Development of Blake's 7 (was OASIS development)

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
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Hialmar
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Hialmar »

Awesome as always.

Can't wait to play the game !
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Dbug »

Always nice to get the technical parts solved :)

Since you asked for feedback:
- Are you planning to keep the text displayed on the top, as it is on the video, or at the bottom?
- If doable, what would really help making the thing more natural would be to add animations for the eyes, like blinking, looking left or right.
- Using a mirroring table could possibly help as well: The characters could move their head to the left or right without any additional data :)
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Chema
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Chema »

Thanks!

About your feedback:
- the layout is as in Maniac Mansion: top line is for texts spoken by characters, bottom part ar the actions (verbs) and inventory and between this and the graphic there is a line for composing the command. I did not find an easy and efficient way to write texts over the picture as in Monkey.
- I'd really like to add more animations to the speaking cycle, but that means more memory. I surely will come back to this idea when the game is much more advanced. If I have room, I will do it.
- I am already using a mirroring table, so that is definitely doable :)

I'm already quite at the limit in some areas, but still with a lot of room for adding things in others, so anything can happen :)
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Dbug »

What about speech bubbles as you did for Skooldaze :) ?
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Chema
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Chema »

Dbug wrote:What about speech bubbles as you did for Skooldaze :) ?
You are evil ;)

Yeah, I also thought about that. It is not impossible. That system works quite well with proportional fonts, as the text scrolls through the bubble. It would certainly look great. I think I faced some issue and that is why I did not implement that in the end, but cannot remember.

But again I'd like to leave that for a later stage in the development. I am hitting the 16K barrier (though I have some data and tables that could be moved to low memory) and there are still zillions of things to do. For instance I am not using a directory in the disk, but a static table. And I have to modify the way I handle current animations to fit the new designs (there are not pure "look down/left/right" pictures, and some animations are done a bit differently).

Seems to me that you don't like the text in the top row too much :)

Anyway on the technical aspect, what do you think about the dialog system? I think it can do the basic things that are done in the classical adventures. And now that I mention it... what do you think of these dialogues in general? There will be some of them in this game, but it would be nice to hear about what you'd like (or don't like) to see :)
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Dbug »

Chema wrote:Seems to me that you don't like the text in the top row too much :)
It's mostly that I did not see it at the start of the video.
I was busy looking at the dialog options at the bottom, and I did not realize that the text on the top of screen was related in any way to what happened under.
Chema wrote:Anyway on the technical aspect, what do you think about the dialog system? I think it can do the basic things that are done in the classical adventures. And now that I mention it... what do you think of these dialogues in general? There will be some of them in this game, but it would be nice to hear about what you'd like (or don't like) to see :)
From a technical point of view, it all works, my biggest issue is that we get the text line by line which makes the dialogs hard to follow if you are not super concentrated on what is happening, and since the options are dynamically disabled there's no easy way to get a section of dialog repeated.

Example:
[Menu]----------------------------------------
I received the book you sent me.
One second. I'll be back.
----------------------------------------

I received the book you sent me.
Good. The librarian is with us.
They tell us about the door to use
to exit the city that way.
if the phone rings after I have selected "I received the book...", when I'm back to the screen all I see is
[Menu]----------------------------------------
Is this some kind of practical joke?
No, not that again...
But the outside air is lethal!
See you later, then.
----------------------------------------
Which means I have no idea there's a librarian involved.

What would be nice is to at least see the last few lines of dialog on the screen to get a sense of context. Are you using the three lines of text at all?

Regarding the menus, perhaps also having the TAB key to allow cycling through the answers then ENTER to validate could help make the dialog system faster to use?
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Godzil »

Dbug wrote:From a technical point of view, it all works, my biggest issue is that we get the text line by line which makes the dialogs hard to follow if you are not super concentrated on what is happening, and since the options are dynamically disabled there's no easy way to get a section of dialog repeated.
You know, that's how SCUMM/SCI games works :)

Even the latest games use a single "line" (sometimes splits in multiple lines)

Examples:

Image
Live it's better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHidb8hjna8 (dialog menu at about 10:27)
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Symoon »

A pause key could solve the ringing phone problem ;)
Or a choice like "what did you just say?" to repeat.
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Godzil »

If I remember correctly on SCUMM game, the space bar will pause the game
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Chema »

Well there will be a pause key for sure. Probably ESCape, which should bring up a kind of menu with options to save/load the game, volume of sound, maybe redefining keys...

About the dialog speech, I reckon using the top line is not at all the best option. I found it quite aceptable when testing Maniac Mansion, but I am used to these kind of games. I also considered placing the text above the characters, splitting lines and so on. But making the font maskable against the background was out of question, so it would be framed by a black rectangle. In addition I'd have to deal not only with splitting in lines and finding the best position, but also on protecting the texts when things are animated in the background.

All that is perfectly doable, but I must keep in mind the memory constraints. All the engine fits in the overlay ram now, with 700+ bytes left before I hit the disk code and some tables and data I could move to normal memory. In normal memory I have all the game tables, script memory, and all the data needed for the engine to run, leaving still 36794 bytes (as of now) for loading game resources (pictures, scripts, sounds, etc.).

I think these are quite good figures, but also keep in mind that the new sprite for Blake with all the animation frames is in the range of 3900 bytes. An average room could be more than 5K (large rooms are more than 8K and Blake's room is 4.8K). That is why I must be very careful (and realistic) when adding animations or setting many characters on screen at the same time.

On the good side, as I load/discard resources as needed, I can load, say, an animation of a character drinking coffee, then discard it and load the walking frames back when the character leaves...

On the news side, I have been making some tweaks to the engine, solving a couple of bugs, and putting the first complete character in the game. Now I have Roj Blake with all the frames needed to make him move and talk. I had to change the way some animation cycles where handled and how the sprite itself was rendered due to the new designs and new size, but I can tell you that the result is more than satisfactory.

Here is a screenshot, this time with the correct aspect ratio in Oricutron (pitty the video cannot be captured in this mode, as it resembles much better how the pic is seen on an Oric).
2016-06-01.png
I also have almost the full script for Episode I designed. Still need to actually program it, and then move onto the next episode. I plan to have at least 3, but let's see. In the end I think I will need more than one disk, which complicates things a bit.

Oh, and I am using a static "directory" to locate resources in the disk structure. I also need to change that. And that implies more work, and that I will need Dbug's assistance :)

But I have the feeling this one is going to be a great production. At least I am learning a lot, and I am happy with the designs and the intermediate results. :)
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Re: OASIS development

Post by ibisum »

Wow, it looks really phenomenal with the new artwork .. nice one!
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Re: OASIS development

Post by coco.oric »

Wow, it'll be another best of for our computer
coco.oric as DidierV, CEO Member
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Symoon »

Chema wrote:I also have almost the full script for Episode I designed.
Please, no Jar-Jar!
;)
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Re: OASIS development

Post by dave3622 »

This looks absolutely amazing! If only we had such talent back in the 80's such as yours Chema, the Oric would have been a resounding success!! :o
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Re: OASIS development

Post by Dbug »

dave3622 wrote:This looks absolutely amazing! If only we had such talent back in the 80's such as yours Chema, the Oric would have been a resounding success!! :o
If you plan to send Chema back in the 80ies to turn the tide, don't forget to give him a modern computer with an emulator and all the tools he normally use, else I fear he would not be able to achieve as much as he can now :D
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