Reply to Re: All that Glitters v1.00 uploaded to the Dink Network
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@shevek:
Yes, I do indeed like the story. The beginning is too much of an info dump for me, with almost no user input, and that takes a bit too long. But once the game really starts it's fun! I particularly like the morality in the game.
Good, I'm glad that you enjoyed the bulk of the game. I acknowledge that I seem to be unable to get a story started without a fairly long intro though, and I appear to be rather helpless to try to avoid that. Sigh...
Exploring while needing to watch the time is fun too, although it would be nice to have an option to wait for dark in a place where you don't need firestones (without actually waiting).
I originally thought that forcing Dink to wait until dusk (or later) to camp would be more challenging and fun. But, based on your comment, I have changed the [C]amp capability to allow Dink to wait "all day" (without actually waiting) if he wants to do so "in a place where you don't need firestones".
And of course I have some bug reports:
Based on your comments, I made some changes to the Dink.ini file and (where needed) subsequent changes to the various aspects of the game affected by those changes.
Moving on to things I encountered while playing:
It was good most of the time, which means that it was fun to play the game. There were occasional bugs, but not so many that it was annoying me. So that's good.
Hooray!
What I did encounter:
When I talked to Errat, he said I could safely try to hit anyone except him. I tried this immediately on the woman on the same screen, and he responded as if I hit him.
Hmmm, yes, you are right. I meant to have him say that he would likely "respond as if Dink hit him" if Dink hits the nearby lady too. I'll add the missing explanatory text.
When I went to go get the purple crystal, I found the chest but then made it invisible again without getting the crystal. After that, it would no longer let me make it visible until I was sent out to the castle. (Sorry for the cryptic language, I'm trying not to spoil it for those who haven't played yet).
Thanks for keeping the spoilers out of your bug report as much as possible.
I admit I was a bit confused at first by your careful efforts to not spoil the game for those that have not played. :-} But I'm quite grateful that you did your best not to give any of the fun of the game away! Anyway, I think I made some logic improvements that should allow you to "make it visible" again without being "sent out to the castle".
The first time I entered the screen where the map is found, it was late and I was asked immediately if I wanted to spend the night there. I said I did, but in the morning I remained frozen and had to restart the game.
Sorry, I don't seem to be able to reproduce this one. Can you tell me anything else about this issue?
Every now and then a random sprite, usually one of the digits from the time, will move up and off screen. This seems to be the script that is used to move text up, grabbing the wrong sprite. Normally not a problem, but once it happened to my own sprite (#1) and I was unable to recover other than by restarting the game.
That has happened to me in test-play too. It seems to have something to do with the clock as those sprites (digits from the time) are the ones that usually go floating away. I never had it happen to sprite #1 though! That must have been irritating. At present, I'm at a loss to know for certain what to do about this, and I'm still investigating it. However, I made some changes that I think might fix it though.
The hardbox of the rats is horrible, which makes it very hard to hit them properly. Looking at the lines in the ini file above, you don't define a hardbox so it uses the default. Please define a proper box.
Ooops. I meant to get the proper SET_SPRITE_INFO lines into place before the release. Funny, I just put up with the faulty hard boxes during testing and figured that was part of the challenge.
The "large predator" seems to be a boss fight, so I expected the beast to stay dead after I killed it, but that was not the case. Not sure if this is intentional.
Good point. I have made the appropriate fix there.
When coming back from the highlands, it would be nice if it would automatically be morning, because you won't have firestones anymore, so you should have time to find them.
Okay, I have made change to accommodate that.
That's all for now. Conclusion: I like the D-Mod and am having fun playing it.
That's all for me too, *right* *now*. I'm delighted that you had fun playing "All that Glitters". Next, I'm going to test all of the changes I made before releasing another build of the dmod.
I've reached the end, but am now looking for the key as instructed.
Hmmm, it sounds like you missed some of the clues that should have made it much easier to find the key the first time. I could make a change that should make it easier to find (if you are using the right tool to look for it) even if you miss it the first time. But If you look around you should find it. Please let me know how that goes.
