PaulRHJT wrote:

Good to get some in-depth feedback on this! I'm still working on understanding the new quest system and solvedScript, so it's definitely helpful to hear the potential limitations directly from you…

solvedScript
A simple way to save lists as strings and load lists out of strings:
> A list item is saved between an opening and closing bracket
> solvedScript allows storing lists in lists: The parser just ignores brackets in brackets
>> e.g. string input ->{{a}{b}}{c}; result-> item 1: {a}{b}, item 2: c | We could now go further and load item 1 to a seperate list.
> solvedScript doesn't store the same items in a row twice; it adds a "(X)" in front of the repeating item with X being the number of repetitions
> In case something doesn't work as expected, the first thing to look at is the “error” variable. It gives a very detailed feedback on errors.

Quest System
I wrote some stuff about the new quest system a while ago here and here!
It's not completely up-to-date but a good start. (There are mainly new triggers and one additional element storing the quest description)

New version is out!

Nothing too exciting
Phantom Shadows v0.23.1 brings a couple of bug fixes and minor improvements. See the project notes for the full changelog

PaulRHJT wrote:

Interesting ideas! Definitely agree the trading system could use an upgrade.
For villagers, I can imagine them having a smaller inventory (2x2 probably), but other than that, how would they be different from shops? What kind of items would villagers sell that shops wouldn't? Perhaps some would trade creature cards?

Oh that's a great idea, too. I was thinking about making them sell only one or two items (so 2x2 fits) and most of the items should be atmospheric items (like beer or bread), low-tier items like a speed potion or creature cards with the tiers weak or cursed.
We could design different costumes for the different types of items they can sell. Maybe someone who looks a bit like a criminal, he could sell creature cards. (Fits to the quest to unlock creature cards.) Another one could be an alchemist selling basic potions.

There's still a need for shops because they're going to give you more money for items and sell items for less money. Villagers could get a money variable to save there amount of money. You couldn't sell all items to them in this case.

Hey, a little suggestion.
Instead of using pen for mapDrawer, you should use a ground sprite. Why would this be buggy? The players can glitch into the ground. Also, maybe add an alchemist station you get? The Alchemist station would be able to combine potions, or make potions from ingredients, a little bit like Minecraft.

ScriptedAwesome wrote:

Hey, a little suggestion.
Instead of using pen for mapDrawer, you should use a ground sprite.

We are using clones for our mapDrawer. That's why the name “mapDrawer” doesn't fit anymore xD I keep calling it mapDrawer becuase that's what we developers called it for around a year. The new “mapDrawer” was introduced a few months ago.

ScriptedAwesome wrote:

Also, maybe add an alchemist station you get? The Alchemist station would be able to combine potions, or make potions from ingredients, a little bit like Minecraft.

There are currently no plans to bring something like crafting to the game. I don't know what the other developers plan to do but I think Phantom Shadows is a game about exploring and fighting, a crafting system doesn't fit to this genre. I am planning to develop something like a “bank” where you can store your items and we all want to have a huger variety of items in the game. It is very likely that trading, quests and monster drops are staying the only way to get new items. Feel free to suggest your ideas for new items!

Thanks for your suggestions! That's what this project lives of.

I have created a forum discussion for a smarter “Clean Up” function. Tell me your opinion here!

New version is out!

Phantom Shadows v0.23.2 has some item optimization and reintroduces Traveller quest objectives that had been broken with the new quest system.

Unique Monster Update
Phantom Shadows v0.25.0 – Click here to play!

Today brings a major update to the monsters of Phantom Shadows! All enemies are now able to have unique characteristics, including custom animations, abilities, damage, and loot! This means defeating more powerful monsters will give you more coins and better items. You'll notice some of the changes when fighting dwarves (which now have jumping abilities) and armouredtrolls (which now have a 5-frame attack animation).

Since there is a lot of data per monster, you may notice a drop in performance. I strived to code the data storage and loading in an efficient way, where almost all characteristics are pre-loaded before the game starts. However, I don't know if all computers can handle the increased load. Please let me know if you experience a lot more lag than before!

So far I have updated the target, troll, lava-eye, dwarf, and armouredtroll to work with the new system. I haven't implemented the lava-eye diving ability yet, and the ghost and void-eye remain to be added to the system. You may want to add some of the monsters yourself to familiarize yourself with the code.


Here's how it works:

_mAllMonsterStats is a global list that contains 4 items per monster. The first is the monster name, the second is the monster description, the third is the current number of that monster in the game, and the fourth is a solvedScript list that contains all the unique monster data:

Level – used to calculate experience reward upon death (Level * 25)
HP – hitpoints; amount of damage monster can take before dying
AttackRange – distance at which monster will strike (abs of CloneX – ScrollX)
AttackDamageMin – minimum amount of damage dealt if monster attack hits
AttackDamageMax – maximum amount of damage dealt if monster attack hits
AttackCooldown – the amount of time (in seconds/30) the monster waits between attacks.
BlockMin – minimum amount of damage blocked if the monster is successful in blocking player attack
BlockMax – maximum amount of damage blocked if the monster is successful in blocking player attack
BlockChance – chance of blocking player attack (%)
WeakSpotYMin – lower bound of y position of monster's weak spot (used to award elf SP)
WeakSpotYMax – upper bound of y position of monster's weak spot (used to award elf SP)
AbilityType – name of ability; must be same as in costume names (e.g. “jump” for dwarf_jump1)
AbilityRangeMax – maximum distance at which monster will execute ability (abs of CloneX – ScrollX)
AbilityRangeMin – minimum distance at which monster will execute ability (abs of CloneX – ScrollX)
AbilityCooldown – the amount of time (in seconds/30) the monster waits between using abilities.
MovementType – “Ground” or “Flying”; used to apply gravity
WalkCostumes – number of costumes in walking animation
AttackCostumes – number of costumes in attacking animation
AbilityCostumes – number of costumes in ability animation
DamageCostumeStart – first costume of attacking animation that can deal damage
DamageCostumeEnd – last costume of attacking animation that can deal damage
CoinMin – minimum number of coins dropped on death
CoinMax – maximum number of coins dropped on death
CoinChance – chance of dropping more than minimum amount of coins (% chance for each extra)
CommonLootItems – solvedScript list of items that are commonly dropped (e.g. {health_potion}{speed_potion} )
CommonLootMin – minimum number of common items dropped
CommonLootMax – maximum number of common items dropped
CommonLootChance – chance of dropping more than minimum amount of common items (% chance for each extra)
RareLootItems – solvedScript list of items that are rarely dropped (e.g. {greater_health_potion}{charm_of_returning} )
RareLootMin – minimum number of rare items dropped
RareLootMax – maximum number of rare items dropped
RareLootChance – chance of dropping more than minimum amount of rare items (% chance for each extra)

I've updated our documentation (here) with your explanations to the new system

wow

such update

v0.26.0 - “The Performance Update”
>> Play it here! <<

Well, I think I have to explain something. This update was meant to introduce some new and huge features but after I worked a bit on optimizing object interaction and removing old lists and variables, I suddenly noticed something completely wrong:
I've made a very heavy logical mistake which caused every clone to update it's map costume while moving -even the ones who aren't visible. This bug is fixed now!
Playing the game is so smooth now; the last problem remaining is the building sprite and I made some pretty good progress on removing it today xD

You might see another update from me today, hopefully with the stuff I planned to do for v0.26.0.

Changelog:
>added setUp.data broadcast
>added loading screen for data
>removed events (if you still find some parts of it, just remove them)
>removed my custom blocks to load monster behaviors (obsolete since @PaulRHJT did what I planned to do )
>removed everything connected to the old humans
>removed old, unused lists & variables
>added commands:
>>world
>>edit (no functionality yet)
>optimized mapDrawer
>>smaller changes (object interaction & setting new costumes)
>>fixed logical mistake - sorry for that xD
>added 4 new list items per map object (e.g. saving object size)
>>not in use yet

v0.26.1 is out!

