, but it boils down to space constraints. Toward the end of the project, we'll definitely look into code optimization and see if we can't cram this sucker onto the 83+ after all. Alternatively, Iambian, may consider writing a custom OS loader to accomplish just that. It's also entirely possible that we could consider downsizing some of the game's assets. There are a lot of whats and ifs. It's hard to say anything until we get to that point.


On an unrelated note: Our biggest hurdle at the moment is working with cutscene magic. Cutscenes are rather painful to orchestrate, and there are a lot of them. It's not only a matter of scripting the character movements and interactions, but also rearranging dialogs across multiple text hives that are already packed to the brim. So yeah, this leg of the project may take quite some time. Just bear with us. It may begin to seem like we've dropped off the face of the earth with a lack of proactive updates, but most likely we're just completely engrossed in putting shit together.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on May 29, 2016, 06:23:11 pm
There will be no further updates or contact from me following this post, and I have intentionally chosen not to leave open any channels of contact. In so many words, I do not wish to be disturbed. As for why, I have my personal reasons that are beyond the scope of anything related to this community.

Iambian and Geekboy1011 are now solely in charge of Escheron. They've been given all of the assets they need to continue, assuming they wish to do so. Of course, this means they have a complete artistic license in my absence, so whatever changes they may see fit are of no concern to me. As for things that might presently require my collaboration (more specifically, cutscenes) - I guess Iambian and Geekboy will just have to wing it based on the notes they already have.

To reiterate: This is an absolute and indefinite excommunication from the project, which I am surrendering to the whims of Iambian and Geekboy.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on May 31, 2016, 03:12:55 am
I really hope this project isn't over, ya'll are so close to being done!
Title: Re: &quot;Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth&quot; — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Eeems on May 31, 2016, 11:17:23 am
Quote from: coops on May 31, 2016, 03:12:55 am
I really hope this project isn't over, ya'll are so close to being done!
From what I saw in the post it isn't. Just one member of the team is on hiatus.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on May 31, 2016, 04:17:46 pm
@Geekboy1011 and @Iambian : Here is the area I found while testing. This screenshot is from the Dreadnought area. It appears that Maya should be able to walk through here, (It' wide enough) but she isn't aligned properly with the map in order to be able to do so. Not sure if it's an error with the map data, or if it's not intended to be walkable. If not, I'd probably block it of with some tiles.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on May 31, 2016, 04:41:15 pm
Quote from: Art_of_camelot on May 31, 2016, 04:17:46 pm
[...] This screenshot is from the Dreadnought area. It appears that Maya should be able to walk through here, (It' wide enough) but she isn't aligned properly with the map in order to be able to do so. Not sure if it's an error with the map data, or if it's not intended to be walkable. If not, I'd probably block it of with some tiles.

Those are actually two adjacent wall tiles that, unfortunately, form to create an illusion of a path that might appear passable but isn't due to map alignment. Not quite sure how to fix that.

* If we made them passable, you'd essentially be able to walk through certain walls (and thus bypass things and break events).
* "Adding a tile" wouldn't work because this pathway is formed from the combination of two non-passable tiles. To fix this visual bug, we'd need to create two new tiles specific to this problem and I honestly don't remember if we can add more tile types to this map, or anywhere else due to possible engine limitations. It might be something to explore.
* Alternatively, we could redesign the map. Maybe. idk how that would work, since no one currently on the project knows diddly squat about map design. Not to mention that calcgs is awful. idk why we still use it.

Thanks for the feedback, tho
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on May 31, 2016, 04:44:35 pm
Surely there is some non-walkable tile (that doesn't look walkable) that could be plopped in there? Or are maps limited where only certain tiles are loaded per area? If not, maybe a small redesign of that area could be done?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on June 01, 2016, 04:22:44 pm
Quote from: Art_of_camelot on May 31, 2016, 04:44:35 pm
Surely there is some non-walkable tile (that doesn't look walkable) that could be plopped in there? Or are maps limited where only certain tiles are loaded per area? If not, maybe a small redesign of that area could be done?

