**New Release** REALMS OF QUEST 3 (available for order!)

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:27 pm

What do you guys think of a smiley face to represent the party as they're traveling on map in the main world?

It's a not-so-serious way of making the game fun to look at as well as a reference to the arcade game 'Venture':

saehn · Post by **saehn** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:43 pm

What do you guys think of a smiley face to represent the party as they're traveling on map in the main world?

Sorry, kind of hokey

for an adventure game. I'd kind of prefer to take it a little seriously... having a goofy grin looking at you all the time ruins that a bit!

How about just a simple man, like in Wasteland or something?

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:00 pm

I don't know....I kind of like the smiley face. It's different. But it is a little hokey....not too much...don't want to make this too much like a Zelda game. Sorry, I'm on the fence with this one. The stick man is a little plain and expected. Is there a something in between the two?

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:07 pm

Well, as for the 'smiley face' that would be the only 'hokey' thing that I'd put in there. I already used a generic man (with sword+shield) in the first 2 Realms games, I figured maybe that it should have something different? Anyway, I might change it to something else like a shield.

Today, I worked on scrolling text for when your party moves around, as well as a CONstitution check when your party walks over a 'swamp/marsh' area:

Notice the 'P' status in the list of characters.

The reason why the menu options appear in yellow is because the SPACE bar toggles between movement and menu mode. When in "movement" mode, the menu options are turned off, and the cursor keys (or joystick) are used to move you around. When you want to perform a command (such as cast a spell, change the order of the party, etc), you simply press the SPACE bar (and the menu turns white) and then select a menu item with the cursor/joystick (or by pressing the first letter of t he corresponding menu item).

Perhaps I should upload my latest version as a demo? It's pretty slick as far as menu mechanics go, especially for an 8-bit retro game.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:33 pm

I like a smiley face rather than an abstract shield.

What about a smiley face with a helmet on it?

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:30 pm

Not the smiley face, please. I fear that it'd ruin the whole experience for me.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:30 pm

Or a serious face with an helmet on it?

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 4:11 am

You could include an 8x8 pixel character designer.

Michael

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:31 am

That might be the solution. Have a few character graphics that the player could choose from.

An alternative (if you can only have one graphic to represent the party) is to draw bunch of small stick figures in that space, representing a walking party (these multiple stick figures would be drawn in the same square of pixels that the happy face currently occupies - so they'd be small).

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:50 am

Like these?

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.*......  64
***...*. 226
.*...***  71
*.*...*. 162
...*.*.*  21
..***...  56
...*....  16
..*.*...  40

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:52 am

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:35 am

Mike wrote:You could include an 8x8 pixel character designer.

Michael

I could do that -- but it would take up quite a bit of memory. However...

What I could do is reserve about 5 character spaces for the player to choose their icon. When moving around, all you have to do is press a key (say "I" for icon) and it rotates through a choice of player icons.

So far there are 4 of them:

-smiley face (will be default, heh.)
-Guy with sword + shield (from Realms of Quest 1 & 2 -- you can make it out somewhat in my avatar picture).
-the simple walking man by saehn
-the 3 stick figures by Mike

So there's room for 1 more, if I were to go this route. So give me some designs

saehn · Post by **saehn** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:41 am

Some ideas (and Mike's men):

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:47 am

saehn wrote:Some ideas (and Mike's men):

Those look pretty good! Maybe I'll use more than 5 of them? I love the one with the helmet. And the stick figures look pretty good as a custom character.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:47 am

Mike wrote:You could include an 8x8 pixel character designer.

Ghislain wrote:I could do that -- but it would take up quite a bit of memory. However...

You could reserve an 8x8 field of the map, and define the players shape by looking whether certain objects are (not) dropped within the field.

This could even be part of a puzzle, maybe you could only pass some barrier, when your player has exact the necessary shape.

Michael

Denial

New Release REALMS OF QUEST 3 (available for order!)