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[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago

Hello, reader of the AE forum.

While trying to learn the scripting on CYS for my games (and partly to archive notable content for the Lists article), I have read every single thread on the this forum (it took two days, there were 600+ threads). Now, I've made my notes, but it seems like a missed opportunity to not combine all the knowledge the forum has buried in it into something wield-able by storygame authors of all skill levels (who don't have two days to burn).

I believe a storygame (or multiple, or articles + examples embedded in a dedicated storygame - depending on how the plan is to structure content) would be a great resource on scripting, to help people of all skill levels either learn or improve their craft on CYS.

I started on a storygame for this purpose, but a few minutes in I realized that me working solo on this was a really dumb solution to the larger question of how to make scripting accessible. The site works on an open source collaborative approach, and me trying to build something by my self would be arduous for me, limit the quality of the work, and in general would be contrary to the collaborative spirit that makes CYS what it is.

The intention of this post is to take the opportunity to get a collaborative team working on the Field Manual Project. I've outlined what I think a good field manual would contain in the first replies to this post, please only reply to this post so I may edit those .

The goal is to update the content in the articles already on the site (a few are showing their age), and merge that with content from the forum (my highlights, not yet ordered).

I'd be happy to add co-authors to the work, or if we'd rather make it official, I don't mind one of the mods hosting this on their account. The only ask from my side is that any volunteer have published at least one story using Advanced Editor features.

For timelines, I'll be contributing my spare time across the coming weeks for this, so I'm not expecting this to be finished for at least a month or so.

Also, to be clear, I am only the archivist here, my only contribution is proposing this idea and adding to it in the coming days. The credit to all the good content goes out to the generous and wise people who have been on this forum across the last 16 years, including: Alexp, Solostrike, JJJ-thebanisher, Havacoman, October, tsmpaul, madglee, Zikara, SindriV, Killa_Robot, BradinDvorak, BerkaZerka, nmelssx, fergie14233, Tacocat and many others (vaguely in order of appearance on the Advanced Editor forum)(my apologies if I've accidentally missed someone)

[Field Manual Project] Outline

7 years ago
///Layout Landing Page (credits to everyone who contributed to scripting in the AE forums and contributors to the Field Manual project) Index / Table of Contents ToC /Arranged by complexity /Arranged by Topic /Arranged Alphabetically Value Add: Quizzes / Chapter end tests? Goal: Demonstrative use of scripting //Level 0 /Fundamentals/ What can you do without scripting? Examples of storygames with no scripting What IS the RTE? How to use this guide (RMB > Inspect) Why scripting? (with inspiration from the existing article, but not much) What are variables? //Level 1 Simple scripting Examples of stories with simple scripting Chapters, Pages, and Links (Revised Solostrike article) Variables (Creating, using) Parts of Using the advanced editor article (3J) Conditionals Create a Quiz (3J) Link restrictions Part of The Basics of Scripting (Alexp) //Level 2 Intermediate scripting Examples of stories with intermediate scripting Using the RTE (and when not to)- (IronPanther) Using Webfonts (StrykerL) Items (Revised Solostrike) Variable restrictions (fergie) RESET (using randomness) (Basic) Leveling System (james) Create a name in your game (zachJohnson) Make a map (Havaco - after revision) Part of The Basics of Scripting (Alexp) Making a password //Level 3 Advanced scripting Examples of stories with advanced scripting Scripting Code Reference (AlexP) >How to work with the system Intermediate Scripting (Solo) Advanced Scripting (Solostrike) Link scripts (using DEST) (including $DEST := @NONE) Advanced using Randomness (solostrike) Scripting variable items (Zikara) Scripting Items (October) Part of The Basics of Scripting (Alexp) On Page variable tricks Codex (Killa) Title Page (Zikara) Journal (Havacoman) How to use Characters, Weapons and Combat Rounds (tsmpaul) Removing red lines above and below title (Zikara, AEF) Hours and minutes clock (3J, AEF) On comments in code (Alexp + Berka, AEF) Script that ages user (AEF) Using <pre> (AEF) One use triggers (AEF) Simple text based health bars (AEF) Putting pictures in variable (AEF) Editing Linktext (AEF) How to work with percentages (AEF) How to embed sound / videos (AEF) Manual Border around the inventory (AEF) Displaying Variables in a storygame in a NON-Alphabetical Order (By Default, variables that are shown on all pages are arranged alphabetically) (AEF) How the system handles fractions (it doesn't on its own) (AEF) How the engine floors numbers (not rounds) (AEF) Avoiding double spaces (AEF) How to roll for a variable (AEF) Using MS Excel's concatenate function to make your life easier (StrykerL) Finding max / minimum values (the hard but only way) (AEF)

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
(Keeping an extra post free in case it comes in handy later)

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago

I appreciate the fact that you're actually making scripting easier, but will this 'story' only be in sneak preview or will it be published? I know that this is considered as a guide, but I think stories like this can't be published? That is, unless this story is put into the Everything Else category or the guide itself can be made into some sort of simple story, just like the story, How to Play a Game made by Cysid, it could actually be put into Edutainment.

