BEW - Ongoing Dev Thread (DAZ Artists Still Wanted)

[karrek]

I have no experiennce in web development so forgive me if this wouldn't work, but would it be possible to package up the state into a file that the user could save on their computer somewhere, and then load up that file when they want to start the next act? I have no idea how hard file input/output is in html or javascript, but if I were developing the game in Java that's how I'd do it. That saves the user having to type in a huge string, but it also prevents automatic overwriting of localstorage.

[tlaero]

For security reasons, web browsers don't have access to the filesystem. IE used to allow it with ActiveX, but I don't know if that still works and it certainly doesn't work for other browsers.

Tlaero

[karrek]

Again, please forgive my ignorance of web development, but would it not be possible to generate a file that the user could "download", the same as if they were downloading something from any other site? I mean I know a website can't write directly to the hard drive, but obviously there's some mechanism for saving files locally through a web browser.

[Wolfschadowe]

Again, please forgive my ignorance of web development, but would it not be possible to generate a file that the user could "download", the same as if they were downloading something from any other site? I mean I know a website can't write directly to the hard drive, but obviously there's some mechanism for saving files locally through a web browser.

I like the way your thinking, and on the surface it makes sense. In practice though, web browsers can only display files, or download them. They can't actually create them.

Creating files is generally handled by the web server for the website, not the browser. A web site may have a link to generate a file (Like downloading a pdf version of your credit card bill). The server doesn't actually have a pdf version of your bill on hand, but clicking that link runs a separate application on the server that generates the PDF file on the fly from a database, and drops that generated file to a temporary folder. The web server will then tell the browser on your computer where to find that file and your browser will download it or open it.

The key is that creating the file is handled by a web server and various applications running on that server. BEW and other AC games are serverless, meaning they can be downloaded and run locally and don't use a web server.

Internet explorer can use an ActiveX control to pretend to be a web server to generate a file, but not by default. You would have to change your browsers security settings to such a low level that your browser would effectively be teabagging a grizzly bear with a honey coated scrotum.

Wolfschadowe

[karrek]

Well, learn something new every day. Too bad it wasn't any help to you guys.

[rabbie]

I love your dedication, only reason i didn't jump forward as a beta tester was because i wanted to come into the full game fresh... selfish i know, but you seem to have had no shortage in willing volunteers.

[Wolfschadowe]

Well, learn something new every day. Too bad it wasn't any help to you guys.

Hey, it helped you learn something! Besides, even things that don't seem to help on the surface often make me think about things differently and end up helping in unexpected ways. Keep the ideas coming and don't worry if they help or not. I personally probably have 99 bad ideas for every good one, and I'd never have that good one without the thought process invoked by the other 99.

I love your dedication, only reason i didn't jump forward as a beta tester was because i wanted to come into the full game fresh... selfish i know, but you seem to have had no shortage in willing volunteers.

Nah, not selfish at all. I don't know how many times I've burned myself out on betas. It's a nasty habit of mine, and now the Steam Early Access is just making it worse. Curse you Kerbal Space Program!

Wolfschadowe

[Wolfschadowe]

Update to the Status post on page 1:

February 2nd, 2014 - So, it was a year ago that I rendered the first image for BEW. Ok, technically, it was a year ago, four days ago on January 30th, but close enough. It's amazing how much I've learned in the past year, and just as amazing how much I know that I still have to learn about digital art, storytelling, and AIF game creation. I naievly thought that I'd be done with the game by now, and I'm only about 3/4 of the way through the first act. While there are some things I'd do different if I started again, overall, I'm happy with the way the game is shaping up. I could have made a much smaller game and released it by now, but then it wouldn't be the game I wanted to make. Sure, I could have left one of the love interests off for this round, and added her back in as an expansion later. That's probably the one difference I would make if I was starting again, but I don't regret including that additional story line to the first version either. It's still the game I wanted to make when I started, and a year later, I'm still having fun making it. I'd like to thank everyone who is following this and hanging in there, not only for your patience, but also for your continued interest in the game.

As for status, I have completed rendering all the main paths and almost all of the branches. As I am going through my logic pass I keep running across little 4-10 page offshoots that aren't marked as rendered yet, but most of those get filled in with already rendered images. Occasionally one justifies a new render, and I still have a few images from the first half of the office scene to re-render, but I'm probably less than a week from being done with all the rendering for the scene. Once I finish the logic pass and pick up any stray renders, I'll build out the web pages using AC, run spell check and have it out to playtesters. the next few scenes that I'll be working on are small transition scenes. One is the main path of Brad at home before going on his date for the evening (if he has one), or deciding where to go if he doesn't have one yet. That one is only 20 or so pages, once all the branches are accounted for, but only about 10 are actually going to need a unique render. Another small scene is Brad picking Emily up at home before their date for one of the branches. That on is only 10 or so pages since it's a consolidated path. There is also a side branch at the local university to support one of the corruption paths which will be another 20-30 or so. Those should come fairly quickly. After those are completed, the Day 2 Bar scene for all the branches, then the Day two Strip Club. Both of those scenes will be fairly large. There is a third destination available on some paths as well that will come afterwards. Finally, to finish out day 2, there will be fairly short scenes at either Faith's house, Brad's, or Emily's that will lead into the Day 2 Recap. To finish out Act 1 we will have a 40-50 page scene for the morning that will set up Act 2.

