tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-348047042012-02-17T02:01:43.199ZLesMisGame.comChris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.comBlogger8581100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-48532755580182030972009-01-02T18:34:00.002Z2009-01-02T18:47:04.247Z

This blog has now moved toenterthestory.wordpress.comI'll still come back here to check for the next few days, but I get confused trying to run two different blogs on the same game. I'm using the name "Enter The Story" on everything, to keep things simple.It feels like moving away from a childhood home - I'm gonna miss you guys (wipes tear from eye). But hopefully some of you might drop by the

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-4053115936078496762009-01-01T21:58:00.003Z2009-01-01T22:36:12.112Z

This is probably the last but one blog here. 870 posts! That's a lot of blogging. Tomorrow I start blogging on enterthestory.wordpress.com - about Dante's Inferno! And hopefully not blogging about Les Miserables bugs that I missed. :)LesMisGame.com now has its new look, and will probably be mothballed.EnterTheStory.com has a new look, with new pages and screenshots, and most important an actual

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-87875683945934968262008-12-31T22:37:00.004Z2009-01-01T00:17:28.487Z

It is done.https://secure.bmtmicro.com/servlets/Orders.ShoppingCart?CID=4751&PRODUCTID=47510000I'll upload the free demo and the improved web site in the morning, then get emailing everyone who needs emailing. Then get working on Dante's Inferno.I did it - and in 2008! With just minutes to go :)Happy New Year!

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-80482800465018920372008-12-29T06:57:00.001Z2008-12-29T06:59:43.312Z

I have a day with the family today so won't be able to put any finishing touches to the game, but I'm really happy with how it's looking. This last big revision was definitely worth it. Just about every task now has extra clues and various tweaks.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-30419521629769898752008-12-28T17:40:00.003Z2008-12-28T18:06:00.151Z

You would not believe the time I spent today in tracing a tiny but annoying bug. Well actually I'm sure you would believe it : 8 hours. It was an annoying little thing - nothing major, but noticeable, and potentially very annoying, depending on what users do. What happens is, sometimes when a character enters a room they don't enter where you expect. They might float down from half way up the sky

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-85728502755774861582008-12-27T12:57:00.003Z2008-12-27T13:08:04.795Z

I'm three quarters through the final, final (etc.) test. Anyone who's tried the "final test version" will be pleasantly surprised that the "on sale" version will have a lot of improvements.All going well the game should be done, done, done by tonight. Then I'll make the demo tomorrow and upload everything tomorrow night.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-69520794779926730562008-12-26T19:10:00.000Z2008-12-26T19:11:04.955Z

Still working away.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-70613364538167328982008-12-24T12:31:00.006Z2008-12-24T13:09:24.579Z

Latest estimate: this Saturday (December 27th.)Sorry for the delays. I'm genuinely sorry. I didn't post yesterday because (a) I was working so much on the game, and (b) I'm frankly embarrassed. I feel really bad about not delivering on promises and want to hide and not show my face until the game is actually, genuinely, really really uploaded and ready.I promised the game would be ready by

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-52038591347482793492008-12-22T07:36:00.001Z2008-12-22T07:38:44.948Z

Power came on this morning (as you can tell since I'm back on the computer). I think I lost the equivalent of two days. I'm working against the clock to get everything finished and uploaded today.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-63459313416152794782008-12-21T18:06:00.003Z2008-12-21T18:07:29.864Z

More power cuts today. I expected to have the demo up this morning, but with the power outages (and the time needed to rescue lost work) it'll be tonight at the earliest, with the main game up tomorrow hopefully.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-56031854878684160952008-12-20T10:35:00.002Z2008-12-20T10:38:43.762Z

The game is 99.9% ready to upload, I think. Unfortunately we had a power cut for 11 hours (I live in a rural area and power cuts are common in the winter), but that gave me a chance to wrap some Christmas presents instead. Now the power's back on I'm making the demo (and also going to a nativity play and spending 3 hours at my day job, plus travel time. Busy busy busy!)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-49985476647683210352008-12-19T18:44:00.002Z2008-12-19T18:47:34.251Z

Status: I've made all the changes that testers have suggested. I'll have some more typo corrections coming in tomorrow, so tonight I'll get to work on the demo instead. I COULD upload the finished game tomorrow, but I think it's safer to give it another day's testing just in case.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-65722102094800927482008-12-18T08:24:00.000Z2008-12-18T08:26:00.791Z

