Pavilion Iron Chef episode II: Crunk Gets Deported

[Ωbright]

That's right, this time not only is Crunk's reputation as a chef at stake, but his Canadian Citizenship, as well! Defeat him to win his swank pad in Camloops, his Canadian citizenship, and super-phat healthcare system!

Kire will be the MC again this time, and Crunk the opponent, but the judges for this episode have yet to be selected. I need some volunteers! The only one that I'm already sure of is Rena. That means I need 8 more people.

If you want to be in the game as a judge, then respond here and let me know. In addition to that I'll need you to fill out a brief questionnaire, and PM it to me. It will basically just have a few questions about your food tastes for you to answer, so that your responses in the game will reflect your actual food preferences, just like episode 1 did.

Speaking of Episode 1, if you haven't played it or don't know what it's about, you can read this (http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19641) thread and even download the game if you want.

Basically you play as either a male or female chef, who has come to challenge the resident Iron Chef (Crunk) to a cooking duel. You must choose a main ingredient, a seasoning, and a cooking method to produce your dish for the round, and you must score higher than Crunk to win that round. Your judges are 3 'random' pavilionites per turn, for a total of 3 turns.

I have yet to figure out exactly how the food components and dishes are going to be set up this time, but I know that there will be fundamental differences in the way this one will be done. For instance 'Meat' and 'Seafood' will be in the same category. I did that because there was such a huge number of people ranking Meat the highest, and Seafood the lowest. 'Fruit' and 'Grains' will also be in their own category.

I'll also need to change the way the cooking methods are done. NOBODY chose 'Steamed' as their favorite (not voluntarily, anyway :evil), and only 1 or 2 people even ranked it above 4th. I'll probably replace that, unless a lot of people like steamed veggies and potstickers this time. If you do then say so here!

[Ωbright]

(reserved for technical crap)

[Wavelength]

<3

I had so much fun with PIC 1 and I'm really looking forward to II. I know you've been looking for a good reason to make this for a while now, too! :)

I'd love to be a judge for Round 2, if you need people. I know I was a judge in Round 1, but hey, it could work with some backstory. Make me a zombie. Or an astronaut. Or a zombie astronaut. That loves fresh fruit.

[Kefka Jr.]

I'd lurv to be a judge.

[Ωbright]

YAY Kefka is added, and Wave is added as a relief judge.

Thanks!

[Ωbright]

Further developments on the mechanics front...

In episode 1, each judge has 4 slots for 'special dish' messages. One of them is for when you prepare that judge's favorite dish, one is for their least-favorite dish, and 2 were for the 'default' dishes that all judges react to one way or the other.

I'm thinking about keeping the 4 messages, but each judge will have a different setup as far as which dishes they give bonuses for, and which ones they penalize for.

I'm thinking of adding to the questionnaire. Since meat and seafood (for example) are now combined, people can say if they hate one of the two. So if someone loves meat, but hates seafood, when they get a dish with seafood in it they'll count off a point for it. I'll only need one special message slot for that, and I can use a range to trigger the message (so that several dishes can be covered), but it'll eliminate the 'if I use this I will win' trap. Just because you use a popular cooking category won't automatically mean that you'll come out ahead.

I'll have to get the results from the questions back first before I figure all of that out though, and before that I have to finish the survey.

[EDIT] Ok...

I'm now seriously considering eliminating the cooking technique entirely, and having a main ingredient, a secondary ingredient, and the seasoning. If I do that then a lot of what I just said is moot, but I'm thinking this is just another way of solving the same problems. And this way, I think it'll actually be more fun, the act of cooking in the game.

So therefore in a dish like 'Spaghetti', you would have 'herbs' as a seasoning, 'pasta' as a secondary ingredient, and 'vegetables' as a main ingredient. I'm still thinking about all that, though...

[Ωbright]

This thing is back on again.

I now have all 9 judges.

- Kefka
- Caciss
- Sez
- Fruple
- Pagerron
- Ryner
- Adrian
- Fushigi
- ME

I'm almost done with the questionnaire thing. More developments as they arrive!

[Perversion]

Good to have you back, Obi. Hope things are going well (or at least, as well as they possibly can be going) for you.

[Ωbright]

Thanks. :p Considering my PS2 and MAX disk, I'll second that.

[Wavelength]

OK, so after seeing that all-star list of judges, Astronaut Zombie Wave can go take a hike.

I am VERY much looking forward to playing this one, and thrilled that the Pav Biography Contest is gonna be such a crowded race.

[Ωbright]

Thanks for volunteering as backup, Wave! I'm sorry I didn't wind up using you this time, but I really wanted to avoid having any of the same people if I could. Zombie astronaut Wavelength would have been classic though.

[Kefka Jr.]

I'm ready!!!

[Ryner]

I like unhealthy stuff!

[Ωbright]

I just wasted an entire weekend just trying to get people's portraits and models to be anywhere NEAR acceptable, and it's still not done. I'm going to stop doing that though and finish with the damn questionnaire already so I can get it sent off to everybody.

Kill me if I don't get this done tonight.

[Ωbright]

I SWEAR I'm almost done. Please don't kill me until sunrise.

The menu is almost done... 64 new dishes. Actually 63 new ones, because there's one dish that's been in every single game I've ever made, and I don't intend to stop that now because now it's like 'a thing'.

Or something.

It's hard to come up with all of these dishes. I don't want to get TOO familiar (hot dogs and fries), but I don't want to get too outlandish, either. Since it's based on actual food preferences, I want to use ingredients that people are going to be familiar with. I mean, HOW many people besides Perversion are going to know what guinea fowl in chocolate mole' tastes like?

I RUN AWAY.
:run

[Sivart]

UGH GROSS MOLE' SAUCE IS NASTY

GROSS

[Ωbright]

HEY! I KNOW... I'LL PUT HOT PEPPER JUICE IN SOME CHOCOLATE!

WON'T THAT BE GOOD.

[Ωbright]

All of the questionnaires are sent! Check your mail, spring peepers.

I GET TO LIVE.

[Wavelength]

All of the questionnaires are sent!

I GET TO LIVE.

But will Crunk get to live... in Canada?

Only time* will tell.



* = and the judges

[Ωbright]

I'm only missing 2 food surveys, the other 7 are received and processed!

No big rush, but whenever Caciss and Fruple get a chance to complete that, I can resume phase 3 of my game-making. Ness.

[Valkysas]

caciss still being lazy?

[Wavelength]

caciss still being lazy?

I guess Credit is better than Caciss.

...

...*crickets*

...

...Yeah. Couldn't resist.

[Ωbright]

Actually yeah, or whatever is happening to prevent him from answering 4 questions about what food he likes.

Anyway it's probably my fault, because I didn't give a deadline as to when I needed it, I just said 'whenever you can'. I just didn't want to issue a deadline and pressure people. It wasn't a problem with the 17 other people that have done it, so I didn't think about it.

Oh, except for MORA. He did that same thing last time.

WOW, CACISS SURE IS A LOT LIKE MORA.

Anyway, I'll give him until the end of the weekend to finish. I'm NOT looking for someone else, though. If he doesn't want to fill out the questions then I'm just putting him down as whatever would make the game mechanic work better. he's gonna like sweetened vegetables with vegetables. And chocolate mole'.

[Ωbright]

It's now Monday. Caciss never sent his responses. I'm kinda bummed, but I'm not mad at Caciss or anything. Sometimes you only remember things when you don't have time to do them. That's how I am, anyway. And yes I reminded him, but I'm still not mad because there's really no point. It's not like he didn't do it on purpose because he hates me now or something.

At least I don't think so...

Anyway, gotta move on. I'm just going to have to wing it, as far as what Caciss likes and dislikes.

I'm hopefully going to hit the game really hard tomorrow afternoon, and work as long as I can until I get burnt out. I really need to make up for some time.

[Valkysas]

I think you really need to stress that caciss is a furry, and likes to yiff.

[Draygone]

I resent that remark! :P

[Ωbright]

Oh and also Caciss is lame.

[Gustaff 13]

Crunk should ruin dining out for everyone by suggesting what the kitchen staff really does unsupervised.

Oh WAIT. He already did!

[Ωbright]

Staples hurt. I can't sit to work on this. I've tried over and over.

I AM GOING TO FINISH IT. I'll only have 2 weeks left, but I get these damn staples out on Monday. They are the main reason why I can't work on the game...24 metal pins stuck in my belly.

I hate them.

[Ωbright]

I'm all set to get these damn staples out today!! And now I can't sleep. :|

In game news, I had already pretty much done all I could do without Caciss' results, so it was a simple thing to get his 'results' input at least as placeholders. I know I haven't been able to make much progress in the game here lately, with surgery & all, but when we get home this afternoon I plan to get back into it hardcore.

Also, I QUIT SMOKING.

