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DarkBASIC Discussion / DarkNOOBS Project 3: Adventure Game

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 31st May 2009 08:26
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Quote: "For now I say we just make separate editors for different things. I'll continue to work on it when I can but is there another job you'd like me to do BN2?"


I really think we need to get past the map maker stage.

Until we have one that is fully ready (ashingda yours is close, if you can get an entity editor, that would be awesome), I will say open map editor development. Make it how you want it to work. Don't do anything for saving so that we can handle that and make it uniform. Then when we start making the maps we can just use the editor that we made/prefer and do it that way.

Anyone who doesn't want to can choose between these two:

1) Design maps (not with a map editor, but just draw them to get an idea). Post the pics here for approval

2) Creating the approved maps

I know a while back some people were doing some map development, if you have some, please post them so we can get some maps made.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 31st May 2009 15:53
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The entity layer will only be used once in the game at loadup correct?
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Irojo
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Posted: 31st May 2009 17:02
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Hey guys, I have a few SAT Subject tests coming up, so I need to study on those and won't be able to program. Additionally, I am going on vacation for about a month really soon. My sister might be able to make a few maps, but I'm going to be so busy, and have to focus on the tests. Sorry I can't be very helpful.


Time is money. I just ripped you off.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 1st Jun 2009 02:03
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Quote: "The entity layer will only be used once in the game at loadup correct? "


What do you mean? It won't mean much until the game is running yes.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Caleb1994
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Posted: 1st Jun 2009 21:49
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hey can i jack your uncap sound from the zip cuz i only have copy righted ones on my computer and i don't have anything to make one lol

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 07:37
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Quote: "hey can i jack your uncap sound"

sure go ahead, make sure you also include the setup.ini along with it to have a full uncapped effect.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 07:54 Edited at: 2nd Jun 2009 07:57
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Progress thus far on my map editor (BN2 V2.0)



Sorry for the uncommented...ness, but I have been putting all available time into actually programming this. Tried to keep it decently organized and understandable though. Let me know if you guys have any issues running it so that they can be addressed now.

There isn't a WHOLE lot that you can do, except cycle through the Drawing Tools and Create New Layers. Watch Out, I haven't added in the backspace stuff yet . Kinda feel like I am ripping off Photoshop with this one though. Let me know what you guys think.

Oh yeah, and with the GrabImage function. Can anyone good with memblocks tell why it isn't working? I was going to use it because Get Image was giving me problems, but when I couldn't get it to work I figured a work around for Get image. I keep getting an Out Of Bounds error, can't figure out why.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose

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Libervurto
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 15:25
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@BN2
You forget about 0; the last pixel in a bitmap is width-1,height-1.

There is an eight letter word. You can insert a letter into it or remove a letter from it without changing its meaning. Answer
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 15:34
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@Bn2
When using memblock after a get image you must sync some time befor you use memblock.

Also dont forget to include the "setup.ini" in the same folder as the .dba or .exe to get a full uncap effect.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 20:08
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Quote: "When using memblock after a get image you must sync some time befor you use memblock."


Yeah, I remember that one, but I was trying to do it in a way that wouldn't require GET IMAGE, since the sync command was causing a flickering. The solution was to paste the old image, update the image (which required a sync for the GET IMAGE) and then paste the new one over the old one.

Kinda roundabout but it works.

Quote: "Also dont forget to include the "setup.ini" in the same folder as the .dba or .exe to get a full uncap effect. "


Right, I was going to do that but forgot.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Caleb1994
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 20:48
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Ok thanks, thought I'd ask first.

Hey bn2 your input thing exepts return key and tab character(which arn't displayed in dbc.) might wanna put some exeptions in there

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2009 21:11
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Quote: "Hey bn2 your input thing exepts return key and tab character(which arn't displayed in dbc.) might wanna put some exeptions in there"


Hmmm, hadn't had any trouble with return, that was supposed to end the input . Will look into it, thanks for the feedback.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Caleb1994
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2009 01:31
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Well i'm not sure what happened but something messed up and when i return it would add return to it then end. and course tab just adds weird box null character thing.

