So, take a look at this:



This is a screenshot I just had to share from a testing session I just ran...

There are actually a lot of details I can discuss from this one shot, but first, I'll explain what was going on...

I was actually just testing the newly added ability to use certain weapons to bash open locked doors (as is so very often suggested) One of the weapons with the capability is the shovel, so I had walked to my purple room (nearest the shovel's spawner), grabbed a shovel, locked the bedroom door, then whacked it with the shovel to unlock it (for simplicity's sake, this action does not damage the door or its ability to lock in the future... it just unlocks it)

And, Hooray! That works fine! (so far as this test shows)

But then here's where the funny started...

Just after unlocking my door, "Granny Green" came waltzing by... After a cordial greeting, WHAM!, she whacked me ("Sargeant Madison" is the name this session had auto-assigned to me) with my own shovel, a one-hit kill... (Note: it should/will not be possible to attack people with their own weapons...lol This was a surprise bug that I just fixed)

Unfortunately for her, in the Classic mode (the normal mode you're familiar with) non-murderers are punished for killing with death by instant karma (no good explanation for this, just a way to discourage players from randomly killing others when they're not supposed to... it's only OK for non-murderers to kill the murderer)

Now normally, non-murderer bots wouldn't attack anyone else (unless provoked), but for the time being, I've removed that limitation to test the basic "pick victims on walk-bys when there are no witnesses" system (if all of the bots are capable of doing it, it's easier to see it in action, instead of having to get lucky by finding/following the murderer)...

So anyways, I died, and then so did she as her punishment...

But just as the attack was taking place, "Patricia Madison" (no relation, as far as I know...and if there is, I wonder why she's staying in a different room...lol) happened to also walk by, and she witnessed the whole thing...

Seeing Granny Green attack me, Patricia Madison assumed that she must be the murderer, and ran to a phone to accuse her...

Now, a bot making an incorrect assessment of a situation is perfectly acceptable (after all, my attacker may only be attacking me in self-defense, but a late-comer might read that wrong and make the assumption that the victim is really the aggressor)

However, in this case, Patricia Madison was inexcusably wrong, as she herself was the murderer for the round! (there should be checks in there to ensure that the actual murderer knows better, but apparently there isn't, they're not working, or this was a loophole...)

So upon making the incorrect accusation, our confused (schizophrenic?) murderer was DQed (by death) at the phone, and the round ended with no winner...lol

Despite the humorous flaws, I'm actually pleased to see my little dummies taking this level of initiative!

Other noteworthy points in this shot:

1) You can see some of the minor graphical improvements I've made... Obviously, the player icons are vastly improved over the original (but they can be seen in the "2007 Halloween Preview" package I put up on the MM hub), and now they even include little shadow pools underneath...

But other than that, I've given all carpet turfs a texture whereas before they were all just solid, flat color fills (this was done very simply by making a "noise" tile of black pixels in three transparencies, then pasting it onto each carpet icon), I've given all glass (windows, picture frames, mirrors, etc.) some light streaks, and I also toned down much of the wood materials in the house (before, much of the wood like the banisters, tables, etc. had a very deep reddish tint to them, as they were originally created on a rather poor/failing monitor, and I guess I just never noticed just how red they were) including changing the doors, window frames, and wall molding/trim from an orange-y color to the same wood tone used throughout...

The blood drops in the shot seem a bit too saturated, but they've also actually been toned down and made partially transparent...

2) AFK?? Yep, that is indeed an AFK verb you see there... It's currently just for testing purposes, which is why it's still an old-style panelized verb (which I never use for a finished product; all commands go into screen objects in my games) I'm not sure if I'll actually make it a publically available command (I probably will, though; no reason not to, I suppose), but it's pretty nifty... It simply allows the mob to be picked up by the same routines that run the AI, effectively putting your mob on autopilot...

3) You can't really tell it from the screenshot, but the Ghost icons are now just simple circles of semi-transparent white that fades outwards in concentric rings... I think it makes them a bit less intrusive...

And while I'm at it, here's something I've spent a large (too large) chunk of time on recently: