Side Stories - Putting it all together

My intentions for this page are to explain through example every aspect of a side story and how they are used. I will include documentation along the way so every command will explain what it's doing (at least the first time) and how it is used. Please do not edit this page, I'll get to it on a fairly regular basis.

I started writing in here right away without actually planning it out... caused a few problems as I started going through it in my head... So, I'm currently writing the actual Side Story - on the side - and will update here as I get it working properly... Ideally, I'll have a downloadable version available before it's completed here...

Battles and Battle Structure is a little more complicated than I'd originally thought, at least to map everything 'perfectly'. So this is going to take a while... I'm currently working on a battle section which can be found at Side Stories - Battle Commands and will update from there. That said, the current story outline is going to be changed somewhat to make it fit a little better...

I will update it here shortly so as to make it work; however it's going to be a bit of time before the story is completed. I'm currently debating how I'm going to add the separate files (since it's done with restart,path\subpath to control all the fight situations, really holding them all on one page is too much; so using separate pages has so far been the only option I've found that really works. Though, doing it that way will create a whole bunch of very redundant pages. I don't feel the wiki needs those... Any suggestions would be wonderful; thanks. :)

... battle writing takes a long time... ... I was hoping it'd be a bit faster than this, though... I guess I'm still trying to figure out every possible action from within a battle... will speed up when I finish documenting it I guess... does look promising though... :)

... Alright, so far Slime Girl is undefeated in my tests... I've not tested a whole lot, but I set Luka to level 50, level 99, every time he hits her it does 0 damage... Anyway, will keep looking, clearly I'm doing something wrong. Either that or I really have to use flail wildly... :-?

Slime Girl fight is working fine, though I don't have all her attacks down... not really sure how to get the recombine to work, so will try that for a little longer... anyway, little bit longer...

27/04/2014
Alright, so I've been working on a monsterpedia file, as well as a side story editor. Some of you may wonder, why bother with the side story editor? Since side stories are so limited in what you can do with them. Other's may wonder, why work on a monsterpedia? there's one in the game..? Well, I'll answer both of those questions here... Though, they are unrelated to the purpose of this page. So you can read them if you'd like, or you can proceed below them to the actual content of this page.

Side Stories / Side Story Editor
When I first came to the Monster Girl Quest Wiki, I had no idea about the limitations of Side Stories, I felt that creating a Side Story editor would be awesome! Then looking at the previously documented commands that you can use in a Side Story, I realized just how limited they were. My first reaction was - why bother making a side story editor? Then I thought, well people still make side stories, I can make it easier to do that, fairly easily since they're so limited... Then I thought, well... there are commands in some side stories that I've never heard of, and that I didn't understand how they worked. So I started doing research into the Monster Laboritory and discovered a bunch of new commands, figured out how they worked, then documented them in the 'making a side story' section of this page. Now I realize that a Side Story, though still inherently limited, can be quite elaborate, so an editor is something that could be a great tool for side story creators to both assist them in Side Story developement, as well as showing them just how far they can take their stories.

Monsterpedia
Creating a monsterpedia isn't so much about seeing all the graphics in the game, it's more about knowing what's available. The monsterpedia is meant for side story developers as well as people making a repatch, to show all the different graphics in the game, their filenames, and who they relate to specifically. Originally I had intended to create a monsterpedia that was limited to each individual monster entry, though early on I realized that there were some issues with doing that. Not all graphics are actually referenced in battle, and beyond that, extracting specific graphic to battle information is a very lengthy process. Anyway, not going to happen. I refuse. Instead, I've created a monster specific graphic list. This is not monster / fight specific, but monster specific. For instance, Granberia has multiple entries, though each entry references all of Granberia's graphics. This is the first test that I did with splitting them up on a fight specific basis. Granberia has 2 images that aren't referenced in battle, they are instead referenced later on in the Monster Lord's castle, during a non-battle scene. Not very useful to have undocumented images. Anyway, that's why we need a monsterpedia, so that people creating can have an actual image list that's already been broken down in a character specific way.

Putting it all together What I've decided to do in the interm, is create a Side Story, without an editor. The purpose of this side story is to show how everything that you can use in a side story is actually used. Hopefully I'll find a good reason to use the four remaining undocumented commands in side story developement somewhere in here... The creation of this Side Story will not be done privately however, instead I'm going to create it here, on the site. I will document the use of every command (at least the first time I use the command) and explain what they're doing as well as how they work. Hence, Putting it all together...

The Story
I've decided to create a Side Story that takes place in the coliseum. In it, Luka will battle every creature within the game. Winning a battle will award Luka a bonus, losing a battle will allow him to retry, though he will not recieve a bonus for the battle's completion. As a side story developer, you can go through to the individual sections (which will be linked somewhere on here) for each monster to see their specific image list. That's the plan... We'll see how it goes...