We decided I would just script a barrel onto the walk way. Due to the nature of sprites will be an easy fix. Thanks!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 01, 2016, 10:02:07 pm
Glad to hear it. :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Escheron on June 03, 2016, 09:23:59 am
I attached an edit to the Dreadnought that may be more satisfactory. I was surprised to read that Iambian and Geekboy didn't seem to have knowledge of how to make map edits with CalcGS. (or perhaps I misunderstood)

For future reference:

* File > Open > select the Escheron tileset ("tileset.gsm", in the \calcgs_maps directory)
* Set the tileset resolution to 16x16 from the Tiles > 16x16 drop-down menu
* Map Editor > Open from the drop-down menu to open the map editor

The rest is straightforward.

Remember that the player's POV extends 3 tiles (or two-and-a-half) from the left and right, and 2 (or one-and-a-half) from above and below. All the maps are designed with these boundaries in mind, so out-of-bounds sections usually contain no tiles, or generic background pieces like dirt or cloud tiles. "Missing" tree halves or buildings that appear "broken" are intentional - I blanked out-of-bounds areas for my own reference.

----

Regarding my absence: I don't like to broadcast my personal life online, but I struggle with depression among other serious shit. It's very hard to focus on long-term goals and projects, and I feel terrible about leaving Iambian and Geekboy in the dust. I really hope they understand.

I rushed to cobble together the remainder of the game's scripts and assets so these guys would be able to finish the project on their own, and that took more willpower than I frankly had.

This post isn't intended to be any indication that I'm returning to the project, but maybe I'll check in on Omnimaga on occasion to see if Iambian or Geekboy need some quick fix from me.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on June 03, 2016, 09:38:42 am
It was more of not wanting to adjust your maps. That aside do check in. Your help is always appreciated.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 06, 2016, 02:31:14 pm
Sorry to hear about your issues Escheron. I hope things Improve for you. :(
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on June 13, 2016, 10:42:44 pm
Update:
* Physical attack animations added
* Slight UI adjustments (text line height is now 8px)
* Started work on a PC-side cutscene editor

The following demonstrates dual-wield claw, single staff, and dual-wield sword attack animations.
The Quality Assurance Dragon, as seems to be the trend these days, ends the fight with a bang.
(http://i.imgur.com/tl32ekp.gif)

The GUI for the app we have so far. The bright colors are layout placeholders made during testing.
The map is of the Celestial Spire, generated from the actual CalcGS tilemap/tileset files.
(http://i.imgur.com/sNDRF8i.png)

Notes:
Work on the app has been a bit slower than I'd have liked it to be. I wasn't originally going to do standard attack animations but you can see how that turned out. Second-wind and certain skill animations still need to be put in, but I think we can safely ignore those for now.

For cutscenes, we decided it would be better to code a graphical PC-side editor and build cutscenes using that. We're using the Python GUI library Tkinter and the imaging library Pillow to drive the graphical UI side of the editor, with everything else being written in Python.

So far, things are looking good for the app. Geekboy1011 comments that this app is already better than CalcGS based solely on its ability to allow decent window resizing despite the fact that the app literally does nothing else besides allow resizing and quitting. I truly wonder about that but maybe it's just frustrations of the team bubbling up to the surface? Anyway. I'm almost surprised at how fast this is coming together despite myself spending just a couple of days using Tkinter. Fun stuff.

Python++

TODO:
* Second wind and skill animations
* Cutscene editor
* Cutscenes
* Stuff
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 14, 2016, 01:58:56 pm
Wow, ++ for the quick progress on the cutscene editor. :D I feel sorry for that poor Quality Assurance Dragon. He's really become a punching bag. XD
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on June 16, 2016, 01:29:47 pm
Looks good! The attacks look fluid. Reminds me of pokemon's cut and slash!

For all his pain and suffering you should keep Quality Assurance as an easter egg in the final! :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on July 20, 2016, 09:45:29 pm
Update:
* Minor tweaks, bug fixes, and other updates
* ECE (Escheron Cutscene Editor) can now allow navigation and creation of main scripts

The GUI for ECE so far. Many of the elements you see
are fully functional. Still can't load or save, tho.
(http://i.imgur.com/BFHgkI9.png)

Notes:
Aside from easily implemented fixes and updates, work on Escheron itself has stopped in favor of getting the editor up and running. Most of the stuff that's been updated in the app was done Zera (artist/author) which includes adding new tiles to the maps, use for those new bookcase tiles (game lore), and the addition of consumable spell(s)-in-a-jar. The actual programming remains my fault so feel free to blame me for everything.

