Author Topic: {Epoch} is a password... and now a year number too!  (Read 1292 times)

Chrono'99

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{Epoch} is a password... and now a year number too!
« on: July 15, 2006, 05:18:57 pm »
Yes, it's an idea I got. We'll find a good riddle/question to put in some dungeon, and the Epoch renaming screen will serve for the player to input the answer to the riddle.

This way the player will have to actually think about the answer to the riddle or the question, because there won't be 3 or 4 pre-written answers in a dialogue box, there will be the entire alphabet and a 5-letter word to input himself. This will really surprise the player when he'll play the game :) Maybe we can even use the screen more than once and do as many riddles as we wish! (depends on how I code this)

As for the name of the actual Epoch ship, we'll just change all the {Epoch} to Epoch in dialogues (nobody ever renamed the ship to something else in CT anyway).

This is really possible and I've started to code it. It's a bit of Memory Copy and Comparisons. I'll post when I finish. Any comment?
« Last Edit: October 13, 2006, 06:59:15 pm by Chrono'99 »

nightmare975

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2006, 05:34:25 pm »
I used to call it the Shaz. But w/e

Agent 12

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2006, 06:19:04 pm »
I like it, I like it alot

--jp

nightmare975

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2006, 06:29:13 pm »
How are you going to get rid of the Portrait though?

Agent 12

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2006, 06:36:43 pm »
wouldn't it be really similar to changing th eportraits we already changed?

--jp

nightmare975

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2006, 06:59:13 pm »
oh, whoops. I really don't even know HOW you did that.

Agent 12

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2006, 07:04:46 pm »
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Changing_the_status_menu_portraits.html

It's one of the tutorials, though I've never done it myself

--jp

Chrono'99

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2006, 09:46:16 am »
Okay, I've finished. I'm posting a screenshot of the code and a patch (it replaces Gato with that famous sphinx riddler from Greece...).

Some notes also:

- SpecialDlg NameEpoch is bugged in TF! Apparently, the command was not considered when TF was made, so you can't create one with the menu (there's NameMagus, then nothing after). If you click on the existent one in Keeper's Dome, there's an error message. The only way to create one is with an hex editor (I compared NameAyla and NameMagus and just added 1 to the number to make a NameEpoch).

- I've picked mem 7F0202, 7F0204, and 7F0206 randomly, I don't know if they are used for something else in the game or not. These 3 mems can be changed to anything anyway.

- In my example, the answer is "Man" (how cliché that riddle is). In the If commands it must be put in hex form, so the order is a bit strange...

BA AC -> a M
00 C7 -> (void) n
00 -> (void)

... to translate a normal letter to a hex value, just open the Strings menu and compare the item names with their hex codes. Or maybe I can create a translation page in the Flux wiki later to make it quicker.

- My example is just one, it can be customized at will (like, with a more interesting riddle...). Making more than one possible answer would be useful for instance (like Man, MAN, man, etc., or totally different words depending on the riddle). Finally, the code can be used more than once for different riddles in different places (thanks to the MemCopy which clear the {Epoch} variable).


The stuff remaining to do is to change the Epoch portrait (with a question mark picture or something like that)... I'll look into it, though I think it's not stored near the other portraits.
---
EDIT: Well the portrait is here but it's sort of messed up, I don't know how to make it appear normal to modify it.

3FEB88   3FF007   GFX   No   No   Epoch portrait (naming screen)   5/1/2003

[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: July 16, 2006, 10:50:17 am by Chrono'99 »

Agent 12

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2006, 06:26:51 pm »
Chrono 99, this is awesome.  We can use this for Belthasar's Riddle, we just need to think of a good one. 

--jp

justin3009

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Re: {Epoch} is going to be a password
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2006, 07:15:38 pm »
I was always thinking of doing something kinda like that in our game.  Cept it wasn't actuall ya puzzle ^^.  Chrono'99 ROCKS!!

Chrono'99

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Re: {Epoch} is a password... and now a year number too!
« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2006, 07:10:35 pm »
An update to this topic:

I've encountered a problem in the recent revision of the early chapters, when I wanted to make Chapter 1 happen in 11,999 B.C. instead of 11,998 B.C. like in the rest of the game. With a memory flag, I can easily change the era that shows in the little box (at the bottom left side of the screen) to "?", but the problem is the year that shows in the SELECT screen, which still says 11,998 B.C. ...

There is a very nice solution though: put the {Epoch} name in the year number, and change it to what we want with BitMaths.

Basically, the year of the overworld map in the Strings menu is set to: {Epoch} B.C.
Then with BitMaths, I can rename {Epoch} to 11999 or 11998 or whatever that has less than 5 numbers...

Damn that {Epoch} thingy is awesome, it's so versatile :)