Friedrich's Revenge

[Dinonykos]

I assume that Friedrich's Revenge will be completed a little bit earlier. I have finished all needed art and level designing except for placing several opponents. Maybe I will draw one ore two additional big pics, but that is optional.

Depending on my spare time in the coming weeks, FR should be ready for playtesting by others in September (I remember that Ben and Manikus volunteered... ). It will even feature a little bit of voice acting.

I would be nice if Paul could also host Friedrich's Revenge. I assume in the end, it will need ~30 mb of disk space.

Writing of voice acting (maybe I had suggested that earlier): Could we not try building a database with self-made voice acting and sounds? Something that is 100% unproblematic concerning copyright?

Of course, it would not make sense to collect complete dialogs, but sentences like "How do you do?", "How can I help you?", "Nice to meet you?", or screams, threats, and of course sounds like opening and closing doors, steps and so on would be nice. Alternatively, those who produce sound effects could add related sections to their homepages...

[manikus]

I don't recall volunteering to playtest...but if you really need me to, I will. I'm trying not to get too sidetracked from working on DC stuff (which is why my playing of FRUA designs is taking so long).

I like the idea for a sound library. I think that perhaps Donnie Ewald will allow us to upload the files to Rosedragon, even larger ones. I agree that short statements will probably be best, for the reasons of universality. One could also start a thread here and in the FRUA Community forums for requests, etc.
Somday when I have the time, I have a large number of BBC created effects that are licensed for use as long as no money changes hands. The problem is that many of them are in huge files because it's 5 or 6 minutes of sound of which the effect is a second or several seconds.

[Dinonykos]

Originally Posted by manikus I don't recall volunteering to playtest...but if you really need me to, I will.

No, no... Anything less important which prevents you or Paul from continuing with DC 1.0 (or 0.9999) should wait...

[Dinonykos]

I have decided to add a new type of opponent to Friedrich's Revenge (which means another 3 hours of drawing), and 2 or 3 more small pics (again, 3 to 6 hours) as "eye candy". However, I am sure that an "alpha version" of Friedrich's revenge will be completed during the weekend. With my homepage moved to DHost, (70MB extra to the 30MB of XThost), I can host Friedrich's Revenge on my own pages for a while, at least until Helmetlands is finished. Anybody who would like to playtest will be sent the link, and when I think all errors are eliminated, I will create an own page for FR where all can download the game.

To be realistic: Between Friedrich's Quest and Friedrich's Revenge, more ore less one year has passed... Thus, the first part of Helmetlands will probably need another year to be finished, although what I learned during Friedrich's Revenge will help me a lot.

I am curious about the reaction to the event-based fights in FR. In one aspect, they are even simpler than those in FQ (only once a decision how to fight, the rest is calculated), but you have more options concerning how to deal with defeated enemies, and how to negotiate...

[manikus]

This is exciting news, Dinonykos.

I am very curious to see the new(ish) event based combats.

Is FR around the same length as FQ? If so, I think I can play test it for you. The problem I seem to have is staying focused long enough for "epic" length designs, case in point being "The Sect" by Ben J, which I find very enjoyable, I just ran out of steam about 12 or 13 hours into play.

[Dinonykos]

FR is perhaps three times bigger than FQ, thus it may distract you a little bit... But I think playing through the game will not last longer than a a few hours.

[manikus]

I don't mind the game distracting me, I just don't want to get distracted from it.

Count me in for playtesting. I look forward to getting that email or PM with the secret link...

[Dinonykos]

I made much progress with FR already. However, I have a lot of stuff to do today (cleaning my bike, e.g.), thus I am not sure that the Alpha version will contain all "eye candy" and all opponents...

I have already uploaded a version for the following reason: One of the characters cannot really unready his weapon. After unreadying, and even dropping the weapon, I can still not ready another one, and the weapon is still active in the main character screen. The thing I do not understand is that this seems to be tied to the character rather than to the weapon, since I tested with different weapons and all of them (or rather, their statistics) were not removable, while the same weapons could be removed by other characters. I had the same problem with "Friedrich the Brave" in FQ once, but I darkly remember that the problem was suddenly gone.
Thus, you (Manikus) can have a look at this, perhaps. I am not sure how I can make a short design now which shows exact the same issue, but I have added two swords to the Character Teresa (the one with the problem) so that the problem can be reproduced right after the beginning. I will send a PM to you with the link today.

EDIT: I played around and saw now that I was wrong: The problem only occured in case a certain Dagger was involved. I have not yet found out why, though, thus it is still an interesting problem.

EDIT2: I just realized that FR contains almost 6000 events already... For comparison: FR contains ca. 650. With this trend, Helmetlands I will have ca. 30 000 events.

[SilentThief]

30000 events!!! Wow!!! Even setting up 6000 would be daunting... I'm going to want to play this when you officially release it!

ST

[Dinonykos]

Originally Posted by SilentThief 30000 events!!! Wow!!! Even setting up 6000 would be daunting... I'm going to want to play this when you officially release it! ST

Well, 30000 is just a projection at the moment, however, I fear it's very realistic.

In Friedrich's Revenge, one of the event-based combats consists already of 50 events, and these events are multiplied in case that there are additional options (bribing, fleeing). I could quite often copy and paste events.