Scripts Like A Butterfly

I spent all day today touching numerous scripts that I had once started and placed on the back burner.  I didn't stay with a script for very long – just long enough to develop some ideas and add some functionality.  I felt like a butterfly floating from flower to flower.

I managed to complete one of the scripts and submitted it for V696 – but the accompany quest item will not appear until V699.  Numerous other quest-related scripts saw much development, which is certainly more than they have seen in the past six months.  It's all coming together, albeit slowly.

Yappy
Yappy Ali
Scripts like a butterfly
Debugs like a bee

That made absolutely no sense.

That Eureka Moment

After rooting around for some old notes relating to some current projects, I found a stack of notes concerning the design of a complex quest which I started over a year ago.  The rediscovery of these notes annoyed me, as I was reminded how I had started this project in earnest and allowed it to slip down The List.

The basic premise of the quest is a logic puzzle which needs to be different for each visiting player.  The overall design of this quest is really hard, and it is at times like this I find myself wishing that I was born intelligent instead of gorgeous.  My tiny brain struggles with the organization of the quest's concepts, which I analogize as playing 52 Pickup with all of the cards facing down and being instructed to only pick up the red cards (I guess that would make it 36 Pickup).  The red cards need to be in a different arrangement when I play, so that the previous player can't just tell me the positions of the red cards.

As I reread my project notes, I began to recall why I abandoned this quest: it was simply too complex for my ability as a designer.  But, on the other hand, the idea for the quest is such a cool idea.  It pained me to let this idea languish On The List.  I brought out some blank paper and, as the saying goes, went back to the drawing board and started afresh.  This was Tuesday night, and I spent the remainder of the week jotted down notes and ideas.

Today I had a flash of insight – a sudden, surprising idea which actually caused me to shriek "that's it!" aloud.  I believe that I found a way organize this quest in such a way that would enable me to script it.  I am very excited (and relieved!) to have experienced that eureka moment which propelled this project forward.

ADD Multitasking

I spent today bouncing back and forth between developing two different scripts: one for a quest, and one for a puzzle.

It all started with updating some items which I have yet to submit, which lead to several "oh yeah, and I need to update this script..." which in turn lead to "ohhh yeahhh, I need to update that script..."  In fact, I realized that the first (quest) script needed a separate supporting script, and after noodling around with it, I drafted some design notes on how the script's function should (in theory) behave.

By the end of the evening, none of the scripts were completed, but I managed to settle on developing just one of them (the puzzle script).  It's coming along, but it's slow work – especially when I am so easily distracted.

The Bugaloos

I spent a portion of this afternoon going through the V690 bug log and categorized/fixed what I could in the time that I had.  There have been some cool suggestions made (sharable chocolate boxes), some observations which aren't technically bugs but require addressing (Deadly Hornets not making any sounds upon a hit – they do make sounds, but they're poorly chosen sounds), and the ever-present "it's raining indoors here" weather-related reports.

It was my understanding that another GM was going to handle the "interior precipitation" problems, but evidently the other GM could use some assistance in resolving this matter.  I believe that I shall help.

While closing bugs this afternoon, an old children's television theme song ran through my head:

The Bugaloos
The Bugaloos
It isn't fair
They're everywhere...

I made myself laugh.

One Less Task

I spent Wednesday evening scripting.  It has been a while since I have scripted in earnest, and I was pleasantly reminded on how fast an evening can pass whilst focusing on a project.

This all came about earlier in the day after noticing that the V693 update was over 4MB in size.  Four megabytes!  I was both mortified and intrigued – why would the update be so large?  The answer was a bit of a let-down (this update includes some uncompressed sound files), but after poking around the new content, I was reminded of an NPC of which I had wanted to add some functionality for the past three years (or remove functionality, depending on one's view).  Last night was the night that I made those changes happen.

One less task to do on the To Do list!