Need a good story and dialogue for a game?

[BlackJack23]

Whoa I'm just thinking of those huge books we used to play D&D with. I'm feeling dizzy.

Yaustar

1) What do you think of the action point system?
Could it work quite well in a game?

2) Do you see yourself being a potential coder for this game?

[yaustar]

1) Yes, is been used quite a bit in the past for other games

2) Maybe but not for the PSP (at least not directly)

[b8a]

Yaustar: Thanks for posting that tinyXML link. I have been thinking of a PSP project that relied on a hefty XML databasae for a while now, but was heavily dreading the thought of writing a XML library to implement it.

I want to know what you think of my "Corona".
Does it have potential?
Starting with your parents is a non-issue and I like the idea and yes you have been playing too many Japanese RPGs. I like the idea because you arent exactly starting with your real parents but actually foster parents. This opens up many possibilities as far as your past is concerned and just adds to the mystery. And anyway, humans in Etheral Planar live to 140, making the characters still relatvely young.

But anyway, I have just begun C/C++ coding
Maybe by the time you are ready I will have surpassed you. Just kidding. But chances are I will be able to do something on the coding side.

Btw: How would be implement xml formatted text

The story, so far, isn't grabbing me at all. But, you have to keep in mind that I actually like (for the most part) Japanese role-playing games. Western style RPG's, and the worlds that go with them (with the notable exception of the well crafted Dragonlance worlds as portrayed by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman in their Brothers and Dragons trilogies, along with the Larry Elmore art that accompanied them), have never done it for me. A little too dry, repetitive, and ultimately unrewarding for me. In fact, before I played any Japanese RPG's, I was sure that I hated the genre. So, that's where I'm coming from.

Of course it has potential though. At this point, I highly doubt that you'll come up with any developments that'll turn me into a fan, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it could be an interesting game. You just haven't provided enough details to come to any conclusions. Sorry, actually I just read your newest attachment, and I do think that the battle system shows some promise. As Yaustar said, not entirely original, but if you left it up to me, it would probably be even less so.

I wouldn't be surprised if you got better at c/c++ than me! I rarely get a chance to use it. Just when I thought I was going to have a chance to get into it a little bit more, I got hit with another mass of web-based projects.

As for the XML implementation question, I'm not sure if Yaustar settled that point for you, but, and of course you're going to have to wait until you have a coder before you try to finalize the script format, but if you were to utilize XML files to store on-screen textual display, the format would probably be something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!--This is the only line that is absolutely nessecary.  The encoding would also need to match the encoding of the saved file-->
<khalar act="3">
<!--This is the root node and you would probably give it a standard name in practice, but for the purpses
of this demonstration, I've named it after the town to indicate that all of the on-screen text that can be
displayed in this town is contained within this node/file.  Also, I've given it an act attribute set to 3
to indicate that the contained messages will only be displayed during act 3-->
	<character name="Gin"><!--approaching Gin for the first time would activate the following sequence-->
		<dialog voice="Gin">
		<!--His dialog would be displayed main character "alignment".  You would then be given
		a choice of corresponding responses, and each response has the potential to influence the "alignment"-->
			<happy>Everyone's talking about you!  Where've you been?
				<reply effect="suspicious">Nowhere...</reply>
				<reply>Just for a short walk</reply>
			</happy>
			<neutral>You're back?  Where've you been?
				<reply effect="mad">That's none of your business!</reply>
				<reply effect="happy">I just went to check out the mountains.</reply>
			</neutral>
			<suspicious>What've you been up to!?
				<reply>I just lost track of time.</reply>
				<reply effect="neutral">Don't tell anyone...  But I fell asleep!</reply>
			</suspicious>
			<mad>You're in so much trouble!  What's your excuse?
				<reply>Go screw yourself!</reply>
				<reply effect="neutral">I got lost on the way home!  I don't know why everyone's mad at me...</reply>
			</mad>
		</dialog>
		<dialog voice="Gin"><!--This is displayed after you've seleceted a reply-->
			<happy>Come on, everyone's going to be excited to see you!</happy>
			<neutral>Well, you should go see Dad, he's been looking for you.</neutral>
			<suspicious><display behaviour="stacatto">...</display>  I don't know what you're up to, but you need to go see Dad before he looses it.</suspicious>
			<!--I included the stacatto display behaviour to illustrate that you can even use XML to specify a
			behaviour for how the specified text is to be displayed on screen.  In this example, I invisioned
			the oft-used dialog effect of displaying the message one letter at a time-->
			<mad>You're going to be in so much trouble!</mad>
		<dialog>
	</character>
	<character name="Gin">
	<!--If you talk to Gin again, his reply would be displayed based on your alignment-->
		<happy>What are you waiting for?</happy>
		<neutral>I'm kind of busy here.  You should go see what Dad wants.</neutral>
		<suspicious>I don't know what you want, but I'm trying to stay out of trouble!</suspicious>
		<mad>Get out of here before I break your leg!</mad>
	</character>
	<item name="Sharwen's home">
	<!--item nodes could be used to hold messages that are displayed when you try to "activate" an inanimate
	 object, in this case, the message is displayed when trying to go into Sharwen's house-->
		<all voice="conscious">I don't think I'm welcome here anymore...</all>
		<!--an all node could be used to display messages regardless of the attitude toward you-->
	</item>
</khalar>

But, XML is so flexible that a coder would probably want to specify that those node names, attribute names, attribute availability, etc, etc, etc... be in any number of specific formats to work best with their engine. This example is for illustrative purposes only, just to give you an idea of a possible script layout in XML.