The cutscene editor (which we've named ECE) has been what we've really been working on for the past month or so. It turns out that making editor software is a hell of a lot more involved than previously thought but progress with it is steady enough. The framework necessary for adding elements to a script and executing it is in place along with most of the interface needed to edit those scripts.

TODO:

* Escheron:
-- Everything.

* ECE:
-- Finish sprite select/edit panel
-- Add viewport window to simulate what the player would see
-- Add text object handling/editing
-- Add scriptable map change and transitions
-- Add a way to edit more than one script?
-- Save/Load projects
-- Export a project to something Escheron can actually use
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on July 20, 2016, 10:22:16 pm
Looks awesome! I was wondering if ya'll were taking a summer break, but it looks like you've been pretty busy! It kindof reminds me of Unity, especially once when ya'll set up a viewport window to see what the player sees.  This looks like an engine you could create Escheron sequels or other tilemap games with.

It fascinates me seeing what all goes into planning and programming a game.  How do ya'll know what to include when programming a cutscene or map editor? Is there an online tutorial that you've been using as a guideline and then make it  calculator/Escheron specific?
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on July 21, 2016, 01:38:55 pm
The cutscene editor looks awesome! :o It'll be great once you get it done. ;D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on July 21, 2016, 09:39:45 pm
Quote from: coops on July 20, 2016, 10:22:16 pm
Looks awesome! I was wondering if ya'll were taking a summer break, but it looks like you've been pretty busy! It kindof reminds me of Unity, especially once when ya'll set up a viewport window to see what the player sees.  This looks like an engine you could create Escheron sequels or other tilemap games with.

It fascinates me seeing what all goes into planning and programming a game.  How do ya'll know what to include when programming a cutscene or map editor? Is there an online tutorial that you've been using as a guideline and then make it  calculator/Escheron specific?

This is indeed something I could use to help build other games with, tho in all honesty, I'm probably going to just teach the other people in the dev team how to use this so they can make all the cutscenes that won't require special ASM magic to accomplish.

Aside from technical stuff answered by references or Stack Overflow, no tutorials were used in the creation of this project. Beyond PIL and Tkinter, all the project's logic was put together from scratch. The main things that are chosen to go into the editor are based on the following:

1. What can Escheron already do with its cutscene script engine?
2. What sort of interface looks like it would work?
3. How to manage everything in a clear, concise and coherent manner?

For (1) we have documentation that details exactly what is available for use. For (2), I thought a little bit about how CalcGS arranged things and I remembered some extremely fuzzy details about my experience with Macromedia Flash back some 15 years ago. Then I sketched some ideas on a sheet of paper, shared it with the dev team, and got some feedback. And we're still working on (3) based on the problems encountered in actually implementing scripts in Escheron and the overall reason why we needed the editor in the first place. That reason being that it's extremely difficult to have multiple sprite objects and the main cutscene run their own scripts independently from and concurrently with each other and still maintain some sort of cohesion.
I was going to say something else but I forgot what it was. I spent far too long trying to figure out what I'm posting about and now I'm going to give up. There's a reason why Geekboy gives me cherries everyday. It's because my DETERMINATION is all out.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on July 21, 2016, 09:46:07 pm
Quote from: Iambian on July 21, 2016, 09:39:45 pm
Quote from: coops on July 20, 2016, 10:22:16 pm
Looks awesome! I was wondering if ya'll were taking a summer break, but it looks like you've been pretty busy! It kindof reminds me of Unity, especially once when ya'll set up a viewport window to see what the player sees.  This looks like an engine you could create Escheron sequels or other tilemap games with.

It fascinates me seeing what all goes into planning and programming a game.  How do ya'll know what to include when programming a cutscene or map editor? Is there an online tutorial that you've been using as a guideline and then make it  calculator/Escheron specific?

This is indeed something I could use to help build other games with, tho in all honesty, I'm probably going to just teach the other people in the dev team how to use this so they can make all the cutscenes that won't require special ASM magic to accomplish.

Aside from technical stuff answered by references or Stack Overflow, no tutorials were used in the creation of this project. Beyond PIL and Tkinter, all the project's logic was put together from scratch. The main things that are chosen to go into the editor are based on the following:

1. What can Escheron already do with its cutscene script engine?
2. What sort of interface looks like it would work?
3. How to manage everything in a clear, concise and coherent manner?

