Grimrock

Hello all you wonderful modders. I would appreciates a few opinions on how to proceed with my mod.

Since my mod is extremely story driven, to the point I would probably call it an interactive story more than anything, I am very wary of having dead characters holding up their end of the conversation. Admittedly I did not consider this scenario until I played the "Wine Merchants Basement" mod, and while I never experienced it myself, there are some reports of Sheola speaking while in a deceased state.

Had I the presence of mind to foresee this inevitability I may have taken steps to account for the possibility of dead speakers. Since I didn't I have been ruminating over various ways to adapt without massive amounts of recoding. Without further ado here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

My first thought is simple, if a party member dies it's game over. With proper warning it would be harsh, but fair, as long as the player has knowledge of what to expect. Not my favorite option, but an option none the less.

My next thought is a step up from the first, and what I am currently developing. I will make available at the onset a custom asset known as the "Amulet of Life Sharing". Under this scenario if a player dies, the game will automatically pass a yet to be determined amount of (currently 30% for testing) health from the character with the highest amount of current health to the character that would have died otherwise. The amulet would have a cool down period (again to be determined with testing) before it could pass health again. Under this scenario if two characters die it's game over, so more lenient than the first option. I should add that if a character dies during the cool down period, they would be automatically resurrected when the amulet becomes active again. There is one issue with this technique however.

The old saying is "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." If I provide the amulet, there is no guarantee the player will use it. If this case arises then exists the potential for one dead character to be carried around by the party, and thus, potentially speaking. So I have two thoughts on that. One is to place the amulet on a character at start up and make it non removable, which I don't like because it can not be swapped between members, also because I'm not sure to how to accomplish this. The second, and more easily achievable, system is, if the necklace is not worn, the game reverts back to one death equals game over.

One more method, which actually just popped into my head as I was typing this this, would be to make death just being unconsciousness unless all members die, or possibly a timer that the party must revive the character by or death becomes permanent. I think this warrants some more consideration.

I know this is lengthy and I tend to ramble, but if anyone would like to add any insight or opinion, I would welcome all responses.

Thanks again.

There are only two clean methods I see: either go with the GameOver option or enclose all these conversations into "if" clauses using Champion:isAlive(). All else seems half-baked with the possibility to cause more/other problems.

Or, if it somehow fits in the story, let the ghosts of the killed party-members 'linger around' and let them talk anyway with the party members.

You can do this in a positive way (great group of friends that have know each other for a long time and thus can speak even beyond the boundaries of death), but also in a negative way (the group members have been cursed somehow and will always be haunted by each other, even beyond death with their's ghosts).

In the onDie function of a champion you can give hudPrint that soandso died, but that it's spirit lingers with the party and can still communicate. Put some attention to it in your story and you're set I think.

Or, you may say (somewhere) that the party has the ability of healing themselves by 'moving around' life points; may be this 'ability' can be gained (its a true/false flag to be checked in an onDie routine) at the early stages of the game (when 1) enemies are weaker, and one is less likely to be killed or 2) if one dies, it's game over but with very few things to re-do); in this way, there is a sort of 'party pool' of life points ready to be shared at the beginning of a fight (or before falling into a pit, stepping on a trap, etc). Just to make things nicer, you could sum all the life points of the alive champions, divide it by the number N of 'existing' champions (dead or alive), assign the amount of life points obtained in this way to the dead champion, and decrease the life points of the other champions 'proportionally'; i.e., every champ loses 1/N - rounding down to avoid it dies in the process! - of its life points in the process - in this way no one will be dead after 'sharing'. In this way, either all N champions die - and it's game over anyway - or, after a blow, a fall or whatever, they are all alive!

alois

Ryeath_Greystalk wrote: One more method, which actually just popped into my head as I was typing this this, would be to make death just being unconsciousness unless all members die, or possibly a timer that the party must revive the character by or death becomes permanent. I think this warrants some more consideration.

Just an update should anyone care.

Although I managed to get my amulet of life sharing functional I still was not happy with the design. So I explored the thought of unconsciousness. I am much more satisfied with this result. So now when a character would have normally died they are rendered unconscious. After a predetermined time frame (30 seconds for testing but may move to 60 seconds for the game) they regain consciousness with 10% health. If all 4 characters become unconscious then it's game over.

Fortunately (due to the level design) this only leaves a couple places where a player might be speaking while unconscious. In those case I just revive them early if it's their turn to speak.

So far it is testing out perfect.

Now maybe I'll get my mod done before Grimrock IV comes out.

At least you are working on a single mod. I've started about six different mods so far, and keep changing my mind, usually after nearly completion on them!

It's all the great assets people keep bringing out - well, that's what I'm blaming anyhow's.

Good to see that you have a solution to your problem. I'm not much for having character's talking to one another (I actually find it distracting personally) but I appreciate the effort you are putting in to enliven the player's experience.