Thanks Lamoot!  I feel like I'm inching closer to a real game.  I'm glad the current demo is playable and somewhat fun, if just for 30 minutes or so.

Here are the next major milestones in my to-do list:

• Smarter enemies, plus enemies with special powers
• NPCs with dialog, simple quests, and items for sale
• Main menu, new/load/save game menus, maybe basic cutscenes

I'll also be putting a lot of effort into moving the game configuration into plaintext files so that most everything about the game can be changed.  To test that this works I'll try to make a total conversion into a completely different genre, maybe post-apoc or cyberpunk or modern day zombie survival.

Also I'll try to include new art in each release.  v0.10 adds the Minotaur.  Next release I'll probably shoot for a new overworld tileset.

Thanks anon, that's high praise!

The code is good enough for Alpha, perhaps.  During the Beta phase I'll be moving everything into config files so that a complete transformation of the game (say, into a zombie game or space marine game) can be done without recompiling.  By then the code will be much cleaner.

My goal is to make it fun first, then configurable/moddable later.  I think the "fun" part is slowly starting to happen.

Tartos,

I need to write up some documentation on the file structures.

If you're mostly interested in making maps, you don't necessarily have to do it by hand.  I use Tiled to created the tile layers.  Here are the map files in google code.  Download the tmx files and those two images and you should be able to edit the maps to see how they work.  I use Tiled's "CSV" format for map data when saving.  Then I copy those CSV chunks into my map format.  Finally, I add enemies and events directly into the map text file.

Eventually I'll write a Tiled plugin to read/write my map format natively.

Tartos,

I create tileset_dungeon.txt manually.  The columns are: id, x, y, width, height, offset_x, offset_y.  Offset (x,y) assumes the anchor point is the center of the tile, and subtracting the offset puts you at the top-left corner where you draw the tile sprite (I use this to have various-size tile images).

The last number for spawns is orientation/direction.  0 through 7.  0 is facing the left side of the screen, which corresponds to (-x,+y) on the map I think. 

Tartos,

To convert from a RGBA image to RGB with pink as the background, I use this technique.

In GIMP:

• load the RGBA image
• Choose pink (255,0,255) as the background color in the Toolbox dialog
• Layer -> Transparency -> Threshold Alpha (set it to 32)
• Layer -> Transparency -> Remove Alpha Channel

If the result doesn't look right, it could mean the original render wasn't done carefully.  I made those grass/water tiles a long time ago and have learned new techniques since then.

(edit)

Yeah I can't get the grass/water tiles to look right.  The grass particles are a much lighter color when not against the brown dirt background, so it's causing the tile edges to appear prominently.  I'll experiment to see if I can make better grass tiles.

Tartos,  I found that for the grass/water tiles, a threshold alpha of 144 got me closest to what I wanted.

I uploaded two "noalpha" versions of the tileset here http://opengameart.org/content/grass-and-water-tiles

pennomi, eventually all the powers will be customizable.  There will be a few "base types" of powers to build from.

Current base power types:

• Missile (used by Shock, arrows, slingshots, etc.)
• Ground Ray (used by Freeze, creates a series of animations along the floor)
• Multi Missile (used by Multishot)
• Single (an animation takes place and it creates a hitbox for a "single" frame.  Used by Quake, Burn, Timestop, etc.)
• NoHazard (similar to Single but has no attack roll.  Used for special effects like blood spurts, Heal, etc.)

Eventually you'll be able to set the animation file, sound effect, speed, etc. for new powers.  And you can tack on modifiers like causes bleed/stun/slow, damage type fire/ice/etc.

Right now the current powers are fixed.  In a future update they will all be moved to config file, where it will be relatively easy to change them or make entirely new ones.

If I get requests for new base power types, and it makes sense for there to be a new base power type, I'll add it to the engine.

For collisions:

0 means no collision

1 means blocks all

2 means blocks movement only (so you can still have line of sight and missile spells across these tiles).

Tartos: nice work on these generated maps.  I think you're the first to post algorithmically generated maps for OSARE.  I need to make a good outdoors tileset that has more features.