Busy day at the day job today, but I have a long list of corrections to make, and hopefully they're all simple so I can get them all done before work, and when I get back from the Christmas party tonight.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-75689297248865684002008-12-17T09:19:00.003Z2008-12-17T09:25:20.473Z

the entire text of the game is herehttp://enterthestory.com/dec15test/game%20text.zipI'd be VERY grateful for any suggestions, or spotting any typos. Don't feel you have to read the whole thing - even a single fixed typo would be welcome. Please put any changes on the blank lines, or in bold, so I can find them! And as usual, anyone who helps gets the final game free.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-64615793437431471742008-12-16T18:53:00.006Z2008-12-16T19:07:11.964Z

Schedule:Tuesday (today): fix a minor bug I found last night.Wednesday (tomorrow): grab screen shots. This gives me an excuse to randomly play the game some more and hopefully spot anything that needs fixing.Thursday-Friday: Hopefully I'll have some feedback from the final test version, and will make whatever changes are needed.Saturday: Make the demoSunday: Upload the finished game (and revised

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-3291510066386125942008-12-16T00:23:00.004Z2008-12-16T18:51:49.559Z

FINISHED!Finally!Well, OK, I'm sure I'll find plenty of minor bugs over the next few days, and I'll want to tweak the story, the animations, add more dialog, etc., etc. but basically that's it done. At ten minutes past midnight I tested the last scene and it seems to work as intended. I'll need to test different scenes in different orders, and I really hope previous testers will want to suffer

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-87543565621481922362008-12-15T08:05:00.002Z2008-12-15T08:15:01.813Z

It's kind of funny really. As my budget is low, I use Dreamhost - they offer huge bandwidth at incredibly low prices. The downside is their servers seem to go down more often than more expensive solutions. Uptime is still more than 99 percent in my experience, so it's not a deal killer - it's a price I'm willing to pay for the bandwidth. And in my experience the service is good - you pay for what

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-87391026429451640622008-12-14T22:45:00.003Z2008-12-14T23:00:08.137Z

You know what, I think this game might actually be good.I'm just burning a backup now, so there's a few minutes to blog.I'm actually enjoying the game now, for the first time for ages. Testing is fun! The characters are starting to feel like real people, I'm enjoying playing around with the music (the copyright page lets you play previous tracks and save and reuse favorites), and the rough edges

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-41011650436791475972008-12-14T20:06:00.003Z2008-12-14T20:12:18.994Z

I should probably post an update, but I really want to get back to work on the game :)Yesterday's hospital visit put me a day behind, and all the little polishing things add extra time. And I can't help adding little features that seem like a good idea. For example, the guy who reads the newspaper will now comment on every single event in the game (all 120 of them), often with a humorous headline

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-89787142970470443282008-12-13T09:40:00.002Z2008-12-13T09:42:32.898Z

Yesterday my brother in law cut his hand and I spent most of the day driving him to hospital, so the drum roll was slightly longer than planned. TODAY I start the final test, and assuming nothing unexpected turns up, will upload a final test version tonight.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-49104229941869009332008-12-12T07:54:00.001Z2008-12-12T07:55:45.452Z

Today begins (drum roll please) the final test

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-33401824287835616112008-12-11T07:52:00.003Z2008-12-11T09:25:29.308Z

Change of plan:Final test version on Saturday. Final "on sale" version probably a couple of days late (to allow time for final testing).Oh well. Looks like I'm going to have to eat humble pie. Despite the minutes and seconds countdown clock, I think I'll need to upload the game a couple of days late.Everything will be finished on Saturday (all clues, all events, everything). That gives me just 24

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-2041214649670556082008-12-10T08:16:00.002Z2008-12-10T08:22:18.673Z

Four days to go! (Four whole days, that is). My twelve year old daughter is turning into an expert tester, finding all kinds of stuff that I missed, so I'm fixing those along the way. If I'm still fixing bugs on Sunday night then I won't release the game until those are done (obviously), but right now there's a good chance I'll still make the deadline.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-57829909190960532882008-12-09T08:07:00.001Z2008-12-09T08:09:11.796Z

Five days to go, and TUESDAY is CLUESDAY. Today I'm adding the improved heaven clues. Tomorrow, improved on-earth clues. Thursday quick test and upload one final test version.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-11551108959538940002008-12-08T07:52:00.002Z2008-12-08T12:33:40.331Z

Solved the crash problem. And a good job too - it was an issue that could have come up at other times. What happened was this:Enjolras and the other revolutionaries were about to be killed. If you click away from their scene then come back, they're dead. Which means they've all moved to the "dump" room where I put characters that are not used. That room gets very full! So if you click on a

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-76809472302811638432008-12-07T21:04:00.002Z2008-12-07T21:12:17.212Z