Yes, I do indeed like the story. The beginning is too much of an info dump for me, with almost no user input, and that takes a bit too long. But once the game really starts it's fun! I particularly like the morality in the game.
Good, I'm glad that you enjoyed the bulk of the game. I acknowledge that I seem to be unable to get a story started without a fairly long intro though, and I appear to be rather helpless to try to avoid that. Sigh...
Exploring while needing to watch the time is fun too, although it would be nice to have an option to wait for dark in a place where you don't need firestones (without actually waiting).
I originally thought that forcing Dink to wait until dusk (or later) to camp would be more challenging and fun. But, based on your comment, I have changed the [C]amp capability to allow Dink to wait "all day" (without actually waiting) if he wants to do so "in a place where you don't need firestones".
And of course I have some bug reports:
Based on your comments, I made some changes to the Dink.ini file and (where needed) subsequent changes to the various aspects of the game affected by those changes.
Moving on to things I encountered while playing:
It was good most of the time, which means that it was fun to play the game. There were occasional bugs, but not so many that it was annoying me. So that's good.
Hooray!
What I did encounter:
When I talked to Errat, he said I could safely try to hit anyone except him. I tried this immediately on the woman on the same screen, and he responded as if I hit him.
Hmmm, yes, you are right. I meant to have him say that he would likely "respond as if Dink hit him" if Dink hits the nearby lady too. I'll add the missing explanatory text.
When I went to go get the purple crystal, I found the chest but then made it invisible again without getting the crystal. After that, it would no longer let me make it visible until I was sent out to the castle. (Sorry for the cryptic language, I'm trying not to spoil it for those who haven't played yet).
Thanks for keeping the spoilers out of your bug report as much as possible.
I admit I was a bit confused at first by your careful efforts to not spoil the game for those that have not played. :-} But I'm quite grateful that you did your best not to give any of the fun of the game away! Anyway, I think I made some logic improvements that should allow you to "make it visible" again without being "sent out to the castle".The first time I entered the screen where the map is found, it was late and I was asked immediately if I wanted to spend the night there. I said I did, but in the morning I remained frozen and had to restart the game.
Sorry, I don't seem to be able to reproduce this one. Can you tell me anything else about this issue?
Every now and then a random sprite, usually one of the digits from the time, will move up and off screen. This seems to be the script that is used to move text up, grabbing the wrong sprite. Normally not a problem, but once it happened to my own sprite (#1) and I was unable to recover other than by restarting the game.
That has happened to me in test-play too. It seems to have something to do with the clock as those sprites (digits from the time) are the ones that usually go floating away. I never had it happen to sprite #1 though! That must have been irritating. At present, I'm at a loss to know for certain what to do about this, and I'm still investigating it. However, I made some changes that I think might fix it though.
The hardbox of the rats is horrible, which makes it very hard to hit them properly. Looking at the lines in the ini file above, you don't define a hardbox so it uses the default. Please define a proper box.
Ooops. I meant to get the proper SET_SPRITE_INFO lines into place before the release. Funny, I just put up with the faulty hard boxes during testing and figured that was part of the challenge.
The "large predator" seems to be a boss fight, so I expected the beast to stay dead after I killed it, but that was not the case. Not sure if this is intentional.
Good point. I have made the appropriate fix there.
When coming back from the highlands, it would be nice if it would automatically be morning, because you won't have firestones anymore, so you should have time to find them.
Okay, I have made change to accommodate that.
That's all for now. Conclusion: I like the D-Mod and am having fun playing it.
That's all for me too, *right* *now*. I'm delighted that you had fun playing "All that Glitters". Next, I'm going to test all of the changes I made before releasing another build of the dmod.
I've reached the end, but am now looking for the key as instructed.
Hmmm, it sounds like you missed some of the clues that should have made it much easier to find the key the first time. I could make a change that should make it easier to find (if you are using the right tool to look for it) even if you miss it the first time. But If you look around you should find it. Please let me know how that goes.
