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Hey, I'm not sure how many other people use their phones to look at this site, but I can't open those files. Have you thought about hosting on Gitlab or GitHub, or putting the relevant code in your post in code format?

Anyway, without being able to see the code, are you using `sol.sprite.create()` or are you using `enemy:create_sprite()`? Usually what you want in this circumstance is probably `enemy:create_sprite`

Thanks! You're off to a great start. I don't really know that I have my own style, I learned how to do pixel art by making small changes to art from Zelda games. For Ocean's Heart I wanted sort of a mix between Oracle of Seasons and Minish Cap because I think those games have good art that lends itself well to good world design, and just, that's what happened. I wanted to do a bold, cartoony style because I think it's easier to read than how a lot of modern games have outline-less pixel art with more abstract shapes.

So I guess basically, I decided what was most important for the game I'm making, then made art decisions to support that.


One tip for your art here, some of your midtones actually look brighter than the highlights, because they're more saturated. There's a word for this, I can't remember, value? Luminosity? Anyway, the bed for instance, the wrinkles are lighter in value, but less saturated, and it looks a bit odd.

Looks like your fsa_effect script or maybe effect_manager are causing the issue. Could you post those, or link them, looks pretty long.

Oh, this looks super cool! Don't know how I missed it until now! Looks like a ton of stuff is going on in here, packed full! Nice job!

Largely depends on your entities' code, too. I had an enemy I'd written kinda poorly that caused lag on my decent laptop with just 5-6 of them. Are they calling functions every few milliseconds? Or just wandering randomly? That'll make a difference.

Out of curiosity, why do you want to merge everything into one map? Seems more difficult to work with, especially if you're putting much code into the map script.

The transition between music between maps isn't really seamless either though, haha

Using sensors is exactly how I'd do it too. Using the sensor:on_activated() event to call sol.audio.play_music

You might want two sensors per transition, one to okay the field music, one on the inside of that to play the town music.

No, you're right. Any use of Nintendo's copyrighted assets is copyright infringement. The Solarus engine isn't Nintendo though, some people are just using Nintendo assets within their games.

The nuance is that fan-works of fiction are an art form that goes long back into history. Fanfiction is copyright infringement also, but various IP owners take different stances on what they allow.

Nintendo tends to ignore smaller infringements (which is logical, it'd take a lot to prosecute). But if one of the games that uses Nintendo assets got a letter from Nintendo, they'd have to take it down.

The good news is, there's a lot of work in this engine that doesn't use Nintendo assets, lots of which is using open-source assets, which are free for anyone to then reuse if they're so inspired.

Hey, a while ago someone asked me about something like this on the discord, and just now I figured out a decent script for this so I thought I'd share it in case anyone else needs to do this.

This is some simple code for one of those situations where you want the player to press a number of switches (or talk to a number of NPCs, kill a number of enemies, etc.) in a certain order. This code allows you to just write the names of those entities (switches, npcs, enemies, whatever) into an array in that order:

Code (lua) Select Expand


local switch_index = 1
local switches = {"ordered_entity_2", "ordered_entity_4", "ordered_entity_3", "ordered_entity_1"} --I had several NPCs that you needed to interact with in a certain order

for entity in map:get_entities("ordered_entity_") do
  function entity:on_interaction() --or, entity:on_dead() for enemies, entity:on_activated() for switches, etc.
    map:process_switch(self:get_name())
  end
end

function map:process_switch(name)
  if switches[switch_index] == name then
    switch_index = switch_index + 1
    --show some feedback here so they player knows they did something
    sol.audio.play_sound"switch"
    if switch_index == (#switches + 1) then
      --do whatever happens when you do all the things in the right order:
      sol.audio.play_sound"switch"
      map:open_doors("skull_door")
    end
  else
    --if the player hits one out of order:
    sol.audio.play_sound"wrong"
    switch_index = 1
  end
end


Map:on_started is called before isn't a good place to start this. Map:on_opening_transition_finished() is called after on_sarted, and also the hero is automatically unfrozen after the transition is over, which is probably the issue you're solving with the 1sec delay.

Try calling this from on_opening_transition_finished, that might fix it

Probably a reasonable, simple way to do it is like

Local failed = false
function enemy_1:on_dead()
  if enemy 2 or 3 is dead
    failed = true
  end
end

function enemy_2:on_dead()
  if enemy 3 is dead or enemy 1 is alive
    failed = true
  end
end

function enemy_3:on_dead()
  if enemy 1 and 2 are dead and failed = false
    Open door
  end
end


I don't want to type actual code on my phone, lol. But map:has_entity("enemy_1") will return true if they're around, false of they're dead.

This isn't the most elegant way to do this, but it's simple to understand. Honestly when I started typing I thought it'd be a lot simpler lol. If you wanted to do more than 3 enemies in a certain order, this would get bad though. Then you'd want an array of enemies that checked if each one before it was dead and each one after it was alive probably.

Hi Wuzzy. I've communicated with you twice since you sent that message, explaining that the first round of beta testers finished up, the game is undergoing some big changes, and I am planning another round of beta tests in October-November.

I'm currently between betas for Ocean's Heart, but around October-November (roughly), I'll be opening another closed beta.

If that's not working for you I understand, you're free to have the clarity you need to move on then. Thanks!

Yeah, the on_created event is called before the game starts. It creates all the items, it's better than not creating the item in memory until you get it for a lot of reasons.

On variant changed would be the right place, but I still can't figure out why it wouldn't be playing automatically. If you game is on gitlab or GitHub I can pull it down and take a look if you want. Have you made other items and the dialogues display automatically?

Could the sword item in that pack being in a subdirectory also be a factor? Also just gave a cursory glance.

I dropped your item's code into my sword item, and it displayed the dialog when I picked it up, so it's not your code there, and if you're getting any dialogs at all, it's not setting the language in main.lua.

Your item is called "sword", right? Since the engine uses the item's name to search for a matching dialog in the _treasures dialogs. That's the only other thing I can think of at the moment :^0

Hmm, it's probably just a small mistake, but it's hard to say where if you aren't getting error messages.

If you set the item as a pickable, instead of in a chest, do you still not get the dialogue? If there's no dialogue for an item you pick up as a pickable, there will just be a 1-2 second pause where the hero is holding the item and nothing is happening. If that pause is happening, it's definitely the item not finding the dialog. Does the item's script have item:set_brandish()? The item might be not displaying the dialog because of some code in the item.