Graal: The Adventure

Content Development Levels
1

So, I recently started working on a fun little project that some of you have seen me mention. Basically, I’m making a single player game out of Graal, with a story pretty much identical to that of the original Graal. Basically, “Oh, look, a Golden Gate, let’s crack this sumbitch open and see what’s inside,” but I’m also trying to link everything together logically. Features of the finished product will include:
*Eight LttP-style dungeons
*A total of eight full hearts to be found
*A 9×12 overworld map (helpfully generated by MapMaker :D)
*Familiar characters from the original Graal level packs (Fox, Sardon, Masters Lee and Wong)
*Some kinda linking story

As of now I have a little bit completed. So far just the swamp lands, and even then not quite all of it. However, I thought I would release what I’ve done so far as just a preview for anyone who’s interested enough to try it.

I do need to make a disclaimer: I’m not a great mapper. I won’t pretend to be a great mapper, and I think that any amount of speed I’ll have with this project relies on that fact. My maps will seem a bit barren to some people, but to me at least I think they look fine. There’s not much in terms of clever usage of the tiles, and the cliffs I make are mostly straight lines, but for someone like me with eyes that get really tired when they’re looking at a mess of “realistic” tiling, it’s refreshing to see a few straight lines.

This demo has the Brothers’ House where you start, an impassible mountain to the east of that, and as far west as the Swamp Pub (remember that place just to the west? :D). Then south from there you can explore almost all of the swamp, including the town and the entire first dungeon, including its relatively simple boss. Something that may not quite be clear is that you need to talk to the Eldest Elder in Swamp Town first, as Brother A kind of mentions. I’ll try to find some way to make that more obvious without overdoing it later, perhaps.

Anyway, criticism is welcome, as long as it’s not, y’know, “Homigar your maps suxor!” because trust me, I know.

Oh, and yes, that dungeon exterior IS stolen straight from Chaos Continuum. Wanna fight about it? :smiley:

Download link is right here —> Download

Download is updated to demo 2, which has all of the swamp and two dungeons completed, as well as a couple other things.
Download is updated to demo 3, which replaces the swamp dungeon and adds a lot of stuff north of the bridge. You still need a pass to cross.

2

Get some Galen in there, son! And screw Fox! That kid was useless.

3

Ah, and before I forget again:
If anyone has good coded enemies that work in 1.39 that I could use for dungeon bosses, I need a few if I’m going to have exciting fights at the end of all of the dungeons. I’m probably stealing AceGuardian, the Inferno monster from the desert and the mine Dragon, but that’s three and I need a total of four more. Currently those spots are taken by one gold baddie, fought in close quarters so there’s some element of challenge and danger (not to mention a player with potentially only 3 hearts at this point), Three hostile sword NPCs at once (probably modified so they can’t fuck the player into a corner), something that spawns baddies and shoots those ice arrows from the /weapons folder, and a bunch of lizardons and dragons.

So yeah, any help on that front would be appreciated. If it helps, the dungeon themes without any set boss are a forest, an ice cave/castle (little of both, so it can fit with either), a volcano or desert (Inferno goes well with either), and Graal Mine.

4

All the baddies from Ace’s baddy making tutorial would make pretty sweet bosses. Atleast the one in the final chapter.

5

Do you have the tutorial itself? I found the NPCs on the DVD, but I can’t seem to locate the guide, if it’s there. I’ll probably use at least one of them, but I’d love to learn the whole scripting bit, if I can.

Care to hook me up? :smiley:

6

Mapping is coming along pretty nicely. I’ll release a second demo a lot sooner than I thought, with the first two dungeons and everything mapped out before you can cross Graal Bridge.

Still looking for the Advanced Baddy Scripting Guide, as I think it was called, with no luck. Again, does anyone have a copy of it that they know of?

Still don’t have any downloads =(

7

Just learn C if you want to script

(Obviously that’s the fastest way to learn GScript ^_^)

8

Updated to demo 2. You can get a fullheart now, too =D

Link is in the top post, replacing demo 1

9

Cut out the middleman. C is also pretty much useless nowadays, just use C++ and ignore the objects.

10

Newbie Scripters’ Bible

New Baddy Scripter’s Guide

Advanced Baddy Scripter’s Guide

Baddy Pack

Smart Baddy

11

You’re awesome, Koro.

And no, I refuse to learn an actual useful scripting language until there’s at least five more languages on the complexity hierarchy (that is, Machine code -> C++ -> Visual Basic, though of course with others in between), then learn that and how to program with nothing but a needle and a steady hand so when uppity programmers tell me I’m a noob for learning Visual Easy Basic Max Simple I let them watch me open a computer and program it to tell him to fuck himself.

Sorry, what was I saying? Oh, right! Thanks, Koro! >>;

12

WHOOPS- I meant C (C/C#/CPP) in general. Once you learn your first language,
everything else gets easier.
I said C because the structure in GS2 and C is similar… ish

T_T

13

GS1 - C++/Java
GS2 - Torque mockup.

14

Hey it’s cool you’re making this but this aint gonna help our 0 playercount if it’s offline :stuck_out_tongue:

15

You’re welcome to wade through my horribly inefficient scripting to port it to an online server, if you want to run and moderate it. Otherwise, beat it kid, y’bother me >:D

That aside, progress is really good during the weekends, and I may have another demo up soon, even if it doesn’t include any more dungeons. In fact:

graalmap.png504×672

This is everything I’ve done so far. Obviously quite a lot to be filled in still, but it’s getting there. I did basically all of Graal City in two weekends, at any rate. Several things are on the map but not really filled yet. First, as there is not yet an Onnett town, the mountain path leading to it is not there. The entrance is (the little tiny cave next to the church). Second, Angel Clan is there, but I haven’t decided what to do with it, really, so there isn’t an inside there either. Northern Limits has yet to receive interior maps, and I think there’s a couple cabins that need to be filled in yet, including the one in the graveyard.

I’m thinking of including player-made maps from old Graal Classic in a remake of Big City in the upper-left corner. What does anyone think of that? Stupid? Awesome? Please talk to me T_T

Oh, and a piece of trivia for you: one of those levels on that map is completely unreachable, and will remain so. I just made it for completion’s sake.

16

Cool map

17

So I tried giving the Northern Limits an arcade. Using the minigames from Silmaria or whatever it was called, I found seven or eight. Of those five had commands that worked in 1.39. Of THOSE three worked at all. Of those two are two player (and therefor useless) and one needs severe scripting work before it’s fully functional.

Fail.

Sooo, anyone have any suggestions? >>

18

If created is broken.
If you truely need it and cannot simply replace it with a playerenters. Use this.

if(playerenters && this.init<1) { this.init = 1; [B]stuff;[/B] }

19

Its supposed to run once, per-player session; When clientside or in this case, on an NPC-Serverless server. Otherwise its just supposed to run one instance on the NPC Server.

20

if (created) works just fine for me, because I’m using 1.39 and thus don’t have the problems you silly rubes do. I just have different ones.