Undead in the Sewers!, Now Featuring Character Classes!

[artisticdude]

So you thought I'd given up on the RPG idea, huh? Think again!

Announcing version 0.2 of the new SP RPG, Undead in the Sewers!


FAQ

Q: What kind of RPG is this?

A: This is a humorous single-player RPG, where you control one playable character (PC) throughout your adventure.


Q: Does this RPG have an inventory?

A: Yes, albiet a very simplistic one. But hopefully it will evolve into a respectable system.


Q: Are there any character classes?

A: No, not at this point. However, if enough people express an interest in having character classes, I will try and implement them at some point in the development of this campaign.


Q: What is the overarching storyline?

A: There are undead in the ancient sewers of Weldyn. Determined to locate and destroy the source of the undead infestation, King Konrad and his advisors send you on a mission to locate this source.


Q: Are there any shops?

A: There will eventually be some shops and trainers you can go to to purchase supplies or training in return for gold, but they are not in this version.


Q: Are there *any* interesting features in *this* version?!

A: Yes:

-Simplistic inventory with support for health potions (the only item so far).

-A help section.

-A summoning spell system, as designed by Captain_Wrathbow and modified by yours truly.

-Level progress is saved between levels, including whether or not the player has unlocked any gates in the level, whether or not the player has killed each enemy unit, etc. (this last point is particularly important, because it means that enemies that you have already killed won't respawn when you leave and come back to a level).

-Shroud data is stored between levels, so when you return to a level you won't have to rediscover everything. Fog is not stored between levels (as you would expect).

-You can switch between terrestrial and aquatic movetypes and graphics simply by moving to a dock and selecting the appropriate option (this will greatly enhance your ability to explore flooded levels).

-A suitable AMLA has been devised (you can learn and improve attacks, and increase health points and movement points), and this AMLA will be even more sophisticated in the next version.

-Interesting terrain feature that causes shallow sewage to turn into deep sewage if a unit ends its turn on a hex of shallow sewage. If a unit ends its turn in deep sewage, it will sink and drown.

-Lock-and-key system that requires you to locate (and sometimes fight for) a key in order to open a locked gate.

-A working dialogue system (which is being further improved in the next version of this campaign).

-There are also some looping atmospheric effects in the sewer levels rather than music (you must have music enabled to hear them, however).


Q: What features are you aiming to achieve by the time this campaign reaches version 1.0?

A: I'm hoping to add a more extensive summoning system, a respectable inventory system, a variety of shops and trainers (from everything to swords to spells to speed potions), a custom baseframe with all the necessary animations for your PC, and much more. More than that I won't say, because I don't want to go putting the cart before the horse.

[bigkahuna]

Sounds like a great idea. Good luck getting it started!

-Enemies won't attack attack you if you reduce their HP below a certain level. This is an AI issue, and -as far as I know- is out of my control.

Can't you just raise their aggression level?

-Level progress is saved between levels (except shroud data, which cannot be saved between levels with WML alone).

Melinath has an LUA pack on 1.8 that has a [store_shroud] tag; it stores shroud data into a variable, and then has a tag for you to put that variable into the current shroud data. Thought that might be useful.

[bvanevery]

Having to wait around to heal up at 2 HP/turn is really really boring. It takes several mouse moves and mouse clicks to skip a turn, because when you don't move, the dialogue box asks whether you really want to end your turn or not. I can't see myself replaying your 1st level when there's basically no strategy to it at all. I want XP, I have to kill things to get XP. I inevitably get whacked while doing that, which means I'll have to skip turns gazillions of times in order to survive.

[artisticdude]

Can't you just raise their aggression level?

I raised their agression level as high as possible and set their caution level to 0, but it seems they won't attack an enemy who is much stronger than they are, no matter what you do to their aggression. I'll probably change them all to Soulless when I start adding special stuff (spells and summoning and inventory and such) for the player.

Melinath has an LUA pack on 1.8 that has a [store_shroud] tag; it stores shroud data into a variable, and then has a tag for you to put that variable into the current shroud data. Thought that might be useful.

I actually did try utilizing that, but I have no comprehension of LUA at all. So needless to say, all my attempts failed.

Having to wait around to heal up at 2 HP/turn is really really boring. It takes several mouse moves and mouse clicks to skip a turn, because when you don't move, the dialogue box asks whether you really want to end your turn or not. I can't see myself replaying your 1st level when there's basically no strategy to it at all. I want XP, I have to kill things to get XP. I inevitably get whacked while doing that, which means I'll have to skip turns gazillions of times in order to survive.

Fear not, health potions are coming in the next release (and a spell that allows you to summon up to 2 creatures to help you in battles). The first version was just a 'proof of concept', so to speak.

[tr0ll]

A: I'm hoping to add a summoning system, a respectable inventory system, a system that saves the status of a level when you leave it and restores that level to that exact same state when you return to it, a variety of shops and trainers (from everything to swords to spells to speed potions), a custom baseframe with all the necessary animations for your PC, and much more. More than that I won't say, because I don't want to go putting the cart before the horse.

looking forward to horses and carts (in whichever order)

[Mountain_King]

Hello. It's me.
I played through your campaign (er, the first level) and it's pretty good.

Spoiler:

I especially like the hulking redead undead. I must say I love it and hate it all at once, because it reminds me of my least favorite game and my [acronym=Why, Zelda of course!]favorite game[/acronym] at the same time.

