Weekly Report (May 20th)

Hey.

So, ah. I went on a tangent, again. While I have implemented the pre-fight dialogue last week, all the rest of the changes were completely unplanned, and some even straight-up broke the game in places. I haven't tested this build at all, so I can't even tell if the changes have been detrimental. For example, I updated the autosave functionality to be automated. Previously, I manually checked booleans as to where the autosave needed to take place. Now, I hope, the game will do it by itself, depending on the loaded location. Another point is that I started reworking how strings work in the combat mode. I decided to delete all the existing strings without writing the new ones. So, in this weekly build, you will encounter an in-development placeholder instead of the actual strings that describe what combat actions do.

Due to the lack of testing and cut content, I designated this build a 0.5.0.5 build rather than 0.5.1.

Anyway, this build contains the following changes:

- Prepared sprites (background + body + portrait sprites) for the pre-fight dialogue - background is alright; the body and portrait are good on their own, but the character looks different from what he looked like in the previous encounter. I simply couldn't make him resemble himself more;

- Wrote and implemented the pre-fight dialogue - self-explanatory. Once you re-visit the alleyway in the market location, a dialogue will play out, ending with nothing for now;

- Re-catalogued items and item components - previously I had everything in separate folders: items, sprites, and strings. I decided that it would be easier to work with items if all the components were in one place, in a separate folder per item/group of similar items;

- Implemented remembering the current/previous scene - I already remembered the current scene before, but now I started tracking the previous scene as well. It's pointless for now, but it will be needed in case I continue to develop the game past the demo stage. This will be needed for setting up camp - basically, I plan to change the scene to the camp scene, and then, once camping is over, I would need to return the player to the previous scene. Also, this will be needed to forcibly move the player outside when a store/home closes for the night, and the protagonist is not welcome to stay indoors;

- Made scene controller changes - this is directly tied to the bullet point above, as well as the autosave rant. These changes may have broken the scene management logic, but I haven't checked yet;

- Fixed items - some of Zondok's merchandise had misplaced strings. Now, every item has its own, correct set of strings;

- Added support for multiple effects to combat actions - previously, combat actions only supported one effect per combat action. Now, the actions can feature multiple effects. For example, if I were to add a combat action that caused enemy staggering, previously, I could only apply the staggering effect. Now, I can apply the staggering effect as well as deal some damage, and whatever other effect I would need, granted I programmed the logic for it. This was only an example, staggering is not programmed yet;

- Started reworking the combat strings logic/tags - I have started overhauling the combat strings logic during combat. It used to be a very limiting system, since I worked on it a long time ago, like a year ago, when I just began to learn the ropes. I introduced various tags that would help write more diverse sentences for combat actions. When I finish overhauling the combat strings logic, it will be possible to use the action performer's name, the target's name, use pronoun branching, etc;

- Re-catalogued combat actions - the same as with items: I have placed combat action objects, action buttons, and strings into the same folder per combat action;

- Made various changes to code - some parts of code needed altering in order to accommodate the above changes.

The rest of May, as well as the bigger part of June, I will work exclusively on the combat system. There's a whole list of things I want to implement, like combat perks, more combat effects, combat escaping, better combat flow, revamped decision-making, etc. Now that I think about it, it may require the whole June, and if I'm unlucky, a chunk of July. Oh, well. You gotta do what you gotta do.

See you next week.