[Kefka Jr.]

So much progress!!

[Eschaton Orochi]

If Caciss can't do it, I'll gladly step in as a Judge.
Oh, and congrats on quitting smoking.

[Ωbright]

Thanks :)

It's going to run to the wire. 3 days left, and I'm not finished.

I still think I'm going to make it, though. I'm about halfway through the 300 or so text boxes I have to fill in.

Then I got sick of text inputting, and took a break by looking through the game code. I'm glad I did, because I forgot something important.

I'm tracking several new things like 'this dish has seafood in it', or 'this dish was made with onions'. Those will be used by certain judges, and will either reward or penalize you for it. It only required adding 1 more 2-way VC branch per judge, for a total of 18 new message boxes. Now all judges will score you based on your dish, and based on whether it's one of 4 dishes, or based on whether you use a hated ingredient, or a loved one. What I forgot to do was reset those variables when I was supposed to.

I'm glad to have fixed it though, in my preliminary tests, that one small thing alone added a lot to the gameplay, and you could win/lose because of it when it was a close game. It definitely made things more interesting.

And I also had to do that for your computer opponent. That was the really hard part, because it honestly took me forever to figure out how I did it last time. :| I mean, I know I did it by copying a variable value and pasting it to a separate variable, but when you copy, reset, and switch variables is another matter. Plus I was tracking several variables rather than just 1.

Anyway, all that is sorted. Finally. I hope.

Now I have to go back and spend 3 more days inputting text.

[Pagerron]

Yay Obright! I really hope that you make the deadline. You can do it man!!

It sounds really cool. :)

[Ωbright]

Thanks, I hope so!

It was much harder to come up with things for people to say this time.

I've spent a lot of time just sitting there looking at the screen saying "uhhhrmm..."

I was pleased with how the commentator turned out in the last episode, too. It's been really hard to parody the same people (real iron chef commentators) in the same way, using the same jokes, without saying the same things.

So I didn't.

This time I went about it from a totally different angle. I hope it's even half as funny as it was in the last episode, but we'll see.

[Ωbright]

NEVAR MYND

And I have 17 hospital bills. None of them are even opened. I've decided to collect them and make some kind of art project with them.

[Valkysas]

*high five*

woo bills.

[Perversion]

Bospital Hills!

[Ωbright]

I know people expect episode 2 to be an easy matter of erasing text and replacing it, but I swear it's not. I knew it wasn't going to be like that from the outset, but the more I work on it, the more I realize just how far from that it is.

And I know...it's just ONE LITTLE ADDITION. Just one little scoring facet to liven up the gameplay a little bit. But it's required me to almost re-make the game.

First of all in episode 1, the lowest possible score was 2, the highest was 24. The scoring system allowed scores only from that range. In episode 2, you can score from 0-27. It sounds like a simple thing, but it actually required some fairly major surgery because I had almost no room to work with.

That was the easy problem. The major problem is that when I add all of the coding necessary to activate the "you used ingredient ___" triggers and all of the VC branches within the judges to respond to them, I get loop errors right at the end. I'm not kidding, it says "And now for the winner of the entire match..." > loop trap.

Why am I just figuring this out now? Because I forgot to add these same bits of code for CRUNK, for when it's his turn. It wasn't until I noticed it when playtesting it recently.

I'm pretty sure I can fix it, but I'm supposed to be using this time for text input, not all of this technical stuff which was supposed to be done already. And it WAS done, it just wasn't done correctly.

It's still not the same as starting a game from scratch, but in some ways THIS IS HARDER, because I'm having to edit and improve what feels like someone else's game. It's taken me a very long time to simply figure out how the hell I made the first game so that I can work with it. I couldn't remember how I did anything at all. It took me a week just to figure out what variables 11-20 controlled. :|

I really do think it'll be worth it though, because that one little scoring facet is neat, and does add a dimension to the gameplay which I like.

For the last month or so, I've worked almost constantly. I know even as I type this that people aren't going to believe me, but it's the truth. I needed to playtest desperately for about 4 days straight, but my PS2 kept locking up before I could even get 1 3-round game in. Then I spent several days fixing a BAD error that nearly cost me my game data.

Stupid crap...all of it.

But I still have 3 days left. Wish me luck!

[Wavelength]

Ouch, buddy. I know how painful that is.

I hope you can figure it out! Let me know if you need a fresh set of eyes to take a look at your code.

Once you get to the text input, all you'll need to do it "keep on trucking".