Seven days to go!Today I improved the music code: you can now scroll back through all the music right to the start (if you so desire), select your three favorite tracks and play them whenever you want (and of course change them when you get sick of them). This could be especially fun in later games: for technical reasons, all games will have to share the same music library. And later games will

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-73387181660707704652008-12-06T21:03:00.005Z2008-12-06T21:54:29.673Z

I need help. Any suggestions will be appreciated!Benedict just confirms what I've suspected other people are finding, and I'm frankly baffled about what to do about it:People find this game hard. It often isn't clear what to do.This is how it's SUPPOSED to work:The game is a story. The puzzles/tasks are supposed to be a natural part of the story. At first the tasks are not supposed to be obvious

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-17403448802959056372008-12-05T07:56:00.001Z2008-12-05T08:00:46.179Z

Busy day at my day job today, but I have next week off work. Schedule:Tonight: add more 'congratulations' to Hugo dialogWeekend: go through clues one last time, adding stuff where it's obvious a user will click on X.First half of next week: play the game from start to finish one more time, making essential changesSecond half of next week: bite my nails and pace round the room a lotSunday night:

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-90202177460106760172008-12-04T08:00:00.006Z2008-12-04T12:01:31.467Z

EDIT: since posting this I may be making a little progress. I think doing this during 'setup' is a blind alley, but I may be able to do more within the game itself. But the 'my story' feature is a pain in the backside now, as it of course tries to mimic saved games, but in a different way, so creates its own set of problems. original post:Question: when installing the game, which is better:1.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-91860874892189083162008-12-03T08:09:00.002Z2008-12-03T08:18:29.994Z

I found out what was causing the strange load/save behavior, and it's very simple and nothing to do with Vista. However, doing some research gave me more understanding of what happens in Vista, so that's very useful to know.Recent changes:*The game's been renamed! Not as dramatic as it sounds. I previously called the EXE file "Enter The Story" but it's now called "Les Miserables" and the FOLDER

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-37279488148918516002008-12-02T18:50:00.003Z2008-12-02T18:54:57.628Z

Tonight I'm uploading a new version of the test game, mainly to solve a bug with saving games in Vista. It will also fix various other things - I'll post more details at the time.On the subject of testing, here's something I just said in the comments section but it's important for everyone who's testing the game, for the sake of your valuable time and your sanity:If it ever takes you more than 10

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-13994716925426288632008-12-01T16:52:00.003Z2008-12-01T16:53:20.238Z

I just uploaded the final test version. Anyone who's tested a previous one feel free to ask for the address (though previous testers can probably guess the URL, even though it's different every time)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-59277067321986851792008-11-30T19:37:00.002Z2008-11-30T19:49:24.877Z

I should have all the remaining dialog "bugs" fixed by tonight (or first thing tomorrow at the latest). Those are all the places where I thought "somebody should say something here" when going through the game from start to finish two weeks ago. Then I'll send the game off to a couple of new testers for final testing (once again, if any previous testers want a more recent version, let me know!)PS

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-73248399861151375142008-11-29T21:01:00.002Z2008-11-29T21:03:49.120Z

That's interesting. Someone just left a message on YouTube about the game, about how they're stuck at a certain point. Obviously they're using some really early test version. Which means that test versions have already escaped into the wild! Hopefully people will see the big "this is a test version" message on every screen and figure out it isn't the FINAL version. It actually makes me feel good

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-73835435744984942582008-11-29T11:40:00.002Z2008-11-29T11:43:29.361Z

I have fifty more clues to add (the easiest ones from the original 381 bugs). They should be done by tomorrow, then I'm going to send the "finished" game to some completely fresh testers, to catch anything I've missed. Any other testers who want the newer version, just let me know.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-83674844247854694942008-11-28T07:57:00.002Z2008-11-28T08:18:27.979Z

Sixteen days to go. Today I made yet another change to the opening sequence, to make it more dramatic, clearer, make the first task more obvious, and give a stronger start to the whole series.It's funny really, of all the stories to choose to start this project, Les Miserables is possibly the hardest. That was part of the reason for choosing it - if I can make an adventure game based on Les

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-61955895094854202222008-11-27T19:16:00.005Z2008-11-27T20:35:16.547Z

Thursday evening:The graphics disaster was fixed far more quickly than I expected (as far as I can tell! Fingers crossed.) And a few other changes I had scheduled for today turned out to be simpler and quicker than expected. The phrase "simpler and quicker than I expected" is not something I'm used to.In fact, the last week has seen several small successes like that, and it's now at least a month

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-69171310576235368532008-11-27T08:12:00.003Z2008-11-27T20:17:11.443Z

Thursday morning:Small disaster: when saving the game yesterday morning the power went off, corrupting the files. And it's ten days since I did a proper offline backup (I was overdue for another backup). I think it's just graphics that are lost, and they haven't changed much in the last ten days. So I can recover most of them, and I always save major new pictures as separate graphics files anyway

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-21545447940388559352008-11-26T12:58:00.002Z2008-11-26T13:45:47.566Z

Feedback from testers so far (i.e. from Caius - that guy deserves a medal) is reassuring. Plenty of little things need changing, but from coding point of view they're relatively simple. The one I was most worried about was Valjean's habit of walking in circles before leaving a room. Turns out, that was a simple problem too. I have Valjean walk to the nearest place to where you click the mouse,

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-915649308523789172008-11-25T16:25:00.002Z2008-11-25T16:32:25.143Z

Today I don't have much time, but I'll be fixing it so that followers (i,e, Valjean and occasionally Cosette) can jump straight to rooms that are selected in the map screen, instead of having to walk through all the rooms in between. And also checking that the kneeling costume doesn't go weird any more, and trying to get to the bottom of the "turn around before exiting" bug. Then if I have time,

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-79239855513094299902008-11-24T12:29:00.001Z2008-11-24T12:30:42.214Z

If anyone who's already testing the game wants a more up to date copy, let me know.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-54241909941622585272008-11-23T23:40:00.003Z2008-11-23T23:46:30.309Z

I looked into the translation issue some more and I think I can have it up and running the same day the game goes live - that is, 15th December. Today I worked on the revised web site, and it has a page on translation. You'll be able to download the full text of the game from there, along with other useful information. Back on the 'real' work, I've about finished the non-dialog bugs (20 to go,

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-75967613964043617732008-11-22T09:38:00.002Z2008-11-22T10:18:47.019Z

I've been thinking about foreign language versions of the game. This is not an urgent priority, but some time over the next year I'll probably add a page where people can earn money by making their own translation. That way, the game will be available in any language people want. Here's how it would work:EnterTheStory.com will have a page with links to the raw text from every game. If anyone

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-28380952163502385142008-11-21T10:06:00.003Z2008-11-21T10:28:40.825Z

23 days to go, and I'm gradually ticking off everything that needs to be done:known bugs: 100 non-text and 150 text changes to go (7 days?)changes to the story: I'm still not happy with how it starts. Don't worry, the events won't change, but the dialog will. I've been reading up on how to start a story and I think, as the opening to what will be a very large series of games, what Peri and her

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-7259749781754650472008-11-20T07:47:00.003Z2008-11-20T07:52:57.159Z

Wow, I didn't blog yesterday, and didn't even notice. Told you I was busy! I didn't just do the easy bugs, but tackled some harder ones as well. Including the Fantine death scene, the rigging scene, I wrote new "previous music" code (so you can now recall the last ten pieces of music, not just the past 2), improved the 'extra large' font and made various other changes. More of the same today..

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-38760367316959888592008-11-18T18:43:00.002Z2008-11-18T19:05:33.104Z

About 30 of the 381 bugs were simply lines that were too wide. Often it was hard to see who was talking because the text was almost the full width of the screen. So I just changed the 'talk' code so the lines aren't so wide. Now, as far as possible, it's easier to identify where its coming from. (I toyed with the idea of adding a line from the words to the person, comic book style, but

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-54085228319062910942008-11-17T23:18:00.002Z2008-11-17T23:20:56.166Z

I just uploaded the test game to its top secret location and I'm off to bed now. If you asked to be a beta tester ages ago didn't get an email, let me know. I'm sure I forgot someone along the way, so apologies if it was you!- Chris

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-58055105635427215372008-11-17T08:01:00.003Z2008-11-17T08:31:20.925Z

28 days to go...Here's how it stands: as you may have noticed over the past few years, I make estimates based on what I know. E.g. "it takes 1 day to finish 1 event, I have 10 events, so it needs 10 days." Then invariably I find some coding problem and spend the time fixing that instead.And so it is that I planned to have everything in the game by last Saturday, leaving exactly a month to make

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-32170661766174837122008-11-16T12:26:00.002Z2008-11-16T12:36:56.061Z

Another short blog today! too busy working on the game. :)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-28214684110802308332008-11-15T19:37:00.001Z2008-11-15T19:38:41.397Z

I was going to write a long blog entry today, but I think it would be better to spend that time on the game!

