    against the grain |
| Saturday, November 13th |
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It's not like we're slackers. Dan and I are burning all the free time we have (just about) to get RuneSword ready for the masses. Sure, I'm occasionally reading Zelazney and Dan is fixing various things around his new house, but beyond that, we're pushing the limits.
I think Dan has written like seven hundred million pages of documentation. That's just a rough estimate, mind you. It could be far more. And here in the last few hours, I've been reworking the Vulnerable/Invulnerable resistances of Creatures and corresponding attack types of weapons and defenses of Armor. It wasn't bad before, but certainly was confusing. Just one of those things you notice as you attempt to explain it to someone. But the benefit is we now have all these cool attack locations like Body, Tail, Wing, Arm, Leg and what-not, a cleaned up percentage resistance (like Creature X is 60% resistance to Fire attacks), and a fuller combat experience. In further news, I now have access to several dozen hand-painted Warhammer 40K figures (thanks, Matt!). Dan and I are considering when and how to work them into RuneSword. Can you imagine a Gene Stealer and Space Marine climbing into your Tome? Oh, yeah, I think you can. A. West: November 13 12:30 am |
| Wednesday, November 4th |
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Will we have Gold Beta out before Christmas? Yes. How soon? Soon. Very soon. We're in the last push to squash all known bugs and complete all enhancements. Dan is putting together the documentation (which is more than just one document, by the way) that we both feel is essential to make RuneSword a success. It covers *everything* in Creator including a couple of Guides to RuneSword and an encyclopedia explaining all the properies of every object (there's over 150 just for Creatures!). Plenty of practical examples. Detailed descriptions of Events, Triggers and RuneScript. Believe me: you won't be disappointed. He's even putting together several AVI files for tutorials. Amazing! What commercial product is doing this level of support out of the gate?
And me? Well, most recently I've completed work on several enhancements (and bug squashes) to Buy and Sell with Merchants which works in conjuction with our Conversation engine. I'm keeping my eye on the prize and making every effort to keep scope under control which is very difficult at this stage. We're still talking about stuff, but now it's on the drawing board for v1.1. Oh, things like a fully animated engine and support for hand-drawn (non-tile) maps. Nothing much ;). The known bug count is down to nine and the enhancement list is less than a dozen or so. We're very excited about RuneSword as an RPG product and just in general as a very fun tool. The interface is smooth and easy. The play is fun and engaging. And the replay value? There's no end in sight. A. West: November 3 10:00 pm |
| Saturday, October 23rd |
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The leaves spin down from the trees as a chilly breeze blows by. And I haven't posted an update in over two weeks! Must be my old age. Either that or this game called Silver. You may have heard of it or played it. I gotta admit I like it. I've blown at least three evenings of potential work hours on colorful spinning polygon cuties skipping across lovingly crafted vistas. Call it a guilty pleasure. That and Black Belt Theater movies. Or just about anything with Jackie Chan (that guy just flat out makes me grin).
But in between my indulgences, I've been chunking along on RuneSword with my latest tweaks centering around combining Items (for you bread-bakers out there) and another simplification of the Sorcery box.... Dan is writing documentation and enjoys the work! Sick bastard. It looks like it will cover every little detail in Creator (some of you know what I mean). I more or less think of it as a tutorial in making an RPG. After you read our docs, you'll have all the know-how of game engines and object oriented RPG design. And for the more casual among us, you'll have a straight up walk thru of simple basics packed with enough power to drag/drop your way to Tome Creator Nirvana. And you thought we were loafing. A. West: October 23 12:10 am |
| Tuesday, October 5th |
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Yes, my friends, the Tome Wizard works like a champ now! Just one click from the Main Menu and you have a complete Tome to play. Could be on an island, could be in a cavern, in the middle of small town, in the depths of a dark forest, up high in the mountains or underneath... anything you feed it, it builds (and we'll have several in the Gold Beta for you to try out). It boggles the mind how this thing can expand! With Creator in your hands, you can sketch out a few more maps or another couple Themes, save them into the library and presto, new games to play. Suffice to say, if you like infinite replay, RuneSword does it in spades! I've already burned away time just sitting and letting it generate games, wandering around in them and shouting "Too cool!"
On another note, as suspected, I'm spending some quality time on the conversation engine. No big deal here, just cosmetic stuff. It'll be done within a few more hours work. The interface is much improved (as we've been working on all over the place to date). It's all coming together better than I imagined. A. West: October 5 11:45 pm |
| Monday, September 27th |
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I wrapped up Save/Load Game a few days back (works like a champ), including a screen snapshot saved with your game. Yes, as asked for, it includes the date/time you saved the game. I didn't put in annotating the save game since only a few people thought it'd be worth the trouble. Keep in mind that in RuneSword, you can be running several parties in several different Tomes at the same time. So to handle that, we have infinite save positions. It turned out to be pretty simple to do.
