Active Player

Sep 17, 2019

While bug hunting and code polishing, I freed up space for a few more lines of code. Managed to bring in a feature I felt was lacking.

As per my previous article, viewed by all 3! of you, I have been doing a lot of bug hunting. This also includes code ‘polishing’ which frees up coding space (which I ran out of about a year ago). I relealised I had freed up about 7 or 8 lines of code in the past few weeks, so I thought I would put this extra space to some good use. And I did.

Ultima IV Advent of the Trinity now has a new feature. The ‘Active Player’ command. This feature nearly(almost) imitates the feature as found in Ultima V. It allows the player to hit a number key, activate that player, then control that player alone, while the other players remain still. Sounds funny, but it is very useful in certain battles, and especially in dungeon rooms. When looking for a hidden door, or trigger, or traversing a particularly complex room, this feature will be a life saver.

Active player only works in combat, unlike in Ultima V, where it could be used to make a player ‘active’ for opening traps etc.

Currently it is pretty much feature complete, and has also had a bit of bug testing. So far it seems perfect.

Here is a gif, showing it in action: