Celtic Minstrel

Yay, looks good!

Erdos (iasEnvy on github) was trying to work on a Makefile (for compiling the Mac version), but I think he actually made less progress than you did. I might start working on something too at some point. Ligrev just said there was a build, but the documentation here seems the same. Do I have the wrong URL or something? These URLs are also hard-coded into the source code (in the function handle_menu_choice in all three *.main.cpp files), so if they're wrong, feel free to update them.

Someone requested it, so here's a downloadable version of the Blades of Exile HTML documentation. It includes both the game documentation and the editor documentation; however, keep in mind that parts of it may still be out of date. Download By the way, I noticed that Sylae's copy of the docs is out-of-date now - is there any way to get them to automatically update as part of the Jenkins build process?

I don't recall any serious lag from animations in the cross-platform port, but it's possible I just so happened to never open a dialog with animateable graphics... it's not a problem on my Mac, at least.

I don't know for certain. However, that sort of thing works due to the Resource Manager's fallback mechanisms - basically, when searching for a resource with a given ID, it checks the most-recently-opened file first. Since the Windows version obviously doesn't use the Resource Manager, Jeff would have had to implement his own way of mimicking the fallback mechanism, which I doubt he would've thought of. So, it would surprise me if substituting default graphics works on Windows. That said, I don't recall ever testing it. So I could be wrong, I guess.

Joined NPCs in the first Avernum trilogy are true party members that fill one of the 4 PC slots, but in Blades of Avernum, joined NPCs are a special thing. That might be why a special power is needed.

Though this probably only works on the Mac? I doubt PC 0 stays as 0 if you swap character position.

The relevant place in the source is here. Monsters that are larger than a single space, monsters that have the Splits special ability, and monsters with the Important race are immune. To determine the chance of capturing, the game generates a random percentage, then multiplies by 0.7. It checks this against a reference chance based on half the monster's level (which is used as an index into an array) - the chances array is the same one used by the Charm spell and a few other effects. Here's the array itself: const short cCreature::charm_odds[21] = {90,90,85,80,78, 75,73,60,40,30, 20,10,4,1,0, 0,0,0,0,0, 0}; So, in short, the only factor is the monster's level.

I think the only way is to place it on the tile "below" where the (N)PC stands. Depending on the order things are drawn in, it might be possible to do this and use adjusts to make it look like the terrain is on a space other than the one it's "officially" placed on... of course, if it's something other than a decoration (ie, anything with a mechanical effect), this won't do what you want. ...oh wait, come to think of it, there should also be a way that's used with walls to paint them on top of the (N)PCs... I can't remember.

Unfortunately, there's no way to exit town other than crossing the town boundary. To connect a town to an outdoor section like you describe, you need an additional intermediate town like Excalibur described.

If you mean creating new spells or skills for player use, it's impossible. There's documentation somewhere on creating custom special abilities (they go in the "Use Ability" area); they work by calling a scenario state. Try searching the official docs (the two files that come with the editor) for something like "ability"? You can also create new "spells" attached to an item by making the item call a scenario state when used, possibly even allowing the player to select a target. If you mean you want to give the player a spell or increase their level in a skill, you should search through the appendix for the relevant script call(s).

There are a few cases. I think the main one is joined NPCs. I can't remember if there are many others.

Is there a separate way to test for those things, I wonder? For example, isn't blocked-to-NPC a type of field?

Yes, that's what I was referring to. (I missed the first instance.) Does it actually work like that?

You forgot to invoke the second instance of coins_amount. Also, I know the code tag is messed up, but I think it's kinda still better than what you did there...

Yes, I'm aware it depends on that, and I think I mentioned it earlier. (Note that according to the official download page, it can install on XP; however, the above build likely won't run on XP for other reasons.) We also noticed it doesn't work on WINE. ADoS is having much trouble getting it to work even on Vista (emulated) or Win7, though, and I can't figure out why; maybe you could help? There's someone working on a Makefile system that Sylae could probably use in her MinGW build on the Jenkins site. I don't know if a MinGW build will fix all the issues ADoS is having, though.

I kinda meant among the existing items graphics, but I guess adding new graphics isn't difficult. As for the rest of your post, I'll think about it.

