User blog:Kain McBride/Monsterpedia - The Side Story...


 * So I've had a fair number of ideas about how to make this monsterpedia accessible for all users... and, well the best one I've come up with so far is making it into it's own side story... On that note, I've started to write one. So far I've got the background's section completed, though it's untested. It's hosted by page 65537 and should be interesting.


 * Unlike the original monsterpedia, however, this already contains backgrounds... which the original was going to avoid since - really, it's a monsterpedia, not a background resource... Anyway, to further that I'm including the background music stuff and the sound effects as well... Everything should work out just fine...


 * Will do testing on the background's later tonight probably or tomorrow, really depends since... well, it's mother's day and I'm not going to be home much...
 * testing was done, revisions were made, works great...


 * Updates to this will be made as testing begins and new sections are added / tested... Upon completion the side story will be available for download.

The First Update...

 * Ha! I was all excited about the background section being finished, well it was full of bugs! Lots and lots of bugs! I mean, an infestation! Anyway, the first thing I did to 'fix' the bugs was split my sub project into multiple files, because I figured since it's around 3200 lines that that was one of the major issues... Turns out, not so much. what happened is I wrote a program to write the stuff for me because it's pretty redundant, and why waste so much time? Anyway, I forgot to include things like '.png' in my program, so it was bugging out all the time. Beyond that I was attempting to make transitions instantly (0ms) which apparently causes a crash... Then there were a bunch of typos in various sections that were repeated several hundred times over programmatically.




 * Seems to be working now... Am currently testing the section on line 2400, no crashes as of yet... so, it would appear that the background section is complete. It would also appear that I don't have to worry about splitting it into a bunch of pieces because as long as no individual section goes over 1000 lines, there's no problem.

The Second Update...

 * Have tested through the full set of background images, everything's working. It's kind of cool that it worked, am currently working on putting the background music testing together... not really sure what kind of interface I want to use... If the sp command was tweaked a little bit it'd be a lot easier...


 * That said, without the changes it can still be done, just going to be a little bit more difficult to navigate... nothing majorly wrong with the whole thing, just... a fairly lengthy navigation process... will have to split it up by chapter or something when I get to the sprites and stuff... anyway, it'll work...


 * Have added a few custom images to the program, nothing overly special but it does make it look a little more like it probably should, being hosted by page 65537 and all... This side story is not like a standard side story in that there really isn't much to it except information. Yes, it's hosted and can be navigated in a way that makes you - the user / reader - feel as if you're being immersed in the world (at least if I wrote it well it will) but there is no actual story going on. In the current outline, there are no battles, though I've considered a special ending type sequence which may be similar to a battle, or maybe be a battle..? but yeah... fun stuff... :)

The Third Update...

 * Having some issues trying to decide what kind of media player to use in the monster girl quest world... I mean, the most obvious would be a gramophone, however ... then I'd have to change the record every now 'n' then because they only held a fixed amount of music... and, well... making it look 'perfect' would use a lot of looping via move command and that would pretty much limit functionality for the user... since you can't do anything during set move command... but it's the only way to have a moving taper arm / stylus to make it look like something's actually happening... beyond that, it's the only way to have the record itself spin... doing them both at once is somewhat problematic because, well... you're only really able to set one loop into motion at a time from a side story; doable, just difficult... actually, that said... I suppose I could put all my user interaction in the sub that deals with the continuation of the loop... :-? should work fine... might look weird though... :P will see...


 * Alright, so I'm thinking an original Tesla Radio will do the trick... have written most of the interface for the musical stuff, it's currently just shy of 1000 lines... have done absolutely no testing on it, I know the last section looked great right up until I started to do tests on it... so, well... I guess I'll see how it goes...

The Fourth Update...

 * Have spent a lot of time lately working on the Luka vs The Colosseum side story section... Not so much time on this project, however... it could be because I don't really want to start on the exceptionally long set of sprites, because once I start on it, it'll be hard to stop until I'm finished...


 * That said, I'm thinking about creating a section for it, which will include the currently completed sections so at least they're available currently, though without the monster girl sprites, really there isn't a whole lot of purpose in it. Also, with the interactive tutorial I'm creating, it wouldn't really help anyone much for script referencing since they can see anything in it. If you've not looked at it and are interested, check out Side Stories - Putting it all together for the actual Side Story, and Side Stories: Luka vs All - Group 1 for the battle information...


 * If you're only interested in battles, you could check out the second link, though for a fully documented list of everything available in a battle, check out the other page I made (with the help of GC345) here Side Stories - Battle Commands.


 * Will try to spend a bit more time at the monsterpedia side story over the next little while and see if I can get the next section completed. Thanks for reading :)