Report, Pt. 2


In addition to the previous post. In which I told that I'll mention the translation functional.

I imagine, that translation feature would be interesting for a narrow circle of people. If you're not interested in translating TDLT's text, you might want to skip the next few paragraphs untill you reach Fast Travel feature.

Not sure why this is a thing, but I received a lot of emails and comments from people willing to translate TDLT on various languages. There was even more requests for that than for “changing girls clothes” feature. In general, I don't mind – I was looking for a way to place all the text in one single file anyway – so I was thinking that I might as well to include an option to swap differently translated text files among themselves in game's menu.

That was made. The whole game's text is stored in en.json file, which is English, by default:

In the settings.json, using the analogy of installed translations, you can add your own language:

Made a copy of en.json, call it as you called your “Locale”, keeping it's extension, and you can start translating.

You don't have to use RPG Maker – just a text editor that can save your work in UTF-8 encoding. I recommend Notepad++. Just run the game, use saving and loading, to check on your new text, to make sure that it fits all the windows borders.

I will make a page on my website and a video later, explaining it in more detail how to set this thing up, all the code examples of breaking lines/showing symbols and icons. What you should or shouldn't touch in your text-files. I've been told that the current font supports over 70 languages, but, in case if it doesn't cover yours – I'll mention how to change it on your own too.

I tried to keep it as simple as I could and, I imagine, all of that is intuitively easy to figure it out by yourself. But I recommend to get acquainted with the instructions anyway.

I haven't decided how I will include your translations in the game yet. I need to think of the way how to know that it's accurately translated on a language that is unfamiliar for me. I'll figure it out later. 

A word of warning – don't try to translate text from the previous build in order to apply it for the upcoming build – I rewrote significant portion of text from there in order to make it less dragging. Foreseeing the concern – I don't intent to rewrite the text in future too much. If I will, I'll point out every line.



About the changes for Fast Travel function, I mentioned.

The old look:

The new look:

Now the map's layout is more observant here. After some coding we have this new “Lair” tab for your manor, which will be hidden until you obtain it. Also in the previous build the description text and the text on tabs was “imprinted” on the image. That was changed, now it's a regular text that people can translate without using image editors.

Damcus village was renamed. I watched Rapunzel's tv-series, and pretty much similarly placed (and looking) village, has the name “Old Corona Village” there. On which it was renamed for the future builds. The wall is also in canon, therefore it's in the game, decorating maps.

Along with all of that, gameplay mechanic for using the feature changed – now you can fast travel only under an open sky. Teleporting from caves, houses, etc. will be possible only by using purposely placed devices that you can't carry.


Revenge attack.

After a certain level of corruption and a few orgasms, for a usual girl you'll see the indication icon near her name in Affinity, in form of heart. This means that she fell for Hades. However, for girls in your party (besides Lola there will be another one, in future), you'll see this icon:
That means that a girl starts to care about Hades more that usual, and becomes emotional if he gets hurt in battles. So after Hades gets hit, there's a chance that she'll react with responsive attack:

This can be used to deal additional damage. I didn't test it yet, but in theory you can use 2 girls like that, to deal double counter-damage. 

Making Hades to do the same works out of his practical interest in keeping a girl safe. For that you need to complete special quests for the girl, making right choices in dialogues.


Fishing.

If you'll see shadows of moving fish in water – you can find fishing spot somewhere near, which will appear if you'll come close to it.
By interacting with it you'll start the mini-game:


It based on Galv's fishing plugin that was edited a little, in order to allow you to clear every fish pond separately (also rod's reel sound was fixed). The amount of fish-shadows you see equals the amount of fish left in a water, to make it easier to check if you cleared it or not.

Getting fish is highly valuable – it costs a lot if you sell it, and if you cook it – it costs even more and it works like a big healing potion, plus 200 HP from Red Hood's perk if you have it. Also, besides fish – you might find valuable stuff on the bottom. 

Other than doing it for couple of quests, fishing is optional. But, for the benefits it gives, I recommend getting a hang of it.

I won't complicate this thing with different baits – there will be only two hooks – one for fish, another one for stuff you can lift from the bottom. There will be different fishing rods though, with different strength. If a fish or a stash turned out to be stronger (heavier) than your rod can handle – there's a change to lose your hook, so it's good sense to have a spare.

A video, showing the fishing process:

LINK 


Extended Area for interaction.

In the previous build, in order to get to the second floor in houses, you had to click here:

But after suffering through severe mental pain of watching Purity trying to use the stairs, clicking everywhere around this square and eventually going to conclusion that the second floor is probably unavailable, I decided to sponsor development of a plugin that expands the clickable area:
Now, when you click on the whole stairs area, the game thinks that you clicked on the little square, sending Hades to it.

Here's a video, demonstrating how it works (there's also Lockpicking in action):

LINK 

I found a use for this feature to solve other confusing moments:



For example, after clicking on receptionist in hotel, Hades won't go around the counter like in the previous build, but he properly will take a position before the counter, looking at the girl.


Map reconstructing for keyboard users.

Continuing the topic of increasing of comfortable playthrough. I remember reading feedback somewhere, from keyboard/controller users about wonky mapping in some areas. For mouse users those places are unnoticeable – you just click on the destination point and Hades will go there walking around obstacles with no effort.

RPG Maker engine added mouse support only in the latest version, before that there was no official mouse support for 20+ years, so it's understandble that no matter how I try to encourage you to play with mouse (which is better for this game in every way), there will be a lot of players who prefer the old school controls. 

For you, guys, the questionable places are simplified.

Before:

Now:


I added about 50 new maps by now and with all of them I tried to stick to this less wonky way of mapping.


Accessibility.

Speaking of mapping –  I'm trying to make it doable to walk everywhere on a peaceful map easily, without trying to find ways to go around tons of obstructions. No matter how tightly objects on the map are placed. I don't see point of complicating those sort of maps, other than wasting time.
With trials and errors I tried to find a way of constructing specific maps in a way that walking through tighly placed objects doesn't feel wrong. On the video you can see how it came out:

 LINK 

Again, it's more relatable to mouse users, since the pathfinding does all the magic here.


New pathfinding algorithm.

By the way, about the pathfinding – I found a way how to keep smart pathfinding that uses diagonal movement and don't cause lags if a map have over 100 intractable objects on it. I won't bore you with technicalities, I'll just say that this engine's programming language is slow by itself, and I had to literally made pathfinding dumber in the previous builds, to make the game run smoothly on large maps.

Thanks to Seea, who focused on this very issue, we're having the solution. The pathfinding is not causing lags anymore, being smart again.

In the previous build:

In the build to come:


Slider
is now available everywhere where a list of items doesn't fit in its windows borders. Also it appears near dialogue choices too, if there's too many of them.

It'll appear if you hold it with mouse; scroll a list with your mouse wheel; or running through the list with keyboard. 


So that's that. On the whole almost every aspect of the game was edited or tweaked, in order to make the game more giving. Hopefully, you'll find this goal achieved after release.

I'm very grateful to you, guys, for sticking with me, giving me chance to develop this thing. With your help and refusal to cut off oxygen, while it was laying in coma, the game breathes now and wants to shine.

At the momment I'm woking on last stages of ERO Unit's public version. My primary goal now is to finish the platformer already. It'll take time, so expect that there will probably be a gap between updates again.

I'll be checking comments here and on my website daily though, so if you'll have questions - I'll be available.


See you soon, guys. Take care!