Just tried it!
Feeling a bit called out at the end, but that can wait till tomorrow.
No problem. I think you’ve got most of the commands but I’ll list them here (which applies to 0.8 Alpha 2):
* Task to do
:h1 Heading
:goto X, Y, [Zoom] (Zoom is optional argument between 0 and -6)
:image path/to/image.png (which is created when dropping an image)
:line (Typing just :line and exiting the note will allow you place the end point)
Also, something that you might have missed when resizing notes: dragging the right edge of the note left and right will set the wrap width, dragging the bottom edge will set the height but dragging it up past the top of the note will allow the note to auto-resize. Dragging from the left or top will most likely break something.
When adding images, the white background is actually a note that the image is added to. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible to fix without diving into the code.
I’ve got a few projects in the pipeline but getting back to LINK is something I’ve been wanting to do now that I have more of an idea of where I’d like to take LINK.
But if you’ve got a moment, I’d love to hear a little about your use case for LINK.
And thank you for using LINK and taking the time to comment! It’s nice to know that someone finds this little program useful.
They work well together but that’s about it.
I’d always suggest someone learn Lua. I’m a little biased, but I find the language to be very easy to read while being expressive and fast.
That said, LINK’s code base is a bit overwhelming because most of the code resides in link.agpack/main.lua and I use Vim’s code folding to keep it organized, meaning sections are contained within blocks surrounded by “{{{” and “}}}”.
I use this inline style (where most of the logic is contained in the update loop) because I find it easy to add new code and refactor old code until I work out how to separate it into self contained modules (which I’ve been working on to use some of the code in my latest project).
But by all means, check out the code. Bring a notebook and feel free to ask any questions you might have. I might be able to point you in the right direction.
I’d avoid working out edit mode at the moment. It works but it’s a dumpster fire that I’m trying to deal with right now.
Thanks for trying out LINK!
To the first question.
Drag and drop pngs or jpgs into the program was the big one.
Otherwise, mainly quality of life updates.
Wrapping can be set by resizing the note’s sides and disables it by dragging the right side all the way to left. Dragging the bottom similarly effects note resizing, particularly if you delete text.
I added a Serif font. Other ttf fonts should work just fine but aren’t supported without hacking the code.
Speaking of code, the 0.8 alpha’s source is available on GitHub if that interests you. MIT license so go nuts.
There’s probably more I’m not thinking of. I highlighted the important bits in devlogs. If I get a moment I’ll summarize other things I missed in a new devlogs, but no promises.
To the second question, I didn’t really have a clue what I was going for which is why development has stalled. Most of my plans were too far fetched and I couldn’t figure out where I wanted to take LINK next.
For the most part, LINK does what I wanted it to but it didn’t quite hit the mark.
I have an idea I’m working on. If it floats, expect to see it in The Tool Jam 2.
I completely understand the need to be paid. For this particular project it’s more of a looking for someone to bullshit music with so I can help develop my own musical talents kinda thing.
However, I do have some other projects that would benefit from having a paid composer so I’ll keep you in mind when the time comes.
Sorry for the confusion, I wrote the post from the hip with very little proofreading.
At the moment, it is not. It’s kind of the problem with wanting to create a game that has music as the central mechanic but with having little musical experience myself, I barely have an idea let alone a game.
However, I do have other products in the works that I honestly should offer some paid work for so I’ll keep you in mind when the time comes.
This is not a joke. Message me below. You’ll get paid after we get back.
Must bring your own samples. Safety not guaranteed.
I have only done this once before.
Seriously though, I’ve always been fond of games that treat music as an extension of the game play.
Take for example, Dig Dug. Walk, the music plays; stop, the music stops. Simple! I love it. Can’t get enough of it.
I’ve been struggling to write music myself so I’d love to pick your brain and take any tips you might have for this, “probably should just give up on the dream,” developer who wants to make a game with a kick ass music based mechanic.
Of course, if we could manage to work together to create this magical game, that’d be cool too.
But let’s be honest for a moment…
Pay is like your safety and I’ll be surprised if we make it back.
Bonus: What’s your two favorite songs?
