What follows is a work in progress outline of the things I shall have to do to recode the original Arena game, or to code a new one from scratch. I am making this outline to organize myself, and give me a good idea what I will need to concentrate on, in what order, as well as how to more effectively organize the index of my game to find the things that I need to find. You will note that it is, as of right now, plot free. This is intentional. I want to get it working before I worry about the story I haven't fully thought out yet.
I. Start at the beginning
a. Make a map.
c. Create the number of rooms needed for the map, plus one room as a storage area.
i. Make sure you create this room first, for a number of technical reasons.
ii. Name it ‘Holding Pen’ or something similar.
d. Change the printed names of the rooms to the appropriate name.
e. Add the descriptions of the rooms themselves.
f. Create the map connections between rooms, linking them all together.
II. Debugging Mode.
a. Create a variable for Debugging purposes. Name it ‘Debugger’ or something. Simple, short, and easy to spell correctly.
b. Make a Not For Release command That will allow turning the Debugging Variable on and off (0 and 1, respectively. Logic true and logic false, for you twidgets.)
c. Add debugging phrases to everything that might need them, so as to report progress, targets, results, movements, and so on and so forth. Basically providing you with information on what is happening, in what order, to whom or to what, and what the results are.
III. NPCs.
a. Add NPC characters to the game and name them.
b. Only create enough for testing purposes at first.
c. Add more later for balance as the game gets more fleshed out.
d. Add a definition to specify that if a person is not the player, the person is an NPC.
i. If we add monsters or more types of ‘people’ than just the player and the NPCs, this can be changed to skip the definition and just make a new kind of person called ‘NPC’.
ii. The primary purpose of using definitions for this is so that if the player changes POV to another person, our AI coding is not still trying to control the body the player is now in.
IV. Stats.
a. Give every person stats.
b. Ensure that every person has the same stats, though the values may be different. Don’t go giving one guy a stat for belly size if you aren’t going to give it to everyone else, too.
c. Make activities that can increase or decrease stats individually, or in groups along a theme for such things as TG. These may or may not be used in our actual game, but can very well be used in our debugging.
d. Create Not For Release actions calling on those activities so we can change the stats of anyone, anywhere, to any value, for debugging purposes.
i. Make it check to see if we are in debugging mode for these things to work at all.
V. Magic.
a. Make and implement a spell casting system treating Spells as values.
b. If a spell can have a set duration per cast, ensure you give every person a number called [spellname] timer, to track how much longer the spell will last.
i. Decide if subsequent castings add to the duration, or just reset it.
ii. Create an every turn rule to decrease the timer by one.
iii. Try to think of a better way to handle this.
c. Every person has a resistance value. This will be higher or lower depending on the person’s ‘level’. Casting spells will lower the total, like a mana system, and this also makes you more prone to be affected by a spell.
i. Some spells may affect this total and the max value, as well.
ii. Some forms will affect this number, as well.
d. Resting will replenish your total, as will eating or drinking different things, and some items.
e. Some items will allow you to cast certain spells without paying the cost of your resistance or having needed materials on hand, basically making them free.
i. There may be other prices to be paid, however. XD
f. There will be IQ requirements for all spells. Some will be low. Other, more powerful spells will be rather high.
g. It will not be especially easy to lower someone’s IQ, but certain items can do so, as can being forced into certain forms, and some other things I have yet to think of.
h. Initiative will determine who gets to act first in an encounter.
i. You will have to decide if you want to play defensively or not.
ii. If you do, you will have a chance to counter the next spell targeting yourself, or cast by a specific person if you prefer.
iii. Failure will increase the effect of the spell on you, as well as transfer the resistance cost of the spell onto you instead of the caster.
iv. Failure may also damage our mind, reducing your IQ.
v. Success will stop the spell from having an effect, though it still costs the caster all the usual things to try casting it.
vi. Getting lucky with your defense will reflect the spell back on the caster, as well as the penalties to cast it.
vii. Some items will improve your chances to counter a spell, as will just having a higher resistance level.
viii. Some items will treat you are being ready to counter specific spells at all times, regardless. This does not stack if you decide to be defensive anyway.
i. Some spells that transform you will only be temporary, and you may even have to cast them on yourself at times to do certain things.
j. Those that change you in more permanent ways are going to be very difficult to undo, and may leave a lasting effect even then.
VI. Mobility.
a. Speak with Gunny about using heel height, heel skill, and breast physics to affect mobility. If you can’t think of a satisfactory way to handle it, leave it out.
VII. Clothing.
a. Use the modified version of DudeManDude’s General AIF extension to handle the clothing basics.
b. Alter it to handle more clothes in more body areas.
i. Gloves for the hands, for example.
c. Further alter it to handle tattoos and piercings as kinds of clothing.
d. Use Gunny’s suggested method to change various similar pieces of clothing into more or less masculine versions. For example: pullovers as a kind of shirt, with a set number of male or female variants. Pants, shorts, skirts, ect; all with their own variants depending on what it started out as.
e. If needed to change from pants to a dress, for instance, make the appropriate garments parts of each other and swap between them when certain levels are reached.
i. This may be tricky to do, but I’m sure it is possible. Will experiment to find out for sure.
ii. Alternately, could change the coverings and layers of the garment itself if need be; changing it in function if not in name.
f. Do not forget when writing the descriptions of clothes to allow for what someone may or may not be wearing beneath them. Also, allow for clothes to have different sizes and fits, to shrink when wet, and to become transparent when wet also.
g. Allow for some things to be lockable, or to require aid to put on and/or take off, such as corsets. Allow for some clothing locks to only be unlocked by the person who locked them.
h. Make lists of clothes and their states to count as ‘outfits’ for certain things. And example might be sexy secretary, blue collar guy, traffic cop, maid, ect.
i. Use these lists to decide if the player is wearing the right pieces to achieve a goal, or if they are wearing too much that is not on the list, or not enough, ect.
ii. Also good for keeping tabs on what the player looks like to decide how they may be treated.
VIII. Further
a. Once this point is reached, re-evaluate where we stand and what to add in or flesh out more.
