Anyhow, I've updated the colorthing.hex file to include that information. Also, that file has the latest version of that HugoFix stuff I was talking about, so typing "$ot 0" should give you an idea of how windows and replaced objects are listed.
So, today was another day where my optimal coding window was in a place where I didn't have much privacy so I didn't work on game-y looking things. I was getting writer's block with the LibreOffice document I've been jotting room descriptions in, so I opened up my update to Christopher Tate's conversation system extension, as I've been meaning to do some things with it.
First, I checked over the properties I created for it and made sure they were alias-able, then proceeded to alias them. Then, I added some more comments to help some of my additions look more organized.
Looking over it now, I think I'm going to routine-ize more of the messages to make more responses configurable. There's a couple other tiny things to do, but overall, I'm thinking it's almost ready for an official release (well, an official upload to HbE, anyway... an ifarchive upload is a long ways off).
To remind people, this conversation system update aspires to give authors several menu conversation options. Conversation options can be at the top of the screen or in game text. Conversations can be topic-based, and players can be informed (or not) of available topics. There's a fair amount of mixing-and-matching available, too. Let's see some screenshots!
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| Main-text conversation menu, no topic-switching |
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| Top-based conversation menu, topic-switching allowed |
I didn't know that colors don't look the same across platforms. Do the different platforms just display Hugo's standard pre-defined colors differently, or do any of the major platforms (i.e., Linux, Mac) simply not support Hugo's full color spectrum? How about in Hugor -- do the colors even look different on different platforms, all running their native version of Hugor?
ReplyDeleteOn the unrelated issue of the conversation system, I like that this extension appears to allow for a simple menu system or for a more complicated system with topics branching off of topics, as seen City of Secrets and I think in many of Emily Short's other games. I looked at the extension once, a long time ago, but I never tried to use it.
Is the red status line in those two screenshots your own styling?
Each platform displays the colors differently. All ports that support colors will have the same 16 color choices; it's just that the shades of this or that might be different.
DeleteTo see it for yourself, you might want to open up colorthing in the Windows interpreter and then open it up in DOSbox, using the DOS interpreter. Some of the colors should be fairly different.
I don't know for certain about Hugor. It is possible that *those* colors are consistent across platforms.
Lastly, the status line in my screen shots is only because that interpreter was set to have red status lines. The conversation menu is drawn in whatever your status window color is (I guess I could add the option to give conversation menus a different color altogether).
But yeah, I liked both the bones of Christopher Tate's system (making it object/topic-based) and thought it could help the player to know what topics are available.