Overview Core Dump - Work In Progress Episode 77 October 14, 1998 : More stuff online soon! I've been thinking a lot about the direction I want to go with this site. And I've decided I'm going to put a lot more stuff online. Maybe some editors, some utilities, and some Core Dump music things. I'll have to get all that stuff at my home in Elsloo, so you'll have to be patient for at least a week, but it'll be worth it. Difficulty settings are hard to get right... Last week has seen me perfecting the game difficulty settings (easy, normal, hard, very hard, ...) and the routines that control it. I've opted for a really weird approach: the game adjusts to the player, but at the same time there are difficulty levels. Think of it as this: you can decide at which level you start the game, but the game decides at which level you end it. But this never means that the game gets easier while playing: instead, the game controls the rate at which the game becomes more difficult - it can even decide to keep the game at a constant difficulty level for a period of time. I've related this decision to amounts of items found, progression in plot lines, bonus rooms found, playing time,... so I've had a hard time getting it all to work exactly as I wanted. A weapon that WON'T be in the game... In a previous entry I talked rather mysteriously about a weapon I'd designed... but it won't make it into the actual game because it caused to much overhead. But that means I will explain it. It's rather cool. When you activate the weapon, a small drone appears. This drone hovers near you, but it doesn't do anything. It can take hits for you, but that's not it. The drone is actually quite slow. Press fire and a wee red bullet is fired. It doesn't look like a bullet, which is great, because it isn't. No. You spot an enemy, right? You get into a firing position, and let rip with your lovely little red blob thing. The enemy is not impressed by this show of force, and continues to batter you with his megalaser. At this point the drone starts moving... slowly... A few moments later the drone reaches the enemy, and discharges about 50 zillion billowats into the enemy. Enemy dead. Gen happy. Drone returns to Gen, in the same aggravatingly slow way as before. The idea is this: the drone is slow, and dumb. You give it a target by 'marking' the enemy with the lovely little red tag thing. Then, like good friends do, it pounds the enemy to death. Isn't life sweet? Anyway, this weapon is NOT going in unless a miracle happens - it just caused to much overhead to manage to tagging properly - It would require a free bit in every object, which there isn't... pity. It was a good idea, methinks. Go on... Read the previous entry