For (1) we have documentation that details exactly what is available for use. For (2), I thought a little bit about how CalcGS arranged things and I remembered some extremely fuzzy details about my experience with Macromedia Flash back some 15 years ago. Then I sketched some ideas on a sheet of paper, shared it with the dev team, and got some feedback. And we're still working on (3) based on the problems encountered in actually implementing scripts in Escheron and the overall reason why we needed the editor in the first place. That reason being that it's extremely difficult to have multiple sprite objects and the main cutscene run their own scripts independently from and concurrently with each other and still maintain some sort of cohesion.
I was going to say something else but I forgot what it was. I spent far too long trying to figure out what I'm posting about and now I'm going to give up. There's a reason why Geekboy gives me cherries everyday. It's because my DETERMINATION is all out.

So pretty much we have no clue what goes into it. There are no guides. We know how to program, (Well stack overflow does), and we know what we want. Then we literally talk it out and plan it out.  We sit down and figure out what we think we need to make something function. We talk and sketch until we have a base idea then Iambian makes code to make it happen. He reports back to the team. We start it all over again because we always miss something the first 200 times. so its Just iteratively turning things  out until a product is reached. I think our saving grace is we take time to plan ahead to get things to work well enough the first time.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: SpiroH on September 09, 2016, 04:59:35 pm
Escheron Cutscene Editor GUI does look great but just out of curiosity how old is the windows version?:P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on September 14, 2016, 05:18:06 pm
Quote from: SpiroH on September 09, 2016, 04:59:35 pm
Escheron Cutscene Editor GUI does look great but just out of curiosity how old is the windows version?:P
However old Win7 is. I use the old theme for memory reasons.

--------------------
Update:
* ECE: Total rewrite. Functionally similar besides missing keyboard/mouse bindings. Added font editor, project save/load.
* Escheron: Changed font to the one specified at project start.

ECE2 interface, with the font editor open.
There's also a viewport and some other minor stuff.
(http://i.imgur.com/4gXkpe4.png)

A showcase of most of the change in the font and the renderer.
This includes "content" that definitely won't be in the final release.
(http://i.imgur.com/AtBGlsk.png)

Notes:
Making a PC-side editor is a helluvalot more involved than I thought it would be. I had to rewrite most of it from scratch since the code kept getting more and more cruft until it became an unmanageable and unfixable mess. The new code feels much cleaner and far easier to work with, especially now that I know what I'm doing. At least, much more than I did before.

Things that were added include the viewport, script labels in the timeline, NPC dialog editor, and collapsible frames. The viewport can also pop-out to its own window.

Things that haven't been put back include a script editing widget, and mouse/keyboard bindings for the timeline and tilemap canvas.

The actual Escheron app had its font finally changed over to the way it was supposed to look from the very beginning. Thanks Zera :D . That was fast work with the newly-crafted (and at that point, awfully buggy) font editor. The returned source made its way back to the app and I modded the font routine a bit to support 1px vertical descenders.

TODO:
* Escheron:
-- Everything. (still)

* ECE(2):
-- Add scriptable transitions to the viewport
-- Add back widgets that were removed during rewrite
-- Fix playback oddities
-- Export a project to something Escheron can actually use

Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on September 14, 2016, 09:37:32 pm
Wow! that looks pretty awesome! I hate digging myself into a hole when coding...It seems like once you code something, you know what you're looking for and you can rewrite a more robust code the second time around. So...I guess that's a plus...
Keep up the good work!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on November 30, 2016, 10:11:25 pm
I knew I had to make this sort of post eventually.
*sigh*. I know someone's going to give me grief for this.

Update:
* Complete rewrite of the Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth project
-- Text hive objects apart from static elements now build inline with tilemaps to help fill some page gaps
-- Menu and cutscene systems fully redone and consolidated. It's almost like a VM now
-- Map/sprite systems consolidated
-- Hotspots mostly rewritten and optimized
-- Sprite interactions optimized and dead/useless code removed
-- Some simplistic cutscenes have been added back in
-- Battle input menus and enemy scripts added back in
* Changes to the toolchain
-- Aforementioned text hive objects now build from an editor project file. Editor is also included
-- Consolidated all build scripts so asset building takes ~80% less time on Windows (we have nothing for Linux yet (again))
-- Project data optimized to nearly double main build speed. Who knew ".org" was an expensive operation?
-- Added far more points in the source to identify how much space each module takes up

No screenshots. Sorry. Much work remains to be done before
I can announce my total failure to make any progress.

