Hi all,

I'm new here and to Quest Pro 5.

I'm wanting to save time on creating objects the player can sit on and then having to create a verb command to sit on it for each object, is there a way to setup basic properties to display in Object/Options add something like "Can sit on" and in Objections that properties will display in Options and you just have to select Can sit on - True. Or something that is along the lines, "is type of.."

I assume there is a way to do this? Since there is one already there called Switchable. I would like to be able to create other custom properties like "Can be used as a blunt weapon" or "Is flameable".."Is a light source" etc

Thanks,

Daza

yes, you can do this by defining your own types. There are some information about this in the wiki
http://quest5.net/wiki/Using_inherited_types
A good example ist the clothing lib : http://quest5.net/wiki/Clothing_Library

Thanks for your reply.

I have been looking at the wiki, the tutorial needs more examples. Most, if not all the completed games are exported and cannot be opened in the editor, which would be nice to be able to see how things were done and learn from that.

Is there any short games available for new users to have a tinker with? I would of thought there would of been some demo and maybe a couple of short games as samples in the main directory.

I'm used to another IF engine and Quest seems to have less built in functions, eg. sitting in a chair. If am sitting in a chair it still lists the chair as if its empty (no description telling me i am sitting on object if that is the case) and i can keep using sit on chair without the game telling me im already in it. It seems i have to set that up myself.

I would of thought all the basic things you do in an adventure game would have default scripts already set for it.

I tried creating a flag and using IF for description of the chair, but that didn't work, i must of did something wrong there.

I tried also creating an attribute Occupied and set to false. I dont know how to change that when a player sits in a seat to true and using that (which the attribute is a flag right? if its a boolean) for the IF/description in setup.

Of course Quest has alot of flexibility, depth and customization. It just seems to have a steep learning curve.

I think i would pick this up faster if there was a few short games i could look under the hood so to speak and see how it works.

Regarding "sitting", this is the kind of thing that would be easy to add to the core library. We just need to decide how it should work - so I'm happy to hear any suggestions, especially if anybody wants to try and spec this out.

For example, in the object editor, would we have a checkbox - like "This object can be sat on/lied on"

If that box is ticked, what happens? If the player sit/lies on the object, are they moved there? If the object is a transparent container, or a surface, they will still be able to see the other things in the room, so this fits in well with the existing Quest design. But can they reach other objects in the room while sitting or lying down? Should there be some additional "look at" description, and if so what is the default if the game author does not set it?

That would be a big help if it was added to the core library. If a character lays down on a bed or sits on a chair, i would say the player/character would automatically be moved to that object and in the room description be said to be laying/sitting on the object.

And its an interesting question about can the player reach other objects from where they are sitting/laying on. What if the bed or chair as an object could be inner room boundary? Say you are in a motel room. And there is a chest of draws on either side of the bed with objects on it eg. Lamp and your beer. When the player is sitting or laying on the bed, the objects listed first will be what is part of the inner room boundary (for lack of better wording..sectioned parts of a room?) and then the rest of the room that has objects to be listed will be given.

The player can take or put things on the bed or inside the draws or ontop of. But cannot reach for the remote that might be sitting ontop of the television on the opposite side of the room.. unless either maybe the player types "get up and take tv remote." or alternatively "take tv remote" has the narrative say "You get out/off the bed and retrieve the tv remote sitting on the television." The player is moved out/off bed.

If the player is in bed then the word "Out" will be used instead of, "off". And the tv remote to be automatically described where it is currently sitting or positioned before being picked up.

Without getting off tangent, having inner boundaries of a room i have thought about in the past. Having something like this added to the library of Quest would be good. Handy for like the player enters a bar-room, where there are several pool tables, and tables where there are card games going on and the main bar itself. Each of these inner locations/sub-locations within the room, can have its only description of which characters are there when you go to that area. It's like when watching a movie, the camera is upclose or zoomed in a specific part of a room where you the viewer can only see the immediate surroundings, while everything is background.

This would require two "look" commands i guess, one for immediate surroundings if in a sub-location "look around you" and the standard "look" one for an overview for the whole room, listing a general setting of the room.

