Scenario Questions & Answers 281-290

( Jake The RPG God )
Q281: yes I am right now but I phrased my '?' badly what I ment to ask was:

Do you have a program (or can you write one without to much trouble) that will take the .mdx files and turn them into .mid files? .mdx--->.mid

( Topaz )
A281: Hi Jake:

No, and let me explain something. I did earlier but it bears repeating because it is a controversial subject.

There was a fellow about a year ago who claimed any .MIDs that were not labeled with an author were his personal property. He also went on to sue several Freeware websites that had tons of un-authored MIDI music for download to the public. This would be entirely laughable except that he did sue several people and shutdown a lot of sites because of his claims. Several hundreds of dollars in damage to many people to be exact.

.MDX music is my solution to this. It is a converted and encrypted music file that plays well in

and does not easily yield the .MID inside.

As for all of the RealMusic on the my site downloaded from the Daily Bulletins, those are up for grabs and will play in any modern RealPlayer. Future .MOD music will play in any version of WinAmp too unless I am given reason to believe there is someone else out there who is suing others for the same reasons. In which case, I will make .ODX files instead that will only play in

; but hopefully not. I want everyone to enjoy the music as is, and I know, I need to do some work on my .MDX Jukebox, maybe more today . .

Bear in mind there are some very mean people out there in the world that use this kind of copyright legality tactic to hurt others and collect ill-gotten gains.

Hope This Helps !

( Keith, The OS X User )
Q282:'ello...

(a) will there every be any hope of seeing this RPG maker translated to OS X, or will I be forced to go ahead and try to install SuSE or pollute my Mac HD with Windows 95? Eep... that seems like a none too easy task, but the universe just isn't too mac friendly as of late... I'd like to be able to check out this RPG maker thing I've heard people praise so much before.

(b) Alternatively, know you of any RPG makers already for OS X/Mandrake/SuSE Linux? (or any Mac OS, really...) Or am I going to have to wait 15 years for windows to die out and try and run a Linux version? (forgive me if I sound a bit frustrated, but... I am. I have had many a bad experience with windows in the past. It's just not nice.)

( Topaz )
A282: Greets Keith:
(modified your alias slightly - you had a bit of pent-up hostility there!)

(a) I'm not familiar with OS X. To put it clearly, if you can find a different operating system that still runs GFABasic For Windows 3.1 then I'll be interested in looking at it. Were it be if WinXP was unable to run GFABasic I might be looking to other language alternatives right now. As it is it runs just fine and so the engine continues on.

I tried out DarkBasic only to find that it is incapable of ELSEIF (or ELSE IF for that matter) and crashed when you create any global string so that didn't work. Point me to a language with an outstanding IDE allowing creating global variables on the fly and allowing at least up to 37,000 lines of source code, I'll look into it. Otherwise, future

will also be written in GFABasic as well which may or may not run in a Windows Emulator if that is what you have planned for your Macintosh computer ..

(b) Regarding alternative RPGMakers for the Macintosh, I didn't know there was one. I have always found Google to be an invaluable search engine to find things like that and maybe the keywords,

macintosh rpg maker

May reveal something useful. To try out Advanced Search Google, click

.

Good Luck in your search and hopefully my website will provide you with Add-On graphics for the future system you do find.

Hope This Helps !

( Chibi Half-Dragon )
Q283:

(C:) Hi I was Jake the RPG God but after smooching the princess and a few of her friends the spell was broken and from now on I'm Chibi Half-dragon (shifting)

(a) What tool do you use to resize your images? 'Cause I need somthing I can resize sprites from one of my old java games with (saddlt I'm left with only the sprites the file got corrupted)

( Topaz )
A283: Hi CHD:

(C:) Ah, and this is better than being a RPG God ?

(a) I use a combination of Paintshop Pro, IrfanView, and my own tool, Gredit.
Irfanview is 100% FREEWARE and does provide an image resize function and multiple plugins so you should check them out by clicking

Hope This Helps !

( Jules )
Q284: HEy Topaz,can you please tell me how I use variables and switches,im totaly lost in making my game without them and I was only prett much a quarter of the way in the game and it was so large.

If its too much e-mail me at ______@______ thanx man!!!

( Topaz )
A284: Greets Jules:

There is a full tutorial you can find to switches by clicking

.
And I Emailed you as well.

