Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The Compass
This item will be used to determine the player's current location, as well as enable the player to find hidden treasure
chests in dungeons. The former can be accomplished with a three-line common event, while the latter will rely on
the hidden chest events to require that the player possess the Compass (Item exists conditional). You can see the
Compass item in Figure
10-2
and its associated common event immediately thereafter.
Figure 10-2.
The Compass Key Item to be used for treasure hunts
•
Name: Compass
•
Trigger: None
@>Control Variables: [0002:X] = Player's Map X
@>Control Variables: [0003:Y] = Player's Map Y
@>Text: -, -, Normal, Bottom
: : Your current position is \V[2], \V[3].
@>
When the player uses the Compass from the menu, the game will poll the player's current X and Y position
and display it in a text box. How will the player know where those chests are? The simplest way, and the one I'll be
covering, is to have treasure notes that give the exact location of hidden chests, which makes it so that the player only
needs to use the Compass to find them. That, of course, leaves the question of how the player will find those treasure
notes. We can have the treasure hunter sell them! Or, rather, we can have him sell most of them, and make it so that
the player can find certain notes from other treasure chests. As already established in Chapter 7, eventing a shop with
Show Choices is a pain, at best. Yet, we know that we want the treasure hunter to sell treasure notes that will lead the
player to special loot. I have an alternate solution to our little quandary. We're going to use an event command we
have not touched up to now:
Input Number
. First, let's come up with five hidden treasure locations. (See Figure
10-3
).
