And the story continues!

Unfortunately this isn't a post about spoilers in the story, although I would like to spill all the beans so people can tell me what they think of this epic. Sorry, I have to restrain myself. Anyway, to the matter in hand...

In previous posts I've been talking about "updating cities" etc and how much work it is. Well, today I finished that process and I can move on with the story! Chapter 8 is now officially started.

I did fail to write any more of the script beyond chapter 9 (which is also unfinished), though the story structure did get much further (up to chapter 13 though I'm once again stuck). It's kinda hard to get into writing the script when you've writen the plan for it, but I'm sure it's for the best so I can avoid mistakes. Or at least the big ones.

I will start working on chapter 8, but I guess I have to finish a couple of chapters in the script before finishing it. Actually it would be best if I just worked on the script for a while, but it's tough, not only because I've writen a plan for it (takes the excitement from writing the official story), but writing the script requires a lot of attention and I'm not really in a situation where I can focus my mind on just one thing.

Hopefully I can get into writing the script, it could be a huge problem if I face a problem when I've caught up with the script. Not to mention of course, I can't move on with implementing the script to a game when there's no script.

I also may have to do a checkup playthrough for the game, but I think I'll do it once the story has progressed a little further. When I finish chapter 9 that's probably a good spot, but I may do it already when I've finished chapter 8.

Just wish me luck, there's so much work to do, but the stakes are higher than ever. After all, once I've finished this game I can propose my girlfriend.

Game Jolt rules

Game Jolt was a huge help to me with the demo of this game. I've thought people don't really want to download an old fashioned zip-file to play a game these days yet they gave me a way to distribute the demo without compromising the whole game. Sure saves won't work but still...

The site also enables you to add proper trophies and highscores to your game. When you have a Game Jolt account and play games with GJ support, the highscores and trophies you'd achieve will show on the site.

Now this was a problem to me before as there was no C++ API for Linux, though there was one for Windows. Today AT LAST I gave a look at the Windows API, only to notice it was heavily dependant on some Windows libraries and Visual Studio. I compile my games for Windows using Wine but since it's not an exact copy of Windows I couldn't use this API unless I downloaded VirtualBox, installed Windows, then installed Visual Studio, learned to use that and finally got SDL libraries working.

So I decided to modify the API a little, instead of Windows libraries I made it use libCURL libraries (which btw works on both Windows and Linux environment!) and now I have a working Game Jolt C++ API for Linux. With libCURL libraries on my Code::Blocks it should run with Wine as well.

This means that every game I'm working on and I will be working on can have proper trophies and highscores, including Project Cold Wave. I'm just trembling from excitement to have achieved something like this!

Demo 1.4.1

So I heard there was a bug that crashed the demo when you sometimes entered the battle. This new version of the demo should fix that.

Check the download page for instructions on how to access the demo.

Now if there is a problem I really hope people tell me about it here right away, I don't want to show people a demo with such a huge bug in it.

Work work work work...

20% of the preparation work I mentioned in the last post is now ready. I quit my "break" pretty quickly though, and that was a good decicion considering how long it took me to design that 20%. I have no idea how I'll manage the rest, although I may get lucky and there may not be that much work after all... it's really hard to explain what exactly I'm doing here because that would be spoiling the story.

I can say that at this point of the story you're finally able to travel between cities. There's a reason you can't do that at the start, but at this point it's finally made possible. On the other hand this option is exactly what gives me so much work to do right now. As awesome as this option sounds it delays the project with a few months, or that's at least my rough estimate for when I can continue the story.

Of course this option isn't the only reason there's so much work right now, but if it wasn't there it would cut off a huge amount of work I'd have to do now. Still I think it's best I did this the way I'm doing it now, so I'll just have to work hard. After that it's going to be pretty easy for a while.

My back hurts!

Chapter 7 is now ready! Yeah, that was fast, just like I told you before. I had to do only a couple of new areas, draw a few new pictures and characters and the rest was just making the script into a game. For the last few days I've been working pretty hard and my back sure noticed it...

There's still a little bit of work in moving into chapter 8 and after that it's a lot of preparation for it. I can't explain what exactly I have to do but it's a lot of work. I also have to move on with the script because - believe it or not - I'm catching up quickly! It's best I did lots a script before even starting chapter 8...

Once I've completed the movement to chapter 8, I'm gonna make some little preparations and take a little break. I feel like I've deserved it with all this work.

Demo 1.4

If you've followed this blog (or just scrolled a little more down the page), you should know there's a new temperature system in the game. Today I updated the demo with this new system so everyone can try it out and perhaps find some bugs for me so I can fix them.

So what changes there are:
- Interface improvements
- Some bugs fixed
- New temperature system

Check the download page for the link and details how to access the demo.

New temperature system ready!

The one I was talking about last December. I thought it would take me more time to start doing it, since the story has reached a position it would be difficult to test. Then there is the checkup if I have to do for the game from the beginning, and making the system would be out of the question since compiling the project takes too long.

There was one thing I had forgotten though: one of my christmas presents. An additional 2 GB DD3 memory for my laptop, which reduced the compile time to no more than 5 minutes. Yes, a jump from 4 GB to 6 GB memory made a difference of 20 minutes. So glad I got that.

With the complete checkup of the game, this was the perfect opportunity to make the system, and it was fairly easy.

The changes in the interface are small, in inventory menu on the bottom right panel the coldness gauge is made of two parts and renamed "temperature gauge". On top of stamina level indication there is marked the temperature of the area and wind direction. The wind indicator is pretty useless though, so far I haven't thought of anything a wind would affect.

So how it works now? Well, depending on your tolerance level the faster the area temperature affects player's temperature. If it's cold, the lower temperature gauge will increase, and as it fills, your vision gets limited. When the gauge is full, you have a little bit of time to save yourself until you die. And obviously if it's warm, the top temperature gauge will increase, and as it fills, the more your stamina reduces when running. If this gauge gets full, you will enter a status similar to getting drunk from beer (in game of course and yes that's possible) and if you don't do anything, you will die.

Coldness is reduced as usual, make a campfire, find a campfire or go inside a building where it's usually warm. Tolerance level experience will increase like usual when you feel cold and hot. Some items also reduce coldness and heat.

That's basically how it works, I will make these changes available to the demo but I can't make any promises on how soon that will be. Most likely the demo will also have new areas making use of this system.