Notes:
Two months and four days. From the initial commit to the new repository to the date of this post, that's how long it's been and that's how long I've been working on the rewrite for Escheron. As for the reason for the rewrite? Long story short, there were too many memory issues and too many things that were either unmovable or I couldn't tell which page any of the data was on.

This all started out when I wanted to integrate ECE2-generated text hive objects and then it all snowballed when I also wanted to change out the text system to something that was Turing-complete (with a minimal register/instruction set).  I didn't realize at the time that more than half of the whole game depended on the text system in some form or fashion and at that point I decided I might as well rewrite it all.

I'm still going to salvage as much of the code as I reasonably can because there's just some things I won't rewrite no matter what. Battle magic script system/data, I'm looking at you! Those animations, while fun to make, were also absolute hell to get right.

If you want to track the progress of this rebuild, I do my best to make daily commits to this repository (https://bitbucket.org/iambian/escheron-maegis), even if it's "omg everything broke sadfaic".

TODO:
* Escheron:
-- Put vehicular travel back in
-- Re-finish battle system
-- Put back all the maps
-- Put previously coded scripts back in...
-- ...including the Underdeep mapgen script
-- Put back that thing I refuse to mention because superstitions. Or not. It's not important
-- Manually code in the first few cutscenes and get people to test the game up to that point
-- Somehow get all the other cutscenes and events coded in
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Eeems on December 02, 2016, 12:27:58 pm
I sure hope you are heavily documenting your toolchain so that others can benefit from it in the future. It sounds like you've got lots and lots of cool tools/macros.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on December 02, 2016, 06:10:32 pm
Quote
I know someone's going to give me grief for this.

Long time no see! I was getting worried for a while! :P I come here all the time to check up on this project, and the Ruben project.

Quote
-- Manually code in the first few cutscenes and get people to test the game up to that point

That perked my ears up! lol

But seriously, I know the feeling of having to trash all your hard work and start from ground zero. I've been learning/working with solidworks for the last couple of months at work, and many times I'll dig myself into a hole, get the object designed, and just start over and remodel it to see if I can get it more efficient. Hindsight's always 20-20, and sometimes you just gotta redo it all over.

Quote
If you want to track the progress of this rebuild, I do my best to make daily commits to this repository, even if it's "omg everything broke sadfaic".

Awesome! I'll be checking it out periodically, even though I dont understand the computer jargon :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Ranman on December 02, 2016, 07:47:35 pm
Lookin' pretty dadgum good!!  8)
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on August 18, 2017, 06:56:34 pm
It's been pretty long since the last update, but I just wanted to post my support; I looked through the source a little bit and it looks like progress is going good! I understand how much of a pain it is to rewrite a game engine, and then I understand I have to multiply that pain by 20 since you're dealing with ASM. If you have any progress to show, I'd love to see!
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 18, 2017, 08:05:22 pm
Quote from: 123outerme on August 18, 2017, 06:56:34 pm
It's been pretty long since the last update, but I just wanted to post my support; I looked through the source a little bit and it looks like progress is going good! I understand how much of a pain it is to rewrite a game engine, and then I understand I have to multiply that pain by 20 since you're dealing with ASM. If you have any progress to show, I'd love to see!
^This. :D
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on August 18, 2017, 09:37:08 pm
I would be lieing if i said we have gotten distracted by other projects over the last few months. And motivation to return to this, At least onmy end is rather low. That being said. We left off re-implementing the battle system.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: 123outerme on August 18, 2017, 09:42:06 pm
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on August 18, 2017, 09:37:08 pm
I would be lieing if i said we have gotten distracted by other projects over the last few months. And motivation to return to this, At least onmy end is rather low. That being said. We left off re-implementing the battle system.

