Unity.Rea.Overworld

A Unity 6 rebuild of Overworld, a 2006 VB.NET / DirectX 9 top-down overworld prototype: a party of three led by the mouse across a grid of painted tiles, a clock that turns a real second into a game minute, a one-line script language behind every item and event, and a stamina-gauge battle mode run from a ring menu around the active hero.

The rebuild is in progress: the world draws as the original drew it (the 11 x 11 grid of area tiles under the 45-degree camera, the backdrop box, and the heroes and props back to front), and Chrono moves as the original moved him: hold the right mouse button to head for the cursor (walking near it, running when it is far or the run key, Right Ctrl or Space, is held), or use the arrow keys. The mouse is the world cursor (the system pointer is hidden and held while the window has focus): push it to a screen edge to scroll (Shift for three times as fast), the camera eases back onto Chrono while he moves, the wheel or the middle button zooms between -1 and -3.5, E shows the examine eye, and F (free camera), X / Z and the numpad are the original's debug camera moves. Belmont and Flagg follow the leader as the original's party did (running when more than 0.2 away, walking when near, standing within 0.05, recalled beside the leader, falling in, when a unit behind, and sliding apart when they crowd); [ and ] or a left click on a hero choose the leader, and ' or the team button at the top left turns following off (solo), so the others kneel. The clock runs a minute a second from 9:00 AM on Terraday, Frostfall 1, 64 CE: the HUD at the bottom left shows the period and time, the world's light fades toward evening red, night blue and morning white, and each period's name drifts down from the centre as it begins. Each hero has 50 health, 20 mana and 60 stamina at most (starting at 31, 12 and 60): every 2 seconds standing gives back a point of stamina, kneeling two, running takes one, and poison takes a point of health; the status box at the top left shows the leader's (and the team's) HP, MP and AP, the three bars at the bottom left fill by the leader's, and an Exhausted, Angry or (green) Poisoned animation plays above a hero below 15 percent stamina, below 5 percent health or poisoned. \ rests: once kneels, again lies down ("Rest for 1 hour?" at the centre; the arrows set 1 to 24 hours), again kneels; Enter or a left click while lying down sleeps, fading the world to black, giving every hero an eighth of its maximum health, mana and stamina an hour (no stamina while poisoned), moving the clock on and fading back in. The original's 372 pickups (and the restored Nitro Bean) lie where it put them: the herbs, the potato and turnip fields, the sword, books, rune, food and beans, and the gold, five-gold and satchels scattered at random. Walk within reach (0.05) and the selected one's name shows over it; , and . (or the wheel) choose among those in reach; Enter or the left button kneels and picks it up: coins pay out at once, the rest go into the party's pack, and picked herbs and crops grow back after their growth time. With E on, the cursor over a pickup opens the examine box (name, effect, description, weight and value). Delete (or the inventory button under the team button) opens the pack: its stacks ten to a row with their counts, the weight against the party's 28.5 and the gold; the arrows (or the wheel) move the cursor, the run key marks a stack and swaps it with the next one chosen, Backspace (or the right button) drops one by the leader, where it can be picked up again, and Enter (or a click) uses it: solo on the leader, in team mode a satchel, draught or book at once and anything else on the hero chosen with left and right and Enter. Q shows the quick bar of the first ten stacks, and 1 to 0 use them. A pack heavier than 28.5 burdens the party: the heroes kneel and "You are overburdened" shows until something is dropped. ~ opens the script console (the green / > | prompt at the top left): type the original's language, e.g. CHANGE HERO HP +10 | CHANGE TIME DAYPERIOD NIGHT (C on an empty line types CHANGE , again CHANGE CAMERA ; the \| key is the pipe, = is Shift and the + key), Enter runs it and shuts the console, Esc, F11 or ~ shut it, and Insert brings the last one back. Every item's effect, the Rune's teleport and the quests' end scripts run through the same interpreter; a command it does not understand shows "Script failed to execute." and a number that is not one "Script failed to run.". While the console is open, or a script walks a hero (MOVE HERO TO x,y,z, CHANGE HERO AI WALKLEFT until CHANGE HERO AI STOP), the keys and mouse do not move the party. The