I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

The banter system was designed to communicate passive information, and one of the best forms of passive information is the radio. Since NPCs can spit banter, you can extend a Radio object from an NPC and it’ll spit banter too.

Naturally, when you have radio, you need radio content, so I started listening to radio serials and dramas in order to get an inspiration.

When I started doing this, I knew next to nothing about shows like Suspense, X Minus One, and This is Your F.B.I. As I got a feel for the shows I liked and the ones I didn’t, I started to notice some things.

I’d had a few template titles and rough concepts in mind for the kind of radio content I wanted. Talk radio was a given. I knew I wanted some kind of propaganda broadcast by Xirdalan State Radio, but I didn’t know how to go about it. I knew I wanted science fiction, so I made up Star Willows: Galactic Adventurer, and I threw in an idea that was too hilarious to pass up, The Intrepid Dr. Cuckold, about a master doctor who works way too much for his own good.

The funny thing is, I’d assumed that central characters were the norm, because I grew up watching television, and more often than not, the same characters show up again and again. I was really surprised to find out that drama serials with a strong central character are actually in the minority, outnumbered by self-contained plays often adapted from short stories (in fact, a lot of Bradbury, Heinlein, and Asimov’s stories were adapted for the various science fiction programs). There are quite a few dramas that rely on characters, like Lone Ranger, Sherlock Holmes, and Dragnet, but there are about as many that are completely self-contained.

Anyway, I’d written in some base advertising as well, but I generally had no idea what I was going to do with that aspect of the radio. So I listened. And I heard the sponsors: Roma Wine, Signal Gasoline, Auto-Lite Batteries, and so on. Old radio dramas weren’t shy about inviting the guest actors to sit in a comfy chair and sip some of the sponsor’s wine while telling everyone how good it was.

It’s not much, but I think it adds to the game, if only in a small capacity.

Major updates:

• Made fixes to the way message box positioning is handled. Changes to message position constants were not initially made across all systems, resulting in some boxes popping up, for example, in the middle of the screen when they should be at the bottom.
• Fixed a bug in movement where hitting a diagonal stair in the right way would allow the player to “break” the stair contacts, resulting in diagonal movement when not on diagonal stairs. This was due to overly restrictive collision conditionals.

Raw devlog data below.

23 – 29 feb: Release Candidate 2 0.7.2546 – 0.7.2577

- fixed a bug in message display where setting the Message Position to “Bottom” would position the message box in the middle of the screen.
- fixed a bug in movement where hitting a diagonal stair in the right way would allow the player to “break” the stair contacts.
- fixed a small bug in speed of diagonal movement
- swapped the MIDDLE and BOTTOM constants for messages (forgot to do this)
- fixed various tiling errors in Prisma and Corvallis’s house
- fixed a bug where corvallis was allowed to move during certain NPC dialogue during scene 4
- fixed a bug in banter shell arrow transparency
- standardized “message_position” (the majority of them were using values instead of constants, making setting message position problematic).
- implemented the first radio scene (viewpoints/robert westburgh)
- fixed various radio implementation errors
- fixed banter boxes so that they can be variable height (this is for the radio).

Major updates:

• I implemented the final version of the code that’s going to handle window mode, aspect ratio, and scaling. You can scale the game window up to three times the original resolution (for a total resolution of 2400×1440) if you have the display width for it.
• I’ve also fixed most of the crazy errors that occurred when a player decides to use any mode but windowed mode. There are still a few left that I have to hammer out, but for the most part, it works.
• I’ve started locking scenes. When I lock an aspect of the game, like a scene, or a town, or a game mechanic, it means I’m not going to touch it at all until the bugtesting period.

Raw devlog data below.

