[Koji]

I can't believe I ran your world and missed the fact you didn't use the commands counter... yeah that thing is like... the bees knees.

Also I like your description of the games direction sounds like Final Fantasy 6 meets steampunk.

[Kom]

That world generator reminds me of dwarf fortress... Not the generation itself just the final product. I think it's neat.

[Padz]

Hello everyone. I have still not been working on Mzx much but I have been haemoraging ideas for games like never before. My current time however is taken up by moving back to the UK and playing Twilight Princess on the Gamecube.

Expect some new game to pop up by summer it'll add to the the list I already have and increase chances of a viable release.

[Padz]

I've been back MZXing again. Not much actual game programming, just playing around with engine ideas. I have plenty of ideas for games written up on paper, I just have to MZXify them!

I have a current project that I am quite excited by so I'll be working on this to see how it turns out. I wont let on what it's about just yet except it'll be based on game engines I have made or alluded to in this Journal(With modification and modernization). Also is most likely to be a medieval style setting.

Any other games from this Journal I plan on either turning into an engine release or smoothing off the game into something short but playable and releasing.

[Padz]

Okay here's an image of my latest project, although it's mainly graphics only at the moment.



I've also noticed that the version of LoR in the Archives is two updates behind what I have. I plan on adding a little more content(a few extra side quests and dungeons. Ideas welcome) and completing bug fixes. This isn't a massive undertaking so hopefully it'll get me inspired again to work on my other projects.

I want to do something more with Hiveworld, at least making it a small playable game rather than only a demo. I might make it a randomised sidescroll dundeon crawler. We'll see.

With the random map/RPG engine I'll try and make it into a random kill & loot game. No plot, just a massive random land to explore, battle and find treasure.

[RyanThunder]

Those are some really impressive graphics. They almost look like they could belong in something like "Assassin's Creed MZX."

This definitely gives me more ideas and perceptions about MZX graphics.

[Padz]

I've been recently working on a random dungeon engine for my latest as yet unnamed game. I've tried out a few different methods, the most successful of which is a pre-made tile(20x10 char) placer which uses counters per tile to identify which side has exits and randomisation of the tile. I've made each level have a 5x5 set of tiles and currently it has 50 levels on the board. The variety of each level is only limited by how many tile sets I can be bothered to make.

Although I planned on using this for every dungeon in the game, and also having randomised tile placed wilderness' and towns; I am now thinking that the more random the game is made the less detailed and emersive it becomes. So to that end I will be most likely creating the game by hand with some minimal randomisation and perhaps one dungeon using the above mention engine.

I may also clean up the engine a make it a solo engine release for someone else to play with.

Essentially what I'm attempting to do with this game is make a dynamically changing quest economy. So random quests will be generated by guilds or whatever depending on player actions or other game going ons and the player could take up the quest and complete it or perhaps a NPC adventurer will complete it before the player even realises, this in turn will influence other areas of the game and open up new areas. So even with a premade world each game will be different.

There is also a main plotline that will show itself at some point in the game. When, where and how will be influenced by the player and quest economy.

[Padz]

Hey i've not really been around so much recently. Another trip to afgahn taking up most of my time. But I still get time to MZX and heres some screenshots of my latest. Quite a lot done actually. It's based on a huge ancient city spanning about 100 boards on the surface. there will be many quests and adventures and you can join and advance in many guilds. under the city are ancient mines, caves, ruins, sewers, cellars, catacombs, burried and forgotten rooms to explore and find the lore and history of the city.

Enjoy. Game to come in the future...

Attached File(s)

•  Newscreens.rar (103K)
  Number of downloads: 100

[T-Bone]

Really nice work here from what I can see in the screenshots. Though dark, there is quite a lot of interesting detail.

[Lachesis]

The weapon screenshots and the sewer impressed me the most. The city also looks very nice (I like the detail on the ground), though the predominance of black comes off as a little odd to me... not really a huge flaw though. I also think that the red and (mostly) the dark green feel clash-y against the dark tan. I'm glad I'm not the only person that still uses MegaZeux :)

[Padz]

yeah i'm still playing with the tones and colors it needs a little work still and the black wont be so predominant eventually. But i'm pretty happy with the sewers so i'm glad you like the work.

The weapons engines are mostly complete. I've but a fair bit of effort in to them. The longbow for example you pull out the bow and notch an arrow drawing back at a speed depending on your skill. You can loose an arrow at any point in the draw but you get more range and power with a longer draw.

So far I've done the spear, sword, longbow, musket and pistol. plenty more planned.

Gamewise I have about 25% of the top buildings done and a good few quest lines plotted out. character generation and progression is mapped out and partly done. I'd like to get a teaser demo out by the end of summer which will have a part of the city with some show of the engines and an introductory quest.

