Story / Campaign Mode!

A place to find all custom made campaigns, mods and to discuss the story mode and how to create mods.
abrasax
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Location: Switzerland

Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by abrasax »

Hi,

I wanted to create a new campaign, the kind of one that would have a lot of reference to MTG storyline....so to say one that you cannot add to the SVN... Well the issue is that if I want to have some kind of historical background and blabla I will need to create several screen with only text and a simple question/answer with "Continue"...

I was thinking (and I know it is definitly NOT a priority but a nice to have), that it would be nice to have the text scrolling like the credit in the option. Or to have automated transition screen (e.g. after 30s go to next screen) in order to avoid having to press a "next" button.

In addition, it would be more than increadible to be able to put some sound, in form of background music (so mp3 as for the "in-game" music) and effect (also wav like in the "in-game" sfx.

I was dreaming about a "thunder" sound with a "thunder picture" doing either a transition screen, or even popping up in the screen (could be also made with delayed effect e.g. after 5s "display" image and play sound).

Grüssi

Abra
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wololo
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Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by wololo »

ok, those are perfectly good suggestions, I'm hoping I'll have time to go back on the code in the days to come :)
abrasax
Posts: 976
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:46 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by abrasax »

Hi,

Priority would be the first suggestion I made:
Fine tuning the answer display and letting the AI perform predefine action in order for the tutorial to be more effective (like opponent attacking with X creature, opponent playing a particular spell that need to be countered, etc.. etc..), naturally if we want to keep the tutorial to basic action then what we have is already fine (did you had a chance to look at my game manual campaign ?)

To precise the specific idea I had in mind for a “real” campaign, I wanted to construct a campaign based on « The brother War » between Mishra and Urza, which is basically the beginning of the MTG storyline. I wanted to have predefined deck with historical artefact and place like the “gate to pyrexia” the “weakstone” and the “mightstone” (all ATQ cards) as well as the “caves of koilos” (a 10E card). And naturally a lot of story to tell to the player with some nice pictures and some unusual task to complete (like you need to play a specific card, based on some hint on the “flavour” text)

What would be nice would be to have also avatar images for the player and the AI (in this case corresponding to Mishra and Urza), evtl a specific Bakground and music for the battlefield would be also very nice (imagine yourself with a battleground picture representing the gate to pyrexia where urza will need to “open” it resulting in receiving the mightstone to be used for the next duel).

In addition it would be great to be able to make references to specific task already coded. Burying X [color] cards, or having X [permanent] on the battlefield are already possible with the wingame keyword in combination with aslongas, but some other like the “win the game in X turn” are not possible, so it would be great to be able to parse such variable like:
auto=aslongas(opponentturn):wingame opponent >9
Or something similar (could be much simple like “auto=turn(10): wingame opponent”)

Also in the original tutorial (now deleted) you added a deck.txt that when I remember correctly was used by the player, could we also add a ai_deck.txt in order to predefined the deck used by the ai ? And when I create a duel do I really need to specify the rules ? (E.g. in the tutorial you had
auto=shuffle
auto=draw:7
auto=@each my draw:draw:1
I was thinking that the line :
mode=mtg
Was already covering it, please confirm if I understood correctly.

Then last but not least, can I specify the beginning life for player 1 and player 2 ?
By simply adding something like:
[PLAYER1]
life:1
[PLAYER2]
life:5

Grüssi

Abra
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wololo
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Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by wololo »

abrasax wrote:Hi,

Priority would be the first suggestion I made:
Fine tuning the answer display
Done!
and letting the AI perform predefine action in order for the tutorial to be more effective (like opponent attacking with X creature, opponent playing a particular spell that need to be countered, etc.. etc..)
TODO!
(did you had a chance to look at my game manual campaign ?)
Yes, it looks very promising. The changes I did in revision 2042 break the layout a bit (major change is that the answers are now displayed in a correct order, and where you want on the screen) so it needs a bit more work now but I think it's a great way to do a tutorial. Although maybe we want the tutorial to be a bit more linear ?
What would be nice would be to have also avatar images for the player and the AI (in this case corresponding to Mishra and Urza), evtl a specific Bakground and music for the battlefield would be also very nice (imagine yourself with a battleground picture representing the gate to pyrexia where urza will need to “open” it resulting in receiving the mightstone to be used for the next duel).

In addition it would be great to be able to make references to specific task already coded. Burying X [color] cards, or having X [permanent] on the battlefield are already possible with the wingame keyword in combination with aslongas, but some other like the “win the game in X turn” are not possible, so it would be great to be able to parse such variable like:
auto=aslongas(opponentturn):wingame opponent >9
Or something similar (could be much simple like “auto=turn(10): wingame opponent”)
Ok, good suggestions, TODO
Also in the original tutorial (now deleted) you added a deck.txt that when I remember correctly was used by the player, could we also add a ai_deck.txt in order to predefined the deck used by the ai ?
TODO
And when I create a duel do I really need to specify the rules ? (E.g. in the tutorial you had
auto=shuffle
auto=draw:7
auto=@each my draw:draw:1
I was thinking that the line :
mode=mtg
Was already covering it, please confirm if I understood correctly.
mode=mtg is covering everything that cannot be covered by soft-coded rules yet. However, I think that something like include mtg.txt should work (see random1.txt in rules) if you want the full mtg rules without a change
Then last but not least, can I specify the beginning life for player 1 and player 2 ?
By simply adding something like:
[PLAYER1]
life:1
[PLAYER2]
life:5
Yes I think that works already.


