Castle Paradox

[chronoboy]

This post contains some pre-release code from my Heart of OHR project, nothing is a spoiler, however.

Before moving this thread, consider this: A majority of this post is a creative story on RPG developments past and present including OHR, it has some very creative topics, and illustrates a very creative way of scripting. Can't say I didn't try...

What do most RPG engines have in common? A tag system! A tag a simple bit based variable, it can either be on, or it can be off. In many RPG engines and games, it is the driving force of the epic story lines. Did the player do this yet, has he purchased that item, talked to that NPC, etc...

The popularity of tags is due to their very small storage requirement. When computers and game consoles were young, using tags was a no brainer. However, with the very simplicity of tags, comes the simplicity or sometimes complexity of a story. In order to drive a very complex story using tags, you need a lot of them and need to branch them out a lot. Take a look at the console versions of RPG Maker for example, load up the sample game and look at their event systems. It's very confusing to follow the story and even find bugs with this much branching.

In the modern era of computer and console games, we have much more memory to use. Developers are now mixing both a tags system and full fledged variable system for the same purpose. Real variables have the advantage to store more than just two different states, it can store very large numbers. When you have a very complex story, it starts to become essential to use real variables rather than a tag system. Using both together definitely has advantages.

Which brings me to this, I personally use a 2D RPG engine called OHR.R.P.G.CE, to develop my RPG games and stories. This engine has a scripting system for driving story and cutscenes, this was it's main purpose when it was created. Now the scripting engine has completely evolved into something great. Although, when OHR developers use it's godly powers, it's not normally for an RPG game, but for a platformer, or another genre. Some of them get creative and code RPG mini-games using it. This is all and good, but it's a complete waste to what power it has to offer for an RPG game.

Let me elaborate, most OHR developers in their RPG games would use a script to add special effects, or add a fancy cutscene into the mix. It's very true that the scripting is great for those, but the same developers which are creating non-RPG games using scripts, are not really applying those same skills to an RPG game. I don't mean by adding a platformer mini-game into their RPG game, that's just stupid use of scripting for an RPG game. If a mini-game appears in an RPG game, the mini game should be Role-playing related, or at least match the theme of the RPG game. I admit seeing many mini-games in RPG games that look completely "tacked" on. There was absolutely no reason for the mini-game at all, but to frustrate the player.

Now on to the good stuff, this is how I utilize the scripting engine in OHR. I will say this many times over, I do believe that I am the only developer in the OHR community which uses these odd methods. I am explaining it here to provide some with ideas, and also the reasons behind my insane way of scripting. Believe me, you haven't seen RPG game scripting quiet like this yet.

Okay, my big rule number 1 when creating an RPG game, separate the game editor from the script and make as much of the scripting reusable as possible. I don't mean reusable in other RPG games, but reusable in the same game. Here is how I do this, read carefully. Inside custom, assign a new-game, load-game, and game-over scripts. Assign a generic map autorun script, which dispatches to other scripts. Assign a after-battle script. When designing the maps, only design the tile and wallmaps. Leave everything else a blank slate. Create the NPCs, but don't place them on the map in static locations, leave your NPC map a blank slate.

Now some of you readers are thinking... "Well this world will be very baron, not even a living creature in sight", well we did create the NPCs, but never placed them. I would recommend creating a template map, which would already have your autorun and after-battle set. Also, set the map music to just -same as previous map-, you'll see why I do this soon.

OHR.R.P.G.CE is very very limited when using the editor to develop your game and world. What we have done above is set the canvas, in which we will extend the engine via scripting. Most developers would use scripting for very simple and trivial things in their RPG game. Doing what we did above, allows us to control every aspect of the game from within a script, while keeping it an RPG game, and still using the editor. Having less scripts to set in the editor makes everything a whole lot easier to manage in the end.

Okay, here is our first scripting example, our map autorun dispatcher. Name it anything you like, and be sure every map has this set as it's autorun, using templates makes this a cinch.

[Newbie_Power]

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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[chronoboy]

Not really re-inventing the wheel, developing your RPG in this way, allows you to, if you wanted, ship your RPG file unpassword(since the password is really easy to get by, I see little point in putting a password).

If the player enters into CUSTOM, he/she would not know where you placed the NPCs on the map or is even able to remove them to cheat for example.

Since all of my major story elements are in plotscript(hence the word plot), unless there is a really good plotscript decompiler out there, the player will not have access to the story elements to cheat or even spoil the game. Sure, the player can see lifeless maps, and solutions to mazes, but that's about it. Now onto how I manage my textboxes...

How to manage all your story element textboxes in plotscript:

First create up to 5 textboxes in CUSTOM, I like to label them 1,2,3,4,5, it makes it easier to refer to them, you'll see why in a few moments.

