ADDIT'S PROFILE

I think this game is trying to torture me or something with my sanity level lately because I keep constantly getting bombarded with commercials for “Man With A Plan,” a show I have absolutely NO interest in watching at all, starring Matt LeBlanc in it, during the last couple of nights that I’ve been watching the Canucks games. It’s like…come on, man! I already played that train wreck of a game with you in it, I don’t need you to keep popping up and reminding me of that acid trip again!

It’s funny, because before I even played this game I never actually knew who Matt LeBlanc even was because I never watched a single episode of Friends before. I mean, I’ve heard of the show, of course, from word of mouth, but I don’t remember any of the actual cast member’s names that were in it. And now, after playing this game – Matt LeBlanc won’t stop popping up on my television set!

Thanks a lot, twentyfour24. Now you’ve cursed with Matt LeBlanc me for at least the next month. I hope you're happy.

W-Wow…that looks phenomenal! I absolutely dig what you did with the backdrop over there - it looks great. Nicely done.

So I’m trying to get back to work on Monopoly again after a bit of a hiatus on it and find myself pondering a bunch of different options that I might wanna adjust, change or implement throughout the course of the game thus far. Here's a couple of things that I have in mind that I’m thinkin’ about:

CPU Behaviour Patterns:



So in the original version of the game, the CPU functionally and thought process to thinking about and performing certain actions were pretty limited back then as I mainly just had the CPU do whatever seemed best on paper and a lot of decisions made were mainly focused on remaining cash flow and property count. Instead, I’m considering having each CPU player fall under a certain parameter list that has that particular CPU perform under a certain playstyle function.

So, for example, some CPU players will try to think a lot more cautiously in their overall tactics while others will try to play a lot more aggressively and try to acquire the right set of properties immediately and build houses and / or hotels without delay. This would also factor into trades too, where some CPU’s will tend to trade properties later on after everything’s bought up and acquired and some CPU’s will try to trade immediately, or tend to trade with only one player. And some CPU’s will act even merciful sometimes towards another, cutting them a bit of a break and allowing a player to acquire a property if they’re not doing so well or if they particularly need it. And, of course, some CPU’s will be total lunkheads - just like before - and do some incredibly stupid moves too. Can't forget that!

Available Funds Also Determining What NPC’s Say:



Just like with the original game where certain NPC’s, such as The Tax Man, will say different lines of dialogue depending on what character you’re playing as, I’m also considering having them say different things based on how much money you have on hand as well. I already have something in place if you land on the same NPC multiple times in a row, or if it’s your first time landing on there in the game, but currency conversation changes are something I’m thinking about doing.

Properties Remaining Icon Display:



I might be able to squeeze one more H.U.D. indicator left on the screen, and that might be something to indicate how many properties are left unpurchased on the board. This could go either underneath the mini-map section or underneath the economy changes section, I’m not really sure... I do already have a pop-up message that tells players how many properties are left on the board to purchase, but maybe one more indicator might be a good idea to add in for better clarity.

Jail Space: Invisible Cell Bars And All 4 Players Being Locked In All At Once:



Two things I’m considering with the jail space:

First, I would like to see if I could place a transparent, cell bar that covers the entire outer edge of the holding cell to give it a better illusion that it is a real jail cell and that players can’t simply just walk out of it because nothing looks like its holding him or her in place from doing so. You know, to make it a bit more believable and all.

It might be a bit tough to implement using events, because the space above it, St. Charles Place, the spot where the transparent bars have to go on are already covered with houses and hotel events there. But maybe I could still do this with teleporting the cell bars on the event space and maybe try something with fiddling around with the elevation of the events to make it work.

And second, I would like to be able to place all four players in jail now at any one given time and give the option to have the Prison Capacity ruleset go up to four and be more like the classic version if possible. The reason why the original game only could have two players in prison at a time was because the dice rolling animation would display on top of the character sprite surrounding each other, resulting in a very odd looking effect that I didn’t think looked too appealing. Now, thanks to changing the Y Axis Line in the animation setup, I might be able to have all four players in jail now with no animation hiccups at all now; and if that doesn’t work, I might be able to manually adjust this with using different animation files instead and cover up the sprites during animation that it doesn’t have that problem anymore.

A More Accurate Properties Display:



When testing my game recently, I noticed that when it came to property knowledge of what I had and what I still had to acquire in order to complete my set, the current display screen that I have thus far only displays how many said properties of that particular color group that I have and NOT what I need to complete my set. So if I had, say, two oranges properties and I needed and I needed the other one, the original display would make me have to guess what other property I need. Is it St. James, Tennessee or New York Avenue? Sure, I could always remember what I need by watching the gameplay and other players walking around the board when it’s not my turn and all, but it is a bit of a problem here when I need to rely on luck and memorization to remember what I need.

The solution: maybe something along the line like setting the property display screen up like the example above. Having the properties listed in order and jotting out the ones that a player doesn’t currently have might make it a bit easier for players to know what they need and what they don’t. The only problem is the picture setup. I’m currently using the David Overdrive Patch and using ALL 120 pictures to display what I need on screen. When I’m in a pickle, I do substitute pictures that I’m not using for the other, but I’m kind of a bit taxed out on that method too, so this might be a bit difficult to do without some adjustments done to it – but it might be possible.

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Yeah, there’s still plenty of work to do from the looks of things here, so I’m going to be busy for a while! But every single moment spent on this game is one step closer to finally ridding myself of this terrible nightmare.

(Just kidding; I love this game. It's like being involved in a rocky marriage that has its shares of up's and downs, but ultimately I still love it.)

Lol. This guy’s got the moves!

(BTW, is this animation fully complete? It looks a bit stiff.)

Hey, I was just browsing through YouTube just now and found out that SNES Drunk, a reviewer of classic and non-classic games from usually the 16-bit generation, just did a review on Shadows Of Adam a few days ago and posted it to his channel. Awesome! :D