The Broken Hourglass: A Small Sample of Code

I don't really have anything exciting to say today--mostly just popping in to say "Yup, coding continues." (I almost wrote ~"Coding continues"~ which should tell you something about how dialog is formatted).  I'm still working on learning; it's a pretty steep curve.  Hmmm... since I'm feeling uninspired and uninspiring today, how bout I give you an almost completely unexplained snippet of code? One that isn't in the game at all.

First, a basic creature looks something like this:

<xml>
<Template value="crecolor_19.CREATURETEMPLATE"/>
<Template value="basic-innocent.CREATURETEMPLATE"/>
<Name value= ~Nemo~/>
<race value="human"/>
<appearance value="mhhero1"/>
<Dialogue value="nemo"/>
<Party value="nemo_alone"/>

<Starting_Itemcount value="simple$(gold,900)"/>
<Starting_Item value="dagger"/>

<Area value="area_govinn"/>
<x value="1539"/>
<y value="2476"/>
<initial_direction value="west"/>
</xml>

Then he has a party, which generally says where he hangs out and who else gets mad if he's attacked, and which can, sometimes, be used to make groups of creatures do things together. His is called nemo_alone:

<xml>
<Area value="area_govinn"/>
</xml>

And then he has a script:

begin nemo

begin talk
    goto nemo_greet
end

begin nemo_greet
say ~"Hello. I am Nemo."~
++ ~"Hello, Nemo. I want you to give me some sanguil."~ goto nemo_give
++ ~"Nemo, it is time for you to leave."~ goto nemo_bye
end

begin nemo_give
say ~"I don't normally do things like this, but ok."~ do ( (_atomic_item_give ("nemo"::"CREATURE") ("gold"::"ITEM") ) 25 _player1) goto nemo_enough
end

begin nemo_enough
say ~"Was that enough?"~
++ ~"Yes. Now I want you to leave."~ goto nemo_bye
++ ~"No."~ goto nemo_toobad
end

begin nemo_bye
say ~"Such is the way of the world."~  goto nemo_depart
end

begin nemo_toobad
say ~"Too bad. I'm leaving anyway."~ goto nemo_depart
end

begin nemo_depart
do (_escape_area_remove_from_game _me)
exit
end

end

And here he is, real as life and twice as natural:

There are bits and pieces of tutorial over at the Planewalker Games Website, by the way, if you happen to feel like delving into this in more detail.

Incidentally, this also demonstrates the difficulty I, personally, have in keeping it simple or short, but that is another story.