[wezyap]

I was planing to make a new Hint system, unlike products like UHS this will be freeware, hell I probably gonna make it open source. I have a prototype ready:


and the hint files will be based on xml and have a structure like this:

<WHS gamename="Sam and Max: Reality 2.0" author="wezyap" email="[email protected]" url="www.nocluestudios.com">
	
	<chapter name="Accessing Internet">
		<section name="Unhyptnotize Sybil">
			<hint id="1">You need to wack here, as always when you unhyptnotize someone</hint>
			<hint id="2">But your trusty boxing glow won't work since you can't reach her</hint>
			<hint id="3">Have you seen any long range hitting-devices in near aproxomity, that can knock her back to reality?</hint>
			<hint id="4">Have you talked to jimmy two-teeth?</hint>
			<hint id="5">Have you tried to steal his cannon?</hint>
			<hint id="6">But he won't let you :(</hint>
			<hint id="7">But you are biger than him, push him, when he reload his cannon</hint>
		</section>
		
		<section name="Repairng the vr-access point">
			<hint id="1">...</hint>
			<hint id="2">...</hint>
			<hint id="3">...</hint>
			<hint id="4">...</hint>
		</section>
	</chapter>
	
	<chapter name="Getting the Serum">
	</chapter>

</WHS>

is this a good idea? and if soo are there people out there willing to make hint files for this system?
If we decides this is a good idea, I will make a search able database where people can upload whs files and search for whs files, and also implement a search function in the program. I don't think it is plausible to implement support for uhs files for two reasons,
1)UHS is commersial product and I don't think they are too happy about the thought about a free program capable to read UHS files
2)the text in a UHS file is encrypted by a unknown (for me) encryption algorithme.

[jacog]

Sounds decent. Would help if you could add a way to import UHS stuff into your format. Then go a step further and pimp the format to developers, perhaps persuade one or two of them to provide their own hints for it.

And if you plan to go open source, it might be worthwhile to stick to developing in a language that can be compiled cross-platform. Or just document the format well, so others can roll their own readers.

[wezyap]

Some small updates, First of all the reader comes together nicely, and should be finished soon.
Some changes on the WHS-xml structure, instead of having the header data in the <WHM> tag the header data should be in it's own <header> tag like this (is there any more information that should go in the header?):

<WHS>
	<header  gamename="Sam and Max: Reality 2.0" author="wezyap" email="[email protected]" url="www.nocluestudios.com" />

the xml standard version should also be included like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<WHS>

as you can see, the WHS file is actoly a pretty basic xml file, and no xml parsers should have trouble parsing the WHS files, making it easy for other people to make theyr own WHS-readers for other systems.

when it comes to UHS support, after some research and reverse engineering, it seems pretty easy to decypher the text in the UHS files. and I see no technological or legal difficulties making a UHS2WHS converter. I won't make a built in support for UHS in the reader itself but a standalone UHS2WHS converter.

also the UHS files have support for pictures, sound and videos, is this something that the WHS files also need to support? is there any need for those features in a hint-system? or will I spend time on making a parser /renderer for features that will never be used, bloating up both the WHS file format and the WHS reader, and making it more difficult for other people to make theyr own readers? is there any features you people would like to see in this Hint-system?

[EvilMulder]

I think picture support is important. That way a walkthrough can include maps, diagrams, screenshots of puzzle solutions, etc.