EHPC Bugs... I think

[Jojo]

While playing El-Hazard PC It likes to always repeat scenes that should be only played once. When Nanami is able to see the phantom tribe guy it will repeat that over and over if you go back their and now I'm getting the same thing with Ifurita. You go there and then goto the shrine of nature and it will just repeat and I can't speak to Rune about Afura. Is this a bug or am I just dumb and need to learn how to play the game? Anyways I was curious...

I'm also curious how can I become a contributer cause I doubt I could really find anything to contribute because the site's got almost everything I think.

One more question about EHPC if you play it with the Saturn disc do you get the cut-scenes and music? Is their music sapposed to be playing because it seems kinda dull because there is no music for me atleast. Anyways Thanks Much...

From The Noob,
Jojo

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

While playing El-Hazard PC It likes to always repeat scenes that should be only played once. When Nanami is able to see the phantom tribe guy it will repeat that over and over if you go back their and now I'm getting the same thing with Ifurita.

... I'm not sure where you are, but I'm pretty sure if you're thinking of when Nanami first sees Galus, well... I think that ends a chapter so it'd be impossible to see that event again and again.  But maybe I'm somewhere else... Tell me what chapter and try to describe the events a little better or just give me your save file and point me in the right direction, whatever.    If it is the fact that you're just stuck gameplay-wise, maybe I can get you UN-stuck.

Although it's plenty possible you hit a script bug.  I know we found a few of those here and there, like for example you can lock Fujisawa up in Chapter 4 and by Chapter 5 he's nowhere to be found or something like that; not in the cell, not in his room, just ... missing.

I'm also curious how can I become a contributer cause I doubt I could really find anything to contribute because the site's got almost everything I think.

I wanted to set up a online quiz as an alternative, but unfortunately I've found I'm too busy to do anything with the site.  Note the last two updates -- which were many weeks apart -- were done by my brother instead of me.  I work in the day and go to school at night so...  You might not get the chance until mid-May when the semester ends.  

One more question about EHPC if you play it with the Saturn disc do you get the cut-scenes and music? Is their music sapposed to be playing because it seems kinda dull because there is no music for me atleast. Anyways Thanks Much...

There is music that ought to be playing.  It just uses standard DirectMusic calls.  (DirectX 6+)  I really wouldn't know many reasons why you wouldn't be able to hear it.

As for the Saturn disc, no, at this time it adds no additional functionality, it merely allows you to use it for the sake of using it.  (Since I translated the graphics format, it's no issue using the actual CD-ROM in place of my compressed set.)

I AM planning to add movie support, but that's been out of the dev cycle for quite a while.  I recently found a tech doc on how to decode the Saturn .CPK files which ought to help... if I ever manage to write a working Cinepak [the movie's compressor] decoder as well!    

Of course, in fairness the game hasn't been that popular... for all the months I put into it, I think I've only heard of maybe 5 people who've ever played it.  (So it's hard to get the desire to push it further.  Notice no one besides me has even replied yet.  ;P)  I also did a "limited edition" Gameboy Advance compatible port of it for fun which gave me some temporary recognition simply because of the project, but... that needs updating too, since its music engine left much to be desired.  

The game's not all that good anyway, it's only really good to someone who's totally in the series and doesn't mind wasting a bit of time on a puzzle-ish menu choice game.  Personally I would've liked to see it get a more action-based game, though I suppose that's up to me and my brother to develop.  We are loosely working towards that, but we both go to college.  But he at least doesn't have to work.  

Anyway, yeah.  Get me a little more depth on your problem and I'll try to help you out.

[Jojo]

The point is where yes Nanami meets Galus, i've played it and it never seems to end a chapter. I played the game through once and that happand to me, Somehow I got around it and moved to the next chapter. The next time i went to play for another ending, I skipped that whole scene wich was extremely weird, but then got stuck with Ifurita. When you program this game is it that hard? I'm just kinda curious because I do some basic C++ programming because its stuff i just enjoy to do (along with my obsesion towards ddr, el hazard, and love hina) so itd probably give me something to do to just mess around with that.

So until May I cant be a contributor huh? That kinda sucks, but I guess I can see how busy you may be because my sister is in college too and she tell's me about the hellish life of college. Well do you know of any other place where I might be able to find songs? I'm a music type of person and I like to listen to these songs. I'm dumb because I want to know cover "The Wanderers" Theme song cause i learend how to play it yesterday.   I'm a sad case. Anyways thanks for your help.

