QoL Changes and the Future!

Howdy folks!

I'm very happy with the reception that the most recent update of N.i.P. has gotten! I've already made arrangements for more art on the way, so hopefully in the future I'll reach the first milestone art-wise: artwork for the entirety of the first half of the game. After that I'll likely go in order of creation for the rest of the game (so getting art for enemies encountered in the hub area, then in the observation area, and then onward from there). After that will come the art that requires a bit more fleshing out with backgrounds or multiple characters; accessory scenes (such as the recordings), corruption scenes, and the endings.

I'll do my best to keep people updated on the art, and will of course be posting another announcement as soon as the full artwork for the first half of the game is finished.

In the meantime I wanted to consider some small QoL changes to the game that people have been asking for. The first of these is changing the way the combat menus are structured. Currently the layout is: Player move text (if applicable), Image (if applicable), enemy move text, a note that you are in combat, enemy description and stats, player description and stats, and then finally the available actions.

However, I think that I could improve this significantly. With the introduction of more artwork for the game, the UI itself has been skewed downward significantly - meaning that for most people you'll have to scroll down every turn in order to get to the list of actions. I want to fix that by reordering things (or at least the things I can): Player move text (can't be moved below the image without redesigning the entire way combat works), image (if applicable), enemy move text, available actions, player description and stats, and enemy description and stats.

Something like this should reduce the need to constantly scroll! Let me know what you all think - I plan on making this change in the next update unless people are opposed to it. While I was at it I even found a bug in the code that I fixed, as well as removed the annoying issue where Inform highlighted every instance of an enemy name as an action.



Another thing I want to introduce is something that people have been asking about for a while, but I haven't had a good way of making: Passkeys. Inform is a strange engine in that you can't save and reload between versions of games, instead having to restart. This was something that proved more annoying when N.i.P. was still unfinished, and that I tried to remedy with codes to help hasten progression on subsequent playthroughs. However, this never really solved the fundamental problem, which is that there was no easy way to retain progression through different versions.

While there are severe limitations, I'm hoping that its enough to reduce the amount of pain people go through with updates. Currently it can't save a lot of incrementing variables like times assaulted, critters killed, and current exp (just raw level).

There is allegedly a way to fix this by having Inform interpret the player's command as a number, however the engine bugged out when I tried and also didn't seem very happy with the workarounds - so instead I had to work with text. Any variable that could be any whole number can't be saved without making an infinitely long and complex code, and the code I painstakingly made to check for which room the player was in can't be compiled (the engine just hangs forever). Even still, I hope that it proves of use to folks.

For the same game version, I'd still likely be recommending the save/restore feature native to Inform games, but for moving saves between different versions there will now be an easy way to port most of your progress over and continue your adventure! I'll also be adding this system to the DEMO so that those that try it can carry on without relying on the current system of codes. It should also be fairly easy, using the image above, to convert your current save into a passkey.

Finally, I'm planning on introducing a gallery. This is another thing I struggled on how to do, however I've decided to take the approach that many other games seem to have. The gallery will be a selection of enemies, unlocked in the post-game, that you can choose to fight (or refight) at any time. These will be treated as 'real' battles, with game-overs for loss - which is the easiest way to handle making a gallery (and likely why other games do it the same way) while not stripping down anything in the fights themselves scene-wise.


These changes are NOT LIVE YET as there are still a few issues with the passcode system to work out!
I hope that when they do come, however, that these changes and additions will help further people's enjoyment of the game! Thank you all once again for your support, and for giving my game a try! I hope to provide even more content in the future. ^.^