Current TODO List:

MUST for 0.12
- allow ai to perform predefined actions (see testing suite to reuse its code if possible)
- basic reward system (unlock random set, give cards, give credits)
- basic save system (autosave the current page id ?)
- allow the game to start at one of player 2's phases
- fix bugs on the psp (something nasty happens with the display apparently)
- beta test Abrasax' campaign as it progresses

NICE TO HAVE
- deck.txt for the ai
- allow to choose avatar for player and opponent on a per-duel basis. Same for background
- allow to play sounds (musics) in dialog pages
- add more winning conditions (get inspiration from tasks, I'm not sure how easily they can be turned into abilities...)


Please add stuff to this list by posting comments, be realistic for the first release please ;)
Keep in mind that the goal for revision 0.12 is to have
-a tutorial
-a system that looks promising enough to motivate people to start writing their own campaigns
abrasax
Posts: 976
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:46 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by abrasax »

The changes I did in revision 2042 break the layout a bit (major change is that the answers are now displayed in a correct order, and where you want on the screen) so it needs a bit more work now but I think it's a great way to do a tutorial. Although maybe we want the tutorial to be a bit more linear ?
Will work on that with the new revision. Well the linear tutorial is a good idea, I don't think we should make it mandatory, but it is maybe more fun than what I did. My goal was not to make a tutorial, although I reuse some of what you did to illustrate the "game manual" most of the text are directly from the game manual, and it was also to follow the suggestion made by almostehumane (he suggested to save the pdf as picture and to show it in the trophy room) but with the campaign you can do it interractive.

I will post a link to my work once udpated, if we go for the tutorial you can also simply re-use some of the work I did (especially the phase description that can be reused 1 to 1 at least for the explanation screens).
mode=mtg is covering everything that cannot be covered by soft-coded rules yet. However, I think that something like include mtg.txt should work (see random1.txt in rules) if you want the full mtg rules without a change
hmm, I'm a bit confused now, should we use mode=mtg or include=mtg.txt ? Or both ?
NICE TO HAVE
- deck.txt for the ai
Well, if we want user to get motivated to write their own campaign, I would say that "deck.txt" for the ai is a must, at least dueling would be either painfull to add or not fun at all...

I will add to my suggestion that it would be also "nice" to be able to do something like
[player1]
deck=random2
[player2]
deck=player

Also to put that in word, it would be nice to be able to have random deck, and it would be nice to be able to let the "player" choose one of its deck. Let say that in a near future we could also simply set that in a campaign when you press start you will have the following menu
- Save
- Switch deck
- Quit
- Cancel
The switch deck option will allow you to "choose" a default deck from your deck collection that could be then copied to the campaign folder (or even a player folder in the campaign folder where we would save the setting, default deck, credit earned, achievement, etc..etc...)
- add more winning conditions (get inspiration from tasks, I'm not sure how easily they can be turned into abilities...)
Like I said the main "usefull" one in term of campaign (and if you want to have a progression in the difficulty) would be the definition of given "number of turns" to beat an opponent (also to raise difficulty we can already "pre-set" the battlefield of the AI too)...but that definitly only a "nice to have"


Will try to test the new addition tonight and update my campaign accordingly.

Enjoy,

Abra
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wololo
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Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by wololo »

wololo wrote: MUST for 0.12
- basic reward system (unlock random set, give cards, give credits)
- basic save system (autosave the current page id ?)
- allow the game to start at one of player 2's phases

NICE TO HAVE
- deck.txt for the ai
- allow to choose avatar for player and opponent on a per-duel basis.
DONE
(the deck for the ai needs to be named "opponent_deck.txt")
hmm, I'm a bit confused now, should we use mode=mtg or include=mtg.txt ? Or both ?
I'd say both...I'm not sure anymore, so I can only suggest to try and see what happens :(
for example, include mtg.txt + mode=momir means that the rules described in mtg.txt will be used, + the momir rules
[player1]
deck=random2
[player2]
deck=player
I think we need to discuss what kind of campaign you have in mind. Of course in the future we want the player to be able to tweak their army, but I'd like to see what you have in mind for that :)

Current TODO List:
MUST for 0.12
- fix bugs on the psp (something nasty happens with the display apparently)
- beta test Abrasax' campaign as it progresses

NICE TO HAVE
- allow ai to perform predefined actions (see testing suite to reuse its code if possible)
- allow to choose background on a per-duel basis.
- allow to play sounds (musics) in dialog pages
- add more winning conditions (get inspiration from tasks, I'm not sure how easily they can be turned into abilities...)
-- ex: maximum number of turns to beat an opponent

(note that "allow ai to perform predefined actions" has moved to nice to have, because I think that most of the things we want to do in a tutorial can probably be done with the AI "as it is now" with a few tweaks. see block/rules.txt in the sample campaign)

Does that sound alright to you ? Please let me know if you have issues writing the manual/tutorial, as I believe you should now have everything you need for this first simple campaign.
wololo
Site Admin
Posts: 3728
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Location: Japan

Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by wololo »

Hey abrasax, sorry for the double post, but any progress on your side? I still have to fix some bugs on the psp, but otherwise I think the current code should be enough for you to make progress on your awesome manual/campaign :)
IF not, please let me know what I can do to ease your work!
abrasax
Posts: 976
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:46 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: Story / Campaign Mode!

Post by abrasax »

Hi,

Sorry I was off during the "bison futé week-end rouge de l'ascenscion".... ;-) I'm a little bit under work pressure after such a big week-end, will try to post something until end of the week.

Grüssi

Abra
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