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2009 01:51 Edited at: 3rd Jun 2009 05:36
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I may just not see it because I am on a retarded laptop where, to press "return" you must press Function+Enter. Go figure. Working on putting in all of the needed exceptions now.

Quick progress update. I have been trying to put as much time as possible into this now as finals are next week. I got the Main toolbar set up (in the last version it was blank) with the FILE, EDIT, and VIEW drop down menus. Currently, Import tileset works, and it will import as many tiles from a file as possible. These are assembled and placed in the box on the left under the drawing tools. Backspace also works with the New Layer Dialogue Box. Will post it later tonight.

So far it is turning out to be more of what I envisioned the first time, just nicer looking and functioning.

[EDIT]
Alright, map development is active. You can make as many layers as you want (up to 100) and it has space for 10000+Tiles (just blocked in 10000-20000 for image numbers). Scrolling is basic for now but there. I also fixed the input problems, let me know if you guys run into any additional characters. Next to come is the resize option and scrolls for the map.

Here is what works:

Import Tileset
Toggle Grid
Layer Addition/Deletion
Tileset Scrolling

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2009 08:28
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Hey it's looking nice.

About the tilesets, I keep them in 10x10 tiles for easy editing with photoshop. Because the tileset now also includes data in the alpha channel a bmp version of it wont work well. Is there anyway you can code to match the use of multiple 10x10 tilesets?
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2009 08:35
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The import tileset will simply load all tiles from the file onto the nearly unlimitedly large master tileset. The Clean Tileset selection (under edit) will prune the master tileset to only include the tiles that are used, to thin the numbers. I may add a Remove Tileset option to let the user thin the numbers, but that will come later.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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t10dimensional
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2009 21:18
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pretty cool BN2 yours works on my computer.

If at first you don't succeed-Pause-Go to last checkpoint
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 5th Jun 2009 17:23
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Update:
* The selection area now has a click+drag feature allowing you to select multiple tiles for use.
* The code no longer uses any sprites.


Attached is the .dba

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 7th Jun 2009 06:45
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@Bn2
What are your thoughts on our method of saving/loading maps?
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That1Smart Guy
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Posted: 7th Jun 2009 08:31
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i figured we would just go through each layer and tile to figure out what wtiles are needed on the master tileset, generate that, then assign each tile a value

then we would create an array with dim map(layers,tilesx,tilesy) and save the master tileset tile value for each tile to that array, save the array and bam you're done, you could then use map(0,0,0) as a map number assigned to the map

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 7th Jun 2009 12:30
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Quote: "What are your thoughts on our method of saving/loading maps? "


Well, I see 2 main ways here that I would want to discuss, see what you guys think.

1) We save a data array that has layer and tile information, using tile numbers. This would be included in a Fileblock or dirblock (we will use a .pak file) along with entity data arrays, the master tileset and anything else we come to need. The problem here is that with a saved tileset the maps could become bloated, however you get versatility.

2) We save an image in the pak file, along with any important arrays (entity data, etc). This image would be a compiled map, including the alpha channel for collision. Since we have nearly unlimited images, we could easily allot ourselves 2000 images for us to use and give the rest to the tile loading. This would still give us a max map size of 252x252 tiles (from 63535x1 to 1x63535). When run the map in game, the map would be broken up into images (we still would have over 60k) and those become the tiles. We would then load it just as if it were done the other way, but instead of additional iterations per loop for each layer, it would only refresh the screen, using the same amount of work for every map ( a plus if there will be varying numbers of layers)

Either way, I think it would be best to use a pak file, since we will probably need several files combined.

If anyone has any other ideas, throw them out here, this has been one of the things I never had a complete plan for. Personally, I like number 2, for its simplicity (relatively) on the game side. However, number 1 has simplicity in coding (that is, it is straight forward and almost identical to the map editor code).

Thoughts? Concerns? General insults?

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 7th Jun 2009 15:53 Edited at: 7th Jun 2009 15:58
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I've never saved images into a cusom format, this should be interesting.

It might be bigger than the .png version I assume.


Here's an idea:
Instead of actually saving the images we can save a list of tiles that are used for that map. When loading up, that list will be used to only load up the tiles that are used.