Hope This Helps !

( Chibi Half-Dragon )
Q285:

(a) Hey I tryed Interactive Fiction and I like it alot I was wondering If you would continue working on it or not?

(b) Do you think you could put up a utilities page i.e. the tools you use to get media for scenario?

( Topaz )
A285: Hi CHD:
(a) I will, but I need to finish the compiler for

first.
I am nearly there.

(b) The tools I use are simple.
I pay $10/month to this news service called INFORNEWS so I can access news pictures.
From there, I use Free Agent, a newsreader program to extract out the images from the newsgroups.
From there, I use Paintshop Pro 7, a picture editor to resize/rescale and generally clean-up the pics.
From there, I use Frontpage 2000, a webpage editor to prepare them for ONLINE usage.
From there, I use direct FTP (the way Teleron showed me) to upload them to my website.

Hope This Helps !

( Stev-0 )
Q286: I do know how to give the items to the player but after following the exact steps

(a) (its not workings o maybe not exactly) from the readme file it never works.

i put the "explaining page" and then the "pelase find it" page with the lock and 2 terminate icons. i did the rest bu that doesnt concern my problem.

even after i tested this by having the guy to get the jar from give it to you which worked but afterwards after talking to the potion maker sprite it still said the "please find it messege" every time.

Cheers,
Stev-0

(b) Sorry I seem to ask so many questions lately.
I am an Windows ME user and I have noticed except for a few things like if I have no alpha objects and choose to add a alpha object it crashes on me and after about 5 minutes it moves extremely slow in test play (normal speed in editer).

(c) First of all I was wondering why dont you post your persona pics on the portrait section.

(d) I have some portraits of my own how do I send those to you?

( Topaz )
A286: Greets Stev-0:
(a) That's some very nice investigative work you did !
As it turns out, I forgot to close-up the comparison code for the new variable inquiry function.
It works now (again!)

PPlz, I can't fix these errors if you don't let me know about them.
Thanks Stev-0 !

Click

for v03-0811(ActionMeter).

(b) No Alpha Objects ?
Be certain you are using the latest version of

.
You can get that by clicking

.

I have found on some soundcards that if you turn OFF the music ability,

will run better.
You can do this from the map editor hitting:

(make sure you are on the word configure)

(make sure that there is a lit beside the cursor)
and it will change to .

Now music is turned off.

(c) Well I could but I geared those for 64x64. I could scale them to 48x48 but then what neat Personas would already be seen and not yet chosen in Q & A ?

If there is a particular Persona you want, I can post it in here sized 48x48.

(d) Those are called Add-On Submissions. Carefully use Winzip to zip them up to a single .ZIP file and then send that file as a binary attachment to me. If posted, they will be seen the end of the month along with the other submitted Add-Ons and your name listed beside each.

Additionally, NILS has returned, and with him, he brings back the original MISSION quest he wrote.
Click

to get your copy of that, and I compiled for him his brand new world of Alec's Adventure.
You can click

to nab that, NILS newest self-installing game !

Hope This Helps !

( Fluke )
(C:) Just to let you know, this program runs FINE on Windows ME, which uses the same MS-DOS as Windows 98 ;)

Try it yourself. I have Windows ME on this system, and the program is running great!

Now, let me see what I can do with this baby :)

( Topaz )
(C:) Greets Fluke:

Hey !
I'm very glad to hear that it's working well for you.
Please be certain to get the latest version as there was a serious bug fix recently.

Click

to download

v03-0827(BeeLine)
This version also introduces Shadow's new suggestion for a Sprite Messenger command called BeeLine.
You will find a working example of it here in SuziQ:

To Everyone else who wrote about problems in

, please send these directly to me, not in Q & A. This way I can work with you one-on-one and tackle that bug down.

Thanks !

Hope This Helps !

( CreepyDeadGuy )
(C:) Just to let you know, I know of a programming language known as Euphoria. It is quite easy, I've heard, and really fast too. It's at http://www.rapideuphoria.com.

( Topaz )
(C:) Greets CDG:

I'm downloading it now. REALLY do appreciate the information as I am still searching for an alternative language since GFABasic has some really odd ways of operating on 32-bit computers, especially WindowsXP.