Textbox 1:
${S1}

Textbox 2:
${S1}
${S2}

and so on...

Now in plotscript, for your cutscene, which you do not want to the player to have access to in CUSTOM, do as follows:

[Newbie_Power]

This is one of those things that defeats the entire point of using the OHRRPGCE (which is being able to do stuff with less programming), and an attempt to solve a non-issue that doesn't bother anyone.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[chronoboy]

[Newbie_Power]

You use examples of platformers and stuff that can't be done built in through custom, but what you're doing is basic NPC placement and textbox use and acting as though people should avoid doing these with custom.exe.

I see the point in scripting these things, but it's overmarketed and extremely annoying.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Bob the Hamster]

It is true that you can do just about everything in plotscripting, but whenever I plotscript a whole game (Don't Eat Soap, Bell of Chaos, Mr. The Hamster's Math Class, etc...) Part of me wishes I just wrote it in python and saved myself a hell of a lot of time and effort... but another part of me enjoys doing things the hard way, so it balances out :)

Sometimes scripting a game in the OHRRPGCE is like painting a picture with oil paints. it is hard and messy and takes a long time and a lot of practice, so why not just use a camera and take a photograph? Sometimes a camera is the right tool for the job, and sometimes 30 different brushes and knives and an overpriced canvas and some rags and some turpentine and a pair of pants that you don't mind ruining is the right tool for the job.

(Full disclosure: I am a lousy painter)

[Newbie_Power]

I don't have a problem with non-RPG games, and definitely not for making traditional OHR games.

But I feel like this particular idea is pretty unnecessary for most people since it's mostly a way to script functions normally done in Custom.exe, but is spoken like the greatest idea ever.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[TMC]

Normally I'm all for misusing the engine, but this is basically the most extreme I've seen. And although people do ask from time to time about being able to prevent all snooping of game data, which I can understand, it's crazy as a justification for this!

I have to point out that a copy of your scripts are archived in the compiled .HS file and therefore stored inside your .RPG file. This is done for backup, and so that Game.exe can print the line on which an error occurs (which it doesn't yet do. Any day now...), so you should only disable this, if you want, when creating releases.
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"It is so great it is insanely great."

[chronoboy]

[Newbie_Power]

Okay, but why do we need this? Most people can use tags just fine, and most of the time you aren't checking more than two at a time.

While using a global for the game state is fine, the only real advantage I can see over just checking specific tags is to prevent sequence breaking, and that is a poor game design decision, IMO.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[chronoboy]

For my particular game, sequence breaking can easily happen if I don't plan out story branching correctly. I have a document with the entire story and each way it can branch out from the root story. Each branch is basically associated with a global variable. During each map autorun which requires changing various tiles and NPCs, it uses these global variables to make sure that everything for the player is consistent to what they should see during that particular segment. I use the same global variables for various custom NPC interactions, so that an NPC would not blab out something inconsistent.

For linear RPG games with sub-quests, using tags is perfectly fine, as these RPGs don't tend to have as many consistency problems.

I wanted a great challenge and a game which would have a good replay value, as those are normally the games I shop for in the stores. Why waste $60 on a game you can play through once and that's really the fun of it. Why spend months to years making a game which you, yourself may only play a few times then get bored? During development there are actually times where I get so side tracked in testing a new feature that I just continue playing... This is sort of bad for me, as it's slowing down my development time. I enjoy bugtesting the story branching a lot, it is very fun to play through and find the inconsistent dialogs or actions, playtesting is very very unpredictable sometimes, as if I miss setting a global variable somewhere, well, the story is a tad off. I just hope to have a demo download out by tonight so people can see what I mean by all this. So far, it looks promising, as the first main story branches are almost bug-free, I'm just finishing up some NPC schedules and balancing out the battle system. Look for it on the CP Gamelist with a download link on the forum, more than likely on the Heart of OHR thread.
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Current project: Chronoboy Adventures

Website: http://www.chronoboy.com/

[Newbie_Power]

Alright, so your game most likely uses the same cutscenes for different locations in the game based on where you go.

The problem is, that's not what this topic is about at all. It's setting up your scripts to do what could easily be done in custom.exe and simple tags. That might be fine for some people, but definitely not for everyone.

I remember a person complaining that the OHR is too script reliant as it is, so of course I'm not going to like topics telling people that they should make minimal use of the GUI and do the same thing with scripts instead.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Spoon Weaver]

I find using the ohr to make non rpg games has it's advantages. I often use short cuts to achieve desired results when making platformers and the like. Plus the map and walkabout system can basically be used in any type of game without having to program that sort of thing yourself. I'm currently trying to mimic the ohr maps for my XNA project and it's giving me a bigger headache than I ever would have guessed.
So basically, I think there's big advantages to using the ohr as a base point for non rpg games.