Anime Girl Desperation Official Forum

As some people may now (if you browse the forums regularly), none posted a version of the game "Car Trip" to the board a while back. In that post he gave three versions, a working version, a updated (although broken) version, and the source for the broken version. I was one of the people who took none up on his offer to allow me to download the source and develop the game myself. Going forward with this I opened this topic so that a discussion could happen over my version and none's page would be clogged up by people looking for answers to questions to two completely different sources. This topic will also serve as the release spot for the game when I am done with it.

Game:
My version will be a complete remake and expansion separate from none's original version. Meaning you won't need none's version, nor will anything from my version work with his (intentionally). My version takes the same premise as none's, you are driving on a car trip (however for a significantly larger amount of time than none's), with a girl(only one at this point, but I intend to make a version with more once I have the single-girl version working correctly). However, I intend to add a large number of features, including(but not limited to):

• Different bladder and bowel sizes (makes the girls less linear with their pee and poop habits¹)
• Many different appearance options that show up during the game
• Many different "hidden" stats that make life more interesting (Cleanliness and health, in example)
• Item system that allows manipulation of the girls needs
• Huge Dialog Base

¹The user will be able to chose to disable most of the scat themes in the game.

Release:
December 24 or 25th seems a likely date to keep in mind.

Platform:
Car Trip is being programmed in Visual Basic. This likely means that almost all computers running windows should have no problem running it, except if your computer is older and running very old versions of windows. Unfortunately, I will be unable to provide any support to users using Mac OS' or Linux; I am not familiar with either operating system nor any "emulator" that would help.

Furthermore, as I mention in some of my posts, I may be looking into building Car Trip for your Windows 7 phones. Unfortunately, I would also be incapable of support that version to full effect, I have a phone running Windows Mobile 6.5. The only reason I would be able to do this is because the programming languages and environment are similar.

I may also make a Lite version for the Ti-83/84+se line of calculators (as far as I know, it would be the first turn-based eroge for a calculator...food for thought).

Testing:
I might need one person to test the speed of my game at the baseline of computers right now. So I'm looking for someone running a computer with a Pentium 4 or equivalent and running Windows Vista 64 bit or Windows 7. My computer runs the game (what I have made of it right now) very well, but I'm also running an i7 on my laptop, so my processor is anything but normal.

If anyone has any ideas for my game, please post you suggestions in this topic. There are a lot of things that I haven't described here (because there are a lot of details in the game and many of them right now are too tedious to mention, or I'm still tweaking aspects), but I will take nearly any suggestions.

Updates:
11/10/2010, 17:30 - 0% complete

• Restarted my update list
• At this point I don't know how much I have data wise

11/11/2010, 16:03 - 7% complete

• The Item descriptions and most item's effects were lost, which cuts down on the significance of the items retained in my notebook (1%)
• A vital thing retained is my piecewise function dictating the bladder and bowel fill rates, I shat myself with happiness (6%)
• Started working on the actual program.

11/17/2010, 16:56 - 9% complete

• Options menu is done (0.5%)
• Username menu is complete and implemented fully (0.5%)
• User settings table has been completed, more or less (1%)
• Next project on my list the new game setup menu

11/18/2010, 7:09 - 15% complete

• Randomly generated trip "schedule" has been recovered a deciphered (5%)
• Shop page started (1%)
• Thought about cheese (0%)

11/18/2010, 20:47 - 19% complete

• 1/2 of the shop page complete. (4%)

11/24/2010, 12:57 - 23% complete

• Shop page is complete items are being displayed and able to be bought with absolute perfection. (4%)
• Will strive for at least 25% for today
• Happy thanksgiving everyone

11/25/2010, 22:06 - 26% complete

• Most of the new game page has been lain out, after a complete concept re-design. (2%)
• I have tested a backup to text file system, this will allow users to migrate their game's settings when/if I release new/revised versions of Car Trip (Right now none are planned, but it is a likely eventuality). (1%)

11/28/2010, 23:34 - 34% complete

• Completely completed the new game screen. And via the infantile backup system I am able to confirm that it is working properly.
• My next project will finally be the main game screen, and again the game engine flow. So because of that, expect that it may be about a week before my next update.

12/7/10, 7:42 - 35% complete

• Got distracted for a few days because of the snow where I live, plus college final exams are coming up
• Working on the inventory system, it is slow going because each of the 51 items requires about 46 lines of Boolean code. (It may seem long, but the computer will fly right over most of this at run-time)
• Engine planning is coming along...

12/9/10, 20:17 - 37% complete

• Completed the basic design of the main game page
• Main game engine design is coming
• I realized the amount of text (both in programming lines and story) I dug myself into with this project
• I had one of those "The is no motherf*****g way I'm going to finish this in time" moments

Wholeheartedly look forward to it. Just don't stop production when you inevitably get off on your own work.

Faust volunteers himself for testing and helping in any way he can.
^^
Faust isn't sure what his computer is...but he wants to try it anyways.

Just let Faust know if you need anything, and Faust will do what little he can.

Faust is eagerly looking forward to your advancements. ^^

great man! *screams in anticipation* seems like you have managed to notice what the original game was lacking to a degree, hopefully it will be as good as the original or better :)

Quote from: Faust on October 05, 2010, 07:36:37 PM
Faust volunteers himself for testing and helping in any way he can.
^^
Faust isn't sure what his computer is...but he wants to try it anyways.

Just let Faust know if you need anything, and Faust will do what little he can.

Faust is eagerly looking forward to your advancements. ^^

Do you happen to remember when you got your computer, did you special order it, or have you made any improvements? 

Quote from: Ambrose on October 05, 2010, 08:00:35 PM
great man! *screams in anticipation* seems like you have managed to notice what the original game was lacking to a degree, hopefully it will be as good as the original or better :)

"...to a degree..."? Is there something you'd like you see in the game? There are many aspects of the game that I didn't cover in the forum here (mainly a lot of the internal workings that are still being modified and tweaked), but if you have any suggestions please feel free to share them. :)

Faust just got his computer off his parents.
It played the original "Car Trip" just fine, but Faust doesn't know a lot about Computers.

Faust just hopes it works when it's done at least. ^^

Quote from: Faust on October 05, 2010, 08:31:37 PM
Faust just got his computer off his parents.
It played the original "Car Trip" just fine, but Faust doesn't know a lot about Computers.

Faust just hopes it works when it's done at least. ^^

It should be fine for what I'm looking for. I guess I'm just so used to programming calculators that max out at 15Mhz. I keep forgetting that most computers are 1.5GHz, about 1000 times that. I'm just getting paranoid.

Also If I could give share a little bit of my experience on my defunct car trip project. Try to decide on whether or not your going to use multiple girls or not early on. I "changed horses mid-stream"  and it really hamstrung the project as it affected so many parts of the game. And also if you wanna go multi-girl use arrays since they greatly reduce the number of variables  you will end up sloshing through.

Good luck! Looking forward to Nov. 2!

Awsome, what does the "SA" stand for though?

Quote from: durachio on October 09, 2010, 09:39:59 PM
Awsome, what does the "SA" stand for though?

It's just an abbreviation for my computer's name. I just added them to distinguish it from the original version.

Not using a pentium 4,(running an AMD dual core instead) but i am on windows 7 64 bit if you need testing.

and yeah what none said, especially if you want 2 girls to be able to interact with each other.

Still wonderfully expectant for this project. The more you shove into it, the better it will be.

Sweet, another game to look forward to.

I haven't read the whole description yet as I am a bit pressed for time, but if you want a tester I have a few computers with varying specs I can try to run it on.

Right now I have...