This could allow also characters within the room to move to different sub-locations. I don't know if Quest has a walk function for movement of characters? allowing for dynamic game play. Eg. a trigger by time or event causes x number of characters to leave the bar or some characters has had enough playing cards and moves to the bar.

While using this example of a bar-room and sub-locations, what about the player talking to a group of people. The player might be a detective making inquires. Asking small groups of people basic questions would logically as in RL save a lot of time. The characters who do know something may step forward and a more one on one conversation takes place, or have some groups scripted to ignore the player.
Maybe asking questions around the different sub-locations has another character scripted to approach the player or maybe a group approaches the player to throw him out.

Anyway getting back to my previous post. Is there any sample short games available for people learning to use Quest can benefit from by looking at how it was made in the editor? Like a one or two room game or something, yet has alot of stuff the player can do or interact with?
If there isnt, then a suggestion to have something made for beginners and advanced users and to be included in a samples folder than gets add with the installer.

This sounds a bit complicated. If you have a table with 4 chairs you would need 5 inner room boundary?
Perhaps it could be done with rooms-in-room? In your parentroom you have a "sit"-room where you can put all object around a chair. So if you sit down, you are moved into this inner room. The scope of reachable would be all objects in the inner room. The scope of the parent room is all objects. Then you need a possibility to place one object in differents inner rooms, I think this is an existing feature request.

You can inspect the code of every Q5-game. Just go to the gamelist, search a game which is created with Q5, download it, rename it to .zip and open the zip. You will find the aslx-file inside.

Pertex wrote:This sounds a bit complicated. If you have a table with 4 chairs you would need 5 inner room boundary?
Perhaps it could be done with rooms-in-room? In your parentroom you have a "sit"-room where you can put all object around a chair. So if you sit down, you are moved into this inner room. The scope of reachable would be all objects in the inner room. The scope of the parent room is all objects. Then you need a possibility to place one object in differents inner rooms, I think this is an existing feature request.

You can inspect the code of every Q5-game. Just go to the gamelist, search a game which is created with Q5, download it, rename it to .zip and open the zip. You will find the aslx-file inside.

Well the user might only classify certain inner room boundaries that pertains to the story or gameplay, and other objects in the parent room
to be as they are. But i guess another way to make it more simple for picking up objects, is just altering the line if the player is sitting down or laying, "You get up and go over to the table and pick up the car keys." But having inner rooms or parent and child/sub rooms could be used more players interacting with characters that might be at those inner room boundaries or talking to a group of people there, like around a certain table. Just some thoughts anyway, i don't know if that would enhance the gameplay and immersion, having a since of space and areas within a room to move to or whether it would get too complicated to implement.

Thanks for the hands up on how to inspect the code of a Q5 game. I will look into that and learn more about how to use Quest 5. Thanks.

Pertex wrote:
You can inspect the code of every Q5-game. Just go to the gamelist, search a game which is created with Q5, download it, rename it to .zip and open the zip. You will find the aslx-file inside.

Coming back to this. Today ive managed to open up a game as per instruction above, however i see a list of objects but on the right pane in the Quest editor it just has the name of the object and nothing else.

Is this because of the recent update of Quest? any prev versions will not show properly? i want to be able to look at how things were set up etc.

Could you post a screenshot of your problem?

Pertex wrote:Could you post a screenshot of your problem?

Sure thing.



No matter what i click on the left tree menu nothing appears on the right window pane just the name of the tree node.

The game i used to have a look under the hood so to speak is called Bob the unlucky alien.

Ah, this is a gamebook. I have the same problem. Alex, could you have a look at it. If loading the gamebook "Bob the unlucky alien" you get this problem

Could you please attach the original aslx file?

Pertex, if you're trying to edit a gamebook by lifting game.aslx out of a .quest file, that may not work - possibly the .quest file strips the information the editor needs to know to load it in gamebook mode.

Dazakiwi32 and me tried to open an downloaded .questfile, but if this is not possible, Dazakiwi32 must not append a file.

Pertex wrote:Dazakiwi32 and me tried to open an downloaded .questfile, but if this is not possible, Dazakiwi32 must not append a file.

Do you still want me to attach the original file Alex?

I got the file from the main download page. It seemed it was a recently new one so i went with that, but i didn't realise it was a gamebook.