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[Kamani]

Neat! I'll have to test it out next time I make some enemies.

Ugh, I made all of my flowcharts neat and nicely packed. Unfortunately, now I am running through some of them, setting them up so if you meet them in the inn before getting their standard text and then get their standard text, you won't miss important dialogue, but people won't be responding to you with "who are you?" when you've met them. Lesson on careful creation for me: Leave whitespace in flowcharts if you might need to add content/actually plan out content ahead of time so that I don't end up adding things in weird corners and connecting across large distances.

Edit: Problematic glitch (surprised nobody's bumped into this): If you accidentally drag a text box into an area which you can't reach, you cannot reach the close button. Or the drag space. So you can't get rid of it at all. And then you lose what you were working on. Not sure how, but one suddenly moved to the top midway through making another dialogue flowchart, so I probably just lost that.

Edit: Hey, I was able to use inspect and view the page source to move the text box and free the thing. No progress lost!

[IndigoFenix]

Ha, does anyone actually use the window dragging?  Anyway I added a boundary to prevent this from happening.

How do you typically run tests?  You can set _world variables using the in-game object editor, but there should probably be something to make this more convenient.  (Often I'll add a temporary test object that automatically sets the relevant variables when you touch it.)

I should probably improve the bug handling for cases where the flowchart gets stuck.  Right now it seems to open up a blank textbox in the case of an error for some reason...

[Kamani]

I use window dragging sometimes while working with functions so that I can view coordinates without having to back out of everything.

Haven’t run many tests lately, but I am planning to just add a special variable setter bit to the core item that only appears if your title is Kamani. Should make that easier.

Not sure which bug that is, but hope fixing it goes well.

Edit: All main post-dungeon dialogues are done. All that remains is the secret Lusuria areas and the associated secret dialogues.

[IndigoFenix]

Nice.  Once I'm done with the knockback system it'll be time for a new video, so I'll be sure to include it.  (Would be cool to juxtapose the updated combat alongside a demonstration of how complex dialogue can be).

I've added hitlag to hitboxes (that subtle effect in fighting games where both the attacker and the target freeze for a few frames on impact) which gives a good feel of weight to attacks.  Combat feels pretty good - almost like an old-school beat-em-up - though I still need to handle all the edge cases as well as making the options in the world builder a bit more user-friendly, but you can give Monster Island a whirl to get a feel for the system.

Edit: It might be a good idea to test while you're writing up the dialogue... I think you got a whole bunch of If nodes backwards.  (The solid line from the ? is if the condition is fulfilled, the dotted line from the : is if it is not.)

[Kamani]

That would be neat.

I'll take a look at it sometimes.

Oops! I thought it was the opposite. I was just going to test it once I had it all finished (Edit: Because I have to do world variable messing with when I want to test). I better go fix those all.
Edit: Fixed all the ones in the inn, as far as I saw. Hope there aren't others. I'll take a run through of everything later I suppose.
Edit: Although testing will be a nightmare, since I'll have to make some kind of system to change up a bunch of different variables so I can make sure everything actually works right...

Edit: Decimal points seem to be slightly messed up in the tileset opacity menu. When I entered a decimal point, it disappeared in like 1/2 a second. If I typed a 0 first (0.5 or whatever) it works, but it took me a minute to figure that out, so it might be worth fixing.

Edit: Significant issue: I suddenly can't use the + button to add tilesets from the unused tilesets list to the active list in rooms. Since I can't add tilesets, this makes making room just about impossible. I also can't delete unused tilesets. Not great.

[IndigoFenix]

Oops!  Fixed the tilemap issue.

The decimal point issue...hm, more a quirk of the browser than an actual bug.  I would like to replace the plain input fields with something more stylized (maybe  with a special indicator for those that have a different value at -1) so I'll fix it then.

As for testing, you can manually set any value, item or otherwise, during gameplay by using the object editor on the player.  I'm trying to think of a better solution like adding "test profiles" to the world builder but in your case the issue is more a huge number of possible variables than repeated testing of a single variable, so using the object editor would probably be the better solution anyway.

[Kamani]

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Makes sense.

Oh, okay. I’ll do that. Thanks.

Edit: You said that you will probably change the acolyte art (post quoted below because it was quite some time back). Any timeframe for this? I am making an acolyte character with slightly modified art (I already checked if that was okay back in late May. Again, quoted below, since this was from like two months ago, and that could be forgotten easily), so if it is soon, I'll do a lazier job on that. If you have decided not to change acolyte art, I'll probably make a better effort.

I'm probably going to change the default acolyte sprite to make them a bit more...distinguished.  Probably going to give them robes, and something with a color so "unusual" ones can be easily made distinctive.