Desktop running Athlon X3 at 2.9 GHz, 3 Gigs of DDR3 1600 MHz RAM, and 9800 GT, Windows 7 Pro x64

Laptop with Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz with 2 gigs of DDR2 800 and 9600M GT Windows 7 Pro 32 bit

Netbook with Atom N270 1.6 GHz and Intel graphics XP Home N-lited to be fast as possible

And another laptop from around 2002 running XP Home with a Pentium 4 desktop processor at 2.4 GHz and I think 1 gig of RAM, with Radeon Mobility 9000 with 64 Mb.  I haven't started this one up for a while, but I'm pretty sure she still works.

I also got a bunch of Linux live installs if that helps


Good luck!

As far as I know, this game is in VB, so Linux is out of the question. However, if there is a way to play it (except in wine, of course), I'll gladly give it a try. Nice to see that the scat elements will be removeable.

One wonders if this is in VB.  It makes sense that it would be, given that he stated from the get-go that this was an extension to none's work.

Speaking of which, I just started re-learning C# for a job I'm applying for.  Believe it or not, I've never used VB.  I started with C++.

There comes a time in every person's life when they must admit defeat...and instead of boring you all with a fascinating waxing on metaphors I'll get straight to the point.

My computer's hard drive crashed last Sunday(10/17), and rather than let everything I've worked for go to waste I decided to go ahead with the attempt at recovering the lost data. However, as it turns out this would have cost me in excess of $1600. And as a college student whose income is only comparable to that of McDonald's line worker. I could not have afforded to restore the data. Luckily the only thing seriously lost was my version of Car Trip. Half-done and now and ever to, lost to the world.

I say luckily because I still have the ability to rebuild the version I was working on. However, it will take some time. From now it will take about two weeks to get my computer back in working order, asiding any other problems with it. After that I estimate it will take yet another week to restore my life to normal and even to mentally start working on Car Trip again.

And it is at this time, that with a heavy heart, (I really wanted to play the game too!) that I must say that Car Trip's release is so forth, until I say otherwise, postponed indefinitely. I don't really want to make any promises, but as I see it now, Car Trip may be a Christmas release.

I sincerely apologize to anyone looking forward to Car Trip's upcoming release date. You've all been very supporting to me, and I thank you for that, I only hope I can continue keep and reward your support.

If anyone has any ideas about things to include in Car Trip please step forward soon. I will try to abide by the original details I outlined in my first post, but anything else is open to suggestion. This will help me a lot in trying to get back in the spirit.

In conclusion, thank you for you patience if you're still reading. And know that this isn't Car Trip's last update.

Sincerely, Turtlbrdr

It's on Valve time now.

Sorry about your HDD, yo.  I know how that goes.

a hard drive's failure rate is in indirect porportion to the amount of progress a person has done on a project.

Let's see, I've started to work on Wetters Taiken and my external HDD died a couple of weeks ago, turtlbrdr started to work on Car Trip and his HDD died now... Who's next, lol? Dynamic? I hope you're making backup copies. I know I do. They minimize the amount of rage you feel at the times like this. Luckily, only two of many HDDs I've been through died on me so far, and the other one was a 80MB Connor anyway. Anyway, let's hope there won't be any more casualties.

Oh man.  Maybe I should write out my code on paper and have it laminated  :S

Just wanted to update on what is happening on my front. And that is not much.

However, as it seems my computer maybe getting back to me sometime late this week. If this is so, like I said in my last post, I should be able to resume work on Car Trip by the 14th of November. Giving myself a good month to re-create what I lost, and create what was needed, we would most likely be looking at a December 25th release. This isn't set in stone, especially since I don't know where my computer is in the process, and if there is any extra damage that might need to be repaired.

Until next time, thank you for your continued support

It was a while coming, but I can finally say that Car Trip is finally on the road(interpret the pun as you want) again to completion. I found one of my notebooks (a physical one, not computer) has most of the item data I put into the first building, however the mechanics behind the game have been mostly lost. The only things remaining include vague references to the internal mechanics and what is still left in my pea-sized cranial hard-drive.

One would speculate that I will be able to recover the mechanics and improve on them, and I only hope so. As progress progressed things for the internal mechanics started to bind with each other, and the whole system got interestingly complex, but they didn't interfere with each other. Which reminds me of the other sad loss I took, the planning of the internal engine that I somehow spat out in a night's time, that would have seemed to work perfectly should it have been implemented.

So this is where I stand, without a lot of what I had and with significantly less enthusiasm (no doubt due to post-system-crash depression). However, I want to see this game done, and I want to see it done and ready to ship for December 25

One final addition, I have found a suitable test bed for Car Trip, the laptop I have been using during my downtime has the specs I am looking for, and will use it to test Car Trip.

So from now on I will again be modifying the main post on the first page, reporting my progress the way I had with the last build. And again I ask that anyone with a wish as to something they would like to see put into the game, please post it and let it be known.

Thank you for being patient I hope not to disapoint.

Glad to hear it... And I await the release with baited breath.

I just wrote a random girl generator.  You should totally use something like that.

You know, that way every time you play it's a little different.

Quote from: Dynamic on November 11, 2010, 12:59:10 AM
I just wrote a random girl generator.  You should totally use something like that.

You know, that way every time you play it's a little different.

That's actually already implemented, on the new game screen, all of the girl's traits will be randomized, and there is a button to randomize them again. On a side note, another thing randomized is bladder (and bowel) size. While the user determines the overall size, the actual capacity can be a bit more or less.

Can't wait for the game, seems promising. Also, if you go by 5-7% every day: you'll be done in about 2 weeks :D

*sigh* sometimes I think I have too much of an imagination and it often calls me in for more than I can handle.

This morning I figured on several improvements I would like to make to the existing Car Trip source. However, the problem is I can only concievably finish these improvements though a complete overhaul of the source code.

So far the whole project evens out to a bit over 200kb in size (the source of the original Car Trip being just over a Mb in size) however, none of the actual engine has been implemented yet.

There are two options I have thought about in this manor.
1) I could delay the release of Car Trip and redesign it to include these new features. Or...
2) I could complete and release the current project of Car Trip as a Demo or Version 1. And the new source would be the official release.

There is also a problem with time. As I mentioned in my update a few days ago (12/9/10, 20:17). I realize now that with the planning of the engine, and just the sheer amount of things I will allow the game to do is an enormous amount of coding work that still needs to be done. Not to mention the dialog that I have to prepare as well. In other words I want to go with option 2. Though, I still don't know if I will be able to complete the demo/v1 version by the 25th, but I will try. I have exams coming up next week, but after that I will be free to continue work on Car Trip more often.

I'd be happy with option 2. Something is always better than nothing.

How about:

option 3: Create a time machine and go back in the past, re make the game with your notes you took to the past: and have it done by christmas!

But better: I think you should do Option DOS. *(That's 2 in Spanish)*

First of all I want to thank those who replied to my previous post. It can mean a whole lot when the developers and the consumers get together. (or at least that's what I've heard, have really released anything yet...)

I have rather disappointing news, besides this being the outright worst Christmas/December of my life, I've hit yet another set back on Car Trip. While programming the engine, I made a rather embarrassing mistake that dominoed into the whole source I writ until I noticed it down the line, so instead of having a complete engine right now, I have a couple of windows forms pages and a engine plan, again.

Quite frankly I'm having a hard time with dialogue as well right now, so that isn't helping either.

Right now I don't have a release date, but it won't be this year. One of the things that made this December so bad is my car dying soI will be out searching for a low budget one for what I believe will be the whole expanse of this week.

However, I will go with the popular opinion in my readers, and I will continue working on this source. The upcoming version will be a demo before I completely redesign the interface and release that as the full version.

Another thing I am looking into is developing Car Trip for Windows 7 phones. From the looks of it, the project as it is current can be easily transferred over, however I won't look into it until I am at least done with the demo.

