Prelude to Darkness is a pretty damn awesome RPG

[vazha]

All I know is I d throw money at anyone who would attempt that and deliver it. Patreon, kickstarter, whatever.

 

[V_K]

IIRC most of PtD's content and even parts of the mechanics (e.g. spells) is contained in plain text scripts that require no reverse engineering whatsoever. So I'd imagine it'd be fairly easy to recreate in Unity or some other ready-made engine. Sure, art assets would have to be changed, but I doubt many people would cry over them.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

IIRC most of PtD's content and even parts of the mechanics (e.g. spells) is contained in plain text scripts that require no reverse engineering whatsoever. So I'd imagine it'd be fairly easy to recreate in Unity or some other ready-made engine. Sure, art assets would have to be changed, but I doubt many people would cry over them.

or in rpgmaker.

this also has other consequences.
if you combine the fact that resources are in plaintext and that level editor is available in the game, you can come to a conclusion that it is possible to use PtD engine to create your own games, or even recreate existing, for example recreate Age Of Decadence to see how it would've played on PtD engine as was originally intended. It may even become the definitive edition of the game.

 

[vazha]

How about porting PtD to AoD/DR engine instead? i could live with AoD combat & PtD world & quests.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Notify about Skill Checks Mod for Prelude To Darkness.

download here: https://gofile.io/d/1o7MQ9
replace people.txt and events.txt in the game folder with linked files.
delete events.bin (it will recompile during game launch, so it will take more time than usual)..

Added this for both events and persons (which contains all dialogue interactions with npcs).

Added notifications for conditional checks like:

1) (if (equals (getchar (getbest ^SKILL_NAME^) ^SKILL_NAME^) 0)
I.E. checks if anyone in party has a skill value higher than 0
Most of the times I've seen this during training when certain characters cannot teach you a skill you have 0 xp in. Also it happens than npc wants to teach you a spell of certain school of magic (for example Golem spell as a reward for exploring ancient ruins), but noone in your party has 0 skill in this, so npc apologizes and says he cant give you that reward.

2) (cond (comp (getchar ^LEAD^ ^SKILL_NAME^) SKILL_VALUE)
Checks if currently selected (aka ^LEAD^) character has SKILL_NAME higher than SKILL_VALUE

3) (cond (comp (getchar (getbest ^SKILL_NAME^) ^SKILL_NAME^) SKILL_VALUE)
Checks if any character in part has a SKILL_NAME higher than SKILL_VALUE

4) (cond (comp (getchar (getworst ^SKILL_NAME^) ^SKILL_NAME^) SKILL_VALUE)
Checks if any character in part has a SKILL_NAME lower or equal to SKILL_VALUE
This one usually checks for low charisma characters to fail a social situation to a party or stealth for a single character to fail stealth situation.

Not implemented checks for items in player inventory (like having paper and pen to ask a character to draw a suspect face) and checks for NPC characters (usually checks if they have certain amount of HP to open certain dialogue options or initiate event). Sex and background (River, Flame, Mixed) may or may not work properly.

I used regular expressions to modify persons.txt and events.txt in notepad ++

Here's some of the notes I left:

Spoiler

_________________________________________________________________
Party lead:
\1 - all exp
\2 - stat
\3 - required >
lookpup:
(\(cond \(comp \(getchar \^LEAD\^ \^([a-zA-Z\s]+)\^\) (\d+)\))
replace:
\(saychar 0 0 0 \(string \[Lead %s attempts a check of %s > %s\] \(getchar ^LEAD^ ^NAME^\) \[\2\] \[\3\]\)\) \1
__________________________________________________________________
Party best:
\1 - all exp
\2 - stat
\3 - required >
lookup:
(\(cond \(comp \(getchar \(getbest \^\w+\^\) \^([a-zA-Z\s]+)\^\) (\d+)\))
replace:
\(saychar 0 0 0 \(string \[Party best %s attempts a check of %s > %s\] \(getchar \(getbest \^\2\^\) ^NAME^\) \[\2\] \[\3\]\)\) \1
__________________________________________________________________
Party worst:
\1 - all exp
\2 - stat
\3 - required >
lookup:
(\(cond \(comp \(getchar \(getworst \^([a-zA-Z\s]+)\^\) \^[a-zA-Z\s]+\^\) (\d+)\))
replace:
\(saychar 0 0 0 \(string \[Party worst %s attempts a check of %s > %s\] \(getchar \(getworst \^\2\^\) ^NAME^\) \[\2\] \[\3\]\)\) \1
__________________________________________________________________
Anyone at all has skill higher than 0:
\1 - all exp
\2 - stat
lookup:
(\(if \(equals \(getchar \(getbest \^([a-zA-Z\s]+)\^\) \^\w+\^\) 0\))
replace:
\(saychar 0 0 0 \(string \[Check if anyone has %s > 0\] \[\2\] \)\) \1
__________________________________________________________________

*There are some issues with partyworst check message (doesnt show the value it checks against). Will fix tomorrow...

 

[Tramboi]

It's a lisp, great

 

[PrettyDeadman]

It's a lisp, great

I am not sure about this (not familiar with Lisp though).
If you go to Functions.txt - function declarations dont really look like lisp.

