The Grouch's Trash Pile [Baldur's Gate 3]

I think I may have found a way to do what I want with Items that isn't a kludgy mess, but by the time I got back from taking a break to do a million other things it was 7 pm and I was exhausted :') I'll just have to try it tomorrow. And, uh, write an entire short story. Hahaha.

*lies facedown on the floor*

ANYway, the real reason I'm making a post is that I bought a tin of sour cherry hard candies today and they taste exactly like I remember cherry Sucrets tasting. I instantly thought "Ah, the taste of my childhood" and it was more funny than sad even though the reason it's the taste of my childhood is that I was sick an awful lot. Sucrets were the one good thing about being sick, I guess.

 

I liked Dimetapp and it’s “grape” flavor, and I loved the pink bubblegum medication. It was a bit chalky, but it just gave it a nice consistency.

 

MY IDEA WORKS! (So far!!)

I wanted the player 'use' action to just work on all Item types, but while all Item types with the abstract class Item could go into the same inventories, the 'use' action didn't work correctly on them without having to laboriously check which Item type the item being used was, and then using its own use action, and it was a giant headache. Night before last when I was half asleep I remembered something about factory methods and companion objects, and after outlining exactly what I wanted to do and what my stumbling blocks were with how I was currently doing it, I researched them and had a pretty good idea that that was what I needed to implement, so I could just assign Items with their type as one of the parameters, and the generic 'use' action would work fine on whatever type the Item is internally.

Aaand so far so good! I made a Spawner type of Item that spits out one object into the area when used, and a Generic type that does nothing (so like, a key that unlocks areas can be Generic because all it needs to do is sit in the player's inventory) to test against, and after much fiddling to get methods to return the correct types of information (all actions have to return a string to be processed properly by the Adventure), it's working!

Now I need to return to getting a clearer idea of what I want to do in the limited amount of time I have to figure out what else I need to get working, make some tests on those to see if I can make it work, and then go from there.

 

That's fucking awesome! Congratulations!

 

Aaand I figured out how to keep a player from going into a locked room unless they have whatever the key is! ... It's kludgy. It's got some nested if statements. But it works.

I have a couple of other ideas for puzzling things - like a hasSpecialState variable for rooms that, when true, calls on their custom special state message when the player makes any command other than 'go' or 'use (dispeller item)', as well as a switch type of item that can unlock or dispel a room. I may just implement the switch item for now, though.

Then it's on to actually laying out the game area, and making the skeleton of the gameplay flow, and then adding in things to obfuscate the solution/add flavor. Then I can think of adding something like a terror stat that, if it gets too high, ends the game prematurely, and if I have enough time, a curiosity stat that is raised by exploring optional rooms and examining things (with a special failure state if curiosity is high enough when terror is maxed).

 

I am still very much not done, which is Unfortunate because I am also very much coming down with a cold. And I have an appointment to get a flu shot tomorrow morning! 8);;; THIS IS FINE!!!

However, AT LEAST I have all the player actions finished and functioning, three item types and their methods functioning, and the extra area methods functioning, and I've written the skeleton of the actual game - all the rooms with brief descriptions, and a few items placed. I'll as much done as I can tomorrow when I get home.

 

I finished it! To the best of my testing, anyway! It's very silly and very basic - I went with something lighthearted rather than having to Create a real story. Now what's left is to finish commenting some of the code, make sure the code adheres to the style guide, make an area map (easy, that's basically just a flowchart), and make a walkthrough. This is all fairly simple stuff, so I'm going to take a break for the evening, I'm cold and tired. x_x

 

Project tidied up, map and walkthrough made, the whole lot submitted for grading. And 21 hours before the deadline, too! :')

The premise is that the player has returned home after a vacation to find the house a disaster zone, since their roommates threw a party while they were gone... a party that got entirely out of hand and they were too hung over to clean up. So now random doors are locked or stuck and the player has to get into their roommate's rooms to question them on why their own room is locked, and find the key to get it open so they can go to bed.

Spoiler: Take a gander at my goofy game map

I spent way longer on that dumb map than was necessary, but when it comes to providing something that can be even marginally artistic for a thing you can bet I'll make it way fancier than it needs to be. :p

I also don't seem to be getting sick... I still feel a bit questionable but not more than that.

