Dragon Warrior

(critical hits)

i finally hit with 100% of my ATK with a critical. i'm at lv27 and my ATK is 171 - i did a critical on a DeadNite, and i hit him for 171 damage. assuming that was right on the money.

(minimum damage)

i was noticing that monsters that should be hitting at 0 with my system always get at least 1 damage. also, my new lv1 character (i named him Jeez, you should see the crazy things people say now!) hits for 1 damage on stronger monsters he shouldn't be fighting. i should probably adjust that.

(cursed necklace)

if there's a Cursed Necklace in this game, i won't likely find it. in the nes version of dw, when you exit and re-enter a dungeon, its treasure chests are refilled (except in the case of quest items iirc). so, if you don't get the Cursed Necklace in the northwest of the 2nd floor in the Mountain Cave the first time, you can just cast Outside and go back in for another try - as many times as you need. in the gbc version, if you open a chest, it stays open forever. oh wells. the cursed belt isn't any more useful anyways, so i'm not going to worry terribly much about it.

(experience / level cap)

looks like i capped 'er off. at 65535EX you get promoted to lv30 and things change when you talk to the king or Lora/Gwaelin. instead of them telling you how much EX until the next level, they say "You are strong enough." nice. also, you can't get any more experience than that, just like in the original game. i wonder about the money, though - it capped there too. i doubt i'll test that one, though. killing Metalys is one thing, when you're almost at level 30 - 755EX a pop. killing Goldmen for 650G a pop, when you're only at 11000G is gonna take a looong time.

(keys)

let's get back to the items. a simple item is going to be the key, an item that you won't actually equip. using a key will be as simple as talking to a person or opening a chest, pressing the (A) button; you'll open a door if you have a key. like the herb, it will have a counter on it - it stacks to 6. counter will show 2-6; if no counter, then there's only one key. kinda sucks that it will take up an entire space - that makes keys as big as full suits of armor. meh.

(repellant)

though i haven't really put much use into it, repellant is used to make monsters leave you alone. in a real-time action game, i suspect the best thing to go for is to just have them move away from you. i know that repellant doesn't work in caves, so that'll be an issue to keep in mind. also, repellant doesn't work against monsters of a level relative to yours or higher. i'm not sure exactly what the difference is, because i don't know if monsters have levels or what - maybe its a hp difference? i don't know. anyways, monsters that are as strong as you or stronger aren't affected by repellant.

i'm not sure what kind of graphical indication i should have for repellant.. maybe really small dusty shines in a radius around you or something like that. not really that important right now.

(silver harp)

let's look at the quest items, to get them out of the way. we have the silver harp first. using this item will make your avatar play the song, after which, a monster will appear that belongs in the area. whether they walk in offscreen or use a teleport or something, they shouldn't appear terribly near you if we can help it. thats about it there.

(sun stone)

well, the only spot this item (along with the rain staff) is useful is on the altar in the shrine at the very southern tip of the rimuldar continent. when you use the item at the altar (sorta like trying to talk to the altar with the item) the item is removed from inventory and is set on the altar. you won't be able to pick it up anymore, it's stuck forever. any other time you try to use the sun stone, you'll hold it up in the air, zelda-style, and a message will tell you that you've just wasted your time.

(rain staff)

when you use the rain staff any place other than the altar, you just hold it in the air again, and nothing happens - displaying another message to tell you that. at the altar, an event takes place involving the two items somehow - destroying them. what happens? i dunno. i'll deal with that when i work on the scripts.

(erdrick's token / loto seal)

the token/seal is another item that doesn't matter whether you equip or not. it won't do anything. i'm starting to think that the items that aren't going to be assigned to a button should be sorted away from the items that can be. i mean, if you try to assign the token, what should happen? for one, it shouldn't be equipped. are we going to have to have a 'non-equippable' note on its message window, at the bottom or something? perhaps we should figure out which items won't be able to be assigned to the buttons..

(rainbow drop)

well, lets deal with the rainbow drop then and finish up the quest items. again, if you use the rainbow drop in any spot other than its event spot, you hold it up and get a useless message. we'll deal with the rainbow bridge event later, when i do the events.

(shields again)

i've been thinking more on shields, and i've come to the conclusion that it doesn't do anything for me to force you to use a shield to get its bonus. i should just let you equip it like armor and get on with my life. i never used it in zelda:la(gmb), why should i force people to use it in this? just equip it and forget about it.

i do sorta like the idea that if you know you're gonna get whopped, you get the chance to lower the damage by choosing to bring the shield up.. enough on this for now.

(fairy flute)

yet another specific-use event item. the duration of the action is longer, but you'll still get a useless message unless you're at the golem event. the golem event will be dealt with either in the events, or at the monster ai section.