I also touched up the auto-map, journal entry and quest log, so that's done. Let's see.... what's left? Not much. Game Options are listing, but not fully implemented. Not a big deal to put in place, however. I really do need to look at buy/sell routines and the conversation engine, and that may take a little bit to tighten things up. Dan has some cosmetic stuff he wants to see in Creator, so I'll be doing some small changes there. In general, things are looking really, really good. Sometimes I hate working on this thing (anybody who has made a game knows what I'm talking about), but for the past few months, I've just been loving it. It just looks and plays so smooth now and there is so much depth to this thing. Dan and I often talk about documentation and it really could be a huge freakin' document. Tonight I'm setting up Tome Wizard to generate right from the Main Menu as requested (thanks for all the feedback on that one!). It will ask for the number of players in your party, their average level and a Tome Size (Small, Medium, Large, Huge). That's it. It'll create a Tome for you just based on that. With that effort, I'll be putting the finishing touches on the Tome Wizard and associated library files. Must... resist... posting... release date.... A. West: September 27 11:00 pm |
| Thursday, September 16th |
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Ah, the sweet smell of fall is upon us! I just seem to work so much better when the leaves are turning to bright orange or deep red. Or maybe it's because football season is starting up.... (And for those outside the US, I have *no* idea why we call it football since most of it involves the hands).
So here lately I've nearly completed the revamp of Search as predicted and will be moving on to dialog/reply boxes. Should be pretty simple to do I think, but I'll have to stop in and check on the Buy/Sell routines while I'm there. Hopefully, they'll still be in good shape even if a little dusty. And I've also just about finalized the four demo Libraries for Tome Wizard. One involves a severed skeletal hand which has been passed around between a group of assassins causing them untold troubles. Another concerns a strange old man who's gone completely loopy up in his tower and rained down bits of magical terror on the surrounding land. With the help of his bizarre lackey, you're enlisted to quite literally "clean house." All are just grist for the mill because all are assembled by the Tome Wizard. They play different each and every time through. A. West: September 16 11:30 pm |
| Sunday, September 6th |
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Tinkering on the Inventory screen. There were several things to repair here (as it turns out) and I'm *still* not quite done. I've tweaked around with how you combine Items (and I'm not talking about pooling gold and arrows because that's done automatically when you pick stuff up). When you put together the Rod of Seven Parts, you'll just drag each part, drop on another and (click) they snap together. To drop items, you just drag them off the Inventory box. Opening Items now pops up an additional box atop your Inventory and you can drag/drop between them. Pretty much everything is like this now which just makes a heck of alot more sense.
Once I get passed Inventory, I'll be cleaning up yet more True Type fonts (I keep finding these things here and there) by giving Search and Dialog a once over. But after that, I'll be on to the Options screen (save and load) and a last revamp of the Micro Map and Journal Entries. Whew! As it turns out, getting rid of the "Large Font" problem has been a huge interface revamp. I really had no idea how involved it would be, but the look and feel is just *so* much better as a result, I'm glad I did it. A. West: September 6 11:00 pm |
| Sunday, August 29th |
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Here it is the end of August already. My how time flies! Work on RuneSword continues unabated with Dan sweating the details of documentation, the conundrums of tome construction and the deviltry of debugging all the while trying to hold down a regular job fraught with Y2K issues. Meanwhile, I'm putting the final touches on Uber Wizard (man oh man, it do look sweet!), beginning my final pass at the player engine of RuneSword and marching toward the nirvana known only as the Gold Beta.
There were some expectations set for the end of August, but here we are and (surprise!), it ain't ready yet. Oh sure, we could dump it on you, but why not wait a bit more while we apply the finishing touches on what is sure to be the finest CRPG editor and player thus far (and maybe thus forever). Too much? Setting expectations a tad too high the skeptics would say? Let's put it this way: the last beta was but a stroll in the park compared to the high powered, full-featured, rock-your-world version we have now. Hey, it ain't for everyone. That much is certain. But if you like a little old-school RPG, if you want to have total and absolute editor control in a click and go style, if you want *endless* replay value and countless hours of enjoyment at a fractional cost, RuneSword is the only game in town, baby. Question of the week: Do you see yourself using the Tome Wizard to get you started in making your own Tome or to have infinite Tomes to play right out of the box? (It can be used both ways, but I'm curious as to your expectations and desires). A. West: August 29 10:30 pm |
| Tuesday, August 18th |
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I'm making a build for Dan as I type this. It has lots of bumps in it that I skipped on purpose to come back at later. Hey, this is supposed to be fun, right? And anyhow, it's connection and interface stuff that's fairly easy to put together. So instead I'm took a trip back to the Tome Wizard and will be tweaking around on that a bit now mostly because I'm getting ready to dive into the library files! After that, it's one final trip around the code cleaning up unfinished stuff (highlights include the save/load screen and the options screen) and then test, test, test!
