Page 1 of 5

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Sun, 10May02 11:18
by tlaero
Hi folks,

With Phreaky's blessing, I've been reworking his "Virtual Date With Amy" game. Here's an early version of what I'm doing.

http://rapidshare.com/files/390758933/AmyReduxV1.2.zip

I'm constrained by the pictures from the original game, so the flow is roughly the same, but the writing is different now. This is an early version with only the 3 endings in the bedroom available. I wanted to get it into your hands, though, so we could make sure the HTML is in good shape.

I've tested this on both IE and Firefox. I expect it to work on all other browsers too, with the possible exception of Chrome. Someone here said that Chrome doesn't allow local cookies.

This still uses cookies, but it uses them correctly. We shoudln't see any of the kinds of problems people have had with Chaotic's and Phreaky's games in the past. That said, I'd appreciate it if you folks download the game and put it through its paces. I'd like to hear if there are any issues.

Tlaero

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Sun, 10May02 12:08
by tlaero
Okay, time for some technical talk. You’re welcome to try the game without understanding any of this stuff. This is for Phreaky and others who are interested how these Virtual Date games work.

Phreaky, if you look at the HTML, you’ll notice that it’s significantly simpler now. Hopefully, it’s also easier to understand than it was in the past. The magic that simplifies the code is two extra files in the “Amy” directory. You should take a look at styles.css and functions.js.

Styles.css:
This is the stylesheet used by all of the HTML. By moving it into a single file, you can update the look of the game by changing just that one file. Want the background to be blue instead of black? Want the “this is what I say” links to be red instead of yellow? This is where you do it. More importantly, this is where you set the image sizes. In your game, you made most of the pictures 600x500, but the actual images are bigger. The “img” tag in the stylesheet sets the default image size for you. If in your next game, you use a different image size, you can change it there. I also did alternate sizes for the other image sizes in the game, but I don’t think I have any examples that use them yet. Ideally, you’d make all of your images the same size, and make them the size the game needs, but the styles.css file covers you anyway.

Functions.js:
This is where the main javascrïpt functions live. They’re broken up into two groups: functions that change the variables and functions that disable the navigation. As with the stylesheet, by having them in one file, you can make any changes in one place and have them take effect everywhere. (As an aside, Erana, I remember your complaint to Chaotic about the navigation disabling functions. If you look at functions.js, I think you’ll find that I addressed your concerns.) You shouldn’t need to change functions.js, but if you have any questions about how any of the functions work, don’t hesitate to ask.

We still use cookies, but now we do things based on the cookie’s value. This allows us to do a lot of neat things. The two main functions you’ll use are “varPlus1” and “varMinus1.” These let you add and subtract one from a variable. In Amy Redux, I’ve got three main variables, amtHappy, amtAroused, and amtAngry. When the player does something that makes Amy happy, I add one to amtHappy. If he does something that makes her mad, I add one to amtAngry. There are places where he apologizes and I take one away from amtAngry, etc. To have sex with Amy, the player needs to get her happy and aroused without making her too angry.

Take a look at _begin.html. This is where I initialize all of the variables in the game. Note the various “max” variables. For instance, I set “maxAngry” to 4 at the start. Then when the user does something bad, I add to amtAngry and check if it’s still less than the Max. If not, the player loses.

By making a maxAngry at the start and doing everything based on that, you can change your mind on how angry she can get and change it in one place. This also allows you to do “difficulty levels” in your game. Imagine if the player started by clicking “Easy” “Medium” or “Hard” and, as a result, you changed the “max” variables. Maybe on Easy she just needs 1 happy and 1 aroused to have sex with you, but on Hard, she needs 4 each. If this isn’t making sense, ask. I’ll give you examples.

I took out the bit where it asks your name, and then Amy only says your name once. I’ve never liked that concept. People invariable type silly names and then giggle when she calls them the silly name they typed. I’d rather the player be assigned a name and she use that. Besides, in the future we’ll add sounds to the game and things will go much better if she can cry out a predefined name then. Still, if you really want the name thing back, let me know and I’ll find a clean way to do it.

Also take a look at _dumpvars.html. When you’re writing the game, it sometimes helps to get the current values of all of the variables. What I do while writing this is enable navigation, skip the Start.html, and, whenever something is weird, type in “_dumpvars.html” in the url bar. That shows me the current values. Then I back up and continue.

I don’t know how to describe the “check” html pages. How about if you look at them and then ask questions about anything you don’t understand? By using values, those check pages let you do just about anything.

