Choose Your Own MODventure

[Boalt92]

It appears that reports of my retirement (made by me) were premature....

Recent events have inspired to (attempt to) finish the Mod That Was Unfinished, and I thought I'd start this thread to keep myself motivated.  Recent events have also encouraged me to alter the mod significantly: scaling back the scope and using all original or in-game resources (thanks to those who had previously given me permission to use your work, I won't be using it after all  ).  Fortunately, this means less work for me and a much better chance at an actual release.

Overview
Remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" Books?  I used to love them, so I figured I'd make a mod based on the concept that players' decisions will affect the outcome of missions.  This is an EZ Script freeroam adventure, so players will have the opportunity to choose the missions they wish to accept, so you don't have to keep doing the same missions over and over again.  Once you finished, each mission generates random encounters so you can continue to bash heads for as long as you like!

You Pick the Cast! - This mod uses placeholder allies and enemies and fairly non-specific dialogue.  You can play against the FF Universe or substitute the standard villains for  models/meshes of their own, making the mod applicable to nearly any universe.  You can simply copy/paste your own meshes into the placeholders, or open up the mission scripts and use find/replace to use your own hero files.

Room To Grow - All maps use a standardized set of markers, allowing players to add their own EZ Script missions.  Expanding the world is as easy as adding transition markers to connect the map set with maps of your own.

Missions The following missions have been started and/or completed.  More should (?) follow:
C.H.U.D. - Something is turning everyday citizens into flesh-eating zombies!  Discover the secret before it's too late.
Piece of the Action - Fat Tony is sick of playing second fiddle to Mr. Big!  His jealousy could set off a mob war that could injure innocent civilians.  How will you stop him?
Hell Raiser - Stoopid kids and their Ouija board!!!!  Try to put back what they unleash!
Prison Break - Somebody you trust needs your help, but at a cost.  How far will you go for a friend?
Gargantuans Gone Wild - What's up with all the monsters?  Stop the rampage before they destroy the city
Random Acts of Kindness - Typical, run-of-the-mill street crime....with a twist!


Screens
(will be updated, click to enlarge)
Skoped Maps

Prison


Sewer



Lava Pits
(anyway to make the lava unwalkable/cause damage?)

EDIT - LAVA PITS ALT


Lava Pits Revised
(curbs are a bit annoying....what do you think?)



Progress
Maps: done
Freeroam World: done
Custom Character Skins: done
Custom Character Templates: 50%
Mission Outlines: done
Mission Scripts: 20%
Notes: 5%


That's it for now.  Feedback (good, bad, and ugly) is appreciated.  Will update as work progresses.

B92

[Cyber Burn]

THis sounds pretty cool. Hope to see a release.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Hey, Boalt....Those maps are lookin' great and the missions sound like lots of fun. 

My only critique is...The lava pits map looks a bit too uniform (with the streets being the lava trenches), but I totally understand why it looks that way (due to the map used).  Using the crater as a volcanic caldera is a great idea (I had thought of it too and was planning on making a map using it...One map I won't have to make now...LOL) and the park area of the map looks amazing!

Dana

[Outcast]

I remember having a lot of fun reading those books.

Random Missions, an expandable world where you decide which characters and maps to use. What more can you ask for? Sounds like a fantastic idea to me.

The pre made missions are very interesting. Looking forward to hear about the other missions.

[BentonGrey]

This sounds great Boalt, and I'm glad to see you back!  I loved those old books too, so this sounds like a blast.  I'm thinking that The Rogue will have to join Freedom Force in battling the various forces of evil that you plan to unleash here.

As far as making the lava unwalkable, I know that Dr. Mike had traps and such that would probably do what you wanted.  I don't know how they worked, nor if they are still in the newest version of FFX, but there was a map he did as a sample way back in the day.  If you ask the veteran FFX team members, I imagine they can point you in the right direction.

[GogglesPizanno]

Lava Pits
(anyway to make the lava unwalkable/cause damage?)

Since it appears that the lava is just re-textured parts of the map, to make them unwalkable, you could open the terrain nif in nifskope and select each mesh piece that is lava, and change the NiStringExtraData value to "AREA_UNPASSABLE"

On the flipside, to make it cause damage would probably require setting up a bunch of markers on the map sized to overlay the lava and have a function triggered when entered that causes the type of damage you want. Similar to the way characters knocked off the tower level in FF died when they reached the ground.

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, I think that's more or less how Dr. Mike did it.