That's ok, it happens to the best of us (everyone knows I got majorly sidetracked porting Sorcery Monochrome). If as a tester, you need my help, I'd be absolutely ready to test.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on August 22, 2017, 02:53:48 pm
I hope this pulls through. It really looks like an awesome game, it would definitely be the best out there once it's released (Ruben would be a close 2nd ;) ). I pretty much only come here to see if there's any progress on this and to see if there's any more of Spencer's Zelda builds :P
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: E37 on August 25, 2017, 07:16:49 pm
I would be happy to help in any way I can!
I have plenty of time (and multiple calcs) to test with and I am fluent enough with assembler to help with little routines if you need any.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Iambian on August 25, 2017, 07:47:14 pm
I kinda sorta maybe fell in love with C and developing on the CE so I'm thinking about just dropping the b/w version and working on a color edition. It's just much easier trying to code something that way. If anyone else wants to pick up the rebuild from where I left off (https://bitbucket.org/iambian/escheron-maegis), I'll be happy to provide support, but until I find my love for z80 and overly-overengineered script systems again, I'm not sure I'll pick this up again.

It would be nice programming on a device where I don't have to worry so much about memory or paging. Or making up languages to keep size down.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: Geekboy1011 on August 25, 2017, 07:54:01 pm
Quote from: Iambian on August 25, 2017, 07:47:14 pm
I kinda sorta maybe fell in love with C and developing on the CE so I'm thinking about just dropping the b/w version and working on a color edition. It's just much easier trying to code something that way. If anyone else wants to pick up the rebuild from where I left off (https://bitbucket.org/iambian/escheron-maegis), I'll be happy to provide support, but until I find my love for z80 and overly-overengineered script systems again, I'm not sure I'll pick this up again.

It would be nice programming on a device where I don't have to worry so much about memory or paging. Or making up languages to keep size down.

And I may or may not be strongly suggesting/backing this. The development cycle is much nicer and one EZ80-LLVM is done and we can use c++ the whole thing will fall into place much much faster with much less headaches. Easier to add in cut scenes and such. Really just more likely to be finished >.>

Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 25, 2017, 09:56:39 pm
It's a bit of a shame about the b&w version, but it is what it is I guess. I'll be happy to see it completed regardless of what form it may take.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: SpiroH on August 27, 2017, 10:33:46 am
Quote from: Geekboy1011 on August 25, 2017, 07:54:01 pm
Quote from: Iambian on August 25, 2017, 07:47:14 pm
I kinda sorta maybe fell in love with C and developing on the CE so I'm thinking about just dropping the b/w version and working on a color edition. It's just much easier trying to code something that way. If anyone else wants to pick up the rebuild from where I left off (https://bitbucket.org/iambian/escheron-maegis), I'll be happy to provide support, but until I find my love for z80 and overly-overengineered script systems again, I'm not sure I'll pick this up again.

It would be nice programming on a device where I don't have to worry so much about memory or paging. Or making up languages to keep size down.

And I may or may not be strongly suggesting/backing this. The development cycle is much nicer and one EZ80-LLVM is done and we can use c++ the whole thing will fall into place much much faster with much less headaches. Easier to add in cut scenes and such. Really just more likely to be finished >.>
Hi Guys,

This is none of my business, nevertheless nice guys always deserve a polite comment. I did some assembly (ASM) coding for quite a number of years, but that was a longtime ago. Nowadays, i eventually use it only for very tiny bits of the program, because it remains the only savvy way to optimize speed.

IMO, C language is, by today's standards, the lowest you can get in terms of a high level language abstraction. However, it's a fact that is far more productive than ASM. Humans beings, thanks God, use a higher level of abstraction than the stupid and poor RISC machines (simple robots). Also, compilers can do a beautiful job at optimizing the generated code, unlike some years ago. And last but not least, now you have plenty of memory. Envision that as a very large field to plant trees. You'll never be able fill it up.

So yeah, i agree with you both, wise decision! Time now to reverse compile from ASM to C :P.
Title: Re: "Escheron: Twilight over Ragnoth" — progress updates and discussion
Post by: coops on August 29, 2017, 11:36:51 am
Quote
I kinda sorta maybe fell in love with C and developing on the CE so I'm thinking about just dropping the b/w version and working on a color edition. It's just much easier trying to code something that way. If anyone else wants to pick up the rebuild from where I left off, I'll be happy to provide support, but until I find my love for z80 and overly-overengineered script systems again, I'm not sure I'll pick this up again.

It would be nice programming on a device where I don't have to worry so much about memory or paging. Or making up languages to keep size down.

Aww...sad :( I was looking forward to an awesome TI 84 game! I don't think there's much if any game development for the 83+/84+ now.

But you gotta do what you gotta do. From the little bit I looked over in ASM I totally understand how it's just too much work to get such little out of it.