First thread

[Administrator]

1st March

- added test map on World Map page, need to add few sub-pages with the location details (count griffs inhabiting them etc)
edit: done! but it only fetches IDs, need to list names later.

- added some simple test things to location pages: it checks if your griff has ever been to a place before (could add custom content for first visits) and in different areas you get money, items, checks if you have a certain item or not (again more custom content possible later - need keys or passes to reach things)...

Other things to do this evening...

- split achievements page into 2: extra page shows your avatar collection (they'll be unlocked with each achievement)
edit: done. And then I realised this was totally redundant; why not just use the avatars in place of trophy images? They'll be shiny little pixel animations, scenes etc. Yeah, there can be other pages for more collectible things later.

- add full levels for all breeds - need to come up with a formula for increasing amounts of EXP needed...
edit: that was easy... the decimal number can be changed for softer or sharper curves for different breeds. At 1, you'll need just over 5000 EXP to reach lvl100.

PHP Code:

<?php
$add = 0;
$a = 0;
$level = 0;
while ($level < 101) {
    $add ++;
    $a = (ceil($a + ($add * 0.9)));
    $level ++;
    echo "<br>$a ";
}
?>

- also must decide how level increases stats. Each extra level multiplies inborn stats by 1.1 or something? Need to test I suppose

- add inbreeding meter and checks, pretty sure I scribbled some code in notepad the other week
edit: done! Whew that took some fiddling. But it seems to work, yay. A few generations of crossing siblings and we're at 100%.
I find it quite cool how different they still look... I worried they'd get homogenous with the same alleles but no, lots of shades and different wing/horn colours in there. They're quite distinct.

In flock:


On profiles:


At the moment there are no ill-effects from inbreeding. Later it should reduce the inborn stats, and have a proportional chance of mutating the griff into Bald breed, which will be ugly, difficult to level up (lower number of lvls and need huge amounts of EXP for them), have low skill potentials, and can only breed with its own kind. Yay!
(amusingly though, I can foresee some jokey players trying to start a Bald elite breeding team for a challenge...)


2nd March

- added a changing note/warning on profiles, depending how badly a griff is inbred.

- changed breeding system to use growth stages, as levels are now used for other things.
However I found a terrible logic problem with the inbreeding checks: if one parent is inbred, they'll cause more inbreeding due to sharing ancestors on their side (it multiplies)... it's impossible to get chicks out of. Hmmmm! Do I need to restructure this so they're split into two sides? Argh...
edit: ah, that seems to work. Only compare one side's ancestors to the other side's ancestors. Now you cross an inbred griff with an unrelated stranger and the chick's level goes down.

- worked on battle system a bit more, now you can fight other griffs. The URL is  "... duel/griff/NUMBER".  The latter bit being their id number.
You can still visit the usual Battle page and fight randomised opponents instead, if you want.


3rd March

Feeling ill today. Nonetheless, have cleaned up the Duel system a bit. Need to...

- add an option on manage pages so users can set their griffs as fightable-by-strangers or not, should be easy

- try putting together custom arrays of opponent attacks, so they only respond with the moves they've learned (along with generic attacks in case they know none)
edit: done! Woohoo! Battles are much more interesting now.
There are extra moves attached to certain companions and treasures, so that adds even more strategy for players; which ones to equip to a griff?
And once a griff learns a skill, it can't be forgotten, and will always be available in their battle array. So if you want to present a strong fighter you may avoid ever teaching them weak skills, and only give them the highest level versions.

- added checks and stat boosts for certain wearables, elements, companions and treasures

- added battle results to user notifications, for both griffs' owners.

- there seems to be a small issue with some battlers' energy suddenly dropping to 0 after results. Probably made a silly mistake in the calculation.

- added some preset opponents. Ought to note their level among other info... whoops, will add it tomorrow.




Other stuff that needs doing soonish...

- change the details visible on chick, egg etc profiles and change the daily activities available for each stage

- gain skills from those activities - must have check so skill points can't exceed the current potential number

- update the sex-change magic item so it updates skill potential; if you turn a female Rampant male and she has 66 out of 80 Flight points, those should drop to 15/15 or whatever the male's maximum is

- add a bit of code in griff profiles that displays them differently if they're in pound (or wild or dead, later)
- and similar for user profiles, check for certain names and show custom layout

[Administrator]

4th March

- tidied up the manage page a little bit, added the options for changing stud/cost and whatnot. They only appear for adult male griffs.

- got public breeding! Yaaay! Well, sort of. Your own female griffs appear in first dropdown list, while anyone's males appear in the second.
Need to keep the main breeding page for user's own griffs only... and set up another one for stud stuff. A list of all males and their prices, and then if you have a breedable female as your active griff, there'll be a secondary page that compares all their genetics etc, before you click to confirm and the breeding script is used. I'm not entirely sure how to arrange the latter bit yet...

