Necromancer

Well I’m out $69.95. That sucks, but I should have my stuff soon. The computer is doing another seance. It seems this one is just Mostly Dead which means that it’s still Slightly Alive. Although were I to push after blowing air into it, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t say anything, let alone, “True Love.” Although at this point ,”To Blave” would be something. More news of Sorcelation incoming.

– Ha, it’s only $69.00, I’ve saved myself $0.95. In your face capitalism. Ah, wait, I’m still out $69.00, for my own data. Wow, my joy is suddenly less.
Right, then, the software is crunching along, finding new stuff as it goes. It doesn’t seem to want to find specific files though, just large, root based ones. So I can’t tell it to find just my Thief Source file, but I can tell it to find the Desktop files. The problem being right now that my file is among hundreds of other files. Not to mention the giant Level Data, which I already have a new copy of. Getting all of those files will take hours, lots and lots of hours. 900 minutes appeared when it did it the first time, before I aborted. Then it crashed, now it’s scanning again.
It has managed to find my Documents file, which is nice. So I still have the script and all of my other writing stuff now. This lets me know that it is working, which is incredibly encouraging.

– Necromancer indeed. I’ve gotten it. The ends of my files have lots of random, corrupted stuff in them, but that’s the ends. The data, the sweet code, nectar of the digital gods is still good. I have failed to raise the dead, yet they speak. In times of sadness or anger I usually find myself with the words to express the feeling. Now, it’s just joy and I find that four letter words don’t quite have the correct effect. (rhyme!) Also, since you probably didn’t see the Happy Dance I did when it worked, I feel a digital expression of emotion, an emoticon, is in order.

=D

Now with my stuff back, I need to do a bit of housekeeping. Mostly for the Level Editor, such that it is. You see, the best way to work with ThiefEd is to have the Engine running concurrently with it. I then go in and tweak the code to do what I want while building, mostly so I can pinpoint specific places where to start. I mean, as much fun as the first level is, there is really no need for me to run the entire level to test a new puzzle at the end. So I would usually go into the code and make a change to the starting level.
Since I’d rather not have people poking around my Source without knowing what stuff does, I’d rather not have my Level Designer doing that. So I need to build a quicky function that allows you to select a level when you start the game. I’m thinking doing something with the mouse and co-opting the ThiefEd Map code with some modifications. Click once to select a level, load it, click again to select the start location. It shouldn’t take long. Hopefully.
I also need to tweak TheifEd to add an Artist Friendly No GUI mode so that they can see how the level will look in game with the cute animated bits.
So I have my day planned.

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