Status: Out for a while

As I write this, virtually all my belongings are in boxes in transit to the UK. This also means that I'm about to depart my home in Australia to follow them, and as such, I'll be without a computer for at least the next few weeks.

However, with trusty pen, pencil and paper, I'll still be trying to get some work done on Fate of a City, in the form of writing out the conversations, scripts and perhaps jotting down a few notes to be used in the final stages of development when I manage to acquire a new system after my move.

But right now, I'm going to give a little more information about the companion influence system I've implemented in Fate of a City. Influence will be handled primarily through conversations, though there will be a few instances where your actions will directly impact upon your relationship with your companion(s). Many of the quests within the game will include conversation options that will affect your influence, and in addition, there will be other situational dialogs that will occur for a companion to provide you with some information or their opinion, which will also include the ability to gain (or lose) influence with them.


In addition, typically, just because you say one wrong thing does not mean that you will necessarily fall out of favour with a companion... though if you continue to disregard their opinion, they may not be happy about it. Of course, having (or lacking) a certain level of influence with a companion will help (or hinder) your relationship with them, so you may not wish to annoy them too much.

However, the last couple of days of modding haven't been without their annoyances. The one that's annoyed me most recently is a weird issue that I can only call a lighting issue, yet the problem persisted even when I removed all the lights from the area. Rather than try and explain the problem, I'll demonstrate through a screenshot...


This weird black area is actually a closed door, yet for some reason, it does not display nicely at all. Even more frustrating is that as soon as the door is opened, the problem goes away, and even if the door is shut again, the area is not in shadow. In addition, if I use a "see-through" door - such as a gate or portcullis, then there is no issue either. It's as though the game thinks that the southern side of the doorway (this is a N/S oriented door) is "unexplored". After several hours of fruitlessly banging my head against the toolset (and repeatedly going in game to test) in the hope of fixing the problem, I was eventually forced to rework my interior design to avoid the problem. I'd curious as to whether anyone has encountered a similar issue, or has any clue as to the cause (or even better, a solution!).

Final note/question: Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I should/shouldn't buy a computer/computer parts in the UK once I arrive?