Comments on: End of March Vespers Update (or, How To Drop A Girl)

By: Ruber Eaglenest

Ruber Eaglenest — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 23:22:23 +0000

And what about make an “virtual” fake bed in each room where the player could drop safely the girl. That could save a lot of hassle. Oh! I forget, you don’t have paths so the main character could walk automaticly… a pity.

Well, maybe something like: you can`t drop the girl safely here. Try near the centre of the room.

It is a pity example, but maybe it could trigger a good idea in your mind.

Regards,

PD: The screen-shots looks awesome.

By: Rubes

Rubes — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:25:37 +0000

That’s a fair question. One reason is that I want to implement the game the same way it was originally implemented in text; so since the original allows the player to drop the girl, I’d like to follow that. A second reason is that the game tries to give you the impression that you can’t carry her for long – if you try to do certain actions, such as “inventory”, you’ll get the following: “Your knees are beginning to buckle. You had better do something with her before trying anything else.” Even though you’re never actually forced to drop her, it essentially conveys a sense of urgency that might cause players to want to drop her so they can, in effect, take a moment to figure out what to do.

Not great reasons, I’ll admit. I may end up doing that if it proves to be too difficult to allow dropping.

As to your last point, I think that’s a valid idea. I can look into the idea of implementing a “crouch” type of animation to provide that, but there are still the issues with collision and how to deal with the situation if, for instance, the player tries to do that while standing right in front of a wall.

Thanks for the ideas…

By: Nick Novitski

Nick Novitski — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:56:29 +0000

Why let the player drop her anywhere but the bed?

Orthogonally, why not implement the verb drop as “gently put down” in this one case? Meaning, the viewpoint suddenly dips down, and pauses while the carried_model vanishes and the lying_down_model appears right in front of you, then lifts up and gives the player back control? Would that reduce your animation concerns?

By: Rubes

Rubes — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:45:32 +0000

Correct — actually, there are three forms: the AIPlayer object, the StaticShape object (for the inventory object), and the ShapeBaseImage object (for the mounted image displayed in the HUD as above).

Basically, when she is picked up, I hide the AIPlayer object, mount the ShapeBaseImage object to the player, and activate the StaticShape as an inventory object. When she is dropped, I just do the reverse, but I also have to move the AIPlayer object to the correct new position before un-hiding her.

I added another screenie showing a closeup of the StaticShape used in the visual inventory.

By: Rampant Coyote

Rampant Coyote — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:35:32 +0000

I assume you are implementing her as (at least) two different objects – there’s the Celia NPC AI character and a Celia inventory object? With some magic transition between the two?