And until I have the time to learn another language to make my creations in I'll still use MZX

[Padz]

I have been working on the character generation and information sheets in the form of a journal as shown in the zipped screenshots. Also the speech engine. Both engines are working smoothly I'm happy to say. Hope you like them.

Attached File(s)

•  Journal Screenshots.rar (35.66K)
  Number of downloads: 99

[T-Bone]

on screenshot 2 i read. "1 ass" lol

[Lachesis]

The character generation screen looks pretty good, I like the book theme. The speech engine feels like it needs to be filled out more, graphically. Does it load conversations from files?

[Padz]

T-Bone, on 24 May 2011 - 08:47 AM, said:

on screenshot 2 i read. "1 ass" lol

Haha! I didn't notice when I filtered through the screenshots!

Lachesis the speech does load from mzms it's a pretty simple engine but it works. Here is the code:

example:

set "$speech" to "dave"

files for quad branch convo:
dave1
dave15
dave17
dave19
dave21

: "justentered"
. "resets engine"
set "$selects" to ""
. "loads first speech mzm"
put "@&$speech&1.mzm" Image_file p00 at 3 2
: "do"
wait for 1
. "waits until mouse click"
if "buttons" = 0 then "do"
. "ends conversation"
if c81 Text p?? at "mousex" "mousey" then "leave"
. "ensures only the correct buttons are clicked"
if cf0 Text p?? at "mousex" "mousey" then "do"
if c?? CustomBlock p?? at "mousex" "mousey" then "do"
. "every choice will increase the value of $selects by the mouse position 15,17,19,21 corresponding to buttons on the mzm"
inc "$selects" by "&mousey&"
. "loads relevant mzm"
put "@&$speech&-&$selects&.mzm" Image_file p00 at 3 2
. "sets the current outcome for the robot back in game world to use"
set "$outcome" to "&$speech&-&$selects&"
wait for 10
goto "do"
: "leave"
restore player position from 8

You can carry on the convo for as long as you need with as many options as you want. I currently use a max of four options for each "slide" of convo. It's good for long and varied conversations with simple outputs but coudn't be used for anything too complicated like checking values mid convo.

Oh and I'm glad you liked the book theme I've wanted to do it for years I think it adds a good bit of character and looks good. from title screen to character generation it opens up nice and smoothly too

[Lachesis]

That's a nice, simple way of making a conversation engine... I wouldn't have thought of it. The latest conversation engine I made is a pretty bad mess of pseudo-scripting language that gets parsed with FREAD and doesn't work half of the time. You can't manually adjust the way it looks if it displays goofy, either. The biggest problem I foresee with your engine is if you need to have a reply that takes up more than one line... it'd be a waste to duplicate a whole tree of conversation. Maybe what you could do is make the MZM bigger than the displayed area of the screen, and in the offscreen area, write filenames. Then you could COPY BLOCK x y w h "$string" 0 it. I wouldn't bother unless you definitely see yourself writing multi-line responses, though. It looks good the way it is.

[Padz]

yeah that is a good point but it'll be okay as long as I keep replies short. Or make it so if you hover over a reply it displays the full reply copied in from an offscreen area? I don't know I'll probably stick to how it is as it does all I need. For now.

[Padz]

So after a little lapse on the project I've redesigned my ideas with the game. My original design was a bit too ambitious and would require a lot of time spent on areas of game design I wouldn't enjoy so much.

So with this in mind I have come up with a new project model. It still uses the same engines and almost everything I have already completed it'll just be heading in a slightly different direction. A direction which has more of the elements I enjoy coding and therefore making the game more enjoyable for me to finish! Not that any of you'll really know the difference though!

The main change is that I'm not focusing on one huge city anymore (as the economics was getting too hard to follow) but concentrating instead on several smaller settlements connected together. There will then be routes that connect the locations which you will travel on like roads or rivers and less known hidden paths and passes which you can learn. on these routes you may have semi-random encounters of various types, some good or bad. You can also find semi-random quests in the settlements which lead you around the map.

The main storyline will be interlaced with this quest-based economic land.

So nothing major, just a change in direction.

[Lachesis]

Wait, are you saying your game simulates a whole economy? or did you mean balancing it by hand was getting too hard

I think the smaller cities idea is probably better in the long run. If you get tired of designing one style of town you can come up with a new style, etc.

[Padz]

Well I have the city boards mostly done (as in you can walk around the city but it's just graphics)worked out at about 5000 buildings all accessable and with about 60% of them part of the economy creating/selling/buying goods and such. But just trying to get the right layout of buildings has been a nightmare and with all the variables that need to be transfered between boards for goods and transiting robots it's just no fun!
But the smaller settlement idea should sort it out. no more than 100 buildings in the largest settlement with 3-4 towns 5-8 villages and a splattering of hamlets. Each settlement will have a resource it specializes in to export to the others and will have a demand of certain items it cant produce. there will be an engine which will act as NPC traders to keep the economy alive but the player should be able to realise good trade routes to set up. This will be semi randomised so you have to figure it out each new game.
The actual main gameplay will be quest based this economy is just the frame for the quests if you see where i'm going!

