As tempting as it would be to write this post yesterday on April Fools, I've left it to today to make a status update on my playthrough through Xeen. Work has been proceeding well. I've fixed lots of bugs that were identified by both myself and Dark-Star, who's been assisting me with preliminary testing. As of yesterday, I've:
- Finished the Dwarf Mines
- Mostly finished Rivercity (except for the Knights behind the training area)
- Completed the Witch Tower. Hence the post title.. the levitate spell works, and I've been walking around on the clouds :)
Many of the bugs were crashes and hangs, so it highlights that the game still isn't ready for general public testing. The Witch Tower, for example, required two fixes to get it to work.. one where I wasn't setting whether the party had the key (so it was never letting you in), and one where I incorrectly implemented the "return from subroutine" script opcode, so trying to go back into the Witch Tower from the stairs in the Witch Tower clouds hung the game. Ironic that both ways into the tower were glitched. :)
I think combat is also more settled now. Previously, there were various crashes, and none of the combat spells worked. Now, though, I'm able to properly cast them, so the monsters around Rivercity are much more manageable to defeat. Though I did still experience a problem once where the party wasn't immediately registered as dead after all being killed, so obviously still needs a bit of polishing to fix such remaining issues. Speaking of spells, I decided it was acceptable, given the circumstances, to cheat to give myself extra funds to purchases all the spells for each character. There was little point in delaying matters, trying to accumulate wealth. It also meant I was able to buy pathfinding and mountaineering skills for my party so I wouldn't be constrained where I could travel. It already proved useful, as I was able to identify and fix several bugs with the close-up rendering of forests, where they weren't properly being scaled, and were drawing outside of the scene area.
From here, I'll keep on working my way through the game, fixing bugs as I go. Given I'm already significantly into the game (at least for Clouds), I don't anticipate there'll be any major impediments to my progress. Apart from tracking down remaining issues with combat, hopefully the rest of the game will just be fixing minor problems, like that which prevented me from entering the Witch Tower.
- Finished the Dwarf Mines
- Mostly finished Rivercity (except for the Knights behind the training area)
- Completed the Witch Tower. Hence the post title.. the levitate spell works, and I've been walking around on the clouds :)
Many of the bugs were crashes and hangs, so it highlights that the game still isn't ready for general public testing. The Witch Tower, for example, required two fixes to get it to work.. one where I wasn't setting whether the party had the key (so it was never letting you in), and one where I incorrectly implemented the "return from subroutine" script opcode, so trying to go back into the Witch Tower from the stairs in the Witch Tower clouds hung the game. Ironic that both ways into the tower were glitched. :)
I think combat is also more settled now. Previously, there were various crashes, and none of the combat spells worked. Now, though, I'm able to properly cast them, so the monsters around Rivercity are much more manageable to defeat. Though I did still experience a problem once where the party wasn't immediately registered as dead after all being killed, so obviously still needs a bit of polishing to fix such remaining issues. Speaking of spells, I decided it was acceptable, given the circumstances, to cheat to give myself extra funds to purchases all the spells for each character. There was little point in delaying matters, trying to accumulate wealth. It also meant I was able to buy pathfinding and mountaineering skills for my party so I wouldn't be constrained where I could travel. It already proved useful, as I was able to identify and fix several bugs with the close-up rendering of forests, where they weren't properly being scaled, and were drawing outside of the scene area.
From here, I'll keep on working my way through the game, fixing bugs as I go. Given I'm already significantly into the game (at least for Clouds), I don't anticipate there'll be any major impediments to my progress. Apart from tracking down remaining issues with combat, hopefully the rest of the game will just be fixing minor problems, like that which prevented me from entering the Witch Tower.
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