It has some additional minor changes and preparations for future features. You can play it here!

Optimization and Monster Update
Phantom Shadows v0.26.5 – Click here to play!

Loads of changes in this newest version! I've made some major optimization steps in the most-used sprites, so hopefully you'll see an improvement in game performance. It would be good to hear from beta testers with less powerful computers and see if their game runs smoother. Other changes include the re-addition of the ghost + teleportation ability, and improvements in monster stats and loot drops.

Letting you know what I've been working on…

I spent the last weeks working on Phantom Shadows. Well, that's true but I haven't been working on it on a way you would expect me to do.
I experimented a lot and I am still not able to share the result yet. But let me start at the beginning…

I was quite disappointed by the fact that we reached the limit of what we can create with scratch. I wanted to implement some huge game changing features but I guess we'll need to do smaller steps now. While thinking about where this game should go, an idea formed in my mind: I remembered @CodeDelta trying to just “clone” Phantom Shadows to an executable .jar file. The result wasn't satisfying at all: It had a lot of bugs and didn't run very well (or didn't run at all).

I decided that I want to try writing Phantom Shadows with another programming language.
In order to fully understand my decisions, I think it's time to tell you a little bit more about my person: I actually started programming with Java in school and went on with learning C# and JavaScript. I am not a professional developer though.

With this in mind, I had a few programming languages to choose and decided to use JavaScript.
Here are a few reasons for it:
>I am not aware on how familiar you're with other programming languages than scratch: JavaScript is in my opinion quite easy to learn, so if one of you wants to participate on this project in the future you should be able to do so quite easily
>JavaScript can run on any OS in every browser without the need to install a virtual machine or to choose the right file type. You just open a page and you're good to go.

The next decision I did was whether I want to use a new version of JavaScript or an older one. I went with ES6 syntax because I like the way how it allows object orientation with the keywords “class” and “extends” which you might know from other programming languages. If you're using an older browser, you probably won't be able to ever run this project, sorry.

Now to the interesting part: Did this experiment fail?
Nope, at least not yet. I was able to recreate a “sprite system”, get basic animations (for the mage) running and I completed a key movement system today. However, setting up this basic system took a lot of time and it isn't optimized yet. I haven't added full screen and I haven't tested on how well this system already performs while rendering a “real” Phantom Shadows world. The really critical stuff and the biggest challenges are starting now.

What does this mean for the “normal” Phantom Shadows?
Nothing… I am really just lacking time and motivation at the moment but that might completely change in a few days… xD I am still planning to continue updating this amazing game for scratch. Instead of really doing nothing related to it, I am doing some external tests. That's all!

Anything to share yet?
No, it's really not exciting yet and it may end in the trash can. I hope to run some first tests with world objects tomorrow. If this test goes well, I am going to start making it really playable (nothing big, just implementing full screen and making it work the same with every window size).

That's all. I just wanted to let you now that I am still here and kind of still working on Phantom Shadows.

Looking into the future, I am probably going to take a “scratch break” again over the summer for a month or so. I really noticed my motivation to work on my scratch projects (Not only PS, also CAL3 and 2D Minecraft) isn't that high anymore and last year's break helped me gaining new ideas and finding new motivation. (During last year's break, I developed the idea for a new mapDrawer for Phantom Shadows which was a huge boost regarding the previous one and its idea is still used in the newest iteration of our mapDrawer)
I am going to inform you when I got a decision on that.

First of all, I completely understand your lack of motivation on scratch. I've only really shared phantom shadows projects in the last few months and I am thinking it may be time to move on (from scratch).
Now, in terms of javaScript programming.
there is an absolutely phenomenal JavaScript engine / IDE called Superpowers. I have used it previously and is very similar to scratch, except that it uses text-based code rather then visual code. While not all of it is very well documented, the basics are very easy to do and similar to scratch. It has MANY options that ES6 has (such as “ class” and “ extends” ) and many more. It's stable, you can develop together over the internet and many other things. best of all, it's completely free!\

Link to the official superpowers page

solved wrote:

-snip-

Thanks for letting us know.