It's typical to hear how testing is oh-so-dull and often this is true. Normally it rates right up there with the preverbial sharp stick in the eye. But this time around, testing should be pretty fun because the Tome Wizard will crank out adventures for me to play. I just love that part of the game now. In my book, it's second only to painting pretty pictures. I do look forward to cranking out some new graphics like tile sets, creatures, back drops and the like. First things first, however. Gotta get the unfun stuff out of the way too. Must... resist... starting up... cool new... 3D tools.... For your viewing pleasure, I dropped off a screen shot from my latest build of the Gold Beta. It'll give you a sense of where we're at, showing the new inventory screen and a glimpse of the micro map. And I did it all in glorious 1024x768 'cause RuneSword plays great at that size. Check it out. Question of the week: Do you think RuneSword should offer random adventures via the Tome Wizard directly off the Main Menu? Kinda like "here's this list of pre-fabbed adventures, but if you click here, I'll make one for you from scratch." If so, what do you think should be asked of the player? Specific questions like: "how much experience points to be rewarded, how many monsters, etc." or general questions like: "how difficult do you want it?" A. West: August 18 11:30 pm |
| Tuesday, August 10th |
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Just finished up Gather Party. It's all drag and drop now. Very nifty. I often think about how far the game has come in the last couple months and this is one of those things that makes RuneSword look better, cleaner and easier to use. Take a look....
I do have several touches to do in the menu system that I had overlooked. Nothing show stopping, just nigglies --- squashing all True Type fonts in our game is taking a bit of time, but definitely worth the trouble. The item library files are sitting in a spreadsheet at this point, ready for data entry. As stated before, it's my next major push after I get the Play piece all squared away. With the entrance of Neverwinter Nights, the RPG world has shaken a bit. Upon reflection, Dan and I wish them well. How long have we (and I mean the collective "we") stated "when will the big guys wake up and give us some DM tools?" Now, BioWare and Interplay have taken up our cause. It's a ways off, the scope is incredibly ambitious and who knows how well the design will be executed, but it's nice to see the effort and frankly, recognition of what we've been working on for the last few years. Come on in, Bioware, the water is just fine! Finally, question of the week: when creating Tomes, you'll want to consider how many and of what power Characters that will play it. For example, you might make a Tome geared toward five 1st level Characters. Now the question: how should this be governed? Right now, we have a property on the Tome which allows you to specify how many total Characters can enter the Tome and what the total levels can be. In our example, the number of Characters would be five and the total levels would be 5. This means you could play with one 5th Level Character or some combination up to 5 total levels. What do you think? A. West: August 10 11:30 pm |
| Saturday, July 31st |
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Item: The re-work of the Main Menu and it's options continues. I'm giving myself one more week to finish this up (it is looking very spiffy these days, but I'm incredibly picky about this kinda stuff) and then I'll be totally into library files. By the way, this re-work was not just to make RuneSword look good. Although it certainly does that, it also squashes that nagging "Large Fonts" problem with the game. Now it doesn't matter what your font size is 'cause I no longer use True Type Fonts in the Player. Creator, of course, is still a "pure" Windows application, but the Player is 100% in-house graphics. And does it look snappy, mama? You bet it does.
