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Old 09-23-2019, 07:52 PM   #184
andreww
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app

DMorte is very cool. It doesn't have any combat mechanics, though, it's just a very, very cool editor for CYOA stories.

In my mind, you would create a spreadsheet. The cells in each line would be...
Location name - just for author's reference, app will ignore it
Location description - with some scheme for paragraph breaks
Foe stats - about twelve columns, blank if there's no one to fight
XP earned if you arrive at this location (probably by winning a fight)
Silver earned if you arrive at this location
Exit buttons - very short description and new location number, blank if there's a foe

That only allows a single foe per room, and simple foes at that. But it's an extremely straightforward scheme. That's essential because it has to be coded quickly and understood readily. You could do conversations with NPCs as different locations, no reason that wouldn't work. And while a location could only have one foe, there's only one character. Foes would not all be the same, some are archers, some beasts, some have pole weapons, etc. Two of the foes "stats" would be the location you are moved to if you win and the location you end up at if you lose.

Boom. I don't have to write an editor, and you could create a pretty nice adventure this way. I would create an example people could learn from. Since you would paste the resulting CSV into a text box it would be fairly well quarantined. The app would have to read it character by character and turn it into a savable object. That's the part that requires some thought, since that's where I'd have to detect both errors that would make the adventure unplayable and possible exploits. Exit buttons that go to non-existent locations, code injection, all that.

It seems so simple and it would be so cool. I'm not certain there's anything else out there like that.

My comments on Android market share are based only on the number of TFT Helper downloads. I don't know how many phones are out there capable of running TFT Helper or the latest versions of Android. Both platforms are equally important in my mind. Kindle is less important. It's not even in the scope of the project, but it *should* work so I want to try. It will load and run, but the app does not properly respond to the screen size. Should be an easy fix if I can find some time.

Doesn't matter, there are more important small things I need to fix on the app. I was hoping that would happen in September, but that looks unlikely now.
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