Currencies?

I happen to know the origin of that story. I'm fairy sure it's the tulip. Here in Holland, in our Golden Age, there was this huge tulip boom. Everyone wanted tulips that were special, but no one knew how to grow that specific type because it was basically a mutation and the prices for those special tulips kept going higher and higher until there were none left and the price basically dropped dead.

Interesting story

I've actually decided on four currencies now!

Interesting story

I've actually decided on four currencies now!

ooH..!
spoiLerz..?

I have a question for Nifflas about the currency feature in this game.

I have plans for a level I want to make (assuming the game will still have a user-friendly level editor) and it involves having the player gather various perishable items (using the currency feature, so each type of item will simply be a customized currency.)  I know there was also talk earlier about perishable things like mushrooms and berries being good ideas for currencies.

So my question concerns whether it will be possible to make the currencies actually perishable in the game.  Say the player has ten of a certain type of berry, would it be possible for their number of that berry to decrease over time ("over time" could mean after moving through a certain number of screens) or to have their whole supply of that currency disappear if they have it too long (again, if they carry it through some number of screens)?  Also would it be possible to have one currency convert to another over time, so that if the player had some "unripe berries" they would eventually be replaced by the same number of "ripe berries" (and I guess likewise "ripe berries" could turn into "rotten berries" instead of just disappearing)?

Is this a feature that would be easy to add to the game?

You'll be able to do all those things in your level as long as you can create a python script for it.

There will be things to take into account though. There is no function that triggers at timed events in the game. The only time you can measure is how long the player has played the current savefile. The trigger you'll need to use is one that happens as often as possible (e.g. when you enter a new room), then you can use the "time since player started the savefile" value to determine the difference between the current time and the time you picked up the unripe berry to decide what you should convert it into. The drawback will be that it only updates when you go to another room. That's quite often though.

The bottom line is, you'll be able to do tons of cool stuff if you can accept a few compromises and get into the Python scripting.

I smell a wiki here

I see.  So there's no chance of such a feature being added as something one could do through the level editor without scripting knowledge?

Unfortunately, I've never learned any kind of programming language in my life, and I feel like I'm too old to start.    This is why I'll never be able to make games of my own, but only levels for other games.

I imagine there will be a number of people in the community willing to create scripts for people who aren't able to make them for themselves, and potentially a (community-generated) library of scripts for common functionality that isn't included in the basic editor.

Unfortunately, I've never learned any kind of programming language in my life, and I feel like I'm too old to start.    This is why I'll never be able to make games of my own, but only levels for other games.

Python isn't a hard language to learn. I suggest you give it a try when the game comes out; of course it also depends on what the KnyttWaDF modules provide you.

Unfortunately, I've never learned any kind of programming language in my life, and I feel like I'm too old to start. 

Don't worry. Especially with scripting languages for games, its often the basic stuff that you need, which is like just writing down what you want in a slightly more technical form.

Often you can copy/paste an existing script and modify it to your needs.

A script is all based upon logic. You tell the script what to do, and it'll do it.

So instead of saying: The ball has moved to x,y you write something like: ball.x = ?, ball.y = ?

The more advanced stuff will come once you understand the basic stuff and the interest is there.

The really really advanced stuff (where capable) will probably only happen by a few and they will most likely share their scripts. (this will be using phyton functions to not directly interact with the game. (where allowed)

My intention is to make a template level that you can easily build levels with. You'll be able to have simple dialogs like the ones in Knytt Stories. However, if you want to have quests, dialog trees, or deal with an inventory, you must learn the scripting.