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-29146748147699914692008-11-14T08:11:00.003Z2008-11-14T08:18:10.415Z

31 days to go! This one's going to go to the wire :) I added a new animation to the fire rescue (actually an old animation that I couldn't fit in before, but I found a way to fit it in), created a new "arms in the air triumphant" animation for Valjean, found a way to use an extra-large font for shouting, and made various other improvements. Today I'm doing a speed play through the whole thing to

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-4194282754544545652008-11-13T16:31:00.006Z2008-11-13T16:59:08.841Z

Message to anyone who's ever tested the game and left feedback: And also those who have already kindly agreed to test the game from Monday (you know who you are!) If you want your name to appear in the game credits, let me know how you want to be named (and if you like I can add a reference to your web site if you have one). If you let me know by Sunday night then you'll be in credits in the test

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-55031394107273633242008-11-12T07:57:00.003Z2008-11-12T13:10:01.896Z

Last week I changed it so that Valjean doesn't follow the mouse unless you click, and he walks to whatever he looks at. Which means it's possible to lose him - if he looks at a tree, for example, he might end up standing behind it and you can't click on him! You can still use the "recent people" screen of course and access him that way, but I think a lot of users wouldn't think of that. So I've

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-4273672712855104832008-11-11T15:34:00.001Z2008-11-11T15:35:09.218Z

Not much to add. Fixing minor bugs in the "walk into room" code.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-6316136400859061352008-11-10T16:42:00.006Z2008-11-10T18:48:22.722Z

THE NEXT FIVE YEARS.This post is more important than my usual "today I'm adding XYZ" post. I've been working on a five year business plan. Each of these milestones is based on number crunching, and should be reliable. (More reliable than my usual estimates anyway.)17th November 2008: upload the test game to selected people. (You knew that already.)15th December 2008: upload finished Les

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-521001639937227042008-11-10T08:01:00.000Z2008-11-10T08:02:09.939Z

Today I start another playthrough, making sure the game works with all the recent changes, and adding anything that seems to be needed.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-64713977498343093392008-11-09T11:01:00.002Z2008-11-09T11:09:20.409Z

Only 35 days to go! And only 6 days till I send out the "finished" game for testing (were those quotation marks large enough?). There's no more time for adding new stuff. In the last few months I've often made tiny changes that created unexpected bugs - a ten minute change can lead to another change which leads to another change which leads to a week or more of delays. No time for that now..I

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-42474346153349654312008-11-08T09:01:00.003Z2008-11-08T09:16:25.926Z

One step back, two steps forward. Regarding what I wrote yesterday about the moving-between-games code, I'm back to the previous thinking that I should leave focusing on that until the second story. Which means there will probably be a patched version of Les Miserables available when Dante's Inferno is out. With just 35 days to go, I don't think I should send any more time on a feature that will

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-30020632180745068042008-11-07T18:01:00.003Z2008-11-07T18:08:59.593Z

I've been thinking a lot about some things Caius said on the subject of saved games. And I think I've worked out a way that it can work a lot better. This won't make much difference to the first story, but will be very significant when other games are added.In recent months I've been thinking about the code that joins different stories, and frankly it was complicated. I need to focus on getting

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-10606457048136797722008-11-07T08:25:00.002Z2008-11-07T08:26:42.872Z

Today I'm refining the 'my story' feature where the game remembers everything you ever did. Soon it will be tied to save games: when you save or load a game it will also save or load your dialog history as well.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-24386200522242851722008-11-06T07:58:00.001Z2008-11-06T07:58:31.601Z

Today I'm working on a couple of "ten second" changes that turn into "four hour" changes. One is getting Valjean to walk to wherever he looks. Which seems simple, since the walking animation is done, the floor is there, scaling is there, etc., etc., so in theory it's just "walk to X,Y." But in practice all kinds of other code is involved. Things are never simple! :)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-10413708428828500092008-11-05T08:10:00.001Z2008-11-05T08:14:35.791Z

Today I'm going through big list of "things to do" that I've been making over the last six months. Little things like adding a line of dialog or changing the color of some text.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-80071244571977128282008-11-04T08:54:00.003Z2008-11-04T09:15:24.907Z

Pescao made some really good comments, and I made a really long reply. So that's today's blog!