I'm gonna go get a second opinion on this. @BerkaZerka @Killa_Robot, take a look at this. Shall it be a good idea? I mean, Stryker and potentially other people are gonna be working really hard on this.

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
I honestly hadn't thought of that perspective, will wait for the mods' views. The game has no narrative, it's more of a technical work, but it's to help future (and present) authors. However, putting it in sneak-peak only mode is kind of restrictive. Category wise I think it'd be up in Everything Else

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
I don't really see the benefit of it being published as a storygame given everything people would be curious about is going on behind the scenes. Is the point just to demonstrate what the articles are talking about or something?

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
Yes, explained in a bit more detail in the answer to Ogre's question. The goal is to show the code after the deployment is shown, kind of a magicians trick reveal.

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
Oh. I'll say I'm neutral then. If you add a quiz it would still be considered publishable in the Everything Else category (though don't expect it to be featured or anything).

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
Fair enough. Between this being a supplement to articles or containing the articles within it, which mode would you recommend? Making it a supplement brings up the thorny issue of how to bring cohesion in the current article base without rewriting a number of them.

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
Containing links to the articles I suppose.

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
In order to remain Published, it will absolutely need an End Game Link / Be Rate-able.

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
That's not a problem at all, though that may nudge the design slightly towards a curated backstory

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago

@BradinDvorak

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
It certainly could be a good project. I just question the usability of the project. I mean, if there's a storygame with all this information in it, if I'm new, I might read the story. But then, later, when I need information about a specific aspect of scripting, how in the world am I going to find it in the game? Do I have to play the whole thing over again just to find one page? I'm not sure that's useful.

On the other hand, if the first page of the storygame is simply a list of links to pages, or an index of sorts, that might be more useful, but then I'm not sure that would really belong as a storygame...

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago

Alright, this is intended to be a storygame only to the extent that it has a quiz in it. There's no narrative here, it's a series of interconnected technical articles with a live example in the form of a quick demo of that concept (e.g. links which can only be opened once) on the next page of each article.

For users of Excel, I'd compare this to xlfdic (a 'dictionary' of Excel functions that was set up as an excel file, where examples of a function were hyperlinked from the first sheet).

Whether it makes more sense to have full articles outside this (in the Help and Info section) which are supplemented by specific examples in this storygame (making it like those CDs you find at the end of textbooks with all the examples loaded on 'em) is up for discussion.

    The all in one storygame concept has the advantage of all the concepts and their examples being very easy to read and figure out (where a lone articles aren't as immersive), but becomes a problem if you're trying to open two different articles at the same time (in which case you can copy and paste the contents out somewhere, tbh).
    The article approach improves readability at a glance (you don't have to find the storygame, click play, and open the index), but even in that approach there's a lot of content that has to be re-done, and in doing so a lot of articles may have to be rewritten piecemeal (and risk the ire of the original authors).

Such be the choices

E: The examples could be threaded together in a narrative, but that's a nice to have not a need to have, and it would complicate future additions. Though come to think of it, if the narrative was structured as two dysfunctional authors trying to build a feature in, it could be pretty fun(ny).

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago

I might add more to this later, but for now I want to mention that I've since changed the inventory border code from an overly complex mix of jQuery and CSS to pure CSS:

$PAGETEXT := "<style> img[src*=i_bbar],img[src*=i_tbar]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQAFAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAABAAUAAAIDTGAFADs=);padding-top:5px;height:5px;box-sizing:border-box}img[src*=i_bl]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAFAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFAAUAAAIHTGCGCZ2fCgA7);box-sizing:border-box;padding-top:5px;height:5px}img[src*=i_br]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAFAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFAAUAAAIHTGCGB5ufCgA7);box-sizing:border-box;padding-top:5px;height:5px}td[style*=i_m]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQATAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFABMAAAIQTGCGuZr3GmSx0uvwzHzPAgA7)!important}img[src*=i_ml]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQATAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFABMAAAIQjI8GuNfKolPgBYslnDylAgA7);box-sizing:border-box;padding-top:19px;height:19px}img[src*=i_mr]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQATAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFABMAAAIQjI8GuNfKomOgvXCzhKmnAgA7);box-sizing:border-box;padding-top:19px;height:19px}img[src*=i_tl]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQATAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFABMAAAIPjI+py20AHwKzHnqtzKEAADs=);box-sizing:border-box;padding-top:19px;height:19px}img[src*=i_tr]{background-image:url(data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQATAIABAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFABMAAAIOjI+pyw2PQJxHVmpspgUAOw==);box-sizing:border-box;padding-top:19px;height:19px} </style>" + $PAGETEXT

[Field Manual Project]

7 years ago
Thanks for this, will update that part in the notes.