15 – 22 feb: Release Candidate 2 0.7.2516 – 0.7.2546

- broke window manipulation into three separate options in the config menu: windowed/fullscreen (simulated or true), aspect ratio, and scaling. simulated fullscreen expands the game window to fill the display (filling unoccupied space with black) and true fullscreen actually changes the resolution
- added the ability to scale the screen. the player can scale the screen up to a factor of 3x (!) if their primary display has the resolution for it. by default the game won’t scale to a factor if the display’s width isn’t at least the game screen width multiplied by the scale factor (2x=1600px, 3x=2400px).
- implemented display resolution changing with sin-display (and native GM as backup in case sin-display fails for some reason).
- changed some scaling descriptors. 1x is now None (for no scaling), and the order is now None – Full – 2x – 3x, so that people wishing to use full aspect scale won’t have to go through needless resolution changes in true fullscreen.
- fixed a usability issue in joypad mapping where the escape key isn’t immediately clear. pressing any key will now escape joypad mapping.
- fixed a bug where pressing the close button wouldn’t close the game, giving the appearance that it wasn’t working.
- fixed a bug where pressing alt-F4 while in true fullscreen would result in a rather nasty shrinking of the desktop area that could only be corrected with a manual resolution change.
- fixed a couple of instances of variable misattribution w/r/t config menu
- added various tiles to the bomb maze tileset (this tileset is also used during scene 1 for visual confirmation that the secure gate is wired to blow)
- made minor edits to scene 1
- made some staging changes to scene 1E
- scene 1 is now LOCKED

Major updates:

• Finished radio content: radio content is now finished (for now). I’ve written a few major radio dramas and some news and talk radio segments for use with the banter-style radio.
• Final title screen: I’ve implemented the final title screen. This title screen is a lot more usable than the beta title screen: basic controls are a key away (this was a major problem with the old title screen), it looks better, and there are a couple of new features like Quick-Load, which allows you to load your last saved game with the press of a key from the moment the game window opens up.

I hope to do these every Wednesday. In the meantime, raw devlog data below.

8feb – 14feb: Release Candidate 2 0.7.2437 – 0.7.2496

- fixed viewport error when switching to and from 4:3 to 16:10 aspect ratio
- fixed a bug in the west teleport of prisma square: contact line wasn’t long enough.
- fixed a bug where party members would clip through objects when assuming a formation with an object in the way. this happened most often with conversation NPCs. all conversation NPCs now force the player to move to the NPC’s default snap coordinates, preventing party members from getting stuck in objects.
- disallowed cutscene skip in scene 33C (requires user action).
- fixed a bug with regard to the contract board in grafton not containing a country code, causing a fatal error.
- fixed bugs in using skills involving the status effects PEPUP, SUBTERFUGE, and BRANDISH
- fixed a menu layering issue with objCommandNodeList
- added the ability to display a full message box by pressing the confirm button. this is the more intuitive way to do it for joypads.
- fixed a scrolling bug in the unlearned skills submenu
- fixed a bug in the command menu: unlearned skills were showing item icons instead of skill icons
- wrote the following radio dramas: Star Willows, Galactic Adventurer (Undiscovered Worlds)
- wrote the following news: Viewpoints (Khaldoon Nazmi), Mitchell Mathis (Altair Hebr)
- messed around with some fullscreen stuff to make it look better and less jagged. the best thing i can come up with is an aspect resize to either 800×600 or 1600×1200.
- implemented the final title screen. not only does this title screen look better, it’s also quicker: at any point during the game loading process (from the beginning of the splash to the title menu), the player can press the menu key and load their last saved game instantly. the title screen also has a background that rotates scenes from the game depending on the chapter of the player’s last saved game.
- added the chapter title script necessary for the title screen background rotation to work
- changed the menu quit prompt to a “return to title screen” prompt
- fixed a key icon width issue when displaying the Quick-Load flash

I went ahead and addressed the ones I could, and I ended up snagging seven: five were new and two were ones I’d addressed in the last couple of weeks. I consider it a warm-up, since I haven’t actually worked on the coding aspect of the game in about two or three weeks due to administrative stuff.

Also, in the process of fixing these bugs, I re-propagated the IGF scenario files and added a few things that have been worked into the design in the two months since the last build, including an edit to the Node system that allows you to bind unlearned nodes to slots. This is how you’ll unlock new skills in Alcarys Complex. The best part? You’ve already equipped the node so once you’ve learned it, there is absolutely zero time between skill unlock and skill use.

Anyway, I’ll let you know when the demo’s been updated.

So, a couple things:

• We’re still working on this game. I just haven’t coded anything for it in about two weeks because I was working on the website. The most important part is that we’re going to launch Alcarys Complex in mid-2012 at a $20 price point. We’ll definitely let you know more as we get the information.
• Our demo is still available and you can get it here.
• Expect more frequent updates! New screenshots, insight on the technical aspects of the game, character bios, and much more.

So, until next time, thanks for watching.