- added 'Wilderness', a place (user account) where you can release unwanted griffs to the wild as an alternative to pounding them. Maybe you don't want other users getting them? Anyway, I've added the option on manage pages, for adult griffs only.
- added a counter for how many griffs a user has released... and added a few achievements for it.

There's a reason I moved wild griffs to an account rather than simply deleting. Perhaps in the future there could be events where users can tempt/recruit griffs back from the wild? It will be limited - most owners who released griffs probably didn't want them being owned again later. But hey, the griffs could have their own ideas and don't have to follow rules set by an old master x) And there's a disclaimer, "you most likely won't see them again, they probably won't want to rejoin domestic flocks after getting used to the wild"...

While 'wild', griffs will not age or change at all. Oh, that reminds me, need to set them as not-fightable, not in a group etc, so nobody can reach them still... done.
Oh, and I could remove all their equipped items etc too, but am too lazy to give the items back to old owner. So the items can go with the griffs. xD Maybe in the future some lucky explorers can re-adopt these griffs and get all the free items with them.

- cleaned up user profiles a bit, as well. Re-added visitor messages in a small box. Need to scribble character avatar thing soon.
Also should display all of one's achievements in the lower box...  it shouldn't be too hard just to iterate though the images, but adding titles etc? Umm. Those aren't included in the table. So I guess it will just have to be avatar/trophy images. OK.

- added the custom content to profiles of SYSTEM and Wilderness. Should work nicely for other NPC accounts.
Tomorrow will do the same for certain griff profiles too...

- can't get the mysterious 0-energy battle bug to happen again, hmmm. Well, I'll add happiness changes to battle results and see if those get buggy too.


5th March

- added studbook list and genetic comparison pages. If you have a breedable female as your active griff, you'll see her genetic page to compare with the male's above.
Now need to link up the confirmation button with breeding script...
edit: done! Whew that was fiddly. But you can browse, choose anyone's available male and breed with him.



- just need to deduct the cost afterwards (can't change the normal breeding-cost to whatever the male's owner set, in other scripts)
edit: done, and the male's owner gets money and a notification.



- thinking about adding 'available number' of breedings one stud can offer. So if owner only wants Griffin Bob to be used 5 times, he'll automatically become unavailable after that.
But I'll do this later... spent all evening on this stud system and am tired now!


6th March

Well that was a crap day. Nothing like being woken up at 4am in agony and there's fk all you can do by then. Ennndoooo!  *shakes fist tiredly*

Now it's 8pm, uncomfortable and exhausted but can't sleep yet... need sth to occupy my mind... might try and get a tiny, easy thing or two done.

- ok, fixed the map location pages so they fetched griff names as well as IDs. I had been confused between fetchObject and fetchColumn, doh.

- should add this to griff profiles too, show offspring names under the thumbnails... done.

- list user achievements on profiles... done, but not in an elegant way. Wasn't sure how to loop through a user's unlocked achis only. So had to individually check for and display each one. But it looks OK, so eh.

Off to bed now.

[Administrator]

7th March

Errrmm... not sure exactly what to tackle today.

- Studbook needs pagination and ability to sort by cost, specific breed, maybe certain genes or marks. But I'll try those later.
edit: kinda done. Pages beyond 1 won't show any new griffs, for reasons unknown :/ but the sorting does work. It's a start...

- Inventory is a mess, ought to split it into several sections for different item types.
edit: done, looks good, BUT it gives an error page if you don't have an item in a particular category (ie. there's nothing for that function to fetch).
Hmm. Trying to add a default/'no item' message instead...
OK, changed the  "return NULL"  to  "echo ' '; "  and it shows nothing in that particular box, and the rest of page still works. This will do for now.

Note: items really need planning and tidying up. The inventory can now display them by category which is NOT the same as function. For example Colourstones, Colourcoils and other coat-changing items later all have slightly different functions, but they have same category of 'Colourstone'.
Similarly, the different wearable types (collar and tail so far, head and legs later) are own functions but all share the Adornments category.
Likewise, need to think of other item types. Flowers vs Materials (crafting stuff) vs Foods vs Skill scrolls vs Healing/Growth/Magic stuff...