I do have a few questions however:
(1) Does Euphoria require DOS ?
(2) Does Euphoria require at some level a 16-bit executable to get it up and running ?

The reason I'm asking is I have heard the new Windows coming out after WindowsXP will not allow any 16-bit applications to run whatsoever; another reason I am looking to other 32-bit programming languages.

. . .

Phew !
And 2 hours later I have managed to get one demo program to run and in DOS only.
I can't seem to get the IDE to run either, I defaulted to the install paths they wanted (which was required but they didn't say that) and it does seem like there is not a true compiler for it either, having EX.EXE and EXW.EXE being the only executables further requiring either Notepad or their own IDE (as mentioned I could not get it running) being the only way to edit the source code.

Here is an example of GFABasic. Note, NO include libraries, or anything is required to run this:

DEFINT A-Z

OPENW#1,0,0,_X,_Y,0
DO
  X=RAND(_X)
  Y=RAND(_Y)
  ~SetPixel(_DC(),X,Y,RGB(RAND(256),RAND(256),RAND(256)))
  PEEKEVENT
UNTIL INKEY$>""
CLOSEW#1

This is a simple example program to randomly plot colored dots to the screen until a key is pressed.
Click to run or download the real executable and to download the executable that GFA.

Some details of the code:

The 0 on the end of the OPENW means to open a window minus closebox, scrollbars, etc.
Notice that no library is required or desired to just open a display window.
Few powerful programming languages can do this I have seen.

The _X means maximum size across on the screen
The _Y means maximum size down on the screen

The _DC means to use the default Display Channel, the screen.
By creating new areas for _DC you can make hidden screens.
uses 26 hidden screens altogether with sizes smaller and greater than the default screen, like #10 for instance is the MAP display, where the player scrolls around.

PEEKEVENT tells the computer to look at other tasks besides this one (is why GFABasic is so fast depending upon where you place these! But you can crash the task if you don't PEEKEVENT enough!)

GFABasic is essentially a single executable 545k containing both the IDE and sub-compiler. I say sub- since all it does is attach a binary bit on the front of your tokenized source-code and require GFARUN10.DLL to be on path to run it, but the .EXE is very small. Sadly, you cannot run a program compiled with the internal compiler in WindowsXP at all. So I went further and had $125 of my own money converted to Deutsche Marks with the help from my Dad and sent off for the real thing which included the real compiler that did true compilation not requiring GFARUN10.DLL and oddly enough running just fine in WindowsXP.

You have further convinced me that I need to release GFABASIC out to the general Worldbuilders who may also be programmers in disguise. I'll include the help files and several of my own examples. Look for this sometime near the beginning of October and when I have found a new residence to keep the bulk of since DFWO won't.

It is some years later and I still have yet to find such an easy-to-use and powerful programming language.
If you like, I will be more than happy to include SEVERAL programs I have written in GFABasic (the code size on all of them is very small compared to all other languages I've seen) to show it's truly unique ease-of-use and very friendly programming environment.

It is with great sadness I mention GFABasic faults, none of which seem fixable, which are:

(1) No support or very little. I and maybe a few other people are the only game programmers for it.
GFABasic, the company itself has since gone belly up in TOTO.
Just try looking for them with Google .. My webpage is the first entry that pops up, that's sad ..
And YES, this website will be shutdown entirely by the 25th of September 2003. Click for details.

(2) Very poor debugging. If a program crashes and it is compiled, you have no way of knowing WHERE it occured at all. I since wrote a comprehensive debugger that interjected "here I am" lines every 10 lines or so to tell me the last line # one of my "markers" was received, but you saw how that slowed down the engine to a 3rd the speed it is running today and it was unreliable as many errors deviously occured between markers and intraspaced on a separate function or procedure.

It's own internal editor debugger is not bad, but FAR from good. You can only view 6 variables at a time and in many cases they must be global variables. Local ones cannot be viewed. So I often interject debugging lines like
C_=C

Where C_ is a variable I created on the fly (that is obviously global now) and then I use the debugger to read back C_ because if I just debug read back C I get the GLOBAL variable C and not the local one I am checking for.

(3) 16-bit. GFABasic is and was originally designed for Windows 3.1. WHY it runs in WindowsXP is completely beyond me since many of my favorite games from Windows 98 do not run or install at all. I am very grateful it does or I would not be in WindowsXP AT ALL.
I have - concerns for the future Windows as it claims that no 16-bit applications will run, period.

