So, I've been debating the pros/cons of whether I want to get into writing some small script snippets for my "Soul Forge" game. I develop software for a living so you'd think I'd be gun ho for writing my own ruby scripts for this project but I'm just not. I'm sick of looking at code by the time I get home from work to be quite honest but for whatever reason today I sat down and opened the script editor and started playing around.

I wanted to try making a small modification to the battle management module's Escape_Processing routine. I ended up writing a little routine that penalizes the overuse of the escape command. It was quick and dirty, just to get myself familiar with ruby syntax. Nothing elegant or too thought out and I'm sure someone else has already done similar things but the point of me doing it was so that I can start learning the language for myself. It's actually nice to write code without the pressure of deadlines and restrictions fouling up the whole process.

The little script snippet, as it currently stands only determines a percent chance of incurring a monetary penalty each time the party executes a successful escape (basically what FF4 had). I wrote it such that the percent chance of a penalty is adjustable in configuration and the amount of money lost is randomized from 1% up to a user specified max % loss of the party's current available funds.

I'm thinking about expanding it to include loss of non-key items, and unequipped armor/weapons in inventory, maybe even loss of experience but that might be going too far for what I want to accomplish in this particular game. The only thing I know for sure is that I will want to create an item (maybe even a skill) that can counteract the penalty. It would be a rare/hard to get item or skill of course. I might also try to make this whole thing work with tags that can be used in enemy note boxes such that I can specify which enemies I'm penalized for running from as opposed to just penalizing for running from everything.

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here. Doing any or all of the above would be a good learning experience in any case. I've been super focused on doing concept art so far so it's a nice break from doing that too.