Anyways I think it's actually simpler than I'm putting across but I'll only really find out once I have the engines actually made!

[Padz]

Well it turns out creating a massive city based living economy as a player oriented game in MZX is not easy! So I've taken out the actual player and exploration element and I'm now focusing on more of an adventurer simulation game, using stuff i've already made to make it something I may be able to finish this decade.

Basically the game will be based in a medieval world with towns and villages with imports, exports, quests and stuff and you are an adventurer travelling around trying to make a name for yourself. There will be an overarching questline but lots of random quests and places to explore along with monsters to kill and bandits to capture.

It is all point & click menus with a lot of behind the scenes calculations to figure out what happens making each game unique, there's no actual player contolled adventurer.

Hope that sounds good, it's only going to be about 10 boards and with low amount of graphics so should be managable to complete!

[Padz]

With the current world situation it turns out I have more free time on my hands and have the urge to revisit some of my old games, in part encouraged by the new Web player feature which means I can MZX in work!

I have uploaded the Ancient Legends game to the site which was previously released in 2013 but not officially uploaded. I plan to finish off some of the incomplete sections of the game and make it a little more user friendly to new players. I could do with adding some music but thats not my strong point, if anyone wants to volunteer their music creating talents please let me know.

Hiveworld will likely stay as it is, a concept demo. However I will also play through it and look to tweak any issues.

I also plan on releasing Legend of Rhovanion V1.22. This has been sat on a hard drive for years which I have occasionally edited and has a fair few bug fixes. Again thanks to the Web player I can spend some free time in work play testing and then fix the bugs at home.

This post has been edited by Padz: 22 January 2021 - 05:59 PM

[MicMotorhead]

I checked it out on the website. Looks really cool and right up my alley gameplay wise. Gonna check it out when I have time.
Sadly, there aren't many CRPG style games in MZX.

[Padz]

MicMotorhead, on 21 January 2021 - 08:37 AM, said:

I checked it out on the website. Looks really cool and right up my alley gameplay wise. Gonna check it out when I have time.
Sadly, there aren't many CRPG style games in MZX.

Glad you like the look of it, I would wait until I release this next version there will be a substantial amount of changes.

I've just finished improving the overall day and night engine and lighting effects. Currently adding in some fast travel and tweaking the spells.

[MicMotorhead]

Padz, on 22 January 2021 - 08:07 PM, said:

Glad you like the look of it, I would wait until I release this next version there will be a substantial amount of changes.

I've just finished improving the overall day and night engine and lighting effects. Currently adding in some fast travel and tweaking the spells.

I'll follow your advice and wait until you think it's ready for prime time
Sounds like some neat changes. The game sounds fairly sophisticated - certainly for an MZX game.

[Padz]

Completed changes:
New character generation screen and rework of race/class stats system.
Day and night engine rework. See GIF attached.
Fast travel.
Spells rework.

Partially completed:
New inventory screen and inventory rework.
Graphical rework of many game areas.
Achievements and game % complete screen
Combat improvements.
Character levelling improvements

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Padz]

Here is a quick GIF showing the graphical updates with an early beta version, the current v1.2 and the new improved version I'm working on.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Padz]

Lots of graphical changes now completed the past few days, updated the majority of internal areas and towns, dungeons still to be done. To track my changes I've started a Trello board which is public if anyone is interested in real time progress, however some of the notes on there may contain spoilers.

https://trello.com/b...JJ/lor-remaster

[Padz]

The player house engine has now been revamped to both actually work properly and be meaningful and worthwhile gameplay wise. You can now upgrade your house to contain the below which all have worthwhile uses.

Upgraded bed
Alchemy workstation
Potions cabinet
Cooking pot
Training dummy
Thieves training toolkit
Saving chest

[Padz]

The new character generation screen is now fully working, graphically much more pleasing than the old blue mess. Also with mouse support. Character generation overall has had a decent overhaul with a new class system allowing more interesting starting options for your character and the option to name them. In line with this is a new saving system with slots for multiple characters (showing details of the game) and the ability to load mid-game.

I've also finished off a lot of the new inventory, again with mouse support and more informative menus. One major update is a proper quest tracker so you can see what you need to do for each guild and quest line.

A couple of areas are also being updated and extended as I go through them, some quests which were very basic will now be more fleshed out. There's also a few more evil path lines than before.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

This post has been edited by Padz: 04 February 2021 - 04:03 PM