Nah, it’s cool. I already made lemonade out of those lemons. Check out the new page description: https://akciom.itch.io/battle-commander
I’m working on an update that’ll have more to do but I felt it was necessary to admit defeat (at least for a bit). Now I’m just calling it a feature.
Thank you for checking out my game.
Technically a pixel is the smallest unit that a monitor can display. Granted with high dpi monitors, the term pixel has been a bit overloaded but for this jam, that means there can only be 64x64 units of color.
Any trick used to bypass this restriction will probably just look bad and likely negatively affect the authenticity rating.
I’d set your viewport to 64x64, scale it up in whole number multiples to make it easier to see, and accept the restriction.
Check out the most recent version of LINK! (version 0.5)
I added a new feature that might give you an idea. The new feature easily allows a Choose Your Own Adventure style story.
I was also thinking it could be used as a level editor for a game for example.
Or you could create a .link file that has ASCII art or uses all the different notes to create a larger image.
Generating a .link file could help with that. If you edit a .link file that you’ve saved with a text editor, it should be fairly easy to work out the format.
Those are at least a few ideas. If I think of any more, I’ll post them.
Good luck!
If it’s anything like the B&W Jam (also by Lone Rabbit), no.
However, that’s doesn’t speak to how a person might feel about a game that does or does not use the theme.
When rating games, it’s possible to filter by whether or not someone used the theme or not.
Personally, it’s an interesting restriction that I try to abide by and is fun to see how others approach it but doesn’t affect how I rate the game.
I always thought it meant how everything is implemented. Is there any bugs? Are the controls tight or does it feel like you’re constantly fighting to get stuff done?
An example from an entry I rated for the B&W Jam, the game I played had interesting and fun gameplay but the animations were glitchy and it was difficult to control due to poorly implemented movement code.
I rated the game with a high gameplay rating but a low technical rating because of that.
Edit: I was wrong. Directly from Lone Rabbit
Technically advanced. Does the game do something impressive on the programming side of things? Something like that.
This week was a busy one. I was excited to finally finish up last night.
Looks like I’ll have a bit more time to work in LINK coming up, spending most of my time playing with the app, looking for bugs and quirks that need to be worked out.
And so much spaghetti I have to clean up from the last month of development. Sauce all over the walls! Noodles in the sofa!
It’ll be nice to get it cleaned up.
If you’re able to edit the text box (double clicking it will put you in edit mode), the delete works by removing characters ahead of the cursor. However, by selecting multiple boxes you probably exited edit mode which is why delete works as expected.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I think some other people are also having this problem. I’ll have to see if I can make it more obvious which mode you’re in and if you’re able to actually delete a text box or not.
Interesting concept but I feel its a bit lacking. With the default output on screen I didn’t even know who any of these names were. It wasn’t until I opened up the excel file that I had any clue and then found out there were stats attached to each name (which was cool).
I think this could have some potential if you were to work on the story telling aspect. As it stands I was never invested in any of the characters and trying to parse everything from the excel file would be too much work.
For example, I noticed one of the character’s happiness went down, but I couldn’t figure out why.
That’s pretty cool. Easy to use. An ability to add sounds would be cool but not necessary.
One issue I had, when I created Scene 0 which linked to Scene 1 and 2. From Scenes 1 & 2 I tried to go back to Scene 0 but nothing would happen. Going from Scene 1 to 2 and 2 to 1 worked fine.
Overall, I could see myself create a game with this.
The smiley was a nice touch.
Thank you for your feedback.
My goal is to make an app that makes it as easy and painless as possible to get ideas out of my head and written down. So many that I tried either make it easy to keep organized but want me to do so before I’ve even fully expressed my idea or were just clunky to use. Which is fine if the idea was already fully worked out but just needs to be organized. Most of my ideas are not.
I’ll be ironing out all the wrinkles in the next week or two, fixing bugs and adding some usability features, so stay tuned!
Thank you for your feedback. My goal is to create a tool that stays out of the way and makes it as easy as possible to get ideas onto “paper”.
A lot of that stuff was planned but had to be cut due for the jam deadline (and at one point Unicode did work but something broke along the line).
I’ll be working on fixing those issues and adding a few minor usability tweaks in the next week or two.
I’m glad you liked it!