Following my review of 2016 I wanted to follow up with a taster of what you can expect to see and play in the coming year. There are other projects and interests I want to cover and talk about in 2017 but this post focuses solely on Alternate Reality X which is my top priority. Here is an outline of the key areas of development I’m planning to complete during 2017. There may be some changes to the order of this list but this is the general outline I’m working to just now.
Complete Item and Inventory Changes (currently in progress)
Basically updating all the existing code in the game to use a more flexible item and inventory format, essential for implementing future changes to custom items, enchanted items and procedural generation of City clothing items. Currently this code supports weapons, armour, clothing and a number of special “quest” items. The changes to the City Smithies and Damon & Pythias shops are completed. I need to add in the procedural generation of clothing in the City Shops (where you can buy a compass) and update the existing code for unique items scattered around the Dungeon and quest items (E.g. the troll and goblin ring halves). This has taken a long time as the items and inventory touch so many different areas of the game but all the time consuming, hard work is now complete. In the next release you’ll now be able to pick up and use weapons which your opponents used, introducing a lot of new weapons for the your Alternate Reality character to play with.
The Dwarven Smithy
This is partially completed. The main new features it will introduce to the game are the option to sell old weapons and to have a custom weapon made. The main work to do is getting the correct menus in place and the custom weapon creation code which I don’t see as being too difficult.
Despite having finished the Dungeon for the first time a few years back, I had never saved up enough gems to have a custom weapon made. One thing I thought would be cool (and easy with the new ARX item system) would be to allow the player to name their custom weapons but on looking through the original code for the Dwarven Smithy it looks like that feature was already in the original game! Alternate Reality continues to surprise me after all these years 🙂
Treasure Items
Dungeon Quests
Basically adding in the few special locations which are still missing that are required to complete the Dungeon and the necessary dialogue and quest items. A lot of this is already complete but hasn’t been tested in a long while. I seem to remember the Oracle took a lot of work and might need some bug fixes. Off the top of my head I think the Clothes Horse and Great Wyrm may only be in game as placeholders. Occasionally I go back and find that I’ve already started part of AR though which is pleasant surprise 🙂 When the Dungeon Quests are complete there will be enough Alternate Reality recreated in ARX that you will be able to play the City and Dungeon through to completion!
Updated Display Options
Multiple Media Packs
One of my original goals was to have multiple media packs for ARX and thanks to the superb work from Ted Cox and Furious we’re pretty much there. Due to a few different reasons I’d temporarily removed these but I’m keen to reinstate these in the next few months and hopefully expand them further.
Mac OS X version
There are quite a few Mac ARX players and I’ve now reached the point where a native Mac OS X version will no longer be the big piece of work it once was – partly because I’m just much more comfortable with coding and development tools than I used to be. I have another couple of versions in mind for other platforms but I’ll see how well the items above progress first.
thank you for all your hard work. I look forward to this year!
Thanks Dan! I'm looking forward to making some solid progress with the game.
Hoping you still check the forums now and then… I seem to be unable to get any different windowed options besides the last two options. Also can't seem to master how to set the .cfg file for full screen graphics. (sadface)
Professor Pi
Hi, Yes I get an email when a comment is posted on the blog. The current .cfg file options don't work fully – this is partly because of the changes I made when I added encounter animation. Fullscreen should just mean changing the 0 to a 1 (I think). Let me know if this doesn't work. Hope to have this working fully in the next couple of releases. Thanks for commenting.
encounter treasure selection … don’t know EXACTLY how it worked, but I’m positive there were certain creatures that would have a high chance of dropping certain classes of items. I think the imps and bats dropped potions, that’s the only stuff I clearly remember. Man it’s been a looong time.
Yes you’re right – certain creatures do carry specific items. Imps in the City were good for potions. In the Dungeon each creature has values for generic items such as food packets, gold and compasses but I’m not sure yet what the attributes or code logic is that determines more interesting items such as horns, trump cards or wands.
REALLY interested in seeing you port this to Mac. Just found your blog – I’ll try to be patient!!!! : )
Thanks for commenting. A Mac port is high on my priority list. I have xcode set up and compiling SFML programs. I just have a few minor issues to test out.