BTW, for items that are mundane and have no real function, most are currently set as 'treasure' function, meaning you can give them to a griffin to hold.
I guess most miscellaneous items will end up this way - random flowers, pieces of cloth or metal, non-magic gemstones, sculptures, trinkets.
This is because the 'use' option is always there, for all items, and if it's not given a function to do then it will just say 'item use invalid' and that's ugly.
Nothing really wrong with this backup plan though.
Who knows, maybe someone's griffin will like having a vial of ink or a scrap of fabric?? It might match their character idea or something lol.
..
Note that, yes, any item can be used in the crafting system, regardless of its own function. That's what I mean by material items having no function. Using them up in a recipe is different to being prompted to use them on a griff - the latter can either do something, or give invalid message. "Being held by a griff" is sometimes a weird choice, but better than invalid lol.

- Just noticed crafting problem: when using 2 or 3 of the same item in a recipe, it only takes one from inventory. Not sure how to fix - the 3 separate remove functions are there!
At least fixed it so you can use the 3 items in any order, whatever they are.
Also upped the max number of any item to 99999. Can't remember why I wanted to do this, but anyway, it's done. Could be useful if you pick up lots of small worthless items, like chick poo or feathers - save them up and sell in bulk later.

- Note to self: need to add all the new recipes for colourstones etc etc. Basically you combine 3 of the same Stones to get a Cluster, and then 2 Clusters and either a gold or silver chain, and you get a Coil. Single Stones are used on incubating eggs, and Coils are used on adult griffs. I suppose it would be unhealthy to try messing with the genetics of a little griff that's already hatched and is growing. Hence the 'egg or adult' limit. It should also lower the health of the adult, as it's forcing a moult for new coat.

- Wanna draw the Bald breed and add that asap, should be fun. Could also start sketching the pegasus and dragon breeds early... oh, and what should their inbred Fail Versions look like?

8th March

Completely forgotten what I was planning to do today. Umm. Just gonna see what happens.

- might try some of the mutations (albinism, melanism etc). Only been putting it off because changing the colour palette in Photoshop and then writing down hundreds of hex codes into the DB table is gonna be such a chore  -_-  but this has been annoying me, so time to get it done! Will be very satisfying later.

9th March

BLOODY HELL THIS IS TEDIOUS. It turned out that Photoshop (at least not my version) does not have a simple 'replace colour X with y' and so I had to spend hours fiddling with loads of filters, channels, etc to try and mock-up some shifted palettes. For example, needing to remove all black pigment, so brown fades to orange... or remove all yellow, so green turns blue and orange turns tan... how the heck??
Had to stop at about 8 palettes... so there probably won't ever be the complex mixed-mutations I had planned (like Axanthism + Anerythrism = loss of both red and yellow at once). Well, unless someone else feels like doing those palettes. Be my guest lol

Now I have the delightful task of colour-picking hundreds of hex codes, writing them into table, and adding some lines to the breeding script that check for a mutation and insert a different version of each body part's hex colour for the image script...

Also noting alleles:
Normal/Normal - normal coat
Total/Normal - all colours faded
Total/Total - entirely white
Amel/Normal - hypomelanism (black fades to grey, colours remain)
Amel/Amel - albinism (all black gone, colours remain)
Total/Amel - leucism (black fades to grey, all colours gone)
Ery/Ery - erythrism (red enhancement, black turns to red)
Anery/Anery - anerythrism (no red)
Xan/Xan - xanthism (yellow enhancement, red turns to yellow)
Axan/Axan - axanthism (no yellow)
Cy/Cy - cyanism (blue enhancement)
Acy/Acy - acyanism (no blue)
Mel/Mel - both forms of melanism (black extended markings AND darker coat underneath them)
Mel/Normal ... Normal/Mel - one of those effects by itself

'Total' is a made-up mutation which fades all pigments at once. 'Cyanism' and 'Acyanism' are also made-up, as I needed to do sth with our griffs' blue pigment (cyanophores), that they explicitly have in this genetic system. Btw, we're using chromatophores (which reptiles etc have) rather than melanocytes (which mammals and birds have). I know a bit about chicken genetics and how eumelanin/phaeomelanin forms their coat colours... it's just too limited. Can't get green, purple etc. So might as well go with 'phores, the colours are nicely split up. Dragons should definitely have these... surely we can come up with a magical explanation for pegasus and griffs to have them too.

Anyway, those are the main combos above. If creature has an invalid combo (like Ery/Normal - too weak to have an effect - or Mel/Amel - contradictory!) there just won't be a mutation. There could be more acceptable combos, like... Axan/Ery = Ery, as it's dominant over Axan? Dunno yet. Really messing with genetics rules here lol.