 

Okay but that sounds exactly like one of my favorite genres of game? Examine the scene of a happening after the fact, and try to figure out what happened, often unlocking areas as you go because otherwise it's very hard to create a narrative arc. That's what Gone Home is, and I can't stop bringing it up at every opportunity to tell people how much I love it.

But. But! That specifically is probably the most creative premise I have ever heard for that type of game. Seriously, that is brilliant and if I saw that game in the wild I would instantly be all over it.

 

Aww, why thank you!

It's very simple and very linear -- there are a few objects to prod at other than the strictly necessary ones, but they don't do anything other than give flavor text -- but I had a lot of fun making it.

 

Got an unpleasant reminder today that eating mushrooms more than once in one week - especially as often as twice in three days - is an astoundingly bad idea for me. *groans*

Some days I feel like before too long I'll only be able to eat nuts, fruit, and cheese. X(

 

Holy shit, there's a new Stardew Valley content update!

 

I never did finish my building mods, and now there's more buildings... this time I want to get them done, and in the course of weeks rather than years!

I actually got really close to finishing them, but I lost a lot of momentum in figuring out how to make an attractive roof for the forest set silo, and how to make the mill and it's silly little propeller look good. Then I had to slowly grind my way figuring out how to make a forest set shed that I liked, and by the time I got that done designing new cabins for both the river set and the forest set did not appeal in the least, so aside for some occasional poking to make the seasonal variations I just kind of... stopped.

I also need to make the well, the forest stable, the obelisks (the defaults are so ugly!!), the cabins, the goddamn slime hutch, and the gold clock for both sets. And then new buildings. With seasonal variations. ..... /o\

I also need to solicit a save file from someone who has all the outbuildings because my one save that's furthest along is from before any of the patches.

 

I spent 4.60€ on a not-even-that-big can of pumpkin puree so tomorrow I can make myself a
mother
fuckin'
pumpkin
PIE.

Because I fucking miss Thanksgiving! I miss the excuse to go to my grandparents' house and have a Feast and just chill and have leftovers until Christmas when we can do it all over again! Now most of my grandparents are dead and I live on the other side of the planet and I know zero other Americans and J doesn't like pumpkin or turkey so I haven't bothered for years because what's the point when it's only me but you know what? Screw it. I'M MAKING SOME GODDAMN PIE.

 

pls ignore my grody stovetop and instead witness my beautiful pie.

 

Your stovetop looks exactly like a good Thanksgiving stovetop, and your pie looks incredible! Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I just had a piece with breakfast and it was SO GOOD. I'm going to have a hard time not eating it all over the next couple of days. T_T

I made a graham-cracker like crust with crushed wheat-free gingersnaps and chopped pecans instead of buying an expensive (and probably very unsatisfactory) pre-made gluten-free one and that was SO worth it... and probably cheaper overall since the gingersnaps were a euro off.

 

If you wanted a more traditional shortcrust pie base, you could try pecan flour - nut flours tend to make really nice short pastry, since there's no gluten in it to overwork and toughen.

 

It was looking like I was going to escape the cold J came down with last Sunday.

I did not. :( My on-and-off malaise through the week finally resolved itself into definite ick. It's not so bad as of right now, but I'm not holding out any hopes that it won't get worse.

I'm also waaaaaaaay behind on my writing, so that's... not great. Hopefully I can get enough done for some padding between the few weeks this Scala course ends and the next one begins.

 

Caught the edges of some twitter drama where a bunch of people are clutching their pearls that some 17 year old musician doesn't know who Van Halen are, and I'm like... Van Halen was boring Dad Rock to me when I was 17, and that was over 20 years ago! I am absolutely not surprised they hold so little relevancy to a teenager now that they aren't even on her radar. (Is her music even in the same genre?)

The pearl-clutchers are comparing not knowing Van Halen to like, not knowing who Mozart is and shit, and making much about how ~young people these days don't want to know about anything older than they are~. Seriously?? I'm sorry you're upset at the reminder you're no longer young and hip and actual young people do not know nor particular care about your faves, but have you tried fucking dealing with it?