There's not a lot to comment on yet, so I'm leaving that as-is. One question I do have for ya ATM. Is "Stupid" going to learn any special sword skills, like say a parry? If so, I came up with some code the other day that you could use. It's set up to have x chance of parry when an attacking enemy misses you in me-lee. If the parry hits, the attacking enemy loses x amount of hitpoints. If you want it, just give me a holler.

All the Best,
Mountain_King

[bigkahuna]

I took a look at your code. You realize that aggression only goes up to 1.0, right? Having it set to 9 would mess it up. I think that's your problem with the undead not attacking well That would certainly do the trick. Also the code

Code: Select all

	[target]
	id=Stupid
	value=9
	[/target]
	     [goal]
                [criteria]
                    side=1
                    id=Stupid
                [/criteria]
                value=9
            [/goal]

Is misplaced, as it should go in the [ai] tag, and has invalid syntax. See http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Customizing_AI_ ... Parameters, Also applies to 1.9

aggression=0.4: (double) (value ranged from -infinity to 1.0 ) This key affects how an AI player will fight.

Again, side 3 has aggression=5

your commented quote:

#For some reason, the terrain change doesn't actually happen until the end #of the dialogue below, but despite several code variations, I can't seem #to fix that. Must be hard-coded?

You can solve this with [redraw][/redraw].

Why do you add '2' to all of your variables instead of making them 'true'?

Also, some of the dialogue (while some of it is funny) is rather stupid

[artisticdude]

I played through your campaign (er, the first level) and it's pretty good.

Thanks!

Is "Stupid" going to learn any special sword skills, like say a parry? If so, I came up with some code the other day that you could use. It's set up to have x chance of parry when an attacking enemy misses you in me-lee. If the parry hits, the attacking enemy loses x amount of hitpoints. If you want it, just give me a holler.

I'm hollering.

@bigkahuna: Many, many thanks for all that!

Why do you add '2' to all of your variables instead of making them 'true'?

I'm not really sure, TBH. That's something that I'll change, for certain.

Also, some of the dialogue (while some of it is funny) is rather stupid

It is indeed. I'm probably going to change all the dialogue to make the campaign more serious, and give the player the ability to choose their own name for their protagonist. But for now, the stupidity of the dialgue adds some fun to the campaign and helps me get through when the coding becomes long and boring.

[bigkahuna]

But for now, the stupidity of the dialgue adds some fun to the campaign and helps me get through when the coding becomes long and boring.

I hear you. You should see what I name some of my variables A really lame coder thing, I guess.

[Mountain_King]

I'm hollering.

Okie dokie, here you go:

Code: Select all

#define PARRY_ATTACK
# whenever an attacking enemy misses Kalenz in melee, he has a 50% chance of being parried.
    [event]
        name=attacker misses
        first_time_only=no
 
		   [filter_second]
			id=Kalenz
	        [/filter_second]
         [filter_attack]
                 range=melee
         [/filter_attack]

    {IF_VAR parry_learned equals yes (

		[then]

			# chance of parry: 50% which of course means 1 out of 2

			{VARIABLE_OP random rand 1..2}

				{IF_VAR random equals 1 (

					[then]

						[sound]
							name=sword-1.ogg
						[/sound]
						[sound]
							name=human-hit-2.ogg
						[/sound]

						{VARIABLE_OP unit.hitpoints add -9}

						[unstore_unit]
						    variable=unit
						    find_vacant=no
						    text=_"PARRY!"
						    {COLOR_HARM}
						[/unstore_unit]

						[redraw]
						[/redraw]

					[/then]
				)}
		[/then]
    )}

    [/event]
#enddef

A couple things to note:
The indentation might be off. It's not off in the original, but when I posted it here it did strange things with the indentation. Right up there with the filters. Of course you'll need to switch the id over, and then just make sure to set a variable called parry_learned and set it to yes when he learns it. The chance to parry and the amount of hp are easily modified, so I can just leave that to you. Let me know if any part of it doesn't work though and I'll fix it up right. You also may or may not want to make a dummy trait called "parry" so it shows up when he learns it.
So...I think that's it. Keep up the good work.
Go mbeannai Dia duit!
Mountain_King

[Kapoue_II]

Can you post the campaign here/on the 1.8 server for the benefit of those like me who don't quite trust 1.9 yet please?

[artisticdude]

I'm not sure backporting to 1.8 is completely feasible, since on of the main terrain features relies on terrain found only in 1.9. But it might be doable if I created custom terrains to fill the missing terrains in 1.8...

I'll see about porting the next version to 1.8. The campaign should be more interesting and more fun in the next version anyway. In fact, I'd more or less be done the next version now, were it not for my struggles with movement potions.

[Kapoue_II]

Well, I put aside my distrust of 1.9 long enough to try it, but......... I couldn't get out of teh first "zone" in the sewer. It told me that [remove_item] isn't a valid wml tag. And the fence failed to go away, even after I had got the key. Oh, and the key had vanished after I went to weldyn and back. But otherwise, it looked good! But what was wrong with the battle princess sprite for Lisar?

[bigkahuna]

It told me that [remove_item] isn't a valid wml tag. And the fence failed to go away, even after I had got the key. Oh, and the key had vanished after I went to weldyn and back. But otherwise, it looked good! But what was wrong with the battle princess sprite for Lisar?

Yeah I think the Li'sar sprite is fine... Why don't you use it? Elvish Shyde just seems out of place.

Kapoue, what version of Wesnoth are you using? It only works on 1.9.2

[Kapoue_II]

Ah, I was on 1.9.1. Will change that