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catventure
28-10-2006, 21:03
TAB (Alpha Release 17)
======================

Needs very latest thinBASIC Preview Version 1.1.0.0 (27 Oct or later)

Please delete any previous version of TAB folder you may own.

28 Oct 06 (Alpha Release 17)
=========
* FIX A select case/end select bug has been corrected.
* NEW Characters can now be commanded to carry out
instructions using format "say to <character>,<command(s)"
Commands can be designed in the "Character Commands" list
in the Character Editor in a very similar fashion to Response
and Script entries.
See "character_commands.tab" adventure datafile.
* Some changes to language conditions/actions.
* New tags %speech%, %speechnoun%, %speechname% and %speechloc%
and new condition "speech [ > | < | <> | = | >= | <= ] X" for
use with character commands.
* TAB Homepage URL now on Editor Dialog.


This release introduces the possibility of giving command instructions to Non-Player Characters.
Characters can now be made to carry out orders, commands and instructions given by the player.

See "character_commands.tab" adventure datafile

To command characters within a game use the format:

>say to <character>, <command>

For example:

>say to farmer, get knife

The default entries I've constructed allow gameplayers to command all characters to get,drop,wear,and remove items, follow you, stop following you, go in a direction, get objects out of containers, put objects into containers, get all, drop all, wear all, remove all, get all out of a container, drop all into a container, talk to another character. Also you can:

>say to <character>, hello
>say to <character>, inventory (or 'inv' or 'i'),
>say to <character>, wait

Some more examples:

>say to farmer, hello
>say to farmer, get the knife
>say to jim, go north
>say to bill, put the knife into the box
>say to farmer, get all
>say to farmer, drop the lamp
>say to farmer, talk to <character>
>say to robot, follow (or; follow me)
>say to robot, stop following (or; stop following me)
>say to jim, give knife to bill
>say to bill the policeman, give everything to me
>say to joseph, se
>say to robot, take everything out of the box
>say to joseph the farmer, take everything except the knife out of the box
>say to jim, drop all but the lamp
>say to farmer, give the lamp to me

You can even tell a character to perform multiple commands eg:

>say to <character>, go north and get the box then south and give the box to me

>say to <character>, get all but the knife then go north and give everything to jim then go south and follow me

The characters understand it/them/him/her so you can type:

>say to smith, get the brass lamp and give it to jones

The characters understand the 'again' or 'g' command:

>say to giant, pull lever,g,g

Finally the PLAYER can GIVE items to characters:

>give rope to smith

>give all to randles then say to smith, give the ornate vase to randles

Each command carried out by a character will cost 1 turn of the game. If for any reason the character is not present when the player gives it a command(s) or if it does not understand a command or cannot execute a command, the player will be informed so and the character will cease to act on any possible further command instructions given in that input.


http://tab.thinbasic.com/tab.zip

I intend to improve the default character command actions.
In next release I plan sfx & music now thinBasic has excellent new sound module!

Regards,
catventure.

Petr Schreiber
28-10-2006, 21:32
Catventure,

this is perfect !
I can imagine puzzle in games like:

You and your werewolf friend must go to the warlocks castle ( :D ).
You have magic wand to kill evil warlock, but there is guard.
If you try to pass he will try to search dangerous objects you bring with you.
He will discover the wand an he will not let you in. What you will do ?
Give the wand to the werewolf, which won't be suspected so much, because everybody knows werewolf is kind creature. Then you both can pass :)...

This is simply great addition ;)

Thanks a lot,
Petr

ErosOlmi
28-10-2006, 21:53
Do not forget to update http://tab.thinbasic.com/tabversion.txt

:D

Ciao
Eros

catventure
29-10-2006, 19:34
@Psch
Yeah its good for things like that when character cooperation is necessary. Maybe you're not strong enough to move/pull/push or lift something. A stronger character could maybe help out... Character help like this could influence whether a puzzle gets solved ot not

@Eros
I didn't forget :)

Please note that due to cleaning code up yesterday I found a bug when playing "Cloak of Darkness" game which meant it couldn't be solved...
An EXIT FUNCTION was missing from the "objlocX=Y" action. I probably accidentally deleted during the clean-up (BTW, took me ages to find this)
I've uploaded a fresh Alpha 17 fixing this to tab page.

catventure

Petr Schreiber
29-10-2006, 20:50
Hi Catventure,

when I move mouse over URL link in TAB_EDITOR, cursor changes to the thinBASIC icon.
Is it wanted effect ?

Thanks,
Petr

catventure
29-10-2006, 21:33
Hi Psch,

No it should show tooltip "Visit TAB Website".

I do not get the icon at all.

I added this after seeing Eros use it in TBASS example program and thought it pretty cool.

-although it is not documented in helpfile yet.

I can always remove it if causing problems.

catventure.

ErosOlmi
29-10-2006, 22:01
Still not documented. I'm still testing it under OS different from XP.
In any case, it should show classical hand cursor icon.

A quick test:
Win98 shows arrow
WinMe shows thinBasic icons (what an effect !!!)
Win2K shows classical url hand
WinXP shows classical url hand

So, something to check. Maybe some related to resounce ID.

catventure
29-10-2006, 22:31
I think it a very cool feature anyhow.