Does this look like lisp to you:

Spoiler

(#GetBestSkill#
(!begin!
(sflag ^StatNum^ ^Sword^)
(sflag ^BestStat^ ^Sword^)
(dofor 21
(
(cond (comp (getchar (lookstack) (flag ^BestStat^)) (getchar (lookstack) (flag ^StatNum^)))
(sflag ^BestStat^ (flag ^StatNum^))
()
()
)
(flagp ^StatNum^ 1)
)
)
(pop) ;remove the character from the stack;
(push (flag ^BestStat^)) ;put the best stat number on the stack;
);begin;
);GetBestStat;

Though I guess theoretically lisp can look like anything. All of the functions can be nonstandart.

 

[Tramboi]

Yep not "Common Lisp" but a Lispy DSL

 

[JarlFrank]

If you can fix all the crashes I'll send you 5 bucks

 

[Darth Canoli]

How about porting PtD to AoD/DR engine instead? i could live with AoD combat & PtD world & quests.

I like AoD engine, some camera views aside but i'm not sure it would allow a party based adventure.
And modding seems hell, at least on the user end, you have to unpack games assets, add the mods and repack them, i like mods usually but not that much.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

2560 x 1440 screen (on mobile camera):

 

[PrettyDeadman]

If you can fix all the crashes I'll send you 5 bucks

I am pretty sure dxwrapper with proper settings singificantly reduces crashes. The only real problem so far is losing focus (aka alt-tabbing) crashing the game.
I will probably play the game for a couple of hours tomorrow. If you can think of a situation which causes crashes - tell me about it. Moving camera in caves doesnt do it for me.

 

[Fowyr]

I give you my blessings and my old mantle.

Notify about Skill Checks Mod for Prelude To Darkness.

That's nice! I was pretty sure that Nature skill was almost useless outside one quest.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I will probably play the game for a couple of hours tomorrow. If you can think of a situation which causes crashes - tell me about it. Moving camera in caves doesnt do it for me.

That's the main cause, specially in the sewers, the ancient's "city" and the late dweller's cave up north.
Maybe leveling up sometimes when distributing skill points if you're not careful.

 

[Fowyr]

Hm, there was a very small area with a pair of golems (?) close to the end of the game. Ruins of the Ancients or something. That was a camera crashfest. The smaller the area, the more probable was crash. Just zoom out and move it around with mouse (moving camera with numpad caused less crashes).

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Hm, there was a very small area with a pair of golems (?) close to the end of the game. Ruins of the Ancients or something. That was a camera crashfest. The smaller the area, the more probable was crash. Just zoom out and move it around with mouse (moving camera with numpad caused less crashes).

It would be best if you send me save files of a location if you have some stored. It might take me a while to get there otherwise.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

This game reminds me of the original Ultima 9 screenshots that were published before they went with 3rd person OTS.

 

[Tramboi]

IIRC most of PtD's content and even parts of the mechanics (e.g. spells) is contained in plain text scripts that require no reverse engineering whatsoever. So I'd imagine it'd be fairly easy to recreate in Unity or some other ready-made engine. Sure, art assets would have to be changed, but I doubt many people would cry over them.

When I tried it, I experienced a lot of crashes in the native code.
There probably are lifetime issues and so on, and it would need fixing the bugs. Either reverse engineering and binary patching, or, better, reimplementing the engine.

 

[Fowyr]

It would be best if you send me save files of a location if you have some stored. It might take me a while to get there otherwise.

Sorry, it was more than ten years when I finished PtD, so I deleted them a long time ago.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It would be best if you send me save files of a location if you have some stored. It might take me a while to get there otherwise.

I still have my saves but apparently none from the ancient city/ruins.

Spoiler

You need 30 literacy to get there from a central village with some ruins, NE from the starting village, just talk to the scientist/historian searching for the ancients.

I'm not sure how it's scaled so it might be (or not) extremely dangerous if you get there too soon.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

So I tried this game the very day when I wrote my first comment in this thread, but gave up after several crashes in row in cave.
However, now I plan to make a serious attempt at playing PtD, but since there helluva lot attributes without a way to increase them manually (I did not knew this during my first walkthrough) through game I think some meta knowledge required.
Anyone have suggestions for attributes for good ol' fireball slinger/Thaumaturgy guy? I know that main stats are dex and int, but what about values of str,end,spd and willpower? Is willpower as important for non casters as tips in character creation says? Good values of dex and speed for fighters? is there a reason to not dump int for pure melee/ranged combatants since their skills can be trained with practice on random encounters? Is there a time limit like in Fallout games?
Tips about attributes in general is very appreciated.
Lord_Potato your druid in review seriously buffed for character without combat skills to train strength for example, is there any secret?
Darth Canoli your insight would be appreciated too.
Sorry to bother you guys, I just feel a bit overwhelmed by the game.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I've had no problems there other than game crashing after I died

But moving camera, zooming in and zooming out caused no problems.

 

[Watser]

That's amazing. The game would crash in that area at the mere thought of touching the camera.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I still had 2 crashes:
1) Almost immediately after entering area I've activated the golem and got smacked for 69 damage. Dying in this circumstances seemed to crash the game.
2) During the last enemy encounter I got weird pathing issues (couldn't move through the door, even though the grid showed I can, but skipping the turn worked). After that I tried to reload during enemy movement in out of sight area. That caused the crash and corrupted savefile (probably corrupted save file was the cause of crash in the first place). Thankfully I had autosave few seconds earlier so I didnt lose any progress.

Other than that - i've had multiple fights, killed everyone and looted everything while actively moving the camera, including while having alt active. Wasn't bad at all. Probably took me ~5 minutes to finish the area.

 

[Watser]

I think it took me 5 hours