It's less data being transfered both ways.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 8th Jun 2009 02:33
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Quote: "It's less data being transfered both ways. "


True, but that is kinda what the debate here is over. How much data do we want to pass through to the program vs media.

Quote: "It might be bigger than the .png version I assume."

Ohhh yeah. It would essentially be images saved as pngs, arrays, saved as .arr, and any additional files, saved into a folder, which then gets turned into a dirblock with an extension of .pak . The folder is then deleted. That way we can have a ton of files, quickly and easily packaged into 1 file. Less mess.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 8th Jun 2009 06:32
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I've never packaged anything using codes befor, has anyone written any codes that does this sort of thing?
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That1Smart Guy
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Posted: 8th Jun 2009 06:40
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nope, i barely know how to save/load arrays

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 8th Jun 2009 07:11
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I did it as a test to see if it was plausible. It works, though it seems a little too simple to be right. It does work though, I will see if I can come up with some demo code that doesn't require any external files.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Caleb1994
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Posted: 8th Jun 2009 10:25
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You could make paks of files and directories and then make a custom file that had a header that told the names of the files,the sizes,the total number of files, then take it and write all the bytes of each file to that file instead of using write fileblock and dirblock

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 9th Jun 2009 05:56
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Seems kinda overly complex to do something for which there are already commands...

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Caleb1994
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Posted: 9th Jun 2009 06:23
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True, Sorry In My Mind, if it's possible to try it a different way, i probably think it would be fun.... hahahaha

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 9th Jun 2009 09:35
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Lol, I am the same way usually...until memblocks are involved. Then I recognize my Achilles heel (wow...two greek mythology references in under a week, spooky).

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Caleb1994
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Posted: 9th Jun 2009 18:43
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Hahaaha, I love messing with memblock


Now stop jabering and get back to work! lol

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arbiter chewbacca hybrid
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Posted: 9th Jun 2009 19:46
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What can I do

[link]www.kdlproductions.webs.com[link]
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 9th Jun 2009 22:19
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Alright, for saving in my program for now, I will put EVERYTHING in. Though it will be unnecessarily bloated, we can mess around in the engine and see what happens.

Quote: "What can I do"

For now, there are some pretty serious bugs in your entry program, namely, that you can't see any of the text. Once it works, then I think you can be accepted.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 04:29
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You know I've been thinking and it seems this project is a little too advance for the majority of the team. I'm not even sure if I can handle what's more to come.

This is turning out to be much more than just a simple zelda style game. I'm getting a little overwhelmed thinking of what's left to do....

I'm not backing out or anything, just voicing my concerns. It's good that we do difficult things but if it's too hard then it may never be completed.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 04:41
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Your right ashingda, it DOES seem a bit daunting. I say for now we should stay the course and take it as it comes. Lets focus on getting everyone in to help develop the map editor for now, as that is what has been holding us back this WHOLE time.

I will post my latest code and files soon, as I have fixed several bugs. From there I am thinking we just take individual items from the dropdown lists.



Slightly off topic:
I did have an idea for how we should structure our projects. We should do 2 per year. In the winter, everyone makes their own copy, since it IS a hard time for everyone to work together. This is more of a smaller project, aimed at honing skills and learning new ones. The summer project would be a larger scale one, similar to this one, that requires everyone to work as a team to accomplish. That way, everyone will get the same from the winter project without losing the help working as a team. With the winter projects we still all work together to work through the problems, but the code is mainly done individually.

So two important things here:
1.We need a map maker.
I like mine but if you guys want we can finish up ashingda's. Whichever we chose, we all work together to finish it. I will go with majority opinion here

2. What do you guys think of the 2 project idea?

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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That1Smart Guy
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 05:08
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i like your thoughts on the 2 project idea, but isnt that basically what the DBC Challenges r, on a smaller and more frequent scale?

and yes ashingda, this is becoming complicated, thats why ive kinda made myself scarce on this thread

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 07:43
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Quote: "DBC Challenges r"


Sort of. But the idea here is more of a group learning environment type thing. The winter one would be a much more involved project that everyone would contribute for.