From studying the Eros tbass example and the Psch dungeon example, I've been able to very easily play a variety of sounds and music into TAB.
I've used the error checks of course for file, initialisation of dll etc. and created two new actions: playsample and playmusic which can be used to play stuff at various points in a game - not forgetting tbass_free where necessary...
According to Psch example min requirement is Direct X 8.

I've noticed that any mp3 music will autoloop and I would like to know if its poss to loop a sound sample (eg. wavefile) a set number of times...
Also is tbass_volume working Ok?
BTW, psch I love your dungeon example. I can't seem to move about in it - but that may be due to limitations of my system ;) But the shot sound Ok and music OK.

Regards,
catventure.

ErosOlmi
29-10-2006, 23:16
catventure,

BASS library if very rich of functionalities. At the moment I've just implemented the minimum needed to be able to easily play sounds but I'm studing it more in order to add more functions.

TBASS_SetVolume is working on my tests but I still have to implement volume per channel. Current volume is for device so it will effect all sounds for a particular device (actually only the default one is used)

In the test MP3 player script I've done I've set autoloop. It is not possible to restart for a number of times but you can pause/stop and restart the channel using TBASS_ChannelPlay with restart = true. Also TBASS_ChannelIsActive can be used to check if channel is playing or has finished playing.

Also I will create more functions to have info on you current sound card capabilities.

Eros

ErosOlmi
29-10-2006, 23:18
Regarding min requerements, on http://www.un4seen.com/bass.html you can read:

"On Windows, BASS requires DirectX 3 or above for output, and takes advantage of DirectSound and DirectSound3D hardware accelerated drivers, when available"

Petr Schreiber
30-10-2006, 00:12
Hi Catventure,

to describe precisely what happens - when I move cursor about URL in TAB_Editor:

Tool tip appears
If I click it, it works as a hyperlink
... but instead of "hand" icon I can see ( quite big ) color thinBASIC icon instead


In TBASS player the mouse cursor won't change at all when moving over the links.

I'm sad you cannot run dungeon sample on your PC :(.
The next-gen ( ho-hoo, how noble it sounds :D ) version will have option to disable textures - this saves a lot of performance on older PCs. And hopefully more optimized code.

Thanks,
Petr

ErosOlmi
30-10-2006, 00:43
Hey guy, what is dungeon sample?

Petr Schreiber
30-10-2006, 10:27
ALIAS Labyrinth AS Dungeon


Nothing new then. Don't worry, I won't let any new projects lie on harddisk without announcing ;)

Regarding TAB, when I start editor, I can see the frame with TAB release number, credits ...
When I go to some section ( like "Characters" ) and back, the frame is here no more. Maybe it could appear always, when I'm out of any working section. Just esthetic detail :).


Bye,
Petr

catventure
31-10-2006, 18:38
Hi Psch,

I understand what you mean. The info box/frame was actually meant to disappear after a game is loaded into Editoraas it does now already... I'm planning on showing a graphic (gif or jpeg) in that space - also the space is used for if a 'password protected' gamefile is loaded. User is given 4 attempts to enter correct password. This is so you can stop other TAB owners reading your database or cheating at the game! ;) - there's actually a small bug in that routine as the password edit field box remains in view after that routine is ended; it was due to me creating a duplicate control ID... but I've fixed that for next release ;) )
Thanks,
catventure.

Petr Schreiber
04-11-2006, 20:38
Hi Catventure,

how it looks with next release of TAB ;)
I just found on the internet one of the adventure games my father bought ( "Stíny noci" was the name, to english I would translate it as "Shadows of the night" ) was released to public. I have it still on 5 1/2 floppy, but no working drive for such a format on my PC. So I downloaded it and it remembered me of old times :).

It had quite nice interface - some icons user can click on. They are quite self explanatory, maybe some version of TAB could include "I'm-so-lazy-to-type-using-keyboard" interface for player...

Bye,
Petr

catventure
04-11-2006, 21:19
Hello Psch,

Basic sound playing working in TAB - music and sfx. Some bugfixes. I will post update in day or two.
I do not see why graphics cannot be used eg. Pics of Characters, objects or locations... if using a fixed window size and adding 'boxes' above, below or to side of richedit...
I'm hoping that eventually there will be some native picture loading commands for gif or jpeg etc..
I managed to put .bmp graphic on TAB Editor using code in LoadImage samplescript to brighten it up a bit ;)

The picture you posted reminds me too of many of those old adventure style games from the past.

Anyway will see what I can do in future release about that.

Thanks,
catventure.

PS. Spent some time looking at free clipart sites and free sound effects sites today. There's a lot of stuff out that's suitable for adventure game effects which is good. I'm trying to find a 'smallish' free music file for background music for game. Do you know of anywhere I can try? (trying to keep download size small if I can)

Petr Schreiber
04-11-2006, 23:58
Hi,

sound background would be great addition.
Sadly, I don't know about free music loops which could be used in games, I would have use for it too.

On cover CD of one magazine I found demo of "FL Studio" (http://www.flstudio.com/English/frames.html). It is program to create music using various samples.
Demo can be downloaded here (http://www.tucows.com/get/209204_87241), but it is enormous ( 40 MB ) :(.
The work is quite easy, you just load instruments and then using clicking set where to play them on the track.

Maybe this helps. I think there MUST be site dedicated to music loops, but I have no luck in searching them.
I'm looking forward to next TAB!

Thanks,
Petr

P.S. Maybe you can get some stuff on http://www.music4games.net/, the site is large