DizzyAGE Wish List

[Peter]

i have all the swimming tiles and the dizzy in the snorkle tiles which i did for mystic kingdom (alot of under water in that game )

i'll email them to you later

[xelanoimis]

thanks, i got them.

As news from DizzyAGE 2, it will support "Custom Movement" for player!

Meaning the player will have a property that tells if the engine should or
should not do the movenent of the player (somehow like the STAUS_SCRIPTED state)
I implemented last night all the movement from the engine into a gs script file and
it works the same as the engine code. It will be in the default template.

The advantage is that users can adjust the player movement as they like.
Ex: shrinking the player, moving in smaller steps, imponderability, etc.
It is pretty advanced stuff, but it makes possible to script some special movements.

I hope I'll do some nice progress during the one week Easter hollyday, and maybe have a
beta version ready this month.

[Peter]

with all these new featues especially 'custom movement' it seems like you'll be able to do almost anything now!

[Peter]

another idea...

I was thinking that the map editor could create a file when saving when saving the map that would include a list of all brushes with ID?s.

Then this file could be used in files.gs to get the list of brushes with ID's for saved games.

[xelanoimis]

A very good idea. I'll have it done.
The save and load functions will use this file to save and load brushes, so the user
will no longer have to list them by hand and get the chance to miss some.

However, while creating the map, users must be careful, to set brushes id-s only to the
brushes that really need it. Or else, too many brushes will be saved in the save game,
increasing the file size for nothing.

But this can be part of a "Before release" article and users can search for brushes with ids
to make sure those are the brushes they intended to have ids.

[xelanoimis]

I need some advice.

DizzyAGE v2 have the folowing keys defined:
KEY_LEFT (left arrow, z)
KEY_RIGHT (right arrow, x)
KEY_UP (up arrow, space), used for jump
KEY_DOWN (down arrow, c)
KEY_ACTION (enter)
KEY_MENU (escape, q)

(KEY_JUMP is a define in script with the same value as KEY_UP)

In the original Dizzy games, the menus are navigated with KEY_LEFT and KEY_RIGHT.
Should DizzyAGE v2 keep the same convention in the default template?
Or should it use KEY_UP and KEY_DOWN, that are more intuitive for PC games?
Or should it allow both UP and LEFT for going up and DOWN and RIGHT for going down?

If only UP and DOWN keys are to be used, LEFT and RIGHT can be used to
adjust sound volume or other increment/decrement options. If not, these options must be set by pressing action (increment like in The Other Side)

Of course, game developers can use them as they like, but it's a matter for the default template,
and most of the games that don't change the behaviour.

So let me know how would you like it.
Also if you have a better suggestion for second option of DOWN key, that was
not in the original games (i'm thinking of using 'c' from crouch).

[Peter]

Alex, did you know the original games did have up and down keys? they were K (Up) and M (down) keys. It was never well documented thought try them in any original dizzy game with the inventory dialog to see what i mean.

personally my feelings are that the left/right and up/down keys should be used to navigate the menus, e.g. left and up go up and right and down go down.

Also i feel that the jump key should be seperate from the up key. this will then allow things like lift controls to be used as in the Seymour games. Maybe remap the jump from the up key to the right shift key?

[xelanoimis]

Ok,
I'll have:

KEY_LEFT (arrow_left, z, joy_left)
KEY_RIGHT (arrow_right, x, joy_right)
KEY_UP (arrow up, k, joy_up)
KEY_DOWN (arrow down, m, joy_down)
KEY_JUMP (space, space, joy_button1)
KEY_ACTION (enter, enter, joy_button2)
KEY_MENU (escape, q, joy_button3)

If games want to do jump with up key, they can
overwrite the jump key value in the script (game update).
(so it can be played with a single hand , if no need for separate up/down )

I want to keep shifts and controls for debug navigation.

EDIT: Oh, and right shift and arrows is an unfortunate combination for cheap keyboards like mine.
(if you ever played Mortal Kombat with a friend on the same keyboard, you know what I mean...)

[xelanoimis]

Dizzy learned to swim this evening
In Spellbound style, empty hands, with flippers, with scuba, with flippers and scuba .

I'll have a small sample along with the DizzyAGE 2.0beta, for Pteal to use in his remake of Dizzy V.
Hopefully the beta version will be ready be the end of the month.

[xelanoimis]

Another piece of advice I need:

I can add an option (in a game.inf file, inside the game's data folder) to allow users to protect
their game against players who want to unpack the dizzy.pak archive or to use the developer option in the dizzy.ini.
The packer would require the password code to unpack, and other developers would have to contact the author to get it, for learning purposes.

The advantage would be that players (who know DizzyAGE options) will not be able to trick the game and spoil their fun of playing, by navigating the map in developer mode or unpacking the data and open the map in editor or read the scripts to find the solutions for puzzles.
Though, no serious Dizzy player would do that ... cough, cough!

The disavantage would be that developers must contact the game's author to get the
password and look at the scripts for learning purposes. This might slow a little the process of DizzyAGE learning.
Though, no serious Dizzy developer would be lasy to send an email.

The option would be off by default and authors could choose to protect or not their games.

So, what do you say?
Should the game protection option be available in DizzyAGE 2 or not ?