10th March

Ughhh this is so slow and dull, and now the beak/leg/eye colours need palette'ing and inputting too... I just can't, not today.
Fortunately I've thought of a bunch of other features that could be fun to add! So let's muse about those:

Gardening - a page with a grid of land, in 8 or 9 or 12 plots. If you have seeds, saplings, etc in your inventory you can choose a plot and plant something in it. The whole garden will grow a bit every day, and if you have fertiliser in inventory you can use one daily on each plant for another boost. Each type of plant would have own growth limit; some only take a couple of days while others need weeks. After finishing and harvesting, you could use plants for all sorts of things; feeding creatures, crafting, healing, give to NPCs...
There would also be opportunities to catch various wildlife (for food/venom/magic extraction, or little companion creatures for your flock) and certain NPCs would turn up with exclusive quests etc, if attacted by certain plants.
I'm not yet sure how your griffs could get more involved - perhaps your active griff could be given commands to patrol, hunt pests, or just allowed to enjoy themselves.

Reasoning for this feature: I was thinking, since this is meant to be a magical realm with all sorts of amazing flora and fauna, it would be nice to interact with some of those, by growing/catching/using them, rather than them being a long list of typical items you just 'get' and use, without much context. Also I just love gardening. Flowers yay!!
Oh, and I suppose some slots could contain ponds and other non-plant features. Raise some pretty koi or goldfish that will make some NPCs and your active griff happy? Aww yes.
- oh, and this would be a good use for the poo you get from your flock daily... Magic pegasus crap must be amazing for plants.

Related to gardens, and working in very similar way...
Workshop? If you have certain materials in inventory, you(r servants) can help local crafters to build things. Might be typical tools and containers (glass jars for potions? chests for treasure? weave clothing, smith armour?) or repairing homes for NPCs, building boats, putting up defensive walls against the invading forces...
Griffs have a Technical skill, involving use and destruction of machinery etc, so this would be a good way to use it, rather than only using it in war-y missions for them.
Anyway, same as garden - the workshop area will be a goldmine for NPC quests, lore/interaction with world. Instead of getting plants and wildlife, you receive items and payments after tasks finish.
Would also be useful for big site-wide events in future... "hey all Flock Masters, a big wave of enemy airships was reported from W island. We need X thousand Y's to be built by Z date!"

edit: OMG, how did I not think of this too? There can be a few special breeds of griffs/pegs/dragons that are mechanical, or made of enchanted plants. They wouldn't be able to breed with the 'mortal' real ones, just cool-looking bonus breeds with great skills. Each user would have to raise their gardening and tech skills/reputation to a high level, to unlock the recipes for these creatures, and then can grow/build them after collecting the (rare) materials. Maybe every user could only create one... so users would have to breed with each others' to grow the population. Uh, how would metal creatures breed? ... magic. x)

Yay, I always wanted to have laser-griffs and mech-dragons somewhere.

[Administrator]

11 March

OK, I've started building the gardening feature. Whee!
- Database columns set up...
- Going off on a slight detour, making edible item function (as some seeds, bird eggs, frogspawn probably count as that, to some creatures)... done.
- Need to make some quick shitty placeholder items to test with... done.
- Also drew a super fast MS Paint background of mountain valley, yay. It's not terrible, actually!
- Get DB stuff to the garden page and show user's current plants and points in correct places... done.
- Growth points are earned every day, and all messages update.

Gonna need a new table to hold descriptions of every plant/creature etc. They'll be different from the seed or finished item descriptions. Short summaries will appear in plot box; longer versions will be laid out on a fancy plant-index page.
There are no illustrations yet, not even borrowed stock photos. It's midnight and I'm tired.
Tomorrow, need to add the post buttons to plant/cancel/harvest things...

(For the daily visiting NPCs, hmm. Guess there should be a few slots to hold those - they appear independently for each user.
Where to store their conversation stuff, randomised items they offer? Should there be another big table just for NPCs, with their IDs, names, current mood, several possible dialogues and portraits depending on that mood... and again for several locations they may turn up in... and all the items/quests they might ever offer? Mmm yes. This is for later though!)

12th March

Ill again but enjoying this garden challenge!
... or not. Trying to figure out how to arrange the form stuff with 8 plots, 5 possible actions and some radio buttons when choosing which plant/fish etc to install. x_x
edit: done! Whew that was a headache. Ended up using a dropdown list instead of radio buttons.
Now adding the other options: fertilise, finish, harvest, empty plot... done!
There should be a range of 3 or more items you can harvest from each growable thing, to be chosen randomly every day. For now, there are only one or two for each thing, added to your inventory. Planting, fertilising, completing and removing work too.

Planting/fertilising options should be added to the dropdowns only if user has seeds or poo available in their inventory. But it's midnight and I can't be bothered to add that item yet. I suppose your active griff could be... asked to donate some, since they're present... >.> Yeah, that'd be a good default option. If they already hate you, they'll refuse, else their trust will tank every time you order them to poo. So it's not exactly 'free'. And would give only one point, compared to better stuff like pegasus poo.