Quote: "and yes ashingda, this is becoming complicated, thats why ive kinda made myself scarce on this thread"


That isn't a good thing. Alright, all currently active members, I will initiate a vote to scrap this project (not indefinitely, just a postponement till we feel ready). I will refrain from voting unless there is a tie.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 08:45 Edited at: 10th Jun 2009 08:51
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Well I dont wana scrap it, cant we just dimm down the expectations a bit? I mean seeing what's planed and what still needs to be done... I think we can get by just simply making a super short demo-like game. This IS our first attempt at this and it doesn't have to be perfect, just has to be completed.

Maybe cut the story in 1/10 and have only 2 maps, 1 Town and 1 dungeon. 1 mini boss and 1 big boss and a few encounters. Dialogs being very limited.

We already got most of the neccesary things thought out and alot working, just the task at hand to complete is too large.


[Edit]


My original thought about a simple short story was a typical run of the mill, Hero meats town, takes on quest and kill dungon boss. End of story.

We can then do what we have planed here when we have a competed working prototype.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 09:10
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Perhaps...But a shortened story only means LESS to make, not EASIER to make, which is what I see this discussion being aimed at. We will still need to figure out the same stuff whether we have 2 or 5 maps, we just won't have to make 5 maps. We can cut down side quest style stuff, I guess. Maintain the story but make it more linear. Travel from town a to town b to fight the monsters. Then go to town c and talk to someone who says something very forgettable then go to the keep and fight/kill bad boss guy. See, linear.

Your guy's choice really.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 09:24 Edited at: 10th Jun 2009 09:28
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The thing that troubles me the most right now are dialogs, I've never done one at this magnitude and dont really have a good idea of how to go about it.


Off the bat I can only think of 2 ways to work it.

1) Use an array$(a) but it's limited to 255 characters

2) Use and array(a,b) "b" being the max length of characters available. This will involve the use of chr$().


Another problem is to save it.

Then also to enteract with the player, options such as yes/no, and also to save this.


[Edit]


Hmm maybe we should make a dialog creator. Who's taskless and is up to take the task?
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Latch
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 10:21 Edited at: 10th Jun 2009 10:40
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For dialogs use files. Have a format in the file that denotes the aspects of the speech.

example of a dialog stored in a custom file:


The first line 1, is the dialog identification number, we'll call it the DID.
The next line 3, is the number of dialog lines that follow.
The next 3 lines are the dialog lines.

The next number is the number of possible response prompts.
The next 3 lines are the response prompts and their value.

The ; is the terminator (the end character) of the dialog.

You could format the file however you want. This is just one possibility. After the dialogs are written in the file with the attributes, you'd write an indexing code that stores the line position of each of the DIDs from the file into an array so when it's referenced, you can go to that line and start reading the dialog into the game real time.

Since DBC has doesn't have a lot of file commands, you could simplify the indexing by saving a separte file for each dialog, and just recall it by file name.

Or if you don't mind dealing with memblocks, you could read the entire file into a memblock 1 byte at a time keeping count of the byte position. When a ; is reached, you know the next byte is the start of a new dialog so grab that DID and the byte position and store them in an array as an index. Then you can directly access the dialog from the memblock from the byte position. You'd have to read back the relavent bytes and convert them to strings as necessary to display.

This would probably be faster than stepping through the file each time to get to proper index as you can go directly to the index in a memblock.

Enjoy your day.
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That1Smart Guy
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 17:55 Edited at: 10th Jun 2009 18:00
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im taskless, but i have no idea how to go about a dialog maker

edit:

whoops didnt see latchs post, ill read that and get back on if I think I can accomplish it

edit 2:

I like latchs memblock idea but one problem with using his file format, how would we tell who needs to say that

We would have to make an NPC numbering system in the entity editor, then use that to reference dialogues

i might be able to accomplish a dialog editor, ill give it a shot

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont
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Libervurto
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 21:56
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Hello all,
I too have been hiding away from this board, but I have a good excuse; I've just started a new job at a computer repair company, so my hours have been spent trying to absorb all sorts of new information. It's going really well so far, I hope they take me on full pay.

I agree that this project is starting to bulge, but I like the world we have created. We could take a smaller part of this saga and base the game on that instead.