That's essentially the road map for the rest of Act 1. Thank you all for your support and interest over the last year!

Wolfschadowe

[karrek]

Eagerly awaiting the next playtest.

[davori]

Hotfile seems to be down. Can u uploaded again somewhere else please?

[Wolfschadowe]

Eagerly awaiting the next playtest.

Getting close Karrek. If everything goes perfectly I could wrap up the next release by the end of the week...but everything won't go perfect, so probably a couple weeks. This should be the longest gap between test releases.

Hotfile seems to be down. Can u uploaded again somewhere else please?

Well, crap monkey. I lost the 0.0.8 version. I have posted the latest version containing only the same content as 0.0.8 in the first post. There is very little new content for those that played 0.0.8, just continuity cleanup and enhancement stuff here and there, but the Recap has been re-enabled and achievements are present. It was a fast hack job to pull this out of the current build so I may have introduced a bug or two. Let me know if there is something game breaking and I will post a patch.

Here is the link again for those following:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/outr26ybd5wn865/BEW_0.2.3_PoC_Beta.zip

Changes from 0.0.8 for the 0.2.3 POC Beta that is posted:
Changes from 0.0.8:
Re-enabled the end of day Recap
Minor story changes and enhancements in the Bar scene, plus general bug and continuity cleanup.
Abbreviated achievements are enabled for existing scenes.

Wolfschadowe

[Wolfschadowe]

Update from the front page:

March 4th, 2014 - Lost about two weeks due to work travel on the current scene, but made progress story-boarding later scenes, so that will save time later. Two major branches through the office scene are completely done with everything except spell check and I'm about halfway through building web pages for a third branch. In the meantime, with the decision to release three acts, I've revamped the road map below to outline the new version information. More detail is present for the remainder of Act 1, beyond that is mainly placeholder information. Additionally, there was a request to re-post the original Proof of Concept since Hotfile went belly-up, but I lost that zip file somewhere. I cannibalized the latest playtest release for day 1 content (minus the strip club path) and posted that for anyone interested. No new content per-se, but the recap is re-enabled and achievements are included as the main differences. I've got some good blocks of time over the next couple of weeks, so I should make strong progress in wrapping up the current test build and getting it out to the playtesters. Thanks everyone who is reading this for your patience, and continued interest!

[coder]

I like the way your thinking, and on the surface it makes sense. In practice though, web browsers can only display files, or download them. They can't actually create them.

That should actually be possible. The classic tiddlywiki does it.

Another way would be to combine this:
http://tutorialzine.com/2011/05/generat ... cript-php/
with node.js (the webserver writtin in javascript)

You could also create an empty web page,create your code there and instruct the user to download it.
tst=window.open().document;
tst.write("//Save this document as savegame.js");
tst.write("//And put it in the gamefolder, overwriting the original empty file.");
It's not the fanciest solution, but it would work.

Also the new html5 blob-element should allow you to do so.

This is another example, using jquery:
http://onwebdev.blogspot.com/2011/02/jq ... -file.html

The last one looks like a good option.
Hope this will help you.

btw. I have the 0.8 version on my computer, if you want it. I could also reup it. Just say so.

[Wolfschadowe]

The last one looks like a good option.
Hope this will help you.

Thanks for the links Coder. They were interesting reading. Unfortunately, all of them require a back-end server, (Ajax, Tomcat, Apache, node.js etc..) to host the PHP or similar environment to generate the file and trigger the download. It's a fairly routine matter to generate a file on the back-end and then instruct the browser to download it; however, I don't plan on hosting BEW on a live website or require one to be installed and ran client-side. The persistent save file or save code is not a requirement for me, just a nice to have to ease the span between Acts.

btw. I have the 0.8 version on my computer, if you want it. I could also reup it. Just say so.

I wouldn't mind having a copy of it, even though I worked around it. I've wanted to post an update that re-enabled the Recap and included achievements for a while now anyway. This just gave me an excuse to get off my rear and do it.

Wolfschadowe

[coder]

I just noticed that special characters do not render correctly.
Setting the charset solves it:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">