(torches and inventory-use)

now we're at the last three. with the torch, again, i don't know if i want to just have you equip it, or have it as an item. either way, it needs a duration counter on it that's easy to read. if we have it as an item, that means you'll have to use it to light it, and then keep it on for the light.. that seems crappy. thinking about this is making me think about the herbs too. why assign either of these to a button when you just want to use them and put them out of the way again?

as i think more on it, i can imagine the inventory screens only taking up 1/2 of the screen so you can still see your character in realtime. pressing the (A) button on the herb would make the shinies and the green number pop out in realtime, but you wouldn't equip it. if you couldn't equip it, though, wouldn't that suck if you were low on HP and had to get the cursor to the herbs super-quick - and it was at the furthest distance away? maybe you should be able to use the items from the inventory, if you press the button to assign it and then press the button again while it's still selected.. this is getting a little confusing.

see, i'm imagining pulling up the inventory to use a herb. you'd press (start), the inventory would open; you'd move the cursor over the herb and press (A) to assign it. then, to use it, you'd press (start) again to put away the inventory screen and then press (A) to finally use the herb. in a pinch that would be scary. but it works well enough for me.

but what about the torch? if you did it the same way, you'd be like: press (start) for inventory, pick the torch and press (A) to assign, (start) to get out, and then (A) to light the torch. if you wanted to use a herb, you'd have to put the torch back in inventory - and we have to make sure that it doesn't go out if you do that, because that would suck.

let's say that you can do that, then. if you want the torch to be put out, you'd leave the cave and it would automatically go out. seems like alot of going into inventory that might not be worth doing, to me. if you can just use the item in inventory to get it going, why not? i'm thinking that from-inventory use is going to be pretty limited, and i'm going for broad-type simplicity right now. whether going into inventory over and over to switch assigns might be irritating or not, i should probably go with that and figure a better way later.

you could maybe use the item and have it be visually equipped - drawn on the player to show that its going. i havent had a torch go out in the gbc version, so i'm not sure if there is even a duration on them at all. i do know that once you light it, its outta your inventory. putting it on the player and taking it out altogether is another solution. i don't want to have a single item that has a durability on it, when all other items don't. consistancy fails there.

if we go this direction, it works a little like the repel does, you have a graphic showing its use, and when it runs out, the graphic is gone. i think we have a winner here. i do think that in both cases, the radius should reduce at a slow rate, to nothing. using a new one resets the radius and we start again.

(cursed belt)

now i have two items left, the War Ring and the Cursed Belt. they are both equip-type items, equipping them puts an E on them or takes it away in the case of the ring. trying to unequip the cursed belt plays the curse song and you simply can't unequip it. but.. what happens to you when you're cursed? i haven't figured it out. the only thing i've seen is that the castle guards kick you out of Tantagel if you try to go in, cursed. so what? if you can save your game any time you want, who gives a shit about tantagel except for the sun stone? i say we should probably do something more.

what could we do to hinder someone with a curse? we could reduce damage, we could slow the movement rate (that'd be mean if you were trying to run away from scary monsters).. increase damage done to you.. or a combination of any or all of these things. being cursed should suck enough for it to become a focus for the player to remove it. but we don't want it to suck so bad that you die all the time from it. if we half the damage you do to monsters, that'd be sucky enough to have to deal with it. we gotta make sure to put a big scary eye over your head every where you go, just to remind you and anyone who sees you ^_^

we should make sure to have ??? as the description for it, until you've equipped it - we don't want to give it away right away. we should tell them that its equippable as opposed to assignable too, in whatever way we do that with theh armor and shields. what, something like "press a button to (un)equip" or something at the bottom? i'll look at that when i'm doing diagrams for the specs.

(war ring)

the war ring - this is the only item i really don't know what to do with. i guess its open for me to choose - but frig, what does it do? i have no idea. does it do repel? does it increase the chance a monster runs away if its sufficiently weaker than you? does it increase the chance for a critical hit? i'm going to go look it up. [looking] wha? the Cursed Necklace does exist in this.. its called the Choker, apparently. [looking] whoops there it is! apparently there's a chest there that DOES refill! rock! i'm gonna go get it. [working] they say to fill up your inventory so you can keep trying for it. ok. [working]

yup, there we go. anyways, the faq said that the war ring worked like repel. that sorta sucks, when i was looking for monsters - i was repelling them.. i'm going to have to work around that, and let the player know what it does or something. if it does actually cast repel, or even a weak version of it, then it should probably have the visual effect thing happening around you, so you can tell. i'm not sure at what point the description should go from ??? to 'repels monsters' or whatever - as soon as you equip it, exit and re-enter the inventory, i guess..

(repel, war ring, repellant visual effect)

i'm not sure about the mechanics of it, but i'm imagining a layer between the sprites and the map, of small, sparsely spaced, greenish sparkles, and a circle surrounding the player sprite cutting out the area around him. the sparkles at the edges of the circle will be cut up a bit, of course, but thats fine. repellant and repel radii will recede at the same rate over time, but the war ring will never recede - though its going to only have half the start radius of repel/repellant.

well, its late and i gotta get some sleep. now i can move on to either monster ai - which is going to be newish ground, or i can work on the events' descriptions.