Sorry to hear that. I can help with writing dialogue and actions, if you'd like. I'm fairly certain I could produce at least a decently varied list of unique phrasing and action descriptors.

Quote from: Mizukine on December 26, 2010, 09:12:55 PM
Sorry to hear that. I can help with writing dialogue and actions, if you'd like. I'm fairly certain I could produce at least a decently varied list of unique phrasing and action descriptors.

I would like some help with dialogue if you are interested. I haven't even gotten to start writing phrases for desperation and wetting situations and stuff like that. I'll attach a list later of situations where I could use text. If you post another one with your lines I'll gladly give you credit in the program

I've updated this post with a copy of the document. If anyone wants to tackle some of the dialog then go ahead. However, don't feel obligated to do it all. Please read the instructions at the beginning it will help me transfer it into the game.

Is there a limit to the number of characters each line can have?

Quote from: Mizukine on January 06, 2011, 11:31:05 AM
Is there a limit to the number of characters each line can have?

Not really, especially right now. The general interface is still fairly soft and I can change things and make them bigger as I need to. But for simplicities sake...lets say around 1000, a little more a little less I won't mind.

Unfortunately, I just wish the programming was coming along just as well, the way I have the engine designed if I forget to put something into the flow, it means I have to start over on the page. I've had to do that about 3-4 times already, and classes are coming up for me, not to mention I may be getting a job soon

I mean is there a restriction to how many letters can be in one sentence or quote.

With the popularity of the FD games topics as they are, I wonder if I ought not make a separate section just for discussion and uploading of those.   :001_unsure:

Might be worthwhile. Minimal traffic, though.

Quote from: FallenStar on January 07, 2011, 06:20:28 PM
With the popularity of the FD games topics as they are, I wonder if I ought not make a separate section just for discussion and uploading of those.   :001_unsure:

I'm decidedly okay with that idea.  Anything that encourages development from otherwise on-the-fence people (err... like me).  Might even encourage collaboration.

Quote from: Mizukine on January 07, 2011, 05:41:58 PM
I mean is there a restriction to how many letters can be in one sentence or quote.

nope not really

After more than two weeks without a word, I think I at least owe all of you out there an explanation why I haven't been around and why I have been forced to postphone Car Trip's Release for "Quite a while".

Last week I started my spring semester of college, and with certain doubts, I am convinced that I have blindly walked into the three hardest classes I will ever take in college. With classes on every weekday except Friday, I have come home for the last two weeks exhausted. And while I do have intermittent breaks between classes, unfortunately working on Car Trip during school hours is unlikely to make me any friends should anyone grab a glance at my screen.

While I haven't stopped working on Car Trip my progress has been incredibly slow when I have. I often have to do it in short burst and when I come back to it next I sometimes forget things to do, and when I realize the mistake I have to end up redoing entire sections of code because of stupid little mistakes.

I'm sorry for these setbacks, but it will have to do for now, I can't afford to slip a class.

In the last few months I haven't had a lot of time to program for Car Trip (not even to look at it), however, I think I might be able to get a little time in the coming weeks. I'm not sure about it, though.

I have realized though, with as far as I am away from releasing Car Trip, I'm even further from releasing from releasing the "Full version" (those confused look to my post on Dec 11). I am thinking I will likely have to use libraries from other programming languages (not only visual basic) to accomplish what I want it to do. This will take time to learn the language, and then how to integrate it into a VB program.

One thing I was thinking about including was images to go alongside the actions of the game. However, this has three problems:

• I can't draw
• I can't pay anyone, the most I could promise someone is a name in the credits and first dibs on the released version/beta
• The game already has enough options that drawing an avatar for each would be tiresome to say the least. (4 hair colors * 4 eye colors * 3 breast sizes * 3 clothing choices = 144 images. Not to mention the extras I have included, which would take that total to 441 images)
  
• The Full version is to be so modular, the only way to deal with it would be to build a modular image system to place items on the girls (think dress-up game) which I have no idea on how to code.

This said though, I make it a point to visit the forums at least once a day (often more), so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

[Edit]
I forgot to mention, one of the things holding me back right now are the lack of events. Events are anything that happens during the game (even sitting in the seat looking out the window is an event). If anyone has any ideas about events feel free to post them. They should be things you could do during a car ride.

I've also attached a teaser image of the shop screen

Currently, I am making progress on the "Check" menu. This is roughly equivalant to the Status menu from none's version. I still have quite a bt to go, but it's the text that makes it so long, the actual prologic behind it is rather simple.

Otherwise, I haven't had a lot of time to do anything with the game.

I am curious about a few things, such as how you are handling text output in your program.  I have other questions but I'm pressed for time at the moment and am also on a mobile phone.

So, for now I'm just curious as to how you are storing the text messages the player will see (in code or in a file/database?).  Also, I'm sure you said before, but this is in VB?

Quote from: Dynamic on May 14, 2011, 03:55:47 PM
I am curious about a few things, such as how you are handling text output in your program.  I have other questions but I'm pressed for time at the moment and am also on a mobile phone.

So, for now I'm just curious as to how you are storing the text messages the player will see (in code or in a file/database?).  Also, I'm sure you said before, but this is in VB?

I eagerly await the rest of your questions.

The text for the current version of Car Trip is held in-line. However, I plan for the full version to be completely modular, and since personalities are what Determines most of the text than that will be modular as well and held in text/database/xml files (haven't decided yet) to be popped in a used.

And it is, in fact, VB

I decided to release anther update. However, there's not much to report. Recently I have finished exams and after I've finished some personal business this Tuesday, I'll have pretty much free roam until the 6th of June. This means more time for my projects including Car Trip.

My current project is still the check menu, and getting the strings and processes done with that

10-4, good buddy.  Glad you got more time 'cause after that teaser shot you posted I got very curious about how your finished product will look.  It's obviously a lot more involved than the source material, and I'm really curious as to how the game will be played.  How much variation can the player's own decisions introduce?  I realize that the more functionality you add the workload increases exponentially, but I can already tell you have some grand things planned.

So, keep up the awesome work.  I'm sure there are more people than just me who are excited about this project.  Also, feel free to call on us for help (even if it's just to backup files).  I'm more of a Java/C programmer myself but as you know it all boils down to the same logic.  I also consider myself a capable creative writer, so there's that.

Dude, my phone is multitasking too much and this is sloooow.  I really should post from one of my PCs...

Whatever, Android never let's me down!

Quote from: Dynamic on May 16, 2011, 04:37:09 AM
10-4, good buddy.  Glad you got more time 'cause after that teaser shot you posted I got very curious about how your finished product will look.  It's obviously a lot more involved than the source material, and I'm really curious as to how the game will be played.  How much variation can the player's own decisions introduce?  I realize that the more functionality you add the workload increases exponentially, but I can already tell you have some grand things planned.

So, keep up the awesome work.  I'm sure there are more people than just me who are excited about this project.  Also, feel free to call on us for help (even if it's just to backup files).  I'm more of a Java/C programmer myself but as you know it all boils down to the same logic.  I also consider myself a capable creative writer, so there's that.

Dude, my phone is multitasking too much and this is sloooow.  I really should post from one of my PCs...

Whatever, Android never let's me down!

The player themselves can give the girl many of the various items put into the game. And the check menu will also offer a few options for interaction. However, the vast majority of player-girl interaction will be based upon the events system, which is what determines what actions happen (And is consequence the most pro-logic intensive portion in the game, because it has to be carefully sculpted to accommodate all of the current 48 events, and will continue to expand while I think up more)

The player's actions can have a profound effect on the gameplay, even if it's only a backside reach. Giving the girl a soda will cause her to have to use the bathroom, and the caffeine in it will cause it to happen earlier than if she had just drank water. In other words, the player has a very powerful influence on the gameplay, however, I feel it is in a more reach-around way than I'm used too.