Item: I've added a clean (and more standard) Main Menu which has New Tome, Saved Tomes, Characters, Options and Quit. Click Characters and you can maintain your roster: delete ones you don't want, make new ones --- even see their Inventory and rearrange it. Saved Tomes shows you all your saved games (you can have as many as you want now) and I might even include a snapshot of your game screen when you saved it (opinions on that?). Oh, and I have another question: what do you think of annotated saved games? Or is "naming" a saved game enough? Item: I did spend a day putting together a spreadsheet in Excel which automatically balances weapons and armor. The way it works is each property of a weapon (for example) has a corresponding table of values and ratings --- a point value, if you will. You just plug in the speed, weight, bulk, cost, damage, bonuses, etc. and it cranks out a rating. So I can at a glance see if my latest entry is just way out of line or not. I'll be combining this with a similar set up for Creatures so I can rate them as well. It makes game balancing more science than opinion. One more cool development tool. It won't be part of Creator, but maybe I'll upload it after we release Gold Beta? Hmm.... Note: Sorry for the distance between page updates, but I figure you'd rather have me 'gramming and pixel slingin' than blabbing on and on here. A. West: July 31 11:30 pm |
| Monday, July 19th |
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I know. You're thinking to yourself, "Two updates to the web page in two days? What is this guy? Nuts?" and you'd be right. But I just finished the first few Item Wizards and thought I'd share that fact with you. Now with a single click you can generate weapons and treasure. Just like that. Yank in a Goblin from the library. Drop an Item Wizard on 'em. Click. He gets a random weapon. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.
And I just spent the last couple hours digging through my old design documents (and actual code dumps!) of our first CRPG: Bronze Dragon. You know those boxes that printer paper used to come in? I've got two that are filled with notebooks --- brimming over with notes about this old CRPG we made. I pulled out the dump of our first adventure --- and it was a stack of paper about 3 inches thick! But anyhow, I was searching for my old list of ideas that never got used in that game and I found at least a dozen pages of old story ideas, a vast list of spells I never implemented and (what I was looking for) my old list of "Dungeon Items": barrel, chair, tapestry, mushrooms, stiletto, small shield, cloak, bracers, ale, large bell, and on and on. And I was thinking to myself: "This is the stuff that is valuable. Not all that coding. It's these ideas written down that can't be easily replaced." So that's why I'm always saying it's you that make the game, we're just writing it. Any designer who thinks he has cornered the market on good ideas is missing the most valuable part of the game: the player. In the case of CRPGs, it's the dedicated Game Master. And I can't wait to give you the tools to let your imagination soar. A. West: July 19 11:30 pm |
| Sunday, July 18th |
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Ah, the sweet sound and fury of a week that has gone extremely well. I just did the once over final of our interface and (yes) included the suggested (and ubiquitous) "paper doll" inventory system. But that's hardly the half of it. The entire once over just cleaned up the details, making it look more smooth and professional. It's amazing what a decent renderer will do for a pixel slinger. Go get Bryce if you don't have it. Very useful (and quick!) 3D tool.
Dan has just about finished testing Spells and Skills and (I think) is back on the Tome. He certainly is in the plot pumpin' mindset and I love it. This time, he's taking it much further in story and content than the taste you had in v0.9.2. We'll be bringing home the bacon, baby! And I can finally get to those last nigglies myself (the options screen, save/load clean up, and final once-over on Character Creation) before turning both barrels on library construction --- the last lane to victory and Gold Beta! Hang on for the ride, my good friends. If role-playing has a name, it must be RuneSword! A. West: July 18 11:45 pm |
| Thursday, July 8th |
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Great news here! Yes, the mighty dancin' Dan has finished all the Skills and the 30 initial spells. And I guarantee, you have never seen spells like these on computer before. We don't just have silly damage, protect and heal spells. Nay! Spells like those are beneath the awesome flexibility of RuneSword. And I'm not going to spoil it by listing everything here. Well, maybe just one... there's this spell that makes a illusionary chest appear. If the victim fails their saving throw against Greed, the chest explodes and has a percentage chance to shower gold coins! Yes, damage and loot all in one spell! Who else does stuff like that but us? Well, I'm sure YOU will when you get your hands on RuneSword Creator.
And that's not all: I've finished the Journal Entries, Quest Log and Micro-map! Yep. I dreaded it, put it off and generally complained, but now that they're in, they are way, way cool. The micro-map of course follows you, drawing as you go. And sure, you can drag the picture around and look about to see where you've been. But we don't stop there. You can annotate it! You can plop your own little thumb tacks down and add text to 'em. You can annotate the Journal and Quest log as well. And sure, we have trigger statements to manage the quests (add and take them away) and journal entries --- help those players keep track of where they've been, tell a story and record heroics. I love it! And did I mention we're going to do that suggestion about multiple statuses for Characters? Little symbols representing poison, cursed, illusioned, whatever. And yes, easy management of temporary stats like lowering or raising Strength for a number of turns. Easy? Yes --- only one trigger statement. Anybody can do it! All part of our revamp of the Inventory screen now under way. (Did someone mention the paper doll inventory? Dan? Did you hear that?) A. West: July 8 11:45 pm |
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