original's quests run as it ran them: Farmer Brinn's north and south fields, the centre field, the west and east pair (going east sets the clock to 6 PM) and the far west, one at a time, and the two subquests (way south, far north) alongside; walking the leader into an objective's range completes it and pays its experience (100 to 1200; each quest 350 to 3500 more once all its objectives are done) into the party's, and a white * marks every objective not yet reached. Page Down opens the quest screen: up and down choose Quests, Subquests or Completed, right enters the subquest list and then shows the chosen one, left backs out. The five books (Grimoire de'Alchemiste, Dragon Almanac, Poetry Book, Matt's Book and Colesium Vol I) read two pages at a time on the original's book picture, the pages in the book's own lettering (Monotype Corsiva, Calisto ...) and numbered in Roman: using a book from the pack opens it in its cover and lettering, B shows and hides the book open, N moves on to the next book, left and right (or the wheel) turn a spread, and the right button hides it (with the pack open, Delete or Backspace hide it first). The weather falls as the original's did: 2,501 snowflakes drift down toward the ground (most start far above, so the snow thickens over the first 45 seconds), and W cycles it on to rain, clear skies, falling leaves (drawn with the snow picture, as the original had no leaf art), a dust storm blowing right and back to snow; 401 clouds and four hot-air balloons drift right over the world and wrap round at its east edge (they float between the ground and the camera, so they show once the wheel zooms out), the tent stands west of the start, and the four props (three tree trunks and a wall) stand north-east of it, all in the clock's light. End enters battle mode with the team: a hero whose stamina (its turn gauge) is full draws its weapon, Chrono his Fine Axe and Belmont and Flagg their Steel Swords, and holds its battle stance, the weapon drawn over it frame for frame; one below full kneels and recharges a point every 0.18 seconds, its gauge shown under its column of the status box ("NN %" fading in as it fills), and once full it is "Ready!" and draws. In battle the ring menu circles the active hero: Move, End, Skill, Item and Attack, turned with left and right (or the wheel), pulsed with Up and chosen with Enter or a click. Highlighting Move shows a dotted circle as far as the hero may walk (agility x 0.05 at a full gauge), Attack its weapon's range in red, Item the quick bar; choosing Move lets the hero walk there with the right button, its gauge falling as it goes, Item opens the pack (a use costs 10 percent of the gauge and brings the ring back; a pickup while moving costs 5), and End, or a spent move, kneels it to recharge and hands the turn to the next ready hero, the camera following. End again sheathes every weapon and the party is back in adventure mode. The interface is the original's: a random one of its twelve loading pictures shows while the game starts, then the tutorial's lines drift down from the centre one after another ("hi!" ... "...thanks again!"); the turn bars under the status box show every hero's gauge (READY! when full); the red FPS counter at the top right hides with F4; F11 or Escape opens the options menu (the arrows and Enter: Controls lists the move keys, and Exit quits); Page Up opens the hero screen with the date, the time and the party's experience; the Pause key pauses under "- PAUSE -" as the original would have (the party, weather and pickups hold while the clock, its light and the messages run on); over the team and inventory buttons and the open pack the cursor becomes a small arrow; the cursor on another hero shows its name; and while an item waits for its target the chosen hero's name is bracketed |Name| in the status box. A gamepad plays as the original's did (gamepad.json): the left stick or the d-pad is the arrows, A runs, X picks up (and sleeps, chooses from the ring and works the options), Y opens the pack, START rests, B drops, and L2 / R2 choose the next / previous hero; J turns the pad off and on. The game is online-ready on the shared Unity.Multiplayer kit, beside unchanged local play: O opens the kit's menu (Host, Join by IP, Join by code with a lobby, Settings, Play alone); each joining player leads a hero of their own (player 2 Belmont, player 3 Flagg), their commands go to the host's game instead of their own, and the host sends its game back as snapshots (Online/, Core/Net/, docs/BIBLE.md Online). Drawing a joined player's whole screen from those snapshots comes next. The stories that make the rest play follow in build order. .