Altering the acolyte sprite should be fine.

[IndigoFenix]

Oh, I did that a while ago.  Did I forget to make it public?  I'll check.  I actually posted it in "Lair of the pixel artist" recently if you want a copy.

[Kamani]

Oh. Okay. I didn't see it, so that's probably it. I'll also check there though, since I still will need to make a basic (and very lazy, because I can't art) edit.

Edit: Just found it. It looks nice. Also, didn't know you made the death sprite. I had thought that was one you got. Cool.

Edit (Plot Spoilers for BoundWorlds):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The secret character is probably going to be fairly rude to the player (not the avatar, but the actual player). Basically, they know about Icons, and they hate Icons for not doing enough and letting worlds be consumed. Not an especially friendly person, but hey, I'd be mad if all worlds were eventually doomed to be consumed (I mean, technically, heat death of the universe and all that, but that is a lot longer of a time frame, not to mention a bit of a different situation). Not entirely sure how this is going to go, but I hope it doesn't go too bad?

Edit: Also, if you make a either of two dialogue mistakes, you'll be kicked out of the house and you'll never be able to speak to them again (unless you drop your box, and since they are only available post-dungeon (or any visit after you've beat the dungeon), you'll be restarting the dungeon for that (plus any other dungeons in the entire project). This is probably the only situation like this, but Ira's name is literally anger or wrath in Latin, and they are kind of full of hate, so it fits with this.

Edit: The variables on my project core now stretch beyond a single page when in testing mode. But hey, finished up the last dialogue (the second to last took me like 5 days. I just couldn't get that character down). Now I just have to test everything.

Edit: Is there a way to say not-and in if statements? I need to check if one thing is active and another isn't, so I need that functionality.

[IndigoFenix]

!= means "not equal".

Statements in parenthesis "collapse" into a 1 or a 0 depending of if they are true or false.  So you can write a whole expression, then enclose it in parenthesis, and check if it is equal to 1 or 0.

Also any variable that is not set is assumed to be equal to 0, so you can use that.

If (mustbeactive = 1) & (mustbeinactive = 0)

[Kamani]

Okay. Thanks.

Edit: I just realized I could have used = 0 instead of != 1. That was rather foolish of me.

Edit: Easy design mistakes to make: Set a _world variable, then check for a _room variable.

Edit: The number of PAINFULLY foolish mistakes in this is painful. Like the (sizable) number of times that I forgot to make checking something actually activate the dialogue.

Edit: Okay, I caught a fair number of bugs, all dialogue is done, etc. I think I am publishing Lusuria. It is still QUITE possible that there are a fair number of glitches, but I have caught all of the real blatant ones.
If anyone runs into a bug, I would appreciate it if they would tell me about it.

[IndigoFenix]

Nice. I'll check it out.

There might be some inconsistencies due to the still not quite complete knockback physics (the stunlock from flames causes problems right now, and I haven't quite decided on how interrupting techs will work by default).

There might be some adjustments needed later to get them to handle correctly, but I'll try to minimize the extra work.

[Kamani]

Okay. Thanks.

Huh. I thought I had set poise damage to 0 on those, in order to fix that. I guess the new changes changed how that works. I prefer the techs on my enemies to be entirely interrupt immune unless set up to be interruptible, since I forecast all of them, and it kind of ruins it if you attack the Pyreskull in the middle of the explosion animation and it cancels it (this used to happen).

Okay. Thank you.

[IndigoFenix]

It will certainly be simple enough to make enemies immune to flinching and knockback, the main question is what the default should be.  On the one hand, having no knockback is a simpler design and building an object should go from simple to complex.  On the othet hand, enemies that do not experience knockback feel "stronger" and stronger enemies should be a bit harder to make, right?

Eh, I'll probably just go with the first option.  I mean, the "default" object has no HP and is therefore invincible, so adding conditions shouldn't be much of an issue.

The other issue is whether or not techs should be interruptable (assuming the user is subject to knockback).  Interrupting a dash by necessity messes up the entire flow of the technique, but this is not necessarily the case for all techniques.  Hmm... Maybe making techs interruptable can be a condition which is off by default, but any object with infinite mass and flinch resistance cannot be interrupted anyway... And there should probably be a way to turn off and on "super armor" during a tech... This is basically turning into some kind of RPG/fighting game hybrid.

[Kamani]

Okay.

Makes sense.

I’d go with making it intertuptable but disabled by default, I guess? I suppose the fighting game hybrid thing is kind of funny, since BoundWorlds was originally going to be more artsy and with no combat, but it seems to be working out pretty well all in all.