[Torch]

Looks great and sounds like fun! 

I had a blast with Choose Your Own Adventure books.  Especially 'The House of Danger' - I loved that book! 

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/series/choose-your-own-adventure/house-of-danger.htm

[USAgent]

Sounds awsome!  the You Pick the Cast! part of the mod has always bed a dream for me. To be able to drop in any characters you want into the story and play it through each time with different heroes and villains!

And yes, I was also a "choose your own adventure" book fan myself.

[Gremlin]

Oooh, I'll have to follow this...I was considering using a choose-your-own adventure style with my Vigilant mod, but figured it'd be too hard to code for all the potential outcomes. I'd love to see (and steal ) how you manage it!

[cmdrkoenig67]

Lava Pits
(anyway to make the lava unwalkable/cause damage?)

Since it appears that the lava is just re-textured parts of the map, to make them unwalkable, you could open the terrain nif in nifskope and select each mesh piece that is lava, and change the NiStringExtraData value to "AREA_UNPASSABLE"

On the flipside, to make it cause damage would probably require setting up a bunch of markers on the map sized to overlay the lava and have a function triggered when entered that causes the type of damage you want. Similar to the way characters knocked off the tower level in FF died when they reached the ground.

Or like the lava in  kills the characters if they venture/fall into it on the saving Bullet level.

Dana

[Boalt92]

Oooh, I'll have to follow this...I was considering using a choose-your-own adventure style with my Vigilant mod, but figured it'd be too hard to code for all the potential outcomes. I'd love to see (and steal ) how you manage it!

By all means.

Actually, it's all EZ Script, so it won't be too complicated.  Each mission will have 1-2 options that lead to 2-3 outcomes.  There's also a fair amount of single outcome missions as well.

Also, the story lines and dialogue are much closer to the "Superfriends" than the "Watchmen"...it's fairly vanilla stuff 

The original idea was a good/evil mod where you chose a good path vs an evil path.  The morphed into good/evil story branches within each mission.  Finally, I decided on this format as being the least complicated while still retaining the idea of making choices.  I had tried to do 3-5 options with 3-5 outcomes per mission, but it took me about a week to code and bug one mission, and it was really hard to keep everything straight.

Here are a few tips/issues:

1) Persistance, or lack thereof means each mission (or set of missions) must occur on it's own map(s).  Each mission has 2 - 3 parts, but they all occur within the same set of maps (on a single EZ Script text file).  This keeps encounters from running into each other.

2) Story Branches - I'm using dummy encounters to emulate basic boolean logic to control the story branches.  You can do this for as many branches as you like, but, as I said, more than 3 gets REALLY complicated.  For example:

Code Select Expand


Encounter: variableA1
Type: none
Next: none

Encounter: variableA2
Type: none
Next: none

Encounter: storyAbranch1
Type: fight
Starts When: variableA1 at End

Encounter: storyAbranch2
Type: fight
Starts When: variableA2 at End

There are a number of ways to get to the variable encounters: using Simple Choice; giving players an "intentional fail" option (i.e. don't save the civilian) through dialogue, etc.  Again, however, lack of persistance means there's no way to track these variables across EZ Script text files, and more options=more branches=more headaches!


Dana--
I thought the same thing about the lava map (too uniform) and was going to explain it away as a city (a la Venice on lava).  Nevertheless, you gave me an idea, so I whipped something up real quick last night (gotta love Nifskope, took less than an hour).  Will post screens later.


B92

PS-
Thanks for the tip, GP.  May not be necessary after all.

[jeremy355]

Sounds really cool I loved those books as a kid.

[Lunarman]

Looking awesome, I you get to follow this through

[UnkoMan]

Nifty!

[yell0w_lantern]

I checked with M25 in regards to the mod I'm working on and he said EZScript does not currently support death markers.

[Boalt92]

Posted a slightly revised version of the lava pits.  Rock outcroppings look better, but now lava has curbs (limitation of the map).

Can't decide which one I like better.  Won't have a bearing on the mission either way.

What do you think?


B92


LAVA PITS ALT


Lava Pits Revised
(curbs are a bit annoying....what do you think?)


PS--Thought of a workaround for damage-causing lava......BUT you'll have to wait for the mod to come out to find out!

[Lunarman]

Don't worry about the curbs, I think that looks much better

[cmdrkoenig67]

Even though the curbs are still visible, I like the revised map better than the 1st...It looks really good, Boalt.

Dana