\play.ps1 builds the Windows player (headless) when needed and launches it muted; -Sound opts back in to audio and -Capture <file.png> saves a screenshot and quits (-overworld-capture-after <seconds> plays that long first). Scripted runs hold keys with -overworld-hold right,run or the move button with -overworld-move-to <x>,<y>[,run] (a world point), and drive the view with -overworld-pointer <x>,<y> (the virtual 640 x 480 mouse; 608 or 32 and 448 or 32 are the scrolling edges), -overworld-wheel <steps>, -overworld-view-hold zoom,shift,x,z,num4,num6,num8,num2, -overworld-examine and -overworld-free-camera; -overworld-recall <hero>[,<seconds>] recalls Belmont (1) or Flagg (2) beside the leader, at once or after that many seconds, so it falls in from z -1; -overworld-solo starts with the team off, and -overworld-select <hero|next|previous>[,<seconds>] makes Chrono (0), Belmont (1) or Flagg (2) the leader, or steps as ] / [ do; -overworld-clock <h:mm>[,<seconds>] sets the time of day (period and light settled at once) and, given seconds, how many real seconds a minute takes (0: a minute every 60 Hz tick, a day in 24 seconds); -overworld-vitals <hero>:<key=value,...>[;...] sets vitals as CHANGE HERO did (hp, mp, ap, and poisoned or fine; e.g. 0:ap=5;1:hp=1;2:poisoned); -overworld-rest <kneel|lay|hours>[,<seconds>] kneels, lies down or sleeps that many hours, and -overworld-sleep-until <hour>[,<seconds>] sleeps until that hour as the Moon Berry (22) and Morningstar (5) do; -overworld-seed <n> fixes the random scatter of the gold and satchels; -overworld-place <x>,<y> puts the leader there; -overworld-reach <pickup>[,<seconds>] puts the leader beside that pickup (0 to 372) and selects it, -overworld-pickup <pickup>[,<seconds>] then holds the pick-up button, and -overworld-examine-pickup <pickup>[,<seconds>] opens the examine box over it; -overworld-give <pickup>[*<count>],... puts those pickups' items into the pack (e.g. 0*3,201*2,105), -overworld-quickbar shows the quick bar, -overworld-inventory <slot>[,<seconds>] opens the panel on that stack, -overworld-swap <from>,<to>[,<seconds>] swaps two stacks with the run key, -overworld-drop <slot>[*<count>][,<seconds>] drops from a stack (Backspace), -overworld-use <slot>[:<hero>][,<seconds>] and -overworld-quick <key>[:<hero>][,<seconds>] use a stack from the panel or a number key (choosing that hero when the item asks for its target, or leaving the target marked without one), and -overworld-pickup-drop <drop>[,<seconds>] picks a dropped item up again; -overworld-script "<script>" types a script into the console key by key and presses Enter, -overworld-console "<text>" types text and leaves the console open (for a capture of the prompt), both after -overworld-script-after <seconds>; -overworld-objective <q:o|s:n:o>[+...][,<seconds>] completes those objectives in turn (main quest q's objective o, or subquest n's), the leader placed on each but walking into the last, and -overworld-quest-screen <main|subquests|subquest:n|finished>[,<seconds>] opens the quest screen on that page; -overworld-book <title|number>[,<page>[,<seconds>]] shows that book (0 Colesium to 4 Poetry, in folder order) at the spread holding that page (1 first), styled as its pickup's script opens it (or as N does for the Colesium); -overworld-weather <snowing|raining|clear|leaves|dust>[,<seconds>] sets the weather (-overworld-seed also fixes the scatter of the weather and clouds); -overworld-battle <seconds>[,<seconds>] presses End after that many seconds (entering battle mode) and, given a second number, again that much later (leaving it), e.g. with -overworld-vitals "0:ap=30;2:ap=45" to show heroes recharging beside one Ready; -overworld-ring <steps>[,choose][,<seconds>] turns the open ring that many entries (negative left) after that many seconds (default 1) and, with choose, chooses the top one (with -overworld-move-to the leader then walks its move distance); -overworld-options <main|controls|video|audio>[,<row>][,<seconds>] opens the options menu on that page and row, -overworld-hero-screen opens the hero screen, -overworld-pause pauses, -overworld-fps-off hides the FPS counter, -overworld-hover <hero>[,<seconds>] holds the world cursor on that hero (its name shows unless it leads), and -overworld-loading <1..12|random> shows that loading picture first (scripted runs skip it otherwise); -overworld-gamepad <x>,<y>[,<control>...] plugs in a virtual pad holding its left stick at (x, y) and those controls down (buttonSouth, buttonEast, buttonWest, buttonNorth, start, leftTrigger, rightTrigger) for the whole run, and logs the leader and the pack 1.5 seconds in; a scripted run never takes the real mouse.

