If you've ever created even a single mission when modding Hit & Run, you'll know that finding and stitching together audio in order to create a cohesive story is a real freaking pain in the asphalt. While there are some workarounds such as 'timer' stages coupled together with some SetStageMessageIndex trickery, it can be a bit painful to sit through on repeated playthroughs of the same mission due to the down time you'll have to endure with a lack of a way for the player to advance the text. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, our pal Lucas hasn't been able to make a hack that would allow text strings to be displayed during dialog stages based on the dialog currently being played...
I tried experimenting to see if there was a way to get Stage Messages to pop up during regular conversations, but to no avail since that sort of thing is hardcoded to heck. Thankfully, there is one other option that I decided to experiment with based on a birthday gift mod I tested years ago for a friend.
Using a heavily modified MessageBox.pag and GenericPrompt.pag, it's possible to recreate letterboxes that fit the game's art style and display messages that can easily be customized, have an overall higher character limit than Stage Messages, and can be skipped with the press of enter! This is a nice alternative for those looking to create a Simpsons-themed mod (or another mod based off of an IP) with limited dialog resources available.
Unfortunately, they're still far from perfect. The issues with this method include:
- A greatly inflated stage count (which is no longer an issue thanks to Custom Limits offering a higher stage count now - the max normally is 25).
- Characters can still be moved slightly during stages.
- Lack of attractive camera angles.
- No dialog stage animations.
- The MessageBox.pag file looks a fair bit messy since I believe the effect to 'repeat' the image it uses for the top and bottom borders for the pause menu is hardcoded?
I originally wanted to create a couple of extra missions with this, but Borb asked when this was going to be publicly available and ehh I don't want to sit on it for too long. So, this mod comes with a demonstration L1M0 featuring Homer looking for his clothes after a late night drinking binge and nothing more.
Download Link:
Dropbox (Zipped)
Hopefully somebody finds some use for this concept! Feel free to use it as you see fit or make adjustments to the UI as it's super hacky and could probably look a bit spiffier.
