Yet again, only small cosmetic changes.

Download this week's alpha of Geas!

New sprite added for Thea Wayman, Kiel's mother. Also, various under-the-hood changes.

I did some code reorganization this week. Nothing major, but some things flow a bit better.

Also on the coding front, I've added StringTable support to Geas. What this means is that (for now, only in the speechboxes, but I plan to expand this out to all gui display functions) I can define a language file that dictates a bunch of string replacements. Whenever I go to display a block of text, it first checks its language redefines and swaps in the other language's version instead. At some point I will hack Verge up so that it supports larger character sets, and then my dream of being able to translate Geas to other languages will be doable.

Using the StringTable there's two ways to going about producing a translatable game. First, you can just write the game in your language of choice, then pull all the strings (using some magic that I haven't yet created or decided on) and just directly translate from that. Secondly, instead you can write all your text to begin with as just IDs of some sort. "kiel_c0001_ln001" or something. Then, have a language file for every language, including your first one.

I haven't decided which of these approaches I will actually use when I get down to the nitty-gritty of having real conversations and not just placeholder text everywhere. I need to decide it pretty soon though, as I'm getting sick of having a completely pointless and storyless game. That said, I'm also thinking that I probably want to write a conversation system (like the one in Neverwinter Nights, for example) so that I can handle all of this a little more sanely rather than just writing all of the game's dialogue across hundreds of lua files.

Anyway, aside from Geas, I also started work on my LuaVerge tutorial. Sadly, in writing the first section I have discovered that I'm not sure exactly the direction that I want to take, and that may end up getting delayed. In essence, I am struggling with writing a tutorial for using LuaVerge "right now" -- in other words, in a state of mild disrepair and lack of good tools. I'm not sure I want to do that!

What I am considering instead is to write the tutorial in tandem with generalizing stuff I've built for Geas into a game-makery system, KISSKISS (mentioned in the LuaVerge doc index) that makes a lot of decisions for the user and does a lot of the hard work. Unfortunately this means that I have to do all that hard work and as anyone who has been reading this site knows I'm kind of bad at getting complex projects finished. Ultimately, though, I think KISSKISS + a tutorial on it use will be more helpful to the absolute beginner than a "here's how to use Verge ONLY LUA" that has been sort of done before anyway, and it will help differentiate Verge as a useful tool as opposed to another library that handles some of the graphics stuff maybe.

So yeah, I'll keep thinking on it.

Hi guys. I'm short on time this evening but I did do stuff. I will be posting tomorrow night.

A few small graphical updates this week. Nothing new enough to warrant screen shots.

Tanessa's overworld sprite is finished. I messed with the animations a bit (on both their sprites) and I think they look better now. That's all that's really new in the zip. Also in the last few days I have been writing a bit to myself about combat system stuff, and worrying out some details for upcoming stuff. I also have started work on another NPC sprite to make Shoda's Brook a little less empty.

Unfortunately, my next week is going to be super busy so I probably won't really get a lot of time to work on fun stuff until Friday or Saturday. This is why I am posting now, a few days early, rather than waiting until Wednesday or whenever. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to get some work done that I can actually show off.

Not a whole lot done this weekmonth, but here it is.

Download this week's alpha release of Geas!

I've finished Kiel's sprite, and done half of Tanessa's. I am in the process of planning/mapping out the first dungeon area, which will probably also entail adding a battle system of sorts (which of course brings up stats, items, etc. etc. etc.) so assuming I actually get some time and energy to put towards Geas something should be happening in the next while.

That's all I really have to say this week. Here's a closer look at the overworld style sprites if you're interested.

Excitement.

Download this week's alpha release of Geas!

This update adds new portraits for Kiel (which I don't really like better but they are more consistent with Tanessa's portrait), every house in Shoda's Brook has an 'inside', and you can now leave town. Unfortunately, the overworld is still heavily in progress so you can't get BACK in town.

I've been sitting on some of this stuff since Christmas (for some reason) and some of it is more recent. Lame, I know. Anyway, I like how the overworld graphics are shaping up, though the mountains are somewhat busy. I love the little short sprites and I want to get to animating making more directions for Kiel and a new sprite for Tanessa.

In addition, the download this week features an absolutely up-to-date copy of the verge engine so it is possible that it might be a little broken for some people. Please let me know if you have any problems! Also, if you are into this sort of thing, you can look at the directory structure and see that it is SO MUCH CLEANER now that maps can be stored in subdirectories of the root.

Lastly, as I mentioned last post, I am looking into writing some documentations. I hacked together a quick system to help me write them and make them accessible, and I've put up an index of topics I intend to write on, in some sort of semblance of order that halfway makes sense to me. You can check that out at...

I'd like to hear some comments, if anyone has them, on the topics and the ordering. Please let me know if there's something I've left out or you think should come earlier or later. I'm very much wanting to produce a tutorial that focuses on getting a game made, rather than focusing just on the scripting. Hopefully it works out.