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-41728906190723087592008-11-03T08:06:00.003Z2008-11-03T08:11:55.750Z

Y'know, over the past few months 'anonymous' has been asking some very good questions in the 'comments' sections of each day's blog. So if anyone's reading this blog and wants some useful information (instead of my random ramblings) then be sure to check out the comments on previous days - they seldom have anything to do with the topic, but are usually much more useful. I should probably make

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-8876155789952423062008-11-02T12:33:00.004Z2008-11-02T12:38:32.659Z

Someone was discussing Satan on another blog, and it reminded me of my plans for the next story: Next month I start working on Dante's Inferno, and Satan will be the central figure (literally - the city of Dis is at the center of the earth). If you read the Divine Comedy it obviously reflects medieval values. I intend to make that the central theme of the game, a way to illustrate points of

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-77148831517856743342008-11-01T19:48:00.002Z2008-11-01T19:55:38.735Z

I finished adding the main clues. I haven't tested all the recent code yet (the new faster clicking code, follower-not-following code, etc.) so will do that tomorrow. I'll then send the "almost finished" version to the Principle Tester (I'm never sure if it should be principAL or principLE - my dictionary says either is acceptable). Then this week and next I'll go through the game puzzle by

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-54809745385849648832008-10-31T08:01:00.003Z2008-10-31T08:21:35.561Z

I've been thinking more about the "quick game" concept. I think I blogged about it before, the idea of making the game very fast to play, but I think this would be a Very Good Thing. I've tried to make this game fundamentally new and different in other ways, but the central fact, the game play, was the weak point. However, a game where you can experience an entire novel in 30 minutes would be

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-67009854575148434682008-10-30T22:14:00.004Z2008-10-31T10:32:30.508Z

I just added an automatic text dump to the game. This is in addition to the built in "last few lines" feature for while you play. Now whenever you play, all the dialog, who speaks, and the key events, are automatically added to a separate text file called 'my story.txt' It might also come in useful for debugging.This is where I'm glad I chose to use text instead of numbers when coding key stages

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-40359272055492549762008-10-30T09:20:00.003Z2008-10-30T22:14:08.599Z

Ironically, the Credit Crunch may be very good for me. I don't have debts or savings or a mortgage, but it's changed the exchange rate in my favor. Most English language games are sold in dollars. Last year the dollar: pound exchange rate was close to 2:1 Now it's closer to 1.50:1 - which means I get a 30 percent pay rise courtesy of the sub prime fiasco. Assuming that anyone buys the game of

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-9790032495500773182008-10-29T21:30:00.002Z2008-10-29T21:34:19.088Z

I spent the day putting together the other blogs - the 'Enter The Story' one that will stake over once Les Miserables is released, and the AnswersAnswers one that's the long term point of this whole exercise. It took ages as I had to experiment with getting just the right look on zero budget, and tried blogs on Blogger and Wordpress.org, but finally opted to host one on my own site. Turns out

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-61871204833675278082008-10-28T07:14:00.001Z2008-10-28T07:15:11.885Z

I've added a feature that remembers the past hundred lines of dialog in case any was missed. Thanks Caius for the suggestion!

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-18207611740262189572008-10-27T13:03:00.002Z2008-10-27T13:23:12.523Z

I'm currently converting old notes into actual dialog. Nothing much to report - still on schedule..In other news, I've been reading Solar Pons. Very interesting! The author has done with Sherlock Holmes what I hope to do with the early Fantastic Four and Zak McKracken. He was disappointed that no more Holmes stories would ever be written, so he wrote his own, but changed all the names, and gave

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-53666777632163142162008-10-26T16:39:00.002Z2008-10-26T16:42:43.866Z

Good grief! Only 49 days to go! But that's probably a good thing. I expect it will take another two weeks to flesh out the remaining clues, then that leaves just over as month to make changes in response to testing. Today, for the record, I'm adding in blank clues for all the people I think are most likely to be clicked on at each stage in the game, and I'll rely on testers to point out those I

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-24473859497258870262008-10-25T19:35:00.002+01:002008-10-25T19:38:06.460+01:00

Today I finished adding the full Hugo clues (i.e. the walk through stuff for when you're stuck). Tomorrow I'll start on the detailed regular clues (more than the bare skeleton clues that I added a couple of weeks ago). By "clues" I mean "context sensitive dialog" - that which (hopefully) makes the game comfortable to play, and (hopefully) draws the user into the story.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-32686831090406784842008-10-24T08:21:00.002+01:002008-10-24T08:25:06.725+01:00

This has been a busy couple of days away from the computer, but I'm still making progress on adding clues. Though when I say "adding clues" in practice three quarters of any time is spent fiddling with the code. This is why I'm confident that future games will be so much quicker to develop. Once the code is locked down, the actual art, dialog, etc. is relatively quick to add.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-45733375011836280242008-10-23T10:12:00.002+01:002008-10-23T10:13:16.677+01:00

That's all the "look at" dialog done in its crude form. Now when you look at something you always get a response. I'll rely on testers to suggest better responses, or which objects need more than one response.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-17469552438224135522008-10-22T07:59:00.003+01:002008-10-22T08:15:03.102+01:00