13th March

Really need to finish the gardening this afternoon. So...
- went off on another tangent and cleaned up inventory display and item categories. Just need a nice graphical border around each section, maybe write descriptions of the categories under the titles, and we're finished!
... OK, garden. G-A-R-D-E-N. Focus.
- Added exact item checks to populate the dropdown lists.
- If user doesn't have any of the right items for a plot, should instead get message that they have nothing to plant, go and get seeds etc... done.
- When using item here, remove one from inventory... done.
- Check plot contents and growth status to determine which buttons appear... done.
- Finish all actions, updating and resetting variables... done.

Only thing left to do is add some poo items and generate dropdowns for those too, and obviously the whole area needs graphics and many more plants etc to choose from.
And NPC stuff... there just aren't enough items to do anything interesting with, yet. Later I'll come up with easy NPC conversation and quest scripts to re-use around the site. Can't be arsed now.

But anyway, this was a good little project for 3 days! I'm satisfied and learned some new things.
The workshop can probably copy 90% of this code, with some custom tweaking. But that can be left for later.

14, 15 March

Found a couple of small oversights, certain plots not being counted as harvested due to wrong variables. Fixed.
So, what to do this afternoon? Really feel like some sketching...
... nope, had an urge to do some pixel animation for DA. Haven't had time for any art, in months. Will allow myself a tiny break from endless code/game work.

Been daydreaming about further features it would be fun/not-too-difficult to code.
- Some sort of potion brewing area? If there'd be enough possible uses for the resulting items. No point having loads of combos without much purpose. Hmm.
- Something to do with mining, crystals, caverns. Along with special flower and metal breeds, we could have gemstone breeds to be created from enchanted minerals...
- A sort of 'coolest-looking creature' contest, weekly. Players can enter one of their creatures, their images will be in a gallery, and all players can vote up to 3 times. For those who like style, this is another thing to do with exact coat genetics and wearables.

- World locations must have lots of areas to visit. This civilisation is sorta primitive in technology (no electricity, limited metal machinery) but they can have amazing architecture and infrastructure, with the aid of magic and ancient knowledge from pre-civs.
Observatories, infirmaries, archaeological excavation sites, historic vaults, palaces, scribe halls, sacred shrines, farms, academies for magic and other skills...

Gah, really need more content asap. Gotta draw those pegs and dragons. Even a hundred breeds of griff wouldn't be enough variety x)

edit: nope, got distracted from animation and decided I actually need to carry on coding after all. Oookay.
Starting to develop Trials! They're competitions in which teams of griffs are sent away to carry out specific missions - like surveying a valley, flight training, transporting goods, hunting a monster... and the spoils are shared depending on which members performed best. Users will be able to host their own trials with custom criteria and rewards.

OK, this is gonna be a toughie.
- done some planning, set up 2 database tables (for trials and results) with some test-entries... set up the relevant Trial pages...
- need to check active griff's breed, stats etc and display trials whose criteria they match... (argh, this is gonna need pagination again! but can't be arsed yet)
- need to make user's page where they can create, edit, open or discontinue own trials...

- not entirely sure how to handle the calculation stuff yet (especially if teams can range from 5 to 15 members) nor displaying the results later. That will wait.


16 March

This morning: cleaned the chickens out, did gardening (the real sort, not game sort). Picked up a bucket and there was a giant patch of white spiderwebby mould (?) under it, which made me jump outta my skin and then I got cold dirty water all down my leg.
So. Let's hope this afternoon is better. Coding the next part of Trials...

- started user pages. I just realised the Open button shouldn't be there when it's already open. Doh. Fixed now.


- making forms with all the trial details, for user to create/edit them...

[Administrator]

18 March

Sketching the equine-y breeds. 25 in total, in 5 genuses (genii?). One of which is Cervine, because fantasy deer with epic horns, magic-stuff and wings etc are too good to miss out.

Posting early sketches in admin area until designs are fixed, then will post each breed's lines here in public area.

Also been wondering about the planned number of griff breeds... might need to rethink (shrink!) that huge table. I already know a couple of these 10 breeds' designs need changing (Mino-Kawa is weird, could look so much cooler).
Will get the horsies and dragons done, then look at griffs again.

19 March

Still sketchin'. Very satisfying.

Also tried piddling around with pagination again - think I've figured it out now... it works perfectly in the pound. BUT then it breaks the URL when adopting. Ughhh.
So two options: no pages, only show a limited (random) selection of griffs, and make users refresh to see more.
Or scrap the pound system entirely and set up a new one, where you pay and adopt ownerless griffs directly from their profiles. Yes, that's very tempting... and they could be listed properly, even searchable! Just copy what I coded for the studbook page.
... hmm. Nope, pagination still utterly refusing to work in studbook. So searching is still an issue. Argh! So the pound is randomised.
Maybe I'll have to change studbook so breeds are separated on different actual pages, limitlessly, and the sort options are only by cost, level etc. All I can do for now.

