by Admiral Ackguh » Mon Jan 30, 2017 11:19 pm
If by "party", you mean multiple players, then no.
If by "party", you mean one player with a group of many characters (as in Ultima III and beyond), then maybe.
I experimented with a very simple system supporting up to four characters. Only in combat and other special situations does each character need to act on its own. Other times, the player controls the whole party. Even character names can be defined and stored, using 26 tiles for the alphabet.
ACK has only 52 general-purpose variables, not counting the HELLO pseudo-array (intended for NPC talk status). That severely limits the amount of space you need to store names (1 char for short variable, 2 char per long variable). Other data such as HP, max HP, stats, and weapon skills use up variables, even when packed. That leaves very little room for game-plot data.
The mega-patches have array-like scratch variables, and option settings - but these are not saved along with the regular variables. I was thinking of periodically saving these extra variables as objects in an unused region. I'm not sure if that will work, or if there is a way to trap game saves. (Game restores can be trapped.)
If by "party", you mean multiple [i]players[/i], then no.
If by "party", you mean one player with a group of many characters (as in [i]Ultima III[/i] and beyond), then maybe.
I experimented with a very simple system supporting up to four characters. Only in combat and other special situations does each character need to act on its own. Other times, the player controls the whole party. Even character names can be defined and stored, using 26 tiles for the alphabet.
ACK has only 52 general-purpose variables, not counting the HELLO pseudo-array (intended for NPC talk status). That severely limits the amount of space you need to store names (1 char for short variable, 2 char per long variable). Other data such as HP, max HP, stats, and weapon skills use up variables, even when packed. That leaves [b]very[/b] little room for game-plot data.
The mega-patches have array-like scratch variables, and option settings - but these are [b]not[/b] saved along with the regular variables. I was thinking of periodically saving these extra variables as objects in an unused region. I'm not sure if that will work, or if there is a way to trap game saves. (Game restores can be trapped.)