Thursday 21 July 2011

Revising tutorials / Dialogue system



Again 2:30AM, but I don't mind.

So, I've been busy for a while trying to fix most of the bugs in the game.
I wanted to fix them all in 1 day and get it over with quickly. Well I have to say that plan failed horribly.
Some bugs were easily fixed, but other required me to rethink and recode some of the game logic.

(See bugs and features report #1: http://trilightgame.blogspot.com/2011/07/bugs-and-features-report-1.html)

But now that most of them are fixed, I can finally continue with the actual game.

More of that after the break!





So, what's next? Well, some of the players have been complaining that there wasn't a "how to play".
And they had every right to do so. Though there was a written "how to" on my website, but anyone hardly ever wants to read some boring text on how to play the game.

So I'm going to try and make the tutorial levels more interactive. To do so, I'm going to have to start coding the dialogue system.

I'm not sure what it will look like yet, so if anyone has any propositions feel free to post them.

Dialogue preview




- Background colour will match the personality of the pony.
- Three dots (...) in the corner indicate follow-up text.
- Cutiemarks to make the background look less dull

With cutiemarks




10 comments:

  1. I'm wondering if maybe there could be a tutorial mode that is selectable from the main menu or something like that.

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  2. You mean that you can play the tutorial levels from the menu?

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  3. Yeah, like a "How to Play" choice, which would be the tutorial level while explaining controls.

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  4. I'm thinking that way, the main game doesn't have to include the tutorial levels.

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  5. Skipping tutorials is quite nice, especially for repeat plays,

    I think the dialogue previews look slick. Nice and simple, portraits allow for expression and you can have one pony at the top and one at the bottom instead of switching them out every other line. Approve.

    Visually, I might add faded cutie marks into the background where the text is? Just an idea.

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  6. I also agree with adding the cutie marks on the dialogue boxes.

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  7. Good idea, I already have a cutiemark for everypony so I can easily add this.

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  8. They look a lot better with the cutie marks!

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  9. The dialogue system is coded and ready to be used in the game.

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