Had a novel idea: separate locations where ownerless griffs hang out, depending on the breed. They don't want to fly away into the dangerous wild so they form groups and lurk around certain orchards, rivers, villages or wherever. You have to send your active griff travelling there to meet them, and then you can see a selection of them, and adopt.
- this would allow some nice storytelling and setting, and also mean it takes some effort to find these griffs, unlike browsing a pound page.
Every location could have own criteria; if you want a male Minoan, those are gathered in the grounds near a magic ruin. The females like to climb to higher floors so you have to search around. Meanwhile by the rivers and lakes, you find low-level and young Aquilas/Opis around the shallows, while the high-level or Elder ones (if there are any) will be lurking over on some islands in the middle of the wide lake.
Some breeds' lurking-spots might be hard to get to (remote location, behind tough monsters), if we want them to stay rare.
- might be cool to have to persuade griffs, by offering a particular item they like. After all, it would be strange to pay - where are coins going to? These griffs are feral and looking after themselves, just waiting for a new master to show up and gain their respect.
Hmm yes, this would be a nice little addition to the random personality traits. This griff likes emeralds, that one likes a certain flower, another one must be lured with a pile of food... there'd be some simple checks before showing the button. "Is griff still ownerless and do you have X quantity of Y item in your inventory?" And check again while posting, in case someone else found that griff first. None of the pound system would be used.

- Thinking about the adoption system. It's pretty over-simplified too... just pick an egg, take it. Perhaps eggs could be found from these feral sites too? (supposedly laid by the abandoned griffs there, but really they'd be wild with fresh genes). That would also help make some breeds rare.
Alas, the stockadopt function no longer works (idk how I broke it) so uh. It would be perfect for these places though, rather than me wrangling with the adopt system.

- Also thought of moving the griff profile script to a new area, not part of levelup script. Would free up the CSS so I can style it without affecting clicking or nursery.

- Might fiddle with forum a bit, try to make it look more like main site... done, sorta. See the 'Forest Rays' theme.

20th March

Breathed in a load of mealworm dust this morning (don't ask) and now I have one of those awful headaches. Sigh. But must get something done tonight...

- made new nursery page, which also features ownerless eggs.
- set up a few more test-locations, namely some 'magic ruins' in the Hills region, where the ownerless Minoans hang out in different groups.

Tomorrow I'll try moving the griff profiles and updating them so ownerless ones (or wild/dead) show alternative stuff, and user may be able to adopt them directly.

21st March

- replaced old CKeditor with a nice new version, much better looking. Writing news articles and important private messages will still require some careful HTML designing, if want to include images or colours. Guess that's a good thing; can be very flexible.

- working on Trials a bit more. Proper editing, criteria, generating list of open trials the active griff qualifies for, and showing results of finished trials.
Now only thing left to do is entering griffs in trials (edit: done), and actually making the trials run when spaces are filled.
Kinda difficult when there's no real list of trial challenges, formulae or prize lists yet. So I guess this script will just be a simple "empty and close trial, add 1 to each griff's trial participation number, send users a notification that their griff took part in one". The very basics.
edit: FINALLY. augh.
That took a lot of fiddling, but seems to work. Trials run and are reset, griff info gets updated, users get random items from arrays, and notifications.
Only thing left to do is come up with all the possible missions...
And then code the stat comparison stuff. Need a break from it now.

- also had a vague idea about assigning each griff a paid role. You would get either a small amount of money or an item (from a certain list) every day when visiting the griff, as payment from locals/authorities. Roles would be based on skill, breed, number of battle wins or places travelled.
For example almost any griff could do a basic role like carrying goods to market or hunting pests. Higher roles like patrolling, being a steed for important ppl, scouting for enemies etc would require certain skill levels, or be limited to certain breeds. Marliks being the ultimate tanky desert trekkers, Minos being magic-sensers...
Oh, and personality traits could be used in a few cases too.
Only griffs with powerful maternal/paternal instincts would be wanted for egg/chick rearing duties at the Heat Stone site, for example, regardless of anything else.


22nd March

- fiddled with layout a bit. Still aspire to have a fancy epic design later, but for now, just need something basically present-able for testers/previews.
Currently scribbling a quick logo shape...
Though I don't think the name 'Griffusion' is gonna work after pegs/dragons are introduced. Need a new name, and a general term for our creatures.
Words like Creature, Beast, Critter, Pet, Charge etc don't seem right. The only word I could find was 'Mythic'... after all, these are all mythical creatures!
But I'm not sure about whole site name yet, or what the realm/native civilisations could be called.