Hope This Helps !

( Clock_Master2000 ) Persona #44 in use on this page, changing to next higher
Q287: I'm not sure if this was already answered but, in terms of the "add-ons", how do you download them?

( Topaz )
A287: Greets CM2000:
It has been asked before but it is a good question that bears repeating nonetheless.

To download them easily, from

from the map editor, hit:

And now choose which you would like to import from a webpage:
Let's choose a Tile for now, so it's

(make sure you are on the word TILE!)
Click on LOAD PAGE and once the page loads click on READY.

Then holding down the

key, left-click your mouse button directly on any tile that can fully be seen on the screen. There are several so use the dragbar to the right in Windows Explorer or the up and down arrow keys to scroll.

After a moment of calculating, the tile will appear in the top-right-hand corner of the screen.
Well, is this the correct one ? If so, hit

and

.

If you want to touch it up before saving it to your world file, hit

and

otherwise just hit

and

.

You can now either save it as an Alpha Object or to replace an existing tile.
Well, which would you like to do ?
The quicker of the two and doesn't penalize map speed loading in the future is to replace an existing tile by hitting

and

.

If you truly want a 100% custom tile, however, which can slow down map loading if you use several hundred to a page, hit

and

. I am not doing this yet however.

I choose to replace an existing tile so it then brings up to 70 list of tiles and you move the cursor on the tile you would like to replace, such as #09 the Moon. Hit

once the cursor is over the Moon tile.

After a moment of calculating,

returns back to the map editor and any time you hit

to pick a new tile, you will see that Tile #09 is now the custom tile you chose from the webpage.

. . .

If instead you chose to save it as an Alpha Object, then it's a little trickier to bring up but does not take any of your existing 70 tiles.

GO to import a new tile and when it asks to save it as an Alpha Object or replace existing tile, hit

and

.

Now it is asking for a filename. Well, type out that name followed by

.
It returns asking if you are saving a NEW filename, hit

and

.

Now to plot this tile, which is very unique and different from your usual 70 set, hit

and type out the first few letters of that tile you just saved until it is selected and hit

. When you hit

in the future, it will default to the last selected one so you can just hit

.

You will see it plotted here. The advantage of Alpha Objects is that they do not "cut" into your existing 70 tiles. The disadvantage of them is that they are visual only. You cannot put switches on them (to change their image) and a map can be very slow to load if you use several hundred for say a completely custom dungeon.

Hope This Helps !

( Slash ) Persona #44 in use on this page, changing to next higher
Q288: Why am I getting this error?

>> David's D-Bug v0.21a >>
Version=v03-0914(FixTag)
Date=20.09.2003 Time=08:28:42
WORLD=SAMPLE

DBug=
EMsg=

ERR=GFA-BASIC Runtime Error -002

PLEASE HELP ME....ur program looks SO cool

( Topaz )
A288: Greets Slash:

Go to create the directory

c:\temp\

then re-run .
Let me know if this helps.

Hey, glad you like the looks of it !
Trustfully this will fix that problem !

Hope This Helps !

( Stephen McNaire )
Q289: Um Topaz, This is a bit emmbassising, but I can't get my stairs to work right.
I have the rooms on the same map (Conserving Maps)and when I go up, he always walks forward and trips the warp back down, or walks up onto the wall

.

Is there some way I can have the rooms on the same map and still have stairs?

( Topaz )
A289: Hi Stephen:

You should be able to ?
Can you send me a clipboard portion please or a small sample PKZIPed world of this error ?

Thanks !

( Nils P )
Q290: I can´t find Alec´s Adventures anywhere in the download station...

Did you forget, or did you lose the world file? Just wondering =I

( Topaz )
A290: Hi Nils:

Sorry about that .. Nope, haven't lost the world file.

YUP, I did forget to put you in the Download Station. The reason is, your world is compiled and the current list of worlds are all un-compiled and open "source." I was thinking of making a separate category to put your world in since it was compiled, but that's fine.

I'll add your world now to the current

Station.
You can see your world creation by clicking

Hope This Helps !

( If you would like to link me, please use this picture, it's just under 10k )