Progress ~ Ancient Magic: Script Fully Inserted
Ancient Magic
# Posted on May 1, 2010, 8:35 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

A few days ago I finally managed to get Ancient Magic's auto-format routine working nearly 100%. What this means, in effect, is that I add a single control code at the start of a string, and the game itself adds line breaks where appropriate. This is complicated by Ancient Magic's text system for two reasons. First, there is no standard "line break" command like most games have; instead, the game has a "print cursor position" command, which takes X and Y parameter bytes. Second, the routine likes to recursively call itself, most notably to differentiate between the speech patterns of the male and female main characters. These have been fully retained in the text translation, and the routine is currently navigating said recursive jumps with about 98% accuracy. Of course we need 100%, but it's really cool to see nonetheless.

The *nice* thing about the super annoying Cursor Position command is that it lets me tweak menus like crazy, and take advantage of the double-spacing that ten-ten marks usually occupy. I've also managed to add max hp and max mp indicators to the battle window, which the original game did not have!

I don't know how much longer this will take, but I'd like to have it being playtested in a week or two. No guarantees on that, of course.