DD# 93 The Voice of Machine and A Question of Faith
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
The main feature of this week are:
1, You can now let your computer read all the dialog text for you!
That's right. As we all know any good RPG has a lot of text, and it's almost impossible to get voice-over to every single line of dialog. Reading becomes a tedious problem after a few hours of playing (even though I highly doubt anyone played this game more than I do. :P)
Anyway, here is the solution. I hooked in Microsoft's TTS to the game, allowing it to read every dialog for you. You can trigger this feature by clicking the "S" key during any dialog. It's an async process, you can stop the reading anytime you like.
By default, the system uses a default voice set for each localization configuration file. If such a voice is not found, it will then try to use the voice set in the control panel of your machine. If neither was successful then it will, unfortunately, be unable to read text. However, it's highly customizable. You can manually change the language configuration file to use any voice installed on your machine to do the reading. You can find all installed voice packs in your register path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens\
In addition to that, the game's voice volume affects the reading volume while you can also set the reading speed in the audio setting to suit your needs.
2, A piano to play with.
We got a new type of furniture known as the piano this week. Just to make things a bit fun, I made those pianos that can actually be played as pianos.
The idea comes from SAPC++ when I first implemented a beep-based piano system about 10 years ago. Now, we are no longer using system beep sounds. Instead, the sound of each key is recorded from a real-life piano. It's just a toy with no goal right now. Maybe, getting enjoyable music is its own reward. Maybe, it will turn into a mini-game with goals in the future.
3, A Question of Faith
Or rather, the total rework of the faith system. Back in the day of SAPC++, the faith system was simple, you pick a faith and get some positive and negative effects. Sometimes, some game mechanics are involved. But, overall, that was way too simple.
Now, I want something better. Something maybe even more complex than CK3, CIV6, and Godhood's faith system. Something that you can develop your very own faith and spread across the world, gaining followers and influence. It's kinda ambitious and requires a lot of design and programming. It's still in a very early stage of development. But, how can we live without faith in an ever-deteriorating world that lost its keeper in 2018? It's something that keeps us going even in the darkest hours.
But, of course. Some believe the world is way beyond redemption, they'd prefer a big reset button.
Here comes something that has been implemented in the game.
All the zealous Aten Cultists now follow their faith.
As we live in a highly diverse world, I personally think it's a good thing. Each faith can be highly customized with one Center of Belief and many tenets to build around it, resulting in endless variations when the faith database grows.
But, we shall leave that part to the future as the development of this aspect of the game continues.
That's for this week. May the black sun, burn this hateful world.
Just as a wise man once said, everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the world to end.
And they thought vampires, werewolves, and the night are to be feared during this Halloween.
Think again when the sun comes to annihilate all.
Today's changelog:
##########Content############
[Faith]New Faith: Aten
[Faith]New Center of Belief: Aten
[Faith]New Tenet: Prophecy of the Black Sun
[Faith]New Tenet: Sun Worship (+2% ice resistance)
[Aten Cultists]All Aten Cultists now have Aten faith.
##########Wiki###############
Added wiki page: Center of Belief: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Faith:_Center_of_Belief
Added wiki page: Tenet: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Faith:_Tenet
##########System#############
[Item Detail Window] Unified the special attribution drawing function between weapons and equipment, and reduced duplicated code.
[Faith]New faith system is now attached to all characters. (Both your allies and foes.)
[Faith]Tenets can now provide special attributions to characters.
[Faith Scene]Added a very basic version of the faith scene. The visible content is quite limited.
[Status Window]Character status window now draws faith information based on the new faith system. (Notably, some teammates now have their faiths set to WIP as those will be added later.)
[Status Window]You can now click on a character's faith to visit the faith scene.
[Status Window]Added hotkey: F to open the faith scene.
The main feature of this week are:
1, You can now let your computer read all the dialog text for you!
That's right. As we all know any good RPG has a lot of text, and it's almost impossible to get voice-over to every single line of dialog. Reading becomes a tedious problem after a few hours of playing (even though I highly doubt anyone played this game more than I do. :P)
Anyway, here is the solution. I hooked in Microsoft's TTS to the game, allowing it to read every dialog for you. You can trigger this feature by clicking the "S" key during any dialog. It's an async process, you can stop the reading anytime you like.
By default, the system uses a default voice set for each localization configuration file. If such a voice is not found, it will then try to use the voice set in the control panel of your machine. If neither was successful then it will, unfortunately, be unable to read text. However, it's highly customizable. You can manually change the language configuration file to use any voice installed on your machine to do the reading. You can find all installed voice packs in your register path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens\
In addition to that, the game's voice volume affects the reading volume while you can also set the reading speed in the audio setting to suit your needs.
2, A piano to play with.
We got a new type of furniture known as the piano this week. Just to make things a bit fun, I made those pianos that can actually be played as pianos.
The idea comes from SAPC++ when I first implemented a beep-based piano system about 10 years ago. Now, we are no longer using system beep sounds. Instead, the sound of each key is recorded from a real-life piano. It's just a toy with no goal right now. Maybe, getting enjoyable music is its own reward. Maybe, it will turn into a mini-game with goals in the future.
3, A Question of Faith
Or rather, the total rework of the faith system. Back in the day of SAPC++, the faith system was simple, you pick a faith and get some positive and negative effects. Sometimes, some game mechanics are involved. But, overall, that was way too simple.
Now, I want something better. Something maybe even more complex than CK3, CIV6, and Godhood's faith system. Something that you can develop your very own faith and spread across the world, gaining followers and influence. It's kinda ambitious and requires a lot of design and programming. It's still in a very early stage of development. But, how can we live without faith in an ever-deteriorating world that lost its keeper in 2018? It's something that keeps us going even in the darkest hours.
But, of course. Some believe the world is way beyond redemption, they'd prefer a big reset button.
Here comes something that has been implemented in the game.
All the zealous Aten Cultists now follow their faith.
As we live in a highly diverse world, I personally think it's a good thing. Each faith can be highly customized with one Center of Belief and many tenets to build around it, resulting in endless variations when the faith database grows.
But, we shall leave that part to the future as the development of this aspect of the game continues.
That's for this week. May the black sun, burn this hateful world.
Just as a wise man once said, everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the world to end.
And they thought vampires, werewolves, and the night are to be feared during this Halloween.
Think again when the sun comes to annihilate all.
Today's changelog:
##########Content############
[Faith]New Faith: Aten
[Faith]New Center of Belief: Aten
[Faith]New Tenet: Prophecy of the Black Sun
[Faith]New Tenet: Sun Worship (+2% ice resistance)
[Aten Cultists]All Aten Cultists now have Aten faith.
##########Wiki###############
Added wiki page: Center of Belief: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Faith:_Center_of_Belief
Added wiki page: Tenet: https://neolithia.fandom.com/wiki/Faith:_Tenet
##########System#############
[Item Detail Window] Unified the special attribution drawing function between weapons and equipment, and reduced duplicated code.
[Faith]New faith system is now attached to all characters. (Both your allies and foes.)
[Faith]Tenets can now provide special attributions to characters.
[Faith Scene]Added a very basic version of the faith scene. The visible content is quite limited.
[Status Window]Character status window now draws faith information based on the new faith system. (Notably, some teammates now have their faiths set to WIP as those will be added later.)
[Status Window]You can now click on a character's faith to visit the faith scene.
[Status Window]Added hotkey: F to open the faith scene.