- cleaned up griff profiles too. Can't decide if I love the sheer simplicity, or find it boring. At least it's easy to load... zero graphics except griff, companion, treasure and a few sprites of their relatives.

[Administrator]

24 March

Guess it's time to finish the mutation palettes (inputting heaps more hex codes into database) and implement them in the breeding system.
Update: ugh, it's midnight now. What a chore that was! Never wanna see that table again. >.<
Will try the scripty bits tomorrow.

Also started writing some very early FAQs, complete with jQuery slide-toggle sections. No site can have an FAQ page without those, eh?

25 March

Also remembered the 'face' body parts (meaning the nostrilly bits, eyelids and pawpads - flesh basically. Only some breeds show these parts). They're now dynamically coloured instead of always being red.
There are 11 plain colours available: yellow, peach, pink, red, purple, brown, snow, black, grey, blue, slate.
And like every other body part (except horns), the colours will shift if the griff has a mutation, like melanism, xanthism, leucism etc.

Only problem is that I included the whites of the eyes in the 'face' layer, so they're gonna get filled in the same solid colours. Whoops. Later I'll upload all the eye white images separately so they can be on own layer above.

26 March

Cleaned up the breeding script (trying to shorten/compress it as much as possible), and found a few wrong calculations hiding in there - outer wing genes being decided by additional colour's random numbers instead of their own - fixed.

Added the face colour and mutation inheritance. Nowww... the fun part of comparing those alleles, determining what coat mutation the griff has (if any) and looking up different hex colours for every body part, depending on each case.
.. aaaand done! Whew! Have bred chicks with most mutations and they're looking fine. Leucism ooh.
Enough code for tonight, gonna carry on sketching equine breeds.

note: adoption script has also been updated, the eggs have very high chances of having both mutation allele slots filled with something. Only while testing of course.
Haven't yet updated the sale or promo scripts...

27 March

Worked on griff profiles a bit. Stud and duel availability are noted now.
The befriend or gift buttons will only appear if you're a logged-in user with an active griff who's not the same as this one.
Gifting removes the requested item from your inventory, takes 1 energy from your active griff (they have to physically take it to the target) and makes the target 1 point happier. So it's a little bonus thing you can do to cheer up each others' griffs (or your own) and use up common items. Not free though - don't want it being abused.

The items are either Rose Seeds or Quail Eggs, depending on the griff's sex. Later there'll either be lists of acceptable items for each breed; some like meat, or flowers, or small gems... orrr maybe it could be a specific item, determined by their personality numbers? Or linked to some other unpredictable trait? Yeah, sounds more fun.

It would be a cute detail to count how many gifts each griff has ever given and received, but the griff table already has a scary number of columns (140+, is this normal for browser games?!) and if I want to add achievements for users giving/receiving high numbers in total, it would be easier if they're recorded in user table instead... hmm.
Yep, added it to user table, and the numbers are listed on user profiles. That will do.

If a griff is ownerless you'll see modified version of profile, and if you meet requirements, can see button to adopt them.
Later it should require a single specific item they like - you have to get their attention somehow! - and there should be a check if your flock has space left. But there are no limits yet, nor randomised favourite items for each griff. So it just costs 100 money, woo.

28 March

All traces of original Pound system are gone - except a page where you can see total list of all ownerless griffins, and get links to their profiles, which is where you now adopt them from. The usual idea is that to adopt griffs, you'll have to travel round the map and find the locations where different breeds and types hang out. It should not be as easy as just browsing a page and seeing all of them.
So this page will be a bonus area (players will only be able to access it with special permission, like a key item from quest, and they'll only be able to choose 1 to adopt before losing access again). Well, later... gonna keep it freely available while testing.

Oddly (annoyingly) the pagination works perfectly here. I thiiink I've figured out where I went wrong on all the other pages? And will try fixing them too...

Also should add the 'user selects avatar from dropdown list of ones they've unlocked' option in profile settings, that should be easy... yup, done.

29 March

Stayed up late last night trying to fix the flock group pagination. NOPE. It really doesn't want to work. >.< Will try again at a later date.

Working on manage page. All messages (or warnings) about griff's age/health/mood, daily rewards, and the daily command list are now in a single box. Servant excitedly mentions when griff has just hatched or grown a stage, so players won't miss it.
Still haven't come up with full lists of what daily gifts griffs can bring for masters, so gonna add a small array of random items and money... done.

