Hi all, I’ve put some work in since my last post a couple days ago. I created my first video tutorial ever (so I hope it’s not that bad) for using the new development system on ifSpace.
I still can’t post links, but the video can be found on the home page at the following url: www dot ifspace dot net
Also on the homepage is a new big green button that makes it easier for first timers to find the Map page (where the existing worlds and games are).
Let me know what you all think, and thanks a lot for any feedback.
The video is helpful and the software is pretty intuitive. I’m looking forward to see where you’re headed. I’ve managed to put together an incomplete Cloak of Darkness implementation and have a few thoughts on ifSpace so far:
Possible bugs / unfinished features:
items not yet “revealed” due to not having met requirements can still be examined (but not taken);
Item Evos function seems buggy; in some cases, this field’s value doesn’t even save; (I also don’t recall this feature being mentioned in the video tutorial.)
adding evolutions to more than one item in the same node is likewise buggy: details of the second item don’t get saved and the descriptions of the first item are given for the second one in gameplay;
requirements feature doesn’t work properly with built-in actions like “dropping;” For example, when setting “max number of uses” to 0, the “Can’t do that anymore” message fires, but the action is still successfully carried out; other requirements, such as node visits, when not satisfied, correctly yield a failure message with the action succeeding nonetheless;
Feature requests:
method for assigning items to the player at the start; (I got around this in my CoD implementation by adding the cab – containing the cloak – as an initial location.)
global actions; right now, the game can recognize actions performed anywhere as a requirement, but authors still need to create the actions in every node where they might be tried;
an either/or option for requirements; (They do something similar in Texture – checking for any or all of a set of flags when determining the behavior of certain actions.)
method for built-in actions (take, drop, etc.) to be overridden; (This may have been intended, but not working correctly as mentioned above.)
allow alternate forms for built-in actions in the same way they are allowed for directions; (For example, if I could have made “hang cloak on hook” equivalent to “put cloak on hook,” I could have just made the hook a container.)
allow items to be removed from containers; I understand that at the moment you are mainly using them as goal-tracking devices (and I appreciate being able to put things on as well as in them) but having them act as more traditional container/supporters would be nice;
wildcard tokens; allow authors to create actions like “throw * ” where the * can be any item; (Of course this might veer more into “programmy” territory, which you seem to be trying to avoid.)
Those are just some of my initial thoughts. Great job so far!
Wow! Thanks for going so in depth on this update! I never would have imagined anybody going out of their way so far to find all of these things out. All of these comments are super helpful and I will definitely work on making these things work the way they are meant to (and also the feature requests!).
I was also thinking (maybe you can let me know your opinion on this since you have some experience working with the software) that maybe I should shrink the size of the nodemap area in the game creation area. I mean you can always zoom out if you want to see more of your nodes, and I think that the extra space from shrinking that would help make the node tools area look a little bit less cluttered. Thoughts?
I also intend on adding a “Go to:” input for both coordinates and users on the Map page. This way it is easier to find a specific node or user if/when many users join. And finally, kind of going along with the last thing, I was going to add x and y coordinates on the edges of the map so that when you scroll or drag the map, you still have an idea where you are in the universe.
Yes, extra space in the node tools would be welcome. Actually, I was going to suggest a side-to-side scrollbar in that window. I’ve already run out of room in just my small experiments (for actions mostly). I know the window auto-scrolls if you start adding things, but being able to move around better there would make life easier. [or I could just scroll to the bottom of the window and use the scrollbar you already have.]