BN2 has done a great job as project manager but it has become evident that it's very hard to get a project completed AND ensure even the noobiest of noobs have some part to play. So I propose this...
The project manager dishes out jobs to established members of the team (eg smartguy, ashingda) and also assigns newer members to help them (eg arbiter), in a sort of master/apprentice relationship. This way the apprentices are kept busy with small tasks and they help the master to complete the main task for the project in less time.
That's the theory anyway

There is an eight letter word. You can insert a letter into it or remove a letter from it without changing its meaning. Answer
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That1Smart Guy
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i like it, but I forsee a problem being getting the master and apprentice to communicate well

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont
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Libervurto
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Posted: 10th Jun 2009 22:23 Edited at: 10th Jun 2009 22:26
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@Smartguy
True but it's easier than the project leader trying to keep tabs on all the noobs, especially as the less experienced are usually quite timid.
I think it would also give a sense of achievement; imagine starting off as the noobiest of noobs and then comes the day someone is assigned to be your apprentice!
We will all have to keep each other in check though to make sure none of us gets too big headed being called "master"

[edit]
But again it's up to BN2 if he wants to do that for this project.
I'm glad I wrote those principles now.

There is an eight letter word. You can insert a letter into it or remove a letter from it without changing its meaning. Answer
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 11th Jun 2009 02:32
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I don't mind doing it. It would help me out a lot to have some help. I myself have felt kinda scarce here too as of late. Mostly by work, I try to maintain a constant presence though.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Latch
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Posted: 11th Jun 2009 03:32
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Maybe you guys should simplify the project as well as figuring out how to manage it. An adventure or RPG is just too complex. There are are too many things to account for. This is a newbie thread, so keep things within the realm of newbies. Memblocks, shouldn't even be mentioned. The alpha channel, forget about it. Indexing files, multitiered arrays tying back to who knows what, interactive dialogs, leave it for the itermediate to advanced thread (when there's one).

Storys? Too much debate and too much set up. Here's a story and a goal:

The Aliens are coming. Shoot Them!

Here's another:

The Goblins are coming. Shoot Them!

And yet another:

In a far distant land, an evil king is raising an army. Shoot Them!

To not scrap the current project, maybe the map maker is the project. But what's it evolved into is pretty complex.

Nothing wrong with a shoot em up or dungeon hack n stab n grab. Easier to code, not a lot of conditions except hit, not hit, dead ,not dead.

There's an old program called Sword of Fargoal. Takes very little code. There are a certain number of levels. Each level is generated by a random maze algoithm with a few rooms so it'snot too mazy and not just a bunch of cooridors. The levels are connected by stairs. The loweer the level the more dangerous the creatures. The goal is to get the sword which is randomly placed in one of the lower levels.

The dungeon is dark and you have to map it out as you go - walking around reveals more dungeon. There are bonus items like health, a temporary light that shows more area, dungeon maps, etc. Throw in a few traps, a bunch of different monsters and you're ready to go.

Along the Zelda idea, a simple dungeon game like this should be a bit easier to handle and you can start with all of the graphics you've already compiled and maybe even the fighting system if it's created.

Water down the map maker and you could use that too, though, maybe not. Create a random map so every adventure is different (sort of).

Enjoy your day.
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t10dimensional
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Posted: 11th Jun 2009 04:34
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I think you guys should finish the adventure game.You have all done

alot of work in it and I want to learn how to make simmilar games.

It's not up to me tho,I have'nt put much work into it.

If at first you don't succeed-Pause-Go to last checkpoint
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That1Smart Guy
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Posted: 11th Jun 2009 06:29
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personally i dont care if we end it or not

also even if we do end it its not like all we've done's gone to waste, we have already learned a lot just getting this far memblocks, alpha channel collision, custom file types, a working map maker, we have accomplished a lot

just let me know the decision

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 11th Jun 2009 08:29 Edited at: 11th Jun 2009 08:36
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I think we can still wrap this up very quickly with just one dungeon, a few encounters and one boss. No dialogs, No shops, No town/villagers, No zone.

Heck maybe this can all be done with outdoors terrain tilesets.


I think on a next project we should do something more fitting for a noob but still has alot to learn from.
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