Added lifespan, age, death stuff. Delightful. The two types of death are old age (110 years - after 100 years servant starts warning you about it, and health declines) and being left at zero health overnight (high risk each day; servant gets angry if griff is still alive, or roasts you if they die). Very different effects afterwards!
At the moment, items and everything are left on them... may need to change that? Or should user remove everything, as there's ample warning time?
And profiles need to be updated so dead griffs get special pages.
Gonna quickly add a memorial section to list your old griffs... done. Whew, that was a lot for today.

[Administrator]

30 March

Briefly thought about adding a bring-back-from-dead feature, as a super-rare thing... it would be easy to add... but decided against it. It would probably go against the spiritual native morals? Anyway, it could still be done manually by admins changing a couple of columns in DB, if we wanted to offer this as a special prize for a community contest or something. No need to make it doable in game, not now.

Cleaned up the profile display of ownerless/dead griffs a bit.
Worked on FAQ page more. Some answers are accurate/sure, others just speculative until features are added.
Finally, spending the night drawing equine lines.


... 6 April?

Ughhh, endo. >.<
Also been doing horsey lines, see Equine Breeds thread.

Decided it's too harsh and sudden, for a griff with 0 health to probably permanently die overnight. User could get unlucky one day, they fall to 0, and user can't find the necessary items in time... whoops!
So am setting up an infirmary user and page where griffs are sent to, and held until healed. They're displayed publicly and anyone can heal them, then they'll return to owner's flock. The idea is that it's shaming to the owner, but also lets anyone help if the user is completely unable to get it done.
Not sure exactly what items will be needed yet - just gonna randomise a few of them for every page view? And charge some amount of money.

Also thinking that taking away health from duelling might not be a good idea. It'd be a fantastic way for some users to annoy the heck out of others by beating up all their griffs, over and over. :/ It will still be annoying to find your griff has lost all their energy, but not as bad as lost health. So I may not have to add complicated checks to prevent griffs fighting certain opponents too often.
Besides, duels with other griffs should be for training purposes. Actual injuries should only happen when fighting monsters in the wild, etc.
Losing duels can also make some griffs very unhappy (depending on personality traits later) so that should be enough 'punishment'.

7 April

- Fixed a few small things here and there.
- Sketched a new design for the Kawa breed. The current one looks so dorky! Updating the art should be simple, after all the layers are drawn.
- Updated to latest version of jQuery and so the battle system messages no longer fade in nicely, what a shame. All other JS round the site seems to be working still though.

Considering removing the current trade system and trying a brand new one. There are so many issues atm, it's barely useable. Need more flexibility, maybe allow item quantities instead of one at a time, etc. This will be a huge challenge though!
Thinking how to structure it.
Public: Offer a griff for money or item(s)... Offer an item(s) for money or other item(s).
Private (request trade with a user): Must choose one of their available griffs OR items from list (let's keep things separate)... and offer one of your griffs, items or money.

8 April

Started a feature called Menagerie. This is where you collect little critters (companions for griffs) and try breeding them, either to get more of the same type or mix different types to get new hybrids. It's a very simplified version of the crafting system - no classes, cost, recipes, usergroup permission etc. Just checks for 2 species chosen and if the user has a breeding token item (currently a Quail). No actual results yet, just messages.
Update: mostly done, woo. Just need to make a DB table with all the possible combos, to look in and find the baby species.

Now gonna spend rest of evening attempting the new trade system. *gets ready for errors and headaches*

[Administrator]

9 April

This is going surprisingly well!
It really helps that I made the Trials feature recently. All the creation/editing forms, looping through user's griffs and items, and displaying stuff... it's mostly copied and tweaked from there.

Screenshot of creating an offer:


14 April

Been working on trade system - nearly done! last bit now - and writing hundreds of varied personality-trait summaries. Fun ._.

Alas, some time in the last week or two (???) the user profiles have broken! I haven't touched any of those scripts for at least a fortnight. Very odd. The only possible explanation I can come up with, is that I upgraded the jQuery version... and perhaps the profile tab JS is breaking. Need to try removing it all and restructuring the profile scripts.

15 April

Fixed it. Apparently it was nothing but a single extra ) inside a DB query...? Which had been there for ages. Absolutely mystified where the problem suddenly came from. o.O But whew, profiles working again, and I removed all the unused junk.

Making a ginormous Google spreadsheet now, with all those hundreds of personality traits. They need different versions for each growth stage (chick is very kicky -> child is bitey and hungry -> adolescent is territorial, possessive -> adult finally shows the full personality description, about being insecure and touchy... just for one example!).

I'm hoping others can help with this huge writing task. Maybe testers/players could contribute more traits later. It would be easy to add them to DB and fiddle the random number generator so they can start popping up in eggs.

[Administrator]

This page is getting enormous, let's hurry to a new one so I can post more images...

[Administrator]

C'mon, new page!