The "everything gets done twice, and each of THOSE things get done twice" rule seems to be holding. After reorganizing all the "look at" code I realize that about eight hundred lines of complex conversation will have to be dumped and re-written as short one-liners. Which is fine, because as I've said many times, the first release of the game has to be right, and is inevitably a big learning curve

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-34055143729745073882008-10-21T09:10:00.002+01:002008-10-21T09:29:21.730+01:00

The new faster code is taking longer to write than planned, mainly because I need to manually edit several thousand lines of dialog to fit the new approach. The previous method was excellent from a development point of view - just throw a line of dialog at the end of a list, and rely on the game engine to find it at the right time. But that meant that every line of dialog had to be read at every

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-29598028952354753462008-10-20T08:39:00.002+01:002008-10-20T08:43:06.874+01:00

I spent most of yesterday working on the dialog speed issue again. When you click on a character and get a response it's sometimes instant, but occasionally can take up to 2 or 3 seconds while the code searches thousands of dialog responses to find the ideal choice. That delay is less than it was (the extreme case was previously 4 seconds) but it's still unacceptable. I don't like taking another

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-34123288875634076982008-10-19T06:17:00.003+01:002008-10-19T06:18:46.186+01:00

Adding more clues today (and I fixed it so that when people stand close together their words are separated so you can still see who's talking)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-46700253042420813262008-10-18T09:25:00.002+01:002008-10-18T09:29:04.284+01:00

I just made it so that, when you right click on a person, that person's name stays on the mouse pointer until you right click on something else. It makes it much easier to see what you're doing. The more changes I make, the more I'm amazed that anyone got through any part of the game before now. :)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-26000273056777205732008-10-17T08:15:00.003+01:002008-10-17T08:23:33.473+01:00

Often it's the simplest problems that are the most complex. Like the famous "travelling salesman problem" for example. How do you calculate the shortest route that takes you between 50 major cities? Turns out to be mathematically extremely hard to work out. Yesterday I had a similar problem, with finalising the new intro. The task was simple: allow three events (Valjean's capture, sister in

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-16932868257100071462008-10-16T12:34:00.002+01:002008-10-16T12:39:46.417+01:00

I haven't shown any images for a while, so this is to show what I get up to that never makes it into the game. I spent seven hours the other day trying to make a better game map (8pm-1pm then 2 hours before work in the morning) and finally rejected all these ideas. These are only work in progress, the green writing was only to remind me what to do next. The problem was, they were all too

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-38850438173880845492008-10-15T10:02:00.003+01:002008-10-15T10:02:57.701+01:00

Summary of changes since the test version (mostly already mentioned):1. Far more clues - people will spontaneously say things that guide you through the story (I'm planning for the game to be fast moving and easy).2. The intro is simplified - making what you do much clearer.3. Background art is more compatible with the minimalist characters.4. No dithering effect behind speech (it looks ugly)5. A

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-57414074159832153832008-10-14T17:36:00.002+01:002008-10-14T17:50:17.183+01:00

Busy day!* New auto-scroll feature: done. When the mouse is near the edge the camera moves. It really gives the game a feeling of freedom and size, esepcially in the heaven scene which scrolls 360 degrees (place the mouse at the side and see the scene gently rotate forever!)* New "remember last ten items" feature: almost done. The last ten items and people are remembered so you don't have to walk

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-88652793303051016292008-10-13T12:50:00.003+01:002008-10-14T17:36:09.872+01:00

I think I will change the intro. Because:1. You wait 5 minutes before you can control the game (I'd rather you had instant control)2. It's too much information all at once(Valjean, sister, prison, daughter, heaven, Napoleon, gameplay... whoa!),3. it's not clear enough what you have to do at first, and4. the early tasks aren't the most rewarding.So I'm reworking it. You're going to start right in

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-84125388425255437832008-10-12T18:00:00.002+01:002008-10-12T18:43:38.382+01:00

Highlights from feedback, so far:1. Should the intro be shortened? Maybe start in the church, and let heaven and the capture be triggered by user actions?2. Getting rid of the text cloud background. I haven't ever been really happy with this, so I'm re-filtering backgrounds to every room so you don't need the cloud effect to see the text.3. Uneasiness with the minimalist characters: re-filtering

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-15971646218452494252008-10-12T09:47:00.003+01:002008-10-12T09:50:14.669+01:00

I'm making good progress on the dialog. BTW, if you want more general discussion of the game I just posted a long-ish reply over at indiegamers.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-16584336931241854742008-10-10T23:37:00.002+01:002008-10-10T23:48:35.509+01:00