Why

The original prototype tried a few things worth rebuilding properly:

• The mouse is the player. Hold the right button and the hero walks toward the cursor (running when it is far); the world cursor scrolls the camera at the screen edge and turns into a zoom hand or an examine eye.
• A tiny script language runs everything. CHANGE HERO HP +10 | CHANGE TIME HOUR 22 is how every herb, book, rune, quest end and event is written, and a tilde console types it live.
• A living clock. One real second is one in-game minute; Morning, Day, Evening and Night tint the world; sleeping skips hours; the calendar has its own months and weekdays.
• Stamina is the turn. Battle has no initiative roll: the gauge that powers running is the turn timer, spent through a ring menu (Move, End, Skill, Item, Attack) around the active hero.
• A world made of data. 372 pickups, quests, five books, walls, props and, in the later 2007 design, areas, scenes, terrain, NPCs and enemies, all as rows.

See docs/RECONSTRUCTION.md for the mechanic-by-mechanic record (and how the source and the built copy of the original relate), docs/BIBLE.md for the rebuild's brief and its decisions beyond the original, and docs/USER_STORIES.md for the 33 stories of epic U.OVW-A, in build order.

Status

Reconstruction-complete; the engine-free foundations (U.OVW-US-A1) are in: Assets/Unity.Rea.Overworld/Core (pure C#, noEngineReferences: players, commands, events, the fixed 60 Hz Game step and general world types), Runtime, Editor and Tests/EditMode, one-way references into Core. Run Core's tests outside Unity with . un-core-tests.ps1 (Tests/Core.Tests). Every story is planned, in dependency order (tickets story list --repo Unity.Rea.Overworld):

• Engine-free Core, data files, asset catalogue
• World grid, camera, hero locomotion, cursor, walls, party
• Clock and light, vitals, rest, pickups, inventory, scripts, quests, books, weather, battle mode
• The ring menu, HUD and screens, gamepad, audio, options, defeat
• The later data layer: areas, events, NPCs, enemies, combat, equipment, extra sprite packs, unfinished-hook seams
• An end-to-end verified run

Original source

Read-only references, never edited by this project:

• R:\Projects\_PRE_2022\_PRE_2021\_PRE_2020\_PRE_2017\overhead 2 — the VB.NET / DirectX source project and its build output.
• R:\Projects\_PRE_2022\_PRE_2021\_PRE_2020\_PRE_2017\Overworld — the built copy with its data (books, world.mdb, hero.mdb), gfx and sfx.

Session mute

This repo references com.mindattic.unity.shared (Packages/manifest.json) for its CLI/automation session mute: launched with -muted or MINDATTIC_CLI_MUTED=1, Unity.Shared's bootstrap turns on Unity.Shared.Core.Profiles.SessionMuted before the first scene loads, and Assets/Unity.Rea.Overworld/Runtime/SessionAudio.cs zeroes AudioListener.volume for that run. The flag is session-only and read-only against the player's own settings: nothing is ever written to settings.json, and a normal launch afterwards has sound again.

play.ps1 (modelled on Unity.QuickDuel's) launches the player with -muted + MINDATTIC_CLI_MUTED=1 by default; -Sound opts back in.

.\play.ps1 -Headless runs the built player with no window for scripted testing (U.OVW-T100): it goes through ..\Unity.Shared\tools\Start-Headless.ps1 (--headless -batchmode -nographics: muted, in the background) and waits for the MINDATTIC_HEADLESS_READY line in Logs/play.log. The game has no main menu to skip (it boots straight into the world), so the game itself changes nothing; extra arguments such as -overworld-hold right,run pass through to the player. The player keeps running afterwards; stop it yourself. See Unity.Shared's README, "Headless mode".