After discovering a few fatal problems with the above Windows build, here's a new one that should work.

Well, my plan for the preset original scenarios (and the Blades of Exile Base) is to store them in the repository not as a tarball but as a directory with the same contents as the tarball. The scenario editor is already set up to load and save in this alternate format, so I think the only thing needed to complete it would be a command to re-archive the scenario into a tarball for distribution - it'd be best, I think, if the scenario editor itself could be used to pack and unpack scenarios.

And here it is. A version with a fully-functional scenario and a new scenario format. This version could probably be used for developing scenarios, though there are still likely a lot of bugs. There's one major issue still with Mac custom graphics in legacy scenario, though. Some custom graphics files will fail to load. It should be possible to get around this by copying the picture to a BMP. There might be other ways around it (the cause of the issue is that my PICT loader doesn't support QT-compressed data embedded in the PICT resource). Download: Windows | Mac

Okay, the implementation is pretty much done. I'll do a bit more testing and then release a build, probably tomorrow, or maybe Saturday.

Update: I was sort of hoping to have a build released today (and said as much to ADoS), but first I got distracted by a few other things, and then I underestimated the time it would take for implementing loading. I'm about... one-eigth of the way through, probably? It's not especially hard, but it's time-consuming. I'll see how it goes; it's probably not something I can work on for six hours straight, but I think it's quite likely that I'll be done well before the end of next week, after which the only thing left is some testing (to make sure loading and resaving doesn't lose anything) and getting it to build on Windows. There are a couple of other things I want to do (like support for editing a scenario in unpacked form), but they're not absolutely essential, so I'll put them off until after the release. Sorry, ADoS!

Will this include Blades of Exile as well?

So unless I stupidly missed something, the new Open Blades of Exile scenario format is pretty much complete... saving code is complete, and now I just need to implement loading code and make sure there aren't any obvious data losses. It's literally a gzipped tarball containing various files. The schemas for the XML parts can be viewed on the repository in the rsrc/schemas directory; special nodes and map/location data have a custom format that is technically undocumented, though there are samples in the rsrc/boes directory. The archive can also contain custom graphics and sounds. At some point, it might also be possible to put in custom XML dialog definitions to be used for complicated special encounters. Once I've implemented loading, I'll make sure it builds on Windows (last I checked there was at least one compile error) and release another build for both platforms. (If anyone is wondering about the shops thing, I took Lilith's suggestion and cut out a chunk of the standard gold item icon to use there.)

I wonder, would it be too much of a mechanical change to reimplement the magically inept trait? Currently its effect doesn't really match its name and description. (The description is: "Magically Inept characters, for some reason, resist the effects of magical items, and are unable to use them. Potions and scrolls won't work for them at all, although worn items, such as rings and armor, will have a small effect.") The actual effect is that usable items of any kind (except for light sources and weapon poison) don't work for them, regardless of whether or not they're magic. The description implies it should affect worn magical items as well, but it doesn't. My intuition from the name also suggests potions should be usable, but I guess the description contradicts that. It has no effect on actually casting spells - I'm assuming this is intentional, though, as the description explicitly references magic items. The effect I'd go for is still a bit nebulous, but would be something like the following. If a usable item is not magic, a magically inept character can use it. (Possibly with an exception for items that cast spells.) If a usable item is not magic, a magically inept character cannot use it at all. (Maybe add an exception for potions, but maybe not.) For magical worn items (general use abilities), treat them as if their ability strength is one lower than it actually is. For weapon abilities, don't do anything - their abilities affect the enemy, not the wielder. (Possibly make an exception for Soulsucker.) ----- On a tangentially related note, the three usable item varieties (potions, scrolls, wands) are currently almost mechanically identical. Potions multiply their weight by the number of charges and play a drinking sound when used, and I think they're more likely to show up as random drops. Scrolls and wands are completely identical mechanically. This seems like a bit of a waste, and I would sort of like to change that somehow. Making potions usable by magically inept characters could potentially be one of those changes. Another possibility could be introducing some means to recharge wands (maybe using a talk node similar to weapon enchantments?), and thus making them not disappear when their charges hit 0.