code the fight scene (scene 2)

instead of having it say

THEME
FIGHT

have it say

THEME
IF R20, @randeq1
FIGHT
END

@randeq1
FIGHT 123
FIGHT
END

that would (unless I am stupid) make it so that about twenty percent of the time, monster number 123 pops up and fights you. Cool!

Also, samsyn, could it be possible to just have a command (a la BASIC) after the IF, as in IF R20, FIGHT 123? that would be very very cool and make things very very very much simpler.

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Well, it wouldn't have helped in this case since you would have had to follow the IF with a GOTO to skip the else clause anyway.

So, no. Get over it :-)

And I'm not adding curly braces either, and no regular expression parser.

But I *would* like to have a form of the FIGHT opcode which meant: "Populate with the usual map monsters BUT ALSO INCLUDE these.."

Something like:

FIGHT *, 12, -3

Where * meant "usual monsters for this part of the map", 12 was the monster which has been following you since you left stonetree (probably conditioned by a token which is taken away when you get to port shrimpee or whatever) and -3 is your merc buddy.

Thanks to the new super-accelerated script engine, I think it's more useful to do clever stuff in scene 2 (like checking which map you are on)

But I have this nagging suspicion that scene 2 isn't as flexible as it really ought to be... and I'm afraid to look to find out I'm right... -s]

so the coolest thing I liked about BASIC can't be done? darn.

For scene 2, i have miles and miles of code when that would make it way simpler

instead of a badzillion little segments you could just have

IF I186, FIGHT -150 (purchased mercenary)
IF R20+T12, FIGHT 123 (monster following you)
IF G750000, FIGHT 100 (burglar)
IF I561, FIGHT * (fight twice as many monsters if you have this item)
IF M0, FIGHT 255 (killem if they cheat!)
FIGHT *

[This message has been edited by Samdi Malio (edited 05-27-2001).]

[this code would, of course, potentially do several fight scenes back to back. Since there is nothing preventing it from executing the instruction following each IF (another IF)

When you have an instruction like:

IF (condition) ACTION

The Action is performed if the condition is true, AND IN EITHER CASE execution continues with the next line.

If your goal is to have exactly one fight, you need to include a 'jump to end' after the ACTION. Which is a second command, which removes your net savings in number of code lines (and clarity).

Which isn't to say that the single line IF..ACTION doesn't have its uses. Just that your example probably isn't one of them

Fun, eh?