Post by KuraPanda in Modding - Races (Semi-official)

Viewing post in Modding - Races (Semi-official)

Thanks, the new event system is for entire sidequests - emily&tisha, cali, ayda, etc. First step is to put the new system out and see if it bugs out for anyone.

Then anyone comfortable with looking at GDScript can see the event code all contained in one place instead of spread over random core game files.

The actual new sidequest/event modding would be done through basic human-readable .json files. I will officially add support for that to the modding folder *after* some live testing to make sure it's not horrendously breaking the game. =D

Kyler26 years ago

I'm not a huge fan of json, but seems gdscript doesn't support anything better. As long as there's a way to still bypass that and do it via gdscript it should be fine.

I'm assuming/hoping you're going to re-implement this as more of base and sub classes containing everything relevant/unique to that class/event. So instead of everything that say a Scylla can do is spread out through a dozen files, you instead have one Scylla class that extends the base Race class and adds modifiers etc. that get called elsewhere. Then adding a new race involves creating your own new subclass and inserting it into an array of possible classes. Fine with the exploration events needing updating so your new race appears though, as I think those should continue to be more hand crafted. Though maybe they could define a biome, and classes could define what biomes they appear in (and how often), then some events could just pull from whatever races can appear in those biomes?

This all sounds awesome to me from a technical point, but also not sure how much it's worth it, game seems to be winding down at this point and is still pretty fun as-is. I'm kinda more curious about any ideas on next projects.

KuraPanda6 years ago

Yup, json seems to be what Godot provides the most built-in support for. Json is just the data storage format to separate code from data. The data may be created within GDscript, a tool that writes to json, whatever.

I'm keeping an eye on when the event system re-factor I did hits public testing. If it unpopular or has issues I want to take that into consideration for how I do races. I re-did events entirely as you describe, however. Classes, sub-classes, self-contained code within an event system that is separate from external code. Internal changes don't break code, because events are accessed through defined public accessors.

I intend to do the same for races. I don't want to complicate races too much, but from community suggestions/feedback I'm focusing on a few key issues.

Dynamic color palettes - both modded and official races define 'default' colors for hair, eyes, parts, but those are extended at run-time based on portrait tags ("blue orcs").
Separating parts and colors better - leather wings, feathered wings, bone wings + color. Not black_fuzzy_feather_wings.
Custom body parts - I'm considering some restrictions here rather than a 'bag of parts'. Perhaps more arrays of part types. So modders can put in eyes/sensory organs, limbs (arms/legs/universal?), etc. Wings, tails, ears. Sort of a Mr. Potato-head system. I'm open to better ideas.
Biomes - Totally cribbin' off of DnD here, but I definitely intend to include biomes in the race definition so that exploration can auto-load new races in the future to the correct biomes without additional coder work.
Combat/Sex Function - This is something I feel is important, but I don't know how the community feels. I'd like to 'tag' body parts with combat and sex functions. That way two different races can both have 'tentacles', but one tentacle is a 'penetrator' and another tentacle is an 'orifice' or 'both'. Same for having body parts modify 'combat'.

The game winding down does affect how willing I am to commit to extensive changes. Similarly to you, I'm quite curious about future projects, because frankly... whipping up a new game base using Godot doesn't seem *that* hard. It's my first time using Godot and for a turn-based style game it's more than adequately capable. Godot's scripting and C# mono coding is way more accessible than directly coding an engine.

Kyler26 years ago

Yeah tweaking mods for this has been my first real exposure to Godot. Does seem much easier then going into a full on Unity game, but more flexible than trying to abuse say Ren'Py into a full on game instead of just a visual novel. There are C# YAML libraries, so was curious how hard that'd be to insert in to the project.

Once the races are classes, it makes it easier to extend that in various ways, so probably best to focus on getting the current setup moved over. though in some ways I guess that does mean maybe simplifying how some things work to make them more generic.

itch.io

Viewing post in Modding - Races (Semi-official)