Known bugs so far: 1. When installing, change the colon : in the game folder name to something else, or Windows will complain. 2. I've already found lots of little graphical things I'd like to change, but I'd rather wait to see what YOU think are the priorities.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-81156267419132603802008-10-10T20:32:00.006+01:002008-10-10T21:47:53.357+01:00

This is it: the first big test version. It doesn't have all the dialog, but it's playable (I hope!!). All the serious code is done. There should be enough dialog to work out what to do, but I must emphasize that MOST OF THE DIALOG IS MISSING. And it is NOT TESTED and NOT POLISHED. It will probably break in a few places, and IT WILL NOT FEEL FUN. So all the more thanks to anyone who's willing to

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-54081864385908339062008-10-10T08:16:00.000+01:002008-10-10T08:18:46.990+01:00

Slight panic yesterday - a problem with sprites meant the game editor kept crashing. I think I fixed it, but it was scary there for a couple of hours! As for the main progress, I'm adding the rest of the bare essential dialog today and will send the game for testing tomorrow.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-59250191391077596432008-10-09T08:52:00.002+01:002008-10-09T08:53:54.293+01:00

Today I'm plugging in bare minimum help clues for all 120 events. Tomorrow I'll plug in bare minimum story hints for the same. Then Saturday I'll upload it for testing, and spend the rest of the month filling in the rest of the clues.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-16945570423941138382008-10-08T15:38:00.002+01:002008-10-08T15:44:33.784+01:00

I'm revising the opening section of the game. I tried to improve the opening clues - the opening section was always the weakest - but there was a fundamental problem: there really is no connection between the fall of Napoleon and the release of Jean Valjean. I'd invented a link, that all prison releases were on hold and Napoleon was planning to execute prisoners when he returned, but it doesn't

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-17415276201755984702008-10-08T09:21:00.003+01:002008-10-08T09:48:25.471+01:00

I seem to have a talent for finding bugs that others never noticed in established software. Which is hardly surprising, as my game pushes the software to its limits. Last night I was about to start on the clues when I thought I'd better just check that Cosette follows Valjean properly. It's a good job I did, as it needed a few changes: some rooms weren't connected for followers, Cosette needed a

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-42290321341644789712008-10-07T07:58:00.003+01:002008-10-07T08:05:42.567+01:00

Yesterday I added a little detail that I really like. Previously, Peri (in heaven) would just stand here and look awkward (and occasionally fidget). Now, if she doesn't do anything for a while, she sits down. (If you click somewhere she'll get up and walk there.) I took a video of my daughter standing up, to get the animation right (just for reference, the animation is hand drawn) and I really

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-12764751297549524842008-10-06T08:06:00.002+01:002008-10-06T08:14:02.269+01:00

Major milestone today: I complete the detailed development stage. That is, every event is now coded in detail - who walks where, where they turn, what they do, every pause in conversation, what music plays and when, etc. There should be no more complicated stuff (except for unexpected bugs, but hopefully those should be few). Now all that remains is to add clue dialog and 'look at' dialog. Today

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-78108687921289863742008-10-05T12:31:00.005+01:002008-10-05T12:38:12.776+01:00

Right now the biggest problem I have is the music. It's so good that I don't want to change rooms or characters until each track has finished. So it takes me twice as long to edit anything! :)

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-20758794504824150312008-10-04T19:28:00.002+01:002008-10-04T19:32:11.779+01:00

Today, Javet's death. Tomorrow, Cosette's fortune and Marius' reconciliation. Monday, Valjean's death. Things are happening. It's starting to really feel like, after ten years, the end might actually be in sight. Or rather, the beginning...

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-81851651778590000052008-10-03T08:05:00.004+01:002008-10-03T08:10:30.008+01:00

The new code is much better (from my point of view - anything that reduces the number of new bugs is a Very Good Thing). Valjean is now out of the sewers. Tomorrow I'll have the marriage section done (you don't actually see the marriage, though if there's enough time before December 15th I could add a big wedding procession down main street - that would be cool). So things are looking good.

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34804704.post-76877677313080003762008-10-02T08:38:00.001+01:002008-10-02T09:04:18.536+01:00

Well now I feel stupid. And greatly relieved!.Last week I commented on unintentionally funny bugs. Well some funny bugs aren't funny because it takes ages to fix them, and then new bugs appear. For example, yesterday Valjean decided to do a kind of "Cossack Dance" walk. He would walk, crouch down, walk, crouch down, and sometimes face the wrong way or make other sudden moves (like that Russian

Chris Tolworthynoreply@blogger.com2