Hello, as the title says I have a couple of questions. Some are perhaps ment for the developers but others may know it aswell?
Firstly, something that's really bothering me, I
cannot seem to figure out how to resize/scale nodes.
It feels like I've tried any key combo I could think of and still no luck. Might someone wiser than me know how to do this?
========================================================================
Then with the
big question out of the way I had two more things to wonder about.
There are a few scripts/entities that refer to 2 upgrades for the EnergyForm (
FORMUPGRADE_ENERGY1 and
FORMUPGRADE_ENERGY2), although they appear to be cut from the game itself they do function (and are pretty cool). But that is not what I wanted to ask about, instead, while browsing the constants I found a third upgrade for the BeastForm (
FORMUPGRADE_BEAST). I tried adding it but I couldn't notice any immediate changes, that combined with the fact this upgrade does not even have a hidden/removed script makes me think it may never have been developed further towards an actual upgrade. Is this correct?
========================================================================
Lastly, as a big final, a question about modding the original Aquaria maps. Well modding isn't really the right word for what I'm thinking about, more like expanding or integrating. For example, lets say I want to make a mod with a series of dungeons, each one with a moderate reward at the end and all of them containing complex puzzles with various form requirements. I could make the whole thing a seperate mod, in which upon starting it will warp you to the first dungeon where you can start your puzzles.
But that presents two problems (IMO):
#1. There isn't really any point to the rewards or completing the dungeons, apart from being able to say "I beat it", there aren't any things you'll be able to use in the original Aquaria.
#2. It would take away a large part of the concept of Aquaria, where you learn new things throughout the game and each new skill may open new doors in previously visited areas. If I were to put these dungeons into a seperate mod, each form would need to be added by script purely so you can complete the dungeon. And each dungeon would lead directly to the next since, well there isn't really anything in between.
With these 2 points in mind I began thinking of a way to integrate new maps into the original Aquaria. Fortunately it wasn't all that hard, thanks to the
Native Aquaria mod. With that loaded up I'd add a simple trigger to warp Naija to a new map. Then save it and copy it back to
Aquaria\data\Maps, overriding the existing file. Ingame, my new trigger showed up and worked without problems, I even got the MiniMap to work for this new area (at first the MiniMap wouldn't recognize where I was).
But this methode is ofcourse not without downsides, cause I'd have to edit a map file in order to add or integrate new things. Even then only 1 mod would be able to do this. Then I was thinking, what if there was a way to add entities and nodes (and such) to a map and then saving it to a new/sub file (I know, sounds vague
). Like when you have a map:
mainarea.xml, then any file starting with that plus an underscore would be inserted/added to it (like mainarea_XYZ.xml). That way, a modder could add new, but simple, things to an existing area with a reasonable compatibility.
I've been reading up a bit and I realize the idea of modding for Aquaria was to add completely new things and not altering the existing campaign. But there is a difference between modding the game and supplementing the game. With my for mentioned example it would mean more dungeons people can explore without requiring the need to create a whole new game in between. Ofcourse I don't really know much about the inner workings so it may be too difficult or tiresome to add such a mechanism but IMO would be well worth it.
What do you people (and developers aswell) think?
-kyoma
