January Update/Blog Post
The main project this month was writing the game’s first dungeon. Currently there are 79 locations, 37 dialogs, and 3 fights. Possibly one fight is a giant rat of sorts. This actually isn’t big enough.
I’m working on the maps now, and the maps are too sparse. They are not nearly impressive enough. So I thought I was being clever writing the dungeon without constraints of map or art, and now I’m adding locations to the map. And more locations. That means more coding. I’d like this to be the largest module so far, and right now it’s not.
I revisited the Tunnels and Trolls app this week. They’ve revamped it since launch, and it’s much better now without throwing you into Naked Doom to get going, iirc. (Or maybe that’s just the one I originally chose. I don’t remember.)
Reflections on the gameplay so far:
The combat is still a boring experience of dice rolling. I continue to be very motivated to do it differently – an experience of puzzle solving and decision-making with educated guesses combined with some luck and the familiar HP attrition.
I was disappointed by the result of only 2 attribute points as a reward for gaining level 2. At that rate, I’m going nowhere in terms of surviving higher level dungeons and encounters.
I was reminded, however, of how a level represents a major goal of achievement in a small-scale RPG like this. I’ve played so many MMORPG’s in recent years that another level is like another raindrop falling.
Recently I added a “bonus XP” feature to Elven Academy adventures. I am currently planning to try giving these to the player to allocate at the end of an adventure, instead of the way they are now randomly awarded during the adventure. This is consistent with my use-skill-to-improve design as opposed to the level design used by T&T and D&D, etc.
Another issue in T&T is that the app is warrior-only, and a few races are much better warriors. This is the same problem in WoW classic. Forced to play a specific race (to wit, not an elf) or be significantly gimped.
Unfortunately, since I’ve purchased a fair number of T&T adventures and products in softcover and PDF formats, I’m just not going to invest any money into the T&T app, thereby buying the product twice.
So here are this month’s patch notes for Elven Academy.
January 2020: Updates/Fixes
A3: More bug fixes, added Seelie Court rep. Archmistress Glumskayah now has wings? Not sure about the wing thing. I wanted to make her more devilish and less human, basically. I have a big problem with all of my non-human NPC’s managing to look lamely human. More dialog and options. Fixed removal of Learaiche’s wand.
A4: A few minor bug fixes, dialog cuts and improvements, added a skip option for theatre talking.
A5: Several bug fixes, broken conversation lines. Preloads.
A6: more bugs fixed, extended ending, new longest, most complicated module by far. Preloads.
D1: First dungeon is in development.
Tarot Training– added preloads for tarot cards
French Club – fixed more bugs, broken dialogue, Spanish language
Connor library – edited, translated.
Help – another edit through the dialogs to update for diplomacy changes
Library – fixed map, reduced high rate of special encounters prior in place for testing
General
Playtested server version of the game to find bugs related to delivering content by server, and files not uploaded properly with lower case file names. Fixed many loading issues with preloads.
Fixed broken save code regex-checking after recent diplomacy/affection changes
Improved text field backgrounds.
Improved timeskip splash panel with new graphics and function.