This is another thing I hope to fix in the "full version" of Car Trip, I want to add that direct functionality, and it is literally the first item on my "improvements list".

I would love the help, especially since I think I'll have to outsource some of the code in the full version to C++ so that it can run faster, but it really depends on how much modularity I can build into VB. I haven't gotten into the main part of the engine (because of the aforementioned reason), and that will really define if it will be a pure child of VB or a bastard child with C++. As for backing up have enough backup hard drive now, and it's backed up regularly so there is little to no work that could be lost.

Call me a crazy, but I think Java lends itself well to this kind of project.  Execution speed isn't on the level of C++, sure, but it's plenty fast for something like this.  Also, building GUIs is a hell of a lot easier than with just straight C++ (Windows programming being an entirely separate discipline).  Also, Java is cross platform, so users can run the program on Windows, Linux, Mac, what have you.

I think of Java as being a lot like C#, only not strictly Windows.

Quote from: Dynamic on May 16, 2011, 07:12:39 PM
Call me a crazy, but I think Java lends itself well to this kind of project.  Execution speed isn't on the level of C++, sure, but it's plenty fast for something like this.  Also, building GUIs is a hell of a lot easier than with just straight C++ (Windows programming being an entirely separate discipline).  Also, Java is cross platform, so users can run the program on Windows, Linux, Mac, what have you.

I think of Java as being a lot like C#, only not strictly Windows.

I may try Java, I don't have known experience comparable with it though so it might take a while longer, adding more delay to a project I wish I could have out now. I'll look into it though. Though, I should rephrase my previous statement, while C++ is much faster, the real reason is the ability of modularity it allows. VB seems to be fast enough for my uses, and most of the stuff in Car Trip is control structure based so that only a fraction of the actual code is getting used. Fat amount of code? Yes. Fast enough for even semi-modern computers? I would assume so.

As for an update, I ran into a blundering stupid. I realized that my function for displaying the state of a girl's underwear in the check menu was completely useless. I stupidly forgot to add in variances for clothing. This also reminds me of another level of stuff that will be required to be accounted for in the modular clothing items files.

I know next to nothing about VB (my only experience being wading through none's source code for the original Car Trip).  I assume it's object oriented and runs on .NET (which means it's restricted to Windows and requires the runtime).  Aside from that I'm clueless.

Modularity, you say?  Could you be a little more specific?  Are you referring to OO, or something I'm totally missing?

Java essentially locks you into the OO paradigm, but it's stupidly easy to use.  C++, with it's multi-paradigm approach, is certainly versatile and it's lightning fast when used well, but it's quite complex.  For a project like this, I would certainly wanna use Java.

That said, if you DO decide to port to Java (or use C++) at some point I will offer what I know for the cause.  I'm no expert, but I think I know enough to be helpful.

Quote from: Dynamic on May 18, 2011, 07:03:01 PM
I know next to nothing about VB (my only experience being wading through none's source code for the original Car Trip).  I assume it's object oriented and runs on .NET (which means it's restricted to Windows and requires the runtime).  Aside from that I'm clueless.

Modularity, you say?  Could you be a little more specific?  Are you referring to OO, or something I'm totally missing?

Java essentially locks you into the OO paradigm, but it's stupidly easy to use.  C++, with it's multi-paradigm approach, is certainly versatile and it's lightning fast when used well, but it's quite complex.  For a project like this, I would certainly wanna use Java.

That said, if you DO decide to port to Java (or use C++) at some point I will offer what I know for the cause.  I'm no expert, but I think I know enough to be helpful.

I have to revise what I meant. I'm terribly sorry. I went around and studied a little more, and it happens I stupidly forgot that VB is basically created for internal server integration.

What I meant by modularity is the ability for much of the code to be appended by files outside the programs code. IE: The next version is going to have most of the dialogue and item specs in text files, in folders where they can be added to (with the addition of say another "personality" file). These files, once added to the folders can be added to the game (presumably from an in-game content manager, which will work in removing them as well).

As for object orientation, I'd just wiki it, I think it is, but I've never really know the difference.

Object Oriented programming is a paradigm that is defined by the use of classes for pretty much everything (all components being an instance of a class, aka an 'object').  It's a great method of programming because it greatly simplifies the task by introducing modularity.  I *think* VB is an OO language, but I don't know if it forces it (like Java).  OO is a bit complicated to learn, but when used correctly it's a beautiful thing.

Classes are self-containing, so they can be reused in different programs and modified freely without affecting the rest of the program (so long as the same inputs and outputs are present - the internal functionality can be changed as desired).  Also, it allows the programmer to think of the code as physical objects, rather than simply abstracted machine instructions.

Anyway, my offer to help is officially on the table.  I don't know how much I could contribute on the coding front as I am not familiar with VB (I do have Visuam Studio 2010 collecting dust on my harddrive though), but I am a capable writer and understand logic fairly well.  If you think of any task you'd like to off load on someone else, PM me.  I check the site every day.

Quote from: Dynamic on May 21, 2011, 04:07:46 PM

Anyway, my offer to help is officially on the table.  I don't know how much I could contribute on the coding front as I am not familiar with VB (I do have Visuam Studio 2010 collecting dust on my harddrive though), but I am a capable writer and understand logic fairly well.  If you think of any task you'd like to off load on someone else, PM me.  I check the site every day.

I don't know if it's what you meant by "...a capable writer...", but I could use some more dialog strings. That is what is taking up most of my time. There should be a text document a page or two back which explains a good portion of what I need. However, it was written a while back and I need several more situational strings. If this is what you meant by it, reply and I'll draft a new copy for the new text.

Yeah, I mean, I consider myself a capable creative writer.  I've located the document you mentioned, and am now looking it over.  Admittedly, I've never written anything like this (just lines detached from a story) but I'll mull over it for a while and see what I come up with.  If you do draft a new version, please try to be as specific as possible.  Include some sample lines to get the ball rolling.  That way I can understand exactly what you're looking for.

EDIT:

After looking it over, I'm a bit confused at how cleanliness preference should affect the lines.

Quote from: Dynamic on May 22, 2011, 01:23:21 AM
Yeah, I mean, I consider myself a capable creative writer.  I've located the document you mentioned, and am now looking it over.  Admittedly, I've never written anything like this (just lines detached from a story) but I'll mull over it for a while and see what I come up with.  If you do draft a new version, please try to be as specific as possible.  Include some sample lines to get the ball rolling.  That way I can understand exactly what you're looking for.

EDIT:

After looking it over, I'm a bit confused at how cleanliness preference should affect the lines.

It will be a couple days before I can get back to you (family circumstances), however, I will look into getting the document revised. Honestly when I writ that I was focused on other projects (hence why I writ it, so that people could get it back before I approached that part of the program). I will try to get that revised and redone so that it fully explains itself to what I'm comfortable with (I'm trying to keep most of it under wraps, so it'll be a surprise).

Anyway, like I said, it will be a few days before I can get back to you (or anyone else who's floating around out there - you know who you are). However, I will still try to keep up with anything you write, however, don't expect an in-length response until wednesday or thursday.

S'all good!  I'll spend the extra time practicing and researching (ie playing lots of desp themed games... for science!).

Sorry I haven't replied in a while. Last week turned hectic with scheduling, and this week I need to take getting ready for my summer classes. I will try getting the list done, but I'm not sure how long it will take. This especially considering that I will return to school, with roughly the same schedule as before, next week.

Once again I'll soon be coming to a lull in m college career so I'll be having more time to work on Car Trip and it's sequels.

I haven't been working on Car Trip as much as I have, but today I have made some progress to planning V2.0 (the full version). I've found that at least a modular item system is possible using VB, and if I'm right it should be fast enough to suit many needs as long as I limit the amount of items of a reason able limit (100 items per category?).

