[Hajo]

Early feeback indicates this relase is one of the worse ones. I just want to let you know that the project still lives.

Original announcement:
http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=37


Release notes for H-World 0.4.3.1 and Arxigle Xentrophore 0.0.4.7

First I planned just to release an update of the space game module, but it needs some of the new engine features, so I have to release an intermediate version of H-World, too.

The engine changes will be listed briefly at the end of this message. There is no update of "The Jungle" module this time.

Also, I've got a new PC, that means, the next time I'll be busy installing and configureing all my favorite stuff on the new PC. The onboard graphics doesn't work well with Linux, I'll have to look for a better graphics card.


New features

- alien city for ice/crystal planet type
- dummy dialog for prospectors office
- pot flower and pot plant tiles (currently used in space station and ship level)
- almost tile-less walls for earthlike planet towns
- new sliding doors for new concrete walls
- new shops and traders for earthlike planet towns
- resized clothes (half size)


Improvements

- slightly improved space station deck 1 layout
- alien city now has exit to venuslike planet
- improved earthlike planet level and town
- improved crystal images, one new chrystal
- improved recolorable tins
- improved machine trader shop for earthlike planet towns
- adapted scripts and data files to changed/new images
- added decorations to earthlike planet


Fixed problems

- fixed map tank inventory image
- ice/crystal type planet level works again
- attack stars now also work in space game module


Downloads

Base package (~870KB):
http://h-world.simugraph.com/data/h_world_base-0_4_3_0.zip

Windows executable (~510KB):
http://h-world.simugraph.com/data/h_world_win32-0_4_3_1.zip

Linux binary (~430KB):
http://h-world.simugraph.com/data/h_world_linux-0_4_3_1.tar.gz

Arxigle Xentrophore 0.0.4.7 (~48KB):
http://h-world.simugraph.com/data/h_world_space-0_0_4_7.zip

To get the default demo module running, you need to install the base package and the matching executable for your system. You need the default modulke to run the sapce game, too, since it uses some of the default module files, too.


Chronological list of changes since the last release


Space game module

13-Feb-05:
NEW: alien city for ice/crystal planet type
NEW: dummy dialog for prospectors office
CHN: slightly improved space station deck 1 layout
CHN: alien city now has exit to venuslike planet
BUG: other planet types need their own city types, exit always
leads to venuslike planet

10-Feb-05:
FIX: attack stars now also work in space game module
FIX: ice/crystal type planet level works again
CHN: improved earthlike planet level and town
CHN: improved crystal images, one new chrystal

08-Feb-05:
NEW: pot flower and pot plant tiles (currently used in space
station and ship level)
CHN: improved recolorable tins

07-Feb-05:
NEW: new shops and traders for earthlike planet towns

06-Feb-05:
NEW: almost tile-less walls for earthlike planet towns
NEW: new sliding doors for new concrete walls
CHN: improved machine trader shop for earthlike planet
towns

05-Feb-05:
FIX: fixed map tank inventory image

03-Feb-05:
NEW: resized clothes (half size)
CHN: adapted scripts and data files to changed/new images
CHN: added decorations to earthlike planet

H-World engine

13-Feb-05:
NEW: "jitter" settings now works for walls, too
(not for 9 part walls)

08-Feb-05:
CHN: additional error messages for thing factory

05-Feb-05:
NEW: "height_scale" attribute for levels allows to choose
hilliness of floor. If omitted, it defaults to 4
(the formerly hardcoded value)
CHN: additional error messages for thing factory

... did some experiments and tests with 3D display

27-Jan-05:
CHANGE: changed fonts for "The Jungle" module
CHANGE: help frame uses BDF fonts again

26-Jan-05:
FIX: fixed a bug in help frame size calculation.

... did some experiments and tests with colored bitmap fonts

23-Jan-05:
FIX: item inspector now adjust spacing of title if text is
too long to fit in spaced bold
NEW: started to work on new bitmap fonts, colored 16bpp,
recolorable, shadeable and alpha-blend enabled.

[Verious]

Do you have any screenshots of the Space Module that you could post?

[Hajo]

I've made some. Please consider this is a very early version of the space game module. A lot of things are missing, a lot of things are rather just outlines and need a lot of additional work.