'' pre-story notes ...   all variable use is being remapped, I'm having issues with the battle development as, well - it's just slightly more problematic than I'd assumed it would be. I've decided that viewing the 'extra' moves with points earned isn't exactly a valid option, as tracking this over a number of monsters becomes problematic with limited variable use.''

''as such, all images and moves will be available to the user after they battle set character... at least, that's the plan... battle control is a little more problematic than I'd originally thought, the battles will not be exactly as they were in the original game, which is fine because they all take place in the Coliseum anyway, so they're not supposed to be exactly the same... doesn't matter, I'm getting to it... the first battle I'll be posting (001_SlimeGirl) will contain a fairly basic battle tutorial, as the battle's become more advanced, well... yeah... so will the tutorials I guess...''


 * much of the structuring of this story was rewritten to ensure it worked proper...
 * the bottom section will be returned when it's ready... presently it's structure is wrong...

[Setting]

 * [setting] -> title=
 * notes:
 * notes:
 * notes:

[intro]

 * bg
 * name
 * No Command
 * flash
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * flash
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * flash
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * flash
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * var_ld
 * goto
 * end
 * goto
 * end
 * end

[story]

 * var_cpa

[doBattle]

 * var_cpa / var_jump group

[groupComplete]

 * var_out
 * var_cal
 * var_cal
 * var_cal

[001_SlimeGirl]

 * notes
 * sp
 * sp_del
 * restart
 * sp
 * sp_del
 * restart
 * sp_del
 * restart
 * restart
 * restart
 * restart

images and stuff

 * This section is for image reference. It will list all images for each monster available within the game. The script to deal with each individual monstergirl is listed within their sub\story.ini file to keep things a little more organized. When switching to pics mode, v9 is set to 1 then the section is called (Slime Girl would be "var_ld,v9,1" followed by "restart,LukaVsAll,001_SlimeGirl")


 * This section is still somewhat being hammered out, though there's nothing wrong with a starting point.


 * [doPics]
 * 0 = "var_cpa,v0,=,1,0"
 * 1 = "var_jump,noPics"
 * 2 = "var_cpa,v0,>=,2,0"
 * 3 = "var_jump,getPics"
 * 4 = "end"


 * notes: [noPics] - need to add images for background change and a vender character... will get to that later...


 * [noPics]
 * 0 = "name,Vender "
 * 1 = "Hello... and welcome to my shop! "
 * 2 = "Though I sell images from the days events within the colosseum, there haven't been any yet today so... nothing is for sale... "
 * 3 = "Please check back later, maybe after this alleged 'hero' shows up and starts to fight... "
 * 4 = "name,Luka "
 * 5 = "... um... alright..? "
 * 6 = "You know who I am, right? "
 * 7 = "name,Vender "
 * 8 = "Of course! You're a potential customer, please come back later and check out my wares... "
 * 9 = "name,Luka "
 * 10 = "Um... no, I'm L... "
 * 11 = "name,Vender "
 * 12 = "Thank you, come again... "
 * 13 = "goto,story "
 * 14 = "end"


 * notes: [getPics] - need to add images for background change and a vender character... will get to that later...


 * '''[getPics]
 * 0 = "name,Vender "
 * 1 = "Hello, welcome to my shop! "
 * 2 = "... OH! It's you! Welcome welcome, our hero in my shop! This is wonderful! "
 * 3 = "name,Luka "
 * 4 = "um... I guess..? "
 * 5 = "name,Vender "
 * 6 = "It is, it is! Wonderful! No charge for you to look, if you want to take something home though, maybe we can work something out... You sign a few, maybe you keep a copy for yourself? no charge? "
 * 7 = "name,Luka "
 * 8 = "maybe..? if you think that's alright..? "
 * 9 = "name,Vender "
 * 10 = "Excellent choice my friend, why not take a look through my selection of images! "
 * 11 = "goto,photoBook "
 * 12 = "end"

personal notes

 * This section has nothing to do with the story itself... it's more about keeping track of things for yourself... putting it at the top is good, but it works at the bottom too since you'll be scrolling further and further down as the story goes on...


 * I like to keep track of backgrounds I'm using, music, etc just so that I can reference whichever background I was using without having to double check over and over again each instance it reappears...


 * bg043 - using this for the entrance to the colosseum
 * bg084 - this is the colosseum picture that i'll be using mostly...


 * though it's a good thing to do to keep track of it for yourself, you probably shouldn't leave it there when you actually 'publish' your story...