Day 6
Was out most of today again, so I didn't get much done. HOWEVER, I did get something rather major done, but the feelings about it are incredibly mixed.
I'll explain. So I began coding the text system yesterday, thinking it would be a very easy task. It was for the most part, but I kept getting some strange issues, as seen in the last post: dialogue seemed to progress randomly rather than according to the order. I tried all of yesterday and most of today to fix this, but no matter what I tried, no matter how many times I looked at the code, nothing seemed to work. I was getting really frustrated because other, seemingly more difficult problems I was able to solve rather quickly by looking through my code and thinking logically meanwhile this relatively simple problem just would not go away.
And then I discovered something. The reason I couldn't figure out the problem despite looking through my code dozens of times, thoroughly understanding what all of it did, was that the problem stemmed from something completely different. The reason the code seemed like it was going in a random order was that the specific type of button checker I was using was sensitive to holding down buttons, and so even the slightest tap of the controller button would count as multiple instances of being hit, and thus progress the dialogue multiple times. I was equally relieved that I had fixed it and upset that I'd spent two days fixing an issue that didn't exist.
In any case, I fixed the issue, and after some lengthy trial and error in terms of getting the text to get where I wanted it on the screen (and even more trial and error to do the same for the text box, again, Game Maker's draw event is a horrible mess) I finally got it. I also made it so that the player cannot move when a dialogue box is up. And thus, we have these!
Yes, yes it is :')
You want to help him, don't you?
Of course it's not perfect, and nowhere near done. For one the text box does that annoying jerk to snap to the center of the viewbox, and the text is way too small for the box. The text also snaps to the next line on the individual character that pushes it over, while I'd like it to go to the next line on the word that will push it over. I'd also like to add talk-sprites for some of the characters. It's also a bit off-center. However this is all cosmetic stuff which can be fixed later on. For now, the important part is that it works! After two days of feeling like I'd been defeated by a simple text box, it works!!
On the one hand I'm frustrated that such a small thing took so long, and I've definitely got some catching up to do. On the other hand, however, I'm just so relieved that I figured it out and that it was a really simple solution. The best part about it was that once I figured out the button-press issue, all of the small fixes I needed to make came just as quickly and naturally as they had been when I first started the game, it really felt like I got my mojo back! Reading over and over through the code I thought I understood and having it all still not work really made me feel like I'd completely lost any momentum I had with this game, but it turns out I was wrong, luckily!
Anywho, that's it for today's devlog, hopefully now that I'm past this tiny hurdle there will be much more content to come, and more quickly too! Thanks again for reading, and stay tuned for the next bitter defeat --> triumphant victory!
- Jadon