The format for the list will also allow the use of custom scripts along with the standard stat modification. As of right now; Girls, Drinks, Food, Medicine, Toiletries, Clothing, Maps, and even the dialog system are due to be modular and each will have it's own specialty Editor for those who download what I deem the (Development Pack)

I will continue to work on version 1, as completing it will likely yield even more experience and possibilities for the the full version. However, even now I am realizing the version 1's sturdy but constricted architecture. Today, I realized how limited the current item system is: Each item being hard-coded and handled inside the program, it makes it a nightmare to change anything.

And so, I get to the resolution of my message; in short I am now looking for who will help with the development of Car Trip 2.0. I'm am not sure of the current list of things I would like to incorporate but I am looking for the current people

• Those who can make digital art. I wish to add some kid of visual aspect to car trip, specifically giving the girls faces and bodies to reflect those in the game. As I posted earlier in this thread, this would involve a small mountain of images to do, but it should be possible to do. The images would be handled in much the same way as a dress up game, but only the final visual aspect would displayed by after the computer "plays it"
• Those who are somewhat creative about thinking about objects. I will complete the devkit programs far before the program and if I could put together a collection of fine items to start the game off with, I think it would benefit the game for the better.

Finally, for those interested in helping, I don't really have any money to pay you back with, however, if it means anything, I'm willing to give those who participate alpha, beta, and early final version access.

Any questions or replies will be answered as soon as possible.

Quote from: turtlbrdr on September 07, 2011, 04:55:58 PM

• Those who can make digital art. I wish to add some kid of visual aspect to car trip, specifically giving the girls faces and bodies to reflect those in the game. As I posted earlier in this thread, this would involve a small mountain of images to do, but it should be possible to do. The images would be handled in much the same way as a dress up game, but only the final visual aspect would displayed by after the computer "plays it"

Does 3dcustom girl art count? I've seen a lot of people use it, a VERY SMALL portion of which use it for wetting stuff (I.E. Creates the girl in-game and then adds the "pee" in Photoshop). I tried my hand at it myself:

Pros: No real heavy duty 3d modeling experience needed.   

Cons: ALL of the material including the stuff needed to import custom mods (Pee, poop, wet panties ect.) Is in Japanese and is not really all that easy to get to without being fluent.

Also I don't have Photoshop.   

[/list]

Quote from: none on September 09, 2011, 08:00:56 PM

Quote from: turtlbrdr on September 07, 2011, 04:55:58 PM

• Those who can make digital art. I wish to add some kid of visual aspect to car trip, specifically giving the girls faces and bodies to reflect those in the game. As I posted earlier in this thread, this would involve a small mountain of images to do, but it should be possible to do. The images would be handled in much the same way as a dress up game, but only the final visual aspect would displayed by after the computer "plays it"

Does 3dcustom girl art count? I've seen a lot of people use it, a VERY SMALL portion of which use it for wetting stuff (I.E. Creates the girl in-game and then adds the "pee" in Photoshop). I tried my hand at it myself:

Pros: No real heavy duty 3d modeling experience needed.   

Cons: ALL of the material including the stuff needed to import custom mods (Pee, poop, wet panties ect.) Is in Japanese and is not really all that easy to get to without being fluent.

Also I don't have Photoshop.   

[/list]

Sorry for taking a while to reply.

I don't think that 3DC will work. Another reason the image system would use a "dress up" configuration would be that, when a 3rd party developer creates a clothing item the will only have to create a small new image file for the item, this would be overlaid with one the girl in the section that it's made for. (A skirt would only require an image of that skirt in a 2D environment, it would them be overlaid at the "height" level of skirts)

I would love for some kind of 3D system (and I must admit thoughts about taking this to a Source release for the amount of lighting and character control that would be allowed. Then again, I've seen facial customization with the Gamebryo engine, however I'm not sure of their release status (open, closed, freeware, buy-the-kit, pay royalty...).), but too allow easier customization for 3rd parties, and less work at this point for myself, I'm going to keep it in 2d, unless something dramatic happens to change my mind.

However, all suggestions are welcome. Unfortunately, another reason why I have to ask other people for their help with images is because I have no experience editing images as well.

Ah! I think your looking for something along along the lines of the "Paper Doll" effect. I recall a yaoi cross dressing game where your err...date started off with male clothing and you essentially made him into a trap by click dragging clothing. You could do the same with female charters and wet and dry clothing.   

Quote from: none on September 19, 2011, 10:23:24 AM
Ah! I think your looking for something along along the lines of the "Paper Doll" effect. I recall a yaoi cross dressing game where your err...date started off with male clothing and you essentially made him into a trap by click dragging clothing. You could do the same with female charters and wet and dry clothing.

Maybe it would be best if I explained how it would work?

Essentially the "picture" of the girl would have several layers comprised of the the image of the girl herself and an image for each clothing item; The image on each layer of clothing would overlap items on a lower level and be overlapped by items on a higher level.

The girl herself, a nude body would be the lowest level, anything put onto the girl would overlap the nude body hiding it. underwear would be assigned to a level just higher than that, and would hide the nude body while being overlapped by any clothing over that.

There wouldn't be any dragging on the player's perspective. When the item of clothing is selected from the inventory, it will remove the item in the clothing slot (the actual clothing slot used, different from layers) The game will then put the clothing item where it needs to go both sticking it in the visibility layer it needs to be in and placing the image of the item at the proper location to have it appear to be on the girl.

You have queued  me off on the concept of wet, dry, and dirty looks to the clothing as well. I'll have to think about how to implement this as well. It will probably be that each of the items that can be effected by wetting and soiling will each have to have four images of them. One for dry, one for wet, one for soiled, and one for both wet and soiled. The choice of image could be easily ascertained from there by a couple of bits worth of flags.  The only mark I have for this is that it will increase the workload for those developing the same clothing items that will be affected.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.

Yes turtlbrdr! That's exactly what I meant were on the same page good buddy!

Also damn my late night posting you specifically said "Dress up" and I sleep drunkenly starting rambling.

Literal_Faceplam.rar

Quote from: none on September 25, 2011, 02:39:21 PM
Yes turtlbrdr! That's exactly what I meant were on the same page good buddy!

Also damn my late night posting you specifically said "Dress up" and I sleep drunkenly starting rambling.

Literal_Faceplam.rar

I just wanted to clarify, sometimes I have problems explaining ideas to people

I've just done some research on the 3D game engines I stated before.

The Gamebryo engine is the one I mentioned before however, the development tools and engine are apparently sold on license. So it might cost me a great deal to get started, and it might not even work with what I want to do. Plus it would likely cost me for each copy of the game that I distribute, which means I'd have to sell it to not go into a hole. Not to mention they may not even issue a license for this kind of project. However, I've seen facial adjusting in the Gamebryo engine (Oblivion, Fallout, etc.), so I know that would work. Another thing to note is that, if any of you have played any of the aforementioned games you will know this t be, the sheer amount of addons and crap that are produced for the games made from Gamebryo engine, it has inherent add-on support and it must be easy to do base on the number of them.

The Source engine however, I know is open-source mostly. The actual workings are proprietary, however, the development tools and the distribution of the content for the game is not. This I know because I have dabbled into it. However, I haven't seen facial adjusting for it; though seeing some of the projects at the Black Mesa page gives me an idea http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Face_Creation_System (http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Face_Creation_System). If this team can "randomize" the faces from a base model and texture, then it could be possible to give a user control over the adjustments via a slider bar (or something of the like). There are also many addons here, mainly for Garry's mod, a game I could take a lesson from in this, the Lua programming for Garry's mod is easy to use; and, if I remember right, is easily implemented into the core of the game.