Jojo

[dooky]

I noticed a similar bug, in which the scene where Ifurita lands in the palace repeats over and over...

dooky

[Jojo]

Thats what I was talking about!

[Spanner]

Well... actually, that's not really a "bug" persay. Yeah, the same thing happens over and over again, but that's to give you as many chances as you need to play the scene "correctly". If you do it right, you can eventually meet Ifurita at the Shrine of Nature, and so on and so forth.

Just blame it all on massive incompetence on Ifurita's part, and incredible skill on the part of the palace repairmen - Ifurita barges in, all confused, and eventually leaves. The repairmen fix the palace. Then, Ifurita barges in again. Repeat, until you get the scene right.

Yeah, it's cheesy, but as Rob noted, El-Hazard isn't a paragon of gaming achievement. It's a string of pretty pictures for El-Hazard fans to enjoy, with a modicum of interactivity.

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Just blame it all on massive incompetence on Ifurita's part, and incredible skill on the part of the palace repairmen - Ifurita barges in, all confused, and eventually leaves. The repairmen fix the palace. Then, Ifurita barges in again. Repeat, until you get the scene right.

 Wow, well ... that was the best spin that could possibly have been put on that.  I never noticed that scene could repeat before... I'll have to look at it.

But now that it HAS happened at least once, I would check to see if she wound up at the Shrine of Nature or not.  Then maybe you can move on.  (Really, there's only two ways out of the scene, and one of them blows you up, so...)


Anyway, jopn, you've been too kind and firstly played my little remake and then also mentioned a programming interest.  Out of the goodness of my heart, I'm giving you a roadside commission (see Big Bus).  You're a contributer for ... uh, contributing to my quality of life.  

And as for actually programming it ... it really wasn't an incredibly difficult challenge or anything.  Once the basic engine was built the only real issues were then transcribing the game itself, which took probably the bulk of the time.

Also, on your music issue, make sure you have a useable MIDI device set up; I've noticed newer DirectMusic implementations just use your soundcard for MIDI output which may or may not be what you really want.

[Jojo]

Awesome!!! Thanks much... Bobby! Yeah so the whole midi thing I had it set to output to my midi output and not to windows... :-p so it works now. Thanks for that info.

You know what would be fun is to make a FF/CT rpg for El Hazard? I'm not the greatest of programmers whatsoever but I think this would be cool and I'd want to do something like this. What are your views on the whole thing?

One more thing what is the difference between a contributer and a super contributer just read that on the fourms...

[Jojo]

Umm. When using this developer kit when ever i goto compile it says its missing _PCFONTA but its right there in the same directory. Any suggestions?

[Jojo]

Well i figured that those font files need to be in the same folder that you are compiling... Is that right?

In The Wanders OST 1 the songs "Heat & Lathargy" and "Hive Activity" have broken links... I'm sorry i've been talking quite a bit on this forum. Maybe its because I'm new and i'm in love with El Hazard.     ok thanks for all your help

__________________________________________

Sorry I didnt know that on the DST has some of the songs in working condition. Hive Activity is broken on both OST and DST. Well those links are still broken.

[Wayne]

Nothing wrong with that. I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about people posting a lot of questions and such-- although you might try editing your posts instead of adding new ones, if nobody's replied since your previous post.

You know what would be fun is to make a FF/CT rpg for El Hazard? I'm not the greatest of programmers whatsoever but I think this would be cool and I'd want to do something like this. What are your views on the whole thing?

The problem with that (and we had a member not too long ago join and claim that Black Isle was making an El Hazard game, which was unfortunately untrue) is just how complex a game like that would be. For example, Square hasn't hit a deadline for their RPGs since [I think] FF7 (FFX-2 doesn't count, since it uses mostly recycled content and a similar engine), and they have a programming team numbering in the dozens. There's graphics work (incredibly intensive), engine coding, and scripting (a complex game like BIS's Planescape: Torment has thousands of dialogue loops and trees)... making a modern (or even semi-modern) RPG is far beyond the ability of one programmer or a small team. Especially for guys that aren't doing it for a living, and so don't have the time to dedicate to the game that full-time programmers would.

