HiddenChest RGSS Player Executable

[kyonides]

So people, got any OTHER suggestions? Really, I don't wanna deal with fonts for a while...

[DerVVulfman]

I got one, but it's a killer.....

Map Zoom and Distance. Obviously, zooming in brings all tiles/sprites/etc closer to the viewer or player. Makes everything larger. Distance is the reverse and makes it so you see more than a normal 20x15 tile viewport with RMXP.

[kyonides]

Nah, the zoom is kind of incorporated in mkxp and HiddenChest from the beginning, just change some settings in the hiddenchest.conf file and you get... a permanent zoom

[DerVVulfman]

Not when it's a cinematic part of a game that a game developer wants, like having the camera zoom away to show how big the world is. I've seen it requested in games for quite a while. And MGC's NeoMode7 has that feature in his DLL.

[kyonides]

So practically you're asking me to include a Mode7 script / code... Not gonna happen any time soon, guys! Recall I'm developing it on my own and I'm not a superb C++ nor C developer at all.

[DerVVulfman]

Oh, no no no no. It was also made a decade ago with the RMXP SDK whilst using SephrothSpawn's Tilemap remake. Nothing but Ruby code there. BUT it would be faster with C+ and you were game, his Neo Mode 7 thread has source code for his DLL

[kyonides]

Something Makes Me Think We Are in the Twilight Zone!

 

At least that's what I think... What about you, guys?  

It's true! Now we gotta read backwards!  

Nah! I just let you use a new method to draw text in the opposite direction.

No images on the harddisk are needed here!

Guess what? There's still more I need to tell you today!

Now you can load fonts located in several different paths!

Like /usr/share/fonts and many others!

You don't really need to stick with the local Fonts directory!  

What I (un)intentionally forgot to mention here is that it's only valid for Linux distros sadly...

Alright, it's a good thing for Linux enthusiasts like your servitor.

I don't know how to convert %WINDIR% into a working path so Windows users gotta wait a little bit longer...

Even so I've got good news for you! You can be saved today!  

OK, fine! This is a maker site, I know...  

But it's still kind of valid even for the RMXP engine based game projects...  

Melana: Kyonides, is it really so hard for you to finally let us know what you're talking about here?

A living pack of wolvish fleas: Let him be! He just need to add some thrill to his story as usual.

Melana: Yeah, you're probably right, DerVVulfman... It gotta be just another awesome feature he included in his engine.

Kyonides: Huh!? I wonder what made you think so in the first place.  

I guess I might end up disappointing you, guys, a little bit but not more than that.  

It happens that I managed to find a pesky bug and smash it!  

You know, it felt really good to exact revenge on it.

Melana: Oh I see... You could say bug fixes are welcome as well.

Kyonides: Glad to read that, dear sweet dreamer!

Especially because it happened right in the midst of bloody battles against those cold assassins better known as phantoms!  

Melana: Why do you say so? Did they appear and disappear in battle as real ghosts?

BountyHunterLani: O_O *vanishes in thin air like a ghost then*

Kyonides: Kind of... Even if I didn't notice she had visited my thread earlier today...

Some admin: You gotta have scared her with your beyond the crypt news for sure!

Actually what I really mean here is that we've got other ghosts than the actual white ghosts Aluxes seems to love... slashing in his spare time.  

Melana: This is really perturbing, now my dreams will become actual nightmares for sure.  

Kyonides: On the contrary, Melana!

DerVVulfman: Then explain yourself!

Well, on Windows but never on Linux distros you were able to witness something "amazing"...

Battle animations except for colored flashes had disappeared!

I've told you there were more ghosts than ever to talk about here.

Don't worry, my fellow adventurers!

It has been fixed permanently!

Melana: But how did it happen?

Furry Wolf: Yeah, I've never seen that on any other engine...

Kyonides: Well, there's a funny story behind it...  

I might have had introduced a minimal bug about a couple of months ago that prevent the engine from setting the default sprite's opacity to 255 as usual. You see, originally both the setter and getter functions written in C used a macro that called C++ code to get its value.

BountyHunterLani: Me not understand...

Oh... It means that setting and retrieving the current opacity value depended on an entirely different language, namely C++. I just preferred to load it from Ruby itself and that's where the opacity was set to nil instead of 255 or any other valid value. So I had to manually set it and now it works as expected.  

What I find the most curious out of all of this long tale is that it also took me a few days to find it out on my own. We could now say that the length of my current post reflects those days of confusion, dead ends and frustration.  

You know what? Loading fonts from other locations on Linux also seemed to be such a pain you know where...  

I was supposed to upload the demo like on December 31st, then last night but it only took place today.  

By the way, I repeat: "horizontal flip applied on fonts now work on all officially supported platforms!"

Here's a sample script.

Code:

@sprite = Sprite.new
@sprite.set_xy(100, 100)
@sprite.bitmap = Bitmap.new(250, 44
font = @sprite.bitmap.font
font.flip = true
font.name = 'Hack'
font.shadow = true
font.shadow_size = 2
@sprite.bitmap.draw_text(0, 0, 250, 40, "Hacking your PC! :P", 1)

[DerVVulfman]

It happens that I managed to find a pesky bug and smash it!

Funny you keep talking about fleas, but are the one having to use up big cans of 'Raid'.

Nah! I just let you use a new method to draw text in the opposite direction.

So okay... I got a challenge... Instead of left-to right, how about a Top-Down format for the text as it's written in Japanese or Chinese books?

T..W

H..O

E..L

...V

...E

...R

...I

...N

...E

[kyonides]

Do it yourself by changing the default RGSS script... =_=¡

By the way, I'd like to ask you to send me PM's with the most common Win32API calls so as I can include some sort of script in HiddenChest to transform them into HiddenChest Game Scripting alias HCGS (since I can't call it RGSS for I don't own that acronym... )

[kyonides]

Graphical Improvements & Extended Arrays

Well, I guess you might recall I provided colored backdrops that included several colors like gray, sepia, blue, red, green and yellow. Guess what? I totally forgot about black! I don't offer white because, well, the engine thinks it's pretty much transparent or excessively grayish.

What's this? A gradient backdrop!?

I can also take a look at the current map!

A backdrop with vignettes included!

Backdrop Additions

Backdrop.color_bitmap(:black)
Backdrop.gradient_bitmap(color, color, false_true_nil) - With different results for each boolean type!
Backdrop.pos_gradient_bitmap(Xpos, Ypos, color, color)
Backdrop.map_gradient_bitmap(opacity, Xpos, Ypos, color, color)
Backdrop.vignette_bitmap(color_or_array, boolean)

Array Extensions

@max_items and @min_items - Now an array can be limited if deemed necessary!
Array#items_min_max(min, max) - Set its minimum and maximum
Array#push_upto_max(new_element) - Append unless it's full
Array#unshift_upto_max(new_element) - Prepend unless it's full
Array#pop_upto_min - Delete elements till it reaches its minimum number
Array#shift_upto_min - Delete elements till it reaches its minimum number
Array#clear_upto_min - Delete elements till it reaches its minimum number
Array#push_uniq(new_element) - only if it's unique
Array#unshift_uniq(new_element) - only if it's unique
Array#even_indices alias Array#even_indexes - every element in positions 0, 2, 4, etc.
Array#odd_indices alias Array#odd_indexes - every element in positions 1, 3, 5, etc.

Already Available on:

*Ubuntu 18.04 LTS & Fedora 31 & Windows

Keep checking out this thread for future updates!

Happy Photo Taking with Vignettes Included!