Our next stop maybe space...tell me what you think!

Quote from: turtlbrdr on September 26, 2011, 06:39:35 AM
I've just done some research on the 3D game engines I stated before.

The Gamebryo engine is the one I mentioned before however, the development tools and engine are apparently sold on license. So it might cost me a great deal to get started, and it might not even work with what I want to do. Plus it would likely cost me for each copy of the game that I distribute, which means I'd have to sell it to not go into a hole. Not to mention they may not even issue a license for this kind of project. However, I've seen facial adjusting in the Gamebryo engine (Oblivion, Fallout, etc.), so I know that would work. Another thing to note is that, if any of you have played any of the aforementioned games you will know this t be, the sheer amount of addons and crap that are produced for the games made from Gamebryo engine, it has inherent add-on support and it must be easy to do base on the number of them.

The Source engine however, I know is open-source mostly. The actual workings are proprietary, however, the development tools and the distribution of the content for the game is not. This I know because I have dabbled into it. However, I haven't seen facial adjusting for it; though seeing some of the projects at the Black Mesa page gives me an idea http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Face_Creation_System (http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Face_Creation_System). If this team can "randomize" the faces from a base model and texture, then it could be possible to give a user control over the adjustments via a slider bar (or something of the like). There are also many addons here, mainly for Garry's mod, a game I could take a lesson from in this, the Lua programming for Garry's mod is easy to use; and, if I remember right, is easily implemented into the core of the game.

Our next stop maybe space...tell me what you think!

Whoa whoa whoa! There's gotta be free and useful game design software out there. Especially one that doesn't need to be reviewed for a license! (I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone say that they are sexually open minded and then freak out when Pee is brought into the equation. Or God forbid poop.) Meh. There are a few free 3d game creation tools out there I'd keep an eye on them.

I strongly advise against using anything commercial for the first game:  it costs a lot, and while you work alone, there's only so much you can get out of it, anyway.  My advice for a 3D engine would be Unity3D -- I'm sceptical of starting a 3D project without having a team, but if you really want to, it seems to be the way to go these days.

Quote from: Ranpalan on September 26, 2011, 09:14:44 AM
I strongly advise against using anything commercial for the first game:  it costs a lot, and while you work alone, there's only so much you can get out of it, anyway.  My advice for a 3D engine would be Unity3D -- I'm sceptical of starting a 3D project without having a team, but if you really want to, it seems to be the way to go these days.

Right, I'm getting a little ahead of myself right now for future plans. Right now I'm conflicted on whether or not to continue on the development of Car Trip 1 or going directly to making the 2nd source.

Honestly, Right now I'm leaning towards scrapping the "demo" and going towards the second one, my knowledge of VB has increased dramatically over the past few months and the source for the "demo" is one that was written and found on several months of me not knowing what the hell I was doing at times.

I shall place a poll on this if I can...

Moving into the full version for today (still waiting on poll results though). I have complete the flowchart concerning the install link list.

The install link list keeps track of the file links for every item installed in the game. On the startup of the program the engine will run through each link and check to make sure each file still exists. If it doesn't then the engine must take steps to remove the content stored in the game files to reflect the change in the files. This always involve deleting the tags inside the engine for the file (including the link stored in the link list), but depending on the item/mod installed  it must do other things to remove the traces of the content from the rest of the game. This could involve up to invalidating the trip portion of the save file.

I've attached a truncated copy of the flowchart, this only includes the flowchart for items, but ones that aren't clothing

Will version 2 be a complete rewrite?  I'm sorry if I missed it, but why would you want a complete rewrite before you've published anything?

Do you happen to have any kind of specs written for the two games, so that we can compare and make a more informed decision on which one we'd prefer?  Also, what is the expected development time of the full version, and how much time is still necessary for the demo?

Quote from: Ranpalan on September 28, 2011, 01:12:21 AM
Will version 2 be a complete rewrite?  I'm sorry if I missed it, but why would you want a complete rewrite before you've published anything?

Do you happen to have any kind of specs written for the two games, so that we can compare and make a more informed decision on which one we'd prefer?  Also, what is the expected development time of the full version, and how much time is still necessary for the demo?

The full version (CT2) will be an almost complete rewrite of the Car Trip 1 (Demo version) engine.

To put the differences simply:

• the car trip 1 engine
  
  
  • has everything included directly into the engine. items are inside the engine along side the pages with the actual game engine.
  • has no modularity
  • furthermore the code is becoming increasingly hard to code into the engine, especially when I think of a new item or feature to add to the game. For example, when I add a new item, I not only have to change it's entry in the shop's code, but also the inventory's. Then I have to make sure that the code surrounding the item is correct and adjusted for it's inclusion.
• The Car Trip 2 engine
  
  
  • the code is made to be inherently modular
  • will allow extra items, maps, and girls to be installed/traded
  • once the installer page is completed, I'll be able to add items on the fly without having to worry about whether or not I have to adjust surrounding code and whatnot, it will all be handled automatically once the item file is made, which obviously helps to prevent errors in the code.

Basically, CT1 was started when I didn't know jack about VB, the code is simple, and while it is (seemingly) stable for the parts I've run, I know have much better knowledge of using the language and can not only improve the parts that were written in the original, but add a number of improvements to the mix as well.

As far as specs are concerned, I figure you mean computer specs? Any modern computer should be able to run the code efficiently, and to help towards this purpose I'll be testing it on my netbook. Any windows computer that has been built or had the OS updated anytime within the past five years already has the binaries and packages to run a Visual Basic program.

The amount of time to complete each...I'd say the Demo has a couple of months behind it, while the full version is look down a year long process. Of course, these are both dependant on my school and (hopefully) my work schedule.

I hope this clarifies things a little bit

Actually, I meant a functional (and preferably a separate technical spec).  See this (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html) for details.

I don't think scrapping the code and starting anew is a good idea.  Are you sure the code cannot be refactored piece by piece, moving functionality out to be more and more modular, but never breaking the build (figuratively speaking, as this is VB) for long?

Quote from: Ranpalan on September 28, 2011, 10:35:41 PM
Actually, I meant a functional (and preferably a separate technical spec).  See this (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html) for details.

I don't think scrapping the code and starting anew is a good idea.  Are you sure the code cannot be refactored piece by piece, moving functionality out to be more and more modular, but never breaking the build (figuratively speaking, as this is VB) for long?

Ah, I see what you mean now. I actually have a habit of doing that for most of the programs I make, but I didn't for car trip.

Everything beyond here is in reference to the Car Trip 1 engine. Any questions that anyone has while I go through this are welcome to ask.

The Engine:
The engine for Car Trip (which I've nickname the "event engine") is based around "events" (real original, I know). These event's tell the engine what needs to be said to the user and what stat needs to be modified. This is a major part of the engine that will be needed to changed in preparation for the Car Trip 2 engine, in order to allow people to add their own events.

When you click the travel button on the main game page the engine advances you 15 miles (15 minutes), then goes through the list of events to decide which one should occur this period. Right now the events are layered so that they some will have priority over others (girl peeing herself>girl complaining about hunger). This is what needs to changed in the engine for Car Trip 2, finding a way to add events to the engine and yet still give the priority to the events that need it.

The Map:
The map in Car Trip 1 is integrated into the programming, another change I wish to make in the 2 engine. The map is used to determine when the user can shop or are above a river. When the user comes into a town, they may shop, and the shop button because usable on the main game page. And when the user is over the river, the girl may ask the user to pull over so she can wash in the river, should her cleanliness motive be low enough.