I would love to see or contribute to an El Hazard RPG or action RPG/adventure game (probably the best genres for it, although it'd make a swank fighting game or dating sim), but I don't have much time, and I'm only an amateur programmer myself (let's just say I admit to being mediocre at Visual Basic-- derive my level of skill from there  :-/ ).

As cool as it'd be, it's not really possible. Although maybe if all the El Hazard fans that can also program got together... and work pro bono on a game that'd have to be free (copyrighted content)? Yeah, right.

There's always Internet petitions, though. Get one of those Japanese companies to make it (and translate/export the bloody thing...) and we have our problem solved. I don't see it happening, though; since the recent El Hazard series didn't exactly do very well financially.

As for the game itself....

I've played through it a few times, Rob (mostly to see the different endings... the Alielle one is pretty cute, heh); and I appreciate what you've done in making it (and if I haven't said that before, I should have :]). Some of the "translations" (heh) were just so off-base it was hard to play again, though... Makoto's conversation with Afura comes to mind, and Ifurita's "broken computer" gimmick was pretty overplayed. But overall it was funny, and it's hard to say whether Jinnai as a zealot or simply a maniac is better....

I saw a few bugs also, but I can't remember any of them now... next time I play I'll let you know. I hate having a bad memory, heh.[/font]

[Jojo]

Well i think that you know a FF6 type game would be neat. I've seen people do it with like Pokémon games. They completely changed everything to make it Pokémon instead of FF6. This type of thing yes would be extremely diffcult for novice programers like you or me, but I don't know they might have some sort of program that just might allow you to completely edit a FF6 rom for snes. Since it has been done by single people and what not. Sure of course i still know nothing how to do that. I can't even figure out how this EHPC game works out, but I'm willing to learn. I need a better life then just watching El Hazard Over and Over and playing DDR  , THat's a bad life to have ...

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Umm. When using this developer kit when ever i goto compile it says its missing _PCFONTA but its right there in the same directory. Any suggestions?

Yeahhh... hang on, no one has ever actually tried to do this before.    I have to look...

... hmm, I unzipped it to just a folder (E:\SATURN\DEVKIT, FYI) and ran it... no problems.  HOWEVER, I used the command line based version SCRIPT.EXE.  I don't know how good the Windows one is... to be honest, it was a hack job, and I'm finding I can't even type into it for some reason.    However, it only works if the _PCFONT?.WTH files are in the same directory as your script text, not the program!

The command line one is what I used for development all the way through.  

Either way:

Code: [Select]



E:\Saturn\devkit\Example\LNGFX>..\..\script latenight1.txt
El-Hazard PC Script Compiler
(c)2002 Robert "Jinnai" Showalter

This software is provided as-is with
no warranty expressed or implied.

This software is strictly for use with the El-Hazard PC
interactive engine, also (c)2002 Robert "Jinnai" Showalter.

FATAL: Couldn't open font WidTH file _PCFONTA.WTH!


That DOES happen unless the WTH files are in the same directory as the compiler.  What can I say?  No one has ever tried this until you.  

There's also supposed to be a doc explaining all the keywords... lemme see...

Yup, still there: click here.  I always said I'd polish it up and stuff once someone decided they wanted to do something with EHPC.  It just ... never happened.   :-/

There's screenshots in there that show the original graphics conversion which was less than optimal.  (Very reddish.)  Interesting.  



As for the RPG thing; I think it would be a great idea, and better yet if you do a strictly 2D overhead, tile-based view like the older FFs you're actually not necessarily asking for that hard of an engine to do.  Now, what it also comes down is if you wanted to do your own engine or would prefer to use one of the many RPG engines that are already out there, like RPG Maker, if that's still around.  I can try to get you started either way if you're curious about venturing out into that world.

[Jojo]

I found this awesome program called RPG Maker 2003! It could quite possibly do what we all want! http://www.thaiware.com/software/download_rpgmaker2003.htm theres the link for it. It installs in some funky language but its in english one you actually run it! How about a new project starting here? I could do a lot of the making of the game but theres no way i could do those graphics as good as I'm sure almost anyone else could do :-p. Where theirs a possibility their.

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

I wholly recommend RPGM2K3.  It's a pretty solid foundation on which to build a simple RPG styled game of that nature.

And this particular graphics file from the Saturn game has a lot of what you'd need to base the character sprites on.