04:38
When I first started programming again after many years, in this language called DBC, I had some great assistance on these forums from Latch. I still thank him for his extensive help and advice, as many of his 'lessons' have remained hanging in my head. One of those was:
Quote: "{There might be} a simple solution to what you were trying to accomplish"
In the choices, I need to be able to rule out options depending on the chapter. Now I've done it by just not printing the line and disabling the option, but it still costs a page if you do something wrong.
I've tried everything, hardcoding, everything. What I should've done was use an array. I could just use a number in an array to link to an options and it shows that text. (i.e. chapter one the array would look [2,3] which the game could've read out as option 1 is choice 2 which is Visit. It could then print the relevant command and darn! It's so simple, so obvious that I feel totally stupid for not realizing it before. Now I'm stuck with a code that does what it should do, but could've been so much simpler and work so much better.
I do admit that WT:JF is far from efficient. I call a lot of functions from functions that do what the original function should've done. It's total chaos, honestly. Ever since I entered the competition though (Yes, it was already on the planning when I first learned of this compo), I've been organizing, spreadsheeting, writing out and doing things as I should've from the start. The code is still chaos (irreversible damage was already done when I started it) but it looks pretty good.
On a good note, though, I've added the first quest for the Flashback. Two more to go, and a lot of descriptions to add. The whole flashback will revolve around 3 things:
* His Fathers Newspapers (The Remnant Tribune, in the original story those are the papers of which Jarod wonders why nobody else has them and why he's supposed not to talk about them - it's the first sign of the Allegiance surpression and censorship). Depending on several things, Jarod will or will not have knowledge of things in the final 'chapter'.
* A young man, about 20 years, by the name of Jauth. This is not in the original story (although similar plot-twists are), but I felt it would make a nice twist.
* Isarat. If Jarod has practiced on summoning Isarat, his fathers broadsword, linked to the essence of water, he is able to do so in the last battle. The sword Isarat is one of five legendary swords and was the actual reason behind the assassination of Jarods father. However, Vaug failed at retrieving it by the fierce resistance of Jarod's father. The legendary swords have one rather strange peculiarity - they can only be summoned by pure energy, and only by someone who has actually wielded the sword. Isarat vanished when Jarod's father died at the hands of Vaug, leaving Jarod as the only one who, subconciously, knows how to summon the sword. The other swords, Regim [Ree-zjim] (Fire - Allegiance), Flash [Flash] (Light - Remnant), Lu'cat [Lu-kad] (Dark - Unknown) and Souzan [Soe-sen] (Soul - Allegiance) are not described in WT:JF. In the book, Vaug is carrying Souzan and Jauth carries Regim. Damian is the last wielder of Flash and Lu'cat is later reveiled to be in the possession of someone in the game...
I'm giving away too much of the stories, lol.
Darn, I feel stupid about those arrays. Darn.