New Girl/Game:
When the user starts a new game they must create a new girl to play the game with, this is accomplished through the New Game screen (The pictures of this screen are all attached at the bottom of the screen). Upon entry all of the option are randomized so that one could play with a random girl if that's what they want or if they don't want to have to create a new girl themselves. In the examples I've provided, everything was randomly generated except the pubic hair check on the fourth page; in this case, if the box is not checked the girl will not have pubic hair and the options to select the colors will be invisible.

The new game screen offers may selections of customization for the girl, not a single one of which is overlooked in the programming. This screen will help to outline the rest of the spec.

Hunger, Stomach, and Variables of them:

The first items past the girl's name are her favorite foods and drinks. In Car Trip, there are multiple food and drink items that the girl can consume. These will affect one of two stomach variables. Food will effect the solid foods stomach, while drinks will effect the liquids stomach;there are also some foods and drinks that will affect the opposite stomach value, normally to a very small amount (food like an apple, which has a bit of water in it). Both of these variables are added up to get a master stomach value which, at it's maximum, cannot exceed a value that is less than both the liquid and solids stomach combined.

The purpose of two stomach values is so that it kinda seems like that's the case in real life (not realistically do we have two stomachs, but each one of seems to have a tolerance for drink and food that can argued are mostly separate from each other), and it allows the values to be separated into their respective outlets. The liquid stomach will 'trickle' into the bladder, filling it more than the normal resting rate would alone. The same thing is the case with the solids stomach and the bowels.

The equation for the stomach trickles is rather complicated, and is based on a table based upon the percentage of the total of each stomach filled. Somehow, however, I did manage to make roughly presentable as a realistic simulation, so it should feel rather natural to the user.

There are two other variable groups that affect the stomach and, more specifically, their trickle values. The Diuretic and Laxative counters (four each), are used to add additional realism to the trickle effect. The Diu/Lax counters are two variables used to keep track of the effect of the diuretic or laxative, and the amount of time remaining that the effect will be in effect. Some foods and some drinks will incur a Diu/Lax effect when consumed (Like green tea, which has caffeine in it); however, there are also Diuretic, Laxative, Anti-Diuretic, and Costive medicines that are stronger than any food or drink's effect and will last longer as well.

Shyness:
The word 'shyness' actual represents two values in Car Trip, the first one effectively represents the girl's personality and the user can pick from a shy girl, an outgoing one, and one that is in-between those. This is a feature that will probably taken out in Car Trip 2, if only to replace it with an actual personality system that will allow a number of extra personalities to be added to the game.

The second use of 'shyness' refers to the relationship stat for the game. In all technical speaking, the shyness value is really a contra-value to relationship. That is a high shyness value represents a girl that is unfriendly to the user, while a low value represents a girl who is well acquainted with the user.



(This is all the time I have for now, I will right more to this post later, depending when I get off my classes)

Yay, stuff to comment on!

Suggestions and questions, in no particular order:

• Could you get a (git|svn|hg|etc) repository and show us some code?  If you're going to keep working on this for months more, people will lose interest.  Unless you intend to sell this, of course, I don't see how it could hurt.
• Will you allow disabling the bowels (or bladder, for that matter)?
• I think you overestimate how much people will want to write their own events.  It's probably a good idea to design them elegantly (how are they done now?), but is it really a priority?
• Why is priority of events a problem?  Is the system more complicated than just a number for the priority?
• How are items stored when not in play?  How easy is it to modify items? (I think people will want this.)
• How easy is it to modify the dialogue and descriptions, and again, where are they stored?
• Where is the second relationship stat?  I couldn't find it in the screenshots.  Or is it internal?  I wouldn't name both `shyness' or have them depend on one value, in any case.

I think that's all for now, thank you for your patience. ^^;

Quote from: Ranpalan on September 29, 2011, 07:43:12 AM
Yay, stuff to comment on!

Suggestions and questions, in no particular order:

• Could you get a (git|svn|hg|etc) repository and show us some code?  If you're going to keep working on this for months more, people will lose interest.  Unless you intend to sell this, of course, I don't see how it could hurt.
• Will you allow disabling the bowels (or bladder, for that matter)?
• I think you overestimate how much people will want to write their own events.  It's probably a good idea to design them elegantly (how are they done now?), but is it really a priority?
• Why is priority of events a problem?  Is the system more complicated than just a number for the priority?
• How are items stored when not in play?  How easy is it to modify items? (I think people will want this.)
• How easy is it to modify the dialogue and descriptions, and again, where are they stored?
• Where is the second relationship stat?  I couldn't find it in the screenshots.  Or is it internal?  I wouldn't name both `shyness' or have them depend on one value, in any case.

I think that's all for now, thank you for your patience. ^^;

I'll continue my explanation by editiing my last post, but I'll answer your questions directly.

• I don't intend to sell it, I suppose I could try to package a page in a zip for this site. Otherwise I don't know of any svn sites that allow the sharing to multiple people without paying. I'm not familiar with the otherr services you mentioned (git/hg)
• I will allow the disabling of all scat content from the game, this includes any event that would feature the content, as well as any items that were associated. Essentially the bowel motive and any trace of it will disappear. As for your other question, I don't know why I'd make bladder optional, would you be saying for the people who would only like the scat content.
• I'm thing so too, however if I can find a way to implement that kind of modularity in the system then I will. After all, a lot of us spend our day on a computer, but even the most computer-attached person does something a little different on occasion. Furthermore it would help me too, layering all of the events in Car Trip 1 is really what killed my ambition; nothing does that faster than figuring out how 5 events should stack, only to find another that needs to between them and have to re-write a good portion of it.
• The priority is important to keep more urgent things occurring when they need to, and the less important ones (simply riding in the care) can happen when nothing else more pressing needs to be addressed. I think a number system could do the job efficiently, however there's also the problem if I really end up adding user support for events; what number do they take? That's actually the only thing condemning the notion of allowing user-made events right now.
• Items bought are stored in a settings file supplied by the VB engine for Car Trip 1 along with everything else. In 2 they are to be stored in a specialized .xml file in the saves directory for the game. To modify items in Car Trip(let's say I botched grammar on the apple), I would have to find the apple item in the shop page, then modify the text there; then I would have to go to the inventory screen and repeat the process. That's not too hard.
  
  However, adding items is a nightmare. In order for the shop and inventory lists to populate properly, I have to add the item to the list of items displayed in the shop, then add the Boolean arguments that allow the program to display all of the information about it. On the inventory page, only items that have been bought show up on the list, so I would have to add more Boolean arguments to check if the you have an amount of the current item and then from there display it on the list, finally I have to add the code for the actual use of the item. that is where it gets intensive.
  
  In 2, all of the items installed will have separate text files for each item. The game keeps track of the link to item and can draw information about that item when necessary. The exact structure of the item save file is to be determine. To modify/create items for the CT2 engine I will create a item editor for the game, it will make making/editing items "no bullshit easy", I intend to create this tool (and several others) before I begin the main game, that way I'll be able to test the program, but it will also allow me to create the items a lot quicker.
• The dialog and the descriptions of the events are all stored with the events, in line, in the engine (a further complication to lining up the events) in CT1. It is tough to edit them at best.
  
  In the CT2 engine, I plan for dialogue to be matched up with personalities, somewhat. I'm not sure of the exact relationship between the dialog and personalities right now. The dialog files will likely be the biggest of the normal non-image associated files. A dialog file will include a line for every peice of dialog in the game, and will be similarily hard to modify by hand. However, again I will make an editor for the dialog, if at first only to sustain my sanity. using the editor the user can call up any category dialog lines (wetting situation) and edit them quickly and easily. Plus there will obviously be support for amking your own dialog file as well if that's what you wanted to do.
• I was afraid I would lose some people with my explanation of shyness. Simple way to describe it is that there are two variables named shyness, one stores personality, and one stores a type of relationship tracker. They're unrelated as far as value, but they do work together to determine several things during the game. The relationship shyness variable is an internal value, it's kept by the game to tell how much she has warmed to the user. Finally, there is no real variable named relationship in the game. There is a relationship variable that I do keep track of, however. It is not stored or even used by the game, it's a theoretical contra-variable to the shyness relationship tracker; that is, as one increases the other decreases and vice versa. to calculate "relationship" you take 40 (the maximum number of points the shyness variable will contain) and subtract out the current shyness stat. At zero shyness the girl isn't shy around you. and your "relationship" would be the full 40. However, as the game starts out, the girl will have 40 points of shyness, and the corresponding "relationship" value would be "0".