I tell you. Having walked a mile in your shoes, I appreciate the work you’re doing even more. This stuff takes a lot of time. Doing everything by hand was too much work, so I’ve been writing a GUI tool that makes creating these games a lot easier. It’s not ready to distribute yet, but I’ve been using it to do Amy Redux. Hopefully I’ll be able to send out a workable version in the next week or two.

tlaero

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Sun, 10May02 12:43
by Salamandastron
Good stuff, tlaero. I only know basic HTML working, and you've explained it well enough for me. Sounds like you've cleaned up the process quite a bit.

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Sun, 10May02 21:11
by ludwig
i tried it but it mixed up uppercase and lowercase in the pagenames. On Linux, which i prefer to run some pages can not be found this way cause it's case sensitive.
[img]images/icones/icon7.gif[/img]

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Mon, 10May03 10:28
by tlaero
Interesting. I forgot that the unixes do case sensitive filenames. The next time I work on it, I'll clean that up. Thanks for the report.

Tlaero

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Mon, 10May03 16:54
by Henrik
tlaero, well done. i realize all you're doing is sort of working with the source code and art others have already done, but the writing feels a little more polished with what you've done.

the game still feels like amy goes from "don't be so forward" to "let's fuck" a little too quickly, but i'm not sure if that's in the scope of the changes you or phreaky are making.

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Mon, 10May03 17:18
by phreaky
@tlaero
Good stuff from your explanation, too bad I haven't got a chance to download and try it. Will do as soon as I have the time

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Mon, 10May03 22:40
by Tjommi
good work !
Looking forward to see more of you 2 working together.
I stumbled upon a bug that you might want to know about. when I bought the viagra after getting her max happy with drink workout and flattery ( ok I peaked in the bathroom but that was it) and I asked her to dance. after the BJ an error occoured. this file here

: /AmyReduxV1/Amy/play/roomdance14.html.

could not be found. and that ending failed. however I got the cowboy regular and dildo one.

Anyway I like what you have done so far. Keep up the good work.

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Tue, 10May04 08:54
by Jarel
Well, this is worth delurking for ... great work tlaero, that's a nice clean environment you have set up.

Hopefully it will encourage others like phreaky with artistic skills to make more of this type of game, they are very enjoyable.

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Tue, 10May04 14:02
by Thrain
Good job, tlaero.

Checked on linux with Firefox.
Does not works on linux because of wrong case in several links.


[color=ccdd0d]Just above there is an acknowledgment of that.[/color]
Exemple:
file pool1.html

The pleasure's mine, Amy.

refer to file poolCheck.html but linux cannot find it because files are case sentive.

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Tue, 10May04 17:00
by phreaky
@tlaero
Already tried and it's clean and fun, you really made the story smoother
Anyway just curious, are you male or female ?

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Wed, 10May05 11:42
by tlaero
Thanks everyone.

Thrain, thank you for the report. Yes, I had forgotten about unix's case sensitive filenames. I'll fix those soon.

Tjommi, thank you also for your report. I now remember forgetting to finish that path. (-: I'll take care of that as well.

Henrik, I definitely agree with you. One of the best aspects of ArianeB was that you really had to work at getting her into bed. Hopefully as we refine the code for these games and they get easier to write, we'll have more time for walks in the park holding hands and tentatively brushing up against body parts and other things that make the transition smoother and more believeable. I also think that there should be multiple dates and that you might not go all the way on the first night.

To this end, I've been working on a tool that speeds up the coding part of this immensely. I've been working out the bugs in that tool by reworking Amy, but I hope that people like Phreaky use it to make fantastic games.

Phreaky, the tool I'm working on is fairly functional now. The big gap is in dealing with pictures of different sizes. When are you planning to start your next game? If it's soon, I'll give you an earlier version of the tool. If it's not for a week or so, I'll finish it up first.

As for your other question, I'll never tell! (-:

Tlaero

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Wed, 10May05 14:20
by Rikwar
Great job you did on this 'tlaero' ran in to the same snag as 'Tjommi' but did enjoy playing the same game with different options, I was sure she would send me to hell after slapping her butt or looking at her breast, loved her comments [img]images/icones/icon13.gif[/img]

Thanks again to you and phreaky !

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Wed, 10May05 16:30
by phreaky
@tlaero

Right now I'm too busy with other things, so you can finish it first.
I have another model with more of asian type, but I haven't thought about what kind of story line I would made
Maybe I'll pm u for some ideas

Re: Virtual Date with Amy Redux

PostPosted: Thu, 10May06 16:48
by Squeeky
json.err has a development which may be of interest.

It has been moved over to Projects:
http://sharks-lagoon.aceboard.fr/p-215394-2862-7046-0.htm#id103758

I'm about to look at it closely but I gather his tool rewrites Chaotic and phreaky type structures as javascrïpt (both authors should look at this).