It's just a preview, really.

Space station, bar:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/station.png

Ship drive section:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/ship.png

Alien city interior:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/alien_city.png

A crystal/ice type planet surface:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/crystals_surface.png

A crystal/ice type planet subsurface city room:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/crystals_subcity.png

Eartlike planet surface with a few buildings:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/earthlike_city.png

Eartlike planet, shop:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/0_0_4_7/city_shop.png

[bay]

that font is crazy, very cool.

.02$

[XMark]

Kinda hard to read though, at first I thought it was like some kind of alien language that your character would need to learn before it would display with normal letters. Then I looked closer and realized it was english, but that would be a cool idea, wouldn't it?
_________________
Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[Hajo]

The idea of alien languages which need to be learned first is nice.

The font needs sone more work. It should be both, looking strange and still be somewhat readable. Some characters are too far off and barely recognizeable.

Thanks for your feedback :)

[Verious]

It's looking good so far, but I would agree that some of the (font) chracters are a little tough to read.

[tcaudilllg]

Can this engine do tactical RPGs, like TO/FFT?

[bay]

[Hajo]

Well, the engine can do more than the example game modules show, but since I don't know TO or FFT I can't tell if the engine can do similar games or not.

I've tried to write a feature list for the engine:

http://h-world.simugraph.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Hw.FeatureList

Maybe it helps. But Bay is right, trying the game modules is a good way to get a basic idea what the engine can do, even if they don't use all features.

[PhyrFox]

Well, as long as you happened to mention "triggerable" effects and turn-based battle, you pretty much defined FFT and similar titles. Looking over the game's list of features, it looks like it could easily handle FFT-style games. In fact, it almost reads that I could make a FFT-style game in your engine in my spare time on a weekend or some such.

Which brings to question, exactly how easy would it be to design a new game? That's the ultimate limitation. The AI though might have to be slightly reconfigured for intelligent AIs, possibly, since I don't see an exact match with how turn-based RPG's currently do things (using FFT as an example), but it's close enough that I could imagine the entire system being set up to handle such a game easily enough.

At the least, I know it's more complex than OHR, which is designed for "actual" RPGs that used real-time combat on a separate battle screen and so on.

... You've never played FFT? It might give you a few ideas for things you might include in your system (if it can't already). A simple PSX emulator and the game purchased from eBay might be a worthy investment. Just a thought to ponder, if you have the time and money to spare.

I must admit, I like the feature list, except it seems heavily scripted, and I would be worried about performance issues with complex effects. I had that problem with Sphere. Great system. Fully configurable. Slow as molasses.

~= phyrfox =~

[Hajo]

I didn't really focus on performance, rather clean structure of the code and extensibility.

H-World/The Jungle runs well on my 400MHz AMD K6/2, but I have no idea what the minimum requirements are.

The engine core is C++, and I think the performance is acceptable. Lua is pretty fast as a scripting language, but I noticed that a lot of AI driven NPCs cause a noticeable impact on performance.

I've bought a new PC two weeks ago, with a 3GHz CPU and 512MB ram, and things that formerly had noticeable delays appear almost instantly now. I'm afraid this isn't good, because I loose the feeling for slow machines.

I'm not sure what's the average PC nowadays?

[PhyrFox]

[Hajo]

Currently all H-World modules are turn-based. Animations only redraw the parts of the screen that have changed. The graphics display is quite fast (renders 800x600 in less than 30ms on my old AMD K6/2 400). Since the modules are tunr-based games, FPS count is almost meaningless, unless a single frame takes more than 100ms to render, at that point the delay becomes noticeable.

AI decisions aren't calculated every frame, only the AI has achieved the former goal or failed and cannot recover. If a lot of AI decisions are made in a turn, the player may notice a stall. But in the current game modules there are so few 'intelligent' NPCs that it's barely noticeable even with slow computers.

Loading/creating a new level (map) can take a while on slow machines. I think this is very disturbing.

I'm afraid with my new PC I'll not notice if a level generator becomes too slow for old machines. H-World supports a number of semi-random level generators, like forests, caves, dungeons or rooms/buildings. Some of them are slow, particularly if large levels are generated.