As always, I'm always happy to take questions. I hope this serves to answer your's.

git and hg are version control systems, similar to SVN.  You are mistaken about there not being free ones -- Google Code, Github, Gitorious, Launchpad, all come to mind.  In addition to that, I have an account on animepee.me (if it hasn't been removed yet) that I could host some things on, although that would make it harder for others to see things.

I have no particular reason for asking for the bladder to be disable-able -- I don't have an issue with it, was mostly just curious.

I think I understand the shyness mechanism (as far as you've described it).  Also, don't be afraid of throwing in some example code here, I doubt VB is sufficiently different for it to be incomprehensible.

All in all, it sounds like refactoring is indeed needed, but it doesn't sound like it warrants a rewrite from scratch to me.

Quote from: Ranpalan on September 26, 2011, 09:14:44 AM
I strongly advise against using anything commercial for the first game:  it costs a lot, and while you work alone, there's only so much you can get out of it, anyway.  My advice for a 3D engine would be Unity3D -- I'm sceptical of starting a 3D project without having a team, but if you really want to, it seems to be the way to go these days.

Unity3D is pretty easy to use, powerful, and the license for the indie version is pretty permissive.  It also makes use of very high level scripting languages, so you don't have to worry about writing native code.  If you are new to 3D then Unity is a fine way to go.


If it's free and you want ease of use coupled with control you might look at Blender 3D.  It is a free 3D modelling/animation software package with integrated game engine, and is very powerful.  The learning curve is steep, but well worth the effort.

Or, you can look into OpenGL bindings for VB... if you're reasonably brave.  I guess there is DirectX too but... bleh.

Quote from: turtlbrdr on September 29, 2011, 03:22:24 PM



I'll continue my explanation by editiing my last post, but I'll answer your questions directly.

• I don't intend to sell it, I suppose I could try to package a page in a zip for this site. Otherwise I don't know of any svn sites that allow the sharing to multiple people without paying. I'm not familiar with the otherr services you mentioned (git/hg)

You should put up a zip file once you have anything of interest.  Even if its not a game.  I'm sure other people would be interested in looking at it, and possibly modifying it for a different game that they might make.

Seriously, a lot of people would appreciate that, as it lets people look at something early, and work on it as early as possible.

The user none already did that, and this is a result of those efforts.  If you want a starting point go download none's source and poke around.

Access to an up-to-date repository would be far more convenient than a simple zip archive, especially one that was posted months ago.

Well, I decided. Tonight I start work on Car Trip 1.0.

After cleaning it a bit to preserve code I want to keep hidden for now, I'll be releasing the full source for the demo version here within a couple of days to a week.

I apologize for going dormant for so long, but to anyone who's in college you should know what it's like. I am not going to speculate the release on the full version, but those interested in helping design the clothes and characters for car trip, you may post any works.

Again, I the only thing I could give in return for the art design (the one I choose to be the winner) is insider info and early access to the game/beta/alpha..

Right now, for the next couple of weeks (probably more than that) I will be starting work on the game file editors. These groups of tools will be used to aid the creation of the items in the game as well as nearly every other aspect.

Please, as always, feel free to ask any and all questions you might have

Not much new news on the project.

Sadly my main computer (An Asus g73) is in the shop with a reoccurring issue that hasn't been fixed yet with three subsequent visits. This leaves me operating on a small Asus netbook for all of my computer time. Though for the record: After a bit of tweaking I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of stuff I haven't lost the capability to do, and I am now much less likely to throw myself into the nearest four-way intersection since said epiphany.

However, efficient programming is not one of those things I find myself able to do on here. So a good portion of the work has to be postponed until this issue with my main computer is resolved. This amount of time could be until further this week, or further down close to Christmas; depending on the success of the current fix.

Unlike previous times however, I'm not totally stymied by this turn of events. Slow progress is still being made on the CT2 Source. A lot of the back-end process are being designed in Onenote. Already complete are things related to the inventory and modular item systems.

Right now I am a bit hung up with the designs however. The slow-down (in addition to the computer portion) is that I need to completely map all of the new variables that will be used in the newer version of the game. (at least 24 right now). This is because the items for the game will be able to change just about any stat in the game.

I've gotten done with the issues with my computer, and after the holiday I'm going to resume regular processes for the game.

I've fairly much nailed down the variables that I'd like in the game, but I'm worried I might not be accomidating something. Therefore I'd like to ask everyone to write about what kind of features they'd like to see in the game.

Secondly, I've started a post (http://www.animegirldesp.org/f/index.php?topic=4444.0) to ask about the types of personalities that we'd like to see in the game; if you have a minute, please go and choose a couple.

Finally, I may have a line on the next step of car trip, but I don't know yet

I'm in fairly close proximity to releasing the first bit of program for Car Trip, the new item creator. The program is comming along nicely and if I'm not distracted I should be able to get it out by the end of the next week.

There are two main obstacles standing right now

• First I'm going to have to completely go through all of the variables and sort them out to where they will be stored in the new version
  
  In the first version all of the variables were stored in the VB formats onboard save file, however, in the new version the variables will be stored in several places. It will take me a little time to figure out where each variable is going to sit and then I can start adding them to the creator to be able to create items
  
  


• Second, the last thing standing in my way is getting the item creator to be able to create the text saved files and then be able to read them. This will also be a big step into the main game, because the main game will use the same algorithms to decode the files in order to install them.

Another setback, this time with the straight programming, I have to figure out a way to allow dependencies. Say, once you use x item, you want the user to be given y. I need to figure out a way to make sure x cannot be used unless y is installed.

I start schooling again next week too.

Quote from: turtlbrdr on January 10, 2012, 10:29:22 AM
Another setback, this time with the straight programming, I have to figure out a way to allow dependencies. Say, once you use x item, you want the user to be given y. I need to figure out a way to make sure x cannot be used unless y is installed.

I start schooling again next week too.

I think we have at least two programming experts here (see insane code topic).

I can help with programming problems, but this is way too vague, so if you would like help, a lot more info is needed.

Quote from: turtlbrdr on January 10, 2012, 10:29:22 AM
Another setback, this time with the straight programming, I have to figure out a way to allow dependencies. Say, once you use x item, you want the user to be given y. I need to figure out a way to make sure x cannot be used unless y is installed.

I start schooling again next week too.

Well, ask a general question and get a general answer: Set a flag when y is obtained, and when attempting to use x, check whether the flag is set. If necessary, clear the flag when y is lost.

Status on this?  I feel like this is becoming a dead project.  And what you really need to do is just release all the code that you've got so far so that someone else can work on it if they want.

Quote from: tester on March 13, 2012, 07:17:44 PM
Status on this?  I feel like this is becoming a dead project.  And what you really need to do is just release all the code that you've got so far so that someone else can work on it if they want.

'
It's been kinda put on the back burner recently. I've been kind of dragging along since I started a job in addition to my schooling, plus I just changed computers and had to get everything set up. But I'm working on it, putting work into the documentation I work from, I usually get some time on Thursdays to play around with things.

I've also started a new program on the side for personal pursuits and it can import files, so I have completely learned how to do so, when it comes time to do so for CT it will be much easier.