sugarmint
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Progress on the development of Malevolent Planet - 10th July 2020
🕑 Added 2020-07-10 20:30:37 +0000 UTCThis update contains some UI additions:
- I received some feedback that the content was not showing properly on lower resolutions, so I implemented some changes to the CSS code so that the content size would change depending on the resolution/zoom of the player's PC/laptop/whatever.
- As you may have noticed in the GIF of the new sidebar, the Health, Energy, and Lust bars were not colorized correctly. This was due to a bug that caused the scripts that update the bars to not work correctly in the new navigation bar code setup. I fixed it by finding a way to update the bars automatically every time you press the Stats button.
- With HiEv's help, I have added the currency to the code of the game and you can see the way I output the available currency your character has in the sidebar. I am not terribly sure about the placement and the colors, but those can be changed later if needed.
My hurdle right now is finding ways of showing the right content at the time you visit an area, for example logically after the ending of the last version, you are supposed to head back to Morris and find out the latest developments relating to the vaccine, but it is not yet clear how to do so. From a coding perspective, what I would need is a switch statement that depending on the value of a variable that relates directly to that area, it would show different content. But, that does not feel "dynamic" enough, as locations will sometimes show different content depending on the day of the week, the time of the day and so on, so in the end a widget that considers all the factors (such as the current's location relation to an event or a quest), prioritizing those above the events that trigger themselves under different circumstances.
After more deliberation while writing this development update, a very helpful person from the Twine channel shared an event system code with me and gave me the go-ahead to integrate it within the game, so that will help me.. a short intro on how it works is that all passages whose tag is event get parsed at the beginning of the game and depending on various factors, they will be shown at some specific locations. The shower scene event will be triggered using this script in the Sanitation Room that you will hopefully unlock soon.
For more transparency on aspects of the story and so on, I am updating the About page on my Patreon to contain percentages relating to the story development, art assets and coding. I am adopting a style of development that I think you will appreciate as it will show you how far (or how close) a new version release may be.
