[Adam]

So i've decided to start a dev log for the current game i'm working on. It was going to be part of the last comp, but i ran out of time and i've only just started to get back to work on it.

The two shots below give away my previously top secretive gimmic.




Note that the art in the above images is ripped from Darkdred, SNK and the dude who made in the nocturne (Correction, "Children of the night").

And no, it is not going to be a MMORPG. It's a mini RPG that you can be played in multiplayer with friends if you so wish.
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[js71]

So, is it something like a sort of 'co-op' mode, but just in a mini-rpg? Sounds pretty cool.
(by the way, darkdread did make ...in the nocturne)

[Adam]

Ooops, i meant "Children of the night."
Currently all the players can walk around seperately and all have to stand on a door to walk through it.
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[Terry]

Heh, I remember reading the project info when you first posted it - classic! (I also remember posting similar project descriptions for my own games years ago... sigh...)

Anyway, this looks awesome. When do you think we'll be able to play a demo?
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[Adam]

Well currently the game is a functioning walkaround demo. But before i could release it i'd have to go through some GPL legalities that i'm too lazy for right now. That and i'd prefer to release it as one whole package so all my gimmics can come out at once and be more impressive than seeing each gimmic a week apart in demos.

Today i cleaned up the networking where i had half of the functions refering to actors by their names instead of their UniqueIDs. So now i can have more than one NPC with the same name on a map.

I also set up doors and map changing, that works over network too. All players can walk around freely but they all need to stand on the same doorway to change map.
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[Jocke The Beast]

Sweet. Looks great and I'm looking forwards to try a playable demo. Keep at it!
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Jocke The Beast

[Adam]

Thanks for the interest and i'll try not to disapoint all the people who are waiting for a release, but i'm afraid I have a confession to make.

I am a programmer and this is my art:

That only took 2 nights to do. I'm not really happy with the cliff face (yes, that's what it's meant to be) but i'm happy with the rest of the beach. At the bottom of the map you can see the visual style i'm going for, I like to call it "NES with alpha blending." I think i'll also be switching to 320*240 double size for the screen so i won't have to draw as much art and keep the chat box still visible.

Today apart from those few tiles i updated my Tiled format converter so that it converts .tmx files to a format easy to read by the game. I know there's plugins and stuff for Tiled but this way was quicker. The converter was originaly made for Ninja'd.[/img]
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[Terry]

That converter sounds like a useful tool. Any chance you'll release the source? (i.e. and save me from having to write exactly the same thing, I haven't tried loading .tmx files yet :))

The graphics look pretty nifty, in my opinion. The reflection is a really nice touch.
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[Adam]

Here it is in all it's converted from a msdn example glory. But since it's a vb app you might not be able to use it at all :D. The current one is VB.net and the old ninja'd one is VB 6. The section you want to look at is the first sub in contenthandlerimpl.vb.
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[Terry]

Ah - thanks anyway, I thought you were working in C. I guess I could convert the code, but it might be handier to just write a plugin for tiled - if either Biggeruniverse or Bjorn would explain how it's done :)
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[biggerUniverse]

Sure! It's actually fairly simple, and either of us (I'm sure) would be willing to at least guide you through it.
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[Terry]

Excellent! I'm sure it must be pretty straightforward - it's just that I've never actually coded in Java before, so I don't know where to start. Tiled is a pretty nifty ap that should speed things up for me, so I'd prefer to use it than waste time using my own.

The map format I'm using is really basic. There are a number of "objects" on the map, and three layers (floor, top, and lighting).

The format looks like this:

[biggerUniverse]

Hmm. Ok.

1) Object support is not robust enough to allow Tiled to help you with those. However, you could have an object layer that the plugin could translate.
2) A plugin is very possible for what you need, but it needs to make certain assumptions about layer data it receives from the app.
3) I assume a non-passable floor tile with id -1 maps to a specific tile graphic? Or do you have a layer specifically for "passability"?
4) Read this, because Miguel goes over a lot of the points that logically map Tiled capabilities to "special layer" engines.
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[Terry]

[biggerUniverse]

I'm jumping to the Tiled thread to talk about this...
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