Also some notes for you maphackers:

• Currently the max map size is 256x256
• Currently the max enemy count per map is 256

You'll find many parts of the game aren't really mod ready yet, as the app will crash out in plenty of unexpected situations.  I need to make a good pass through the code to add better error handling and comments to help people making mods.

pennomi, I'm using 15 to mean an "invisible" collision tile.  These do not show up on the minimap.  Currently I'm using them for secret passages.

Also if you look at the collision tile image I use in Tiled you'll see eight corner tiles; I don't have these implemented yet in game. (I'm not sure yet if they'll be necessary)

Re: Tartos

• Yes, some items are too high level to appear in this demo.
• When low level creatures roll for loot and I make the result 0, that means no loot.  Basically, very low level creatures have less loot.  That is why sometimes there is nothing in barrels/crates.  This is intentional.
• Correct, items without levels won't drop.  This could be used for quest items or story items.
• I probably won't do the colored monster thing.  It was easier to do in Diablo because all the graphics were in a 256 color pallete.  But it could come later if I change the rendering to OpenGL.
• I thought about splitting the items.txt file up.  Sounds like a good idea to me.
• I'll look at config file inheritance
• I do plan to add animated tiles.

Also,

• I could add items with multiple bonuses later.  I admit I kinda like how simple it is now.  Currently items can only have one bonus (I think if you tried to put multiple bonuses on an item in the current code, the second bonus would overwrite the first)
• I plan to have visual variations for each monster type.  For now you see it with the skeleton, there are two types and one looks tougher.  As an example, I want to add an even tougher looking skeleton that almost looks like a death knight.  The antlion will have fire/ice colored versions, but there might also be very small hatchlings and larger queens.  There would be "hobgoblins" that wear armor and don't look like pushovers.  In the final game each base monster type might have 3-5 visual variations.

Tartos,

If you're using that 4x4 tile "temple entrance", you'll want that in the background.  To display correctly, you'll want to divide that large tile so that it's actually 7 individual tiles, in vertical slices.  The middle slice will be 64 pixels wide, and the others will be 32 pixels wide.  The white dots show the centerpoint of each of the 7 base tiles.

Jaderamiso, thanks for working on this!

I will clean up a current OSARE map in Tiled, with events and enemies included.  That way we'll have a good test to make sure the plugin output is just like the actual OSARE map file.

I'm rather busy, so maybe give me a couple days on this?  Thanks!

Tartos,

- Event locations are x,y,w,h.  (x,y) is the northwest corner of the event box, and w,h is the tile width and height of the rectangular area.  Note: right now the w,h is zero-based (e.g. 0,0 means the area is actually 1,1) but I will probably change that soon to make it more compatable with tools like Tiled.

- Mapmod can be used with background, object, or collision layers.  mapmod=layer,x,y,tile_id

- Right now the only event types are "run_once" and "teleport".  Really, the only event type that does anything is "run_once"; once that event is triggered it can't be triggered again (unless you leave the map and return to it).  Any other event type will be ignored and assumed it should run every time the player enters that area.

Also note about teleport events, the reason they are not "run_once" is because you can have teleports within a map.  The teleport event component is intermap=mapname.txt,x,y but if you leave the mapname.txt blank it assumes "intramap".  I'll probably build a new specific "intramap" teleport that only takes x,y variables.

- loot=random,x,y,level  OR loot=id,x,y,item_id   (x and y are the tile in which to spawn the loot).

Example 1: spawn a random level 4 treasure in map position 10,10.   loot=random,10,10,4

Example 2: spawn a longsword ( http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/item.php?id=200 ) in map position 10,10: loot=id,10,10,200

- Currently you can't spawn an enemy as an event but that is something I plan to add.

I hope to document all this soon, I didn't expect modders to show up just yet :)

Tartos, very perceptive!  Yes there is a level variation.

• 5% chance to be level - 3
• 10% chance to be level - 2
• 20% chance to be level - 1
• 30% chance to be level
• 20% chance to be level + 1
• 10% chance to be level + 2
• 5% chance to be level + 3

If the final level is 0 or below, no loot drops.

Within each level, loot has a distribution by quality.

The current distribution:

• Low quality (grey text) = 7
• Normal quality (white text) = 10
• High quality (green text) = 3
• Epic quality (blue text) = 1

This means, for example, a specific normal quality level 8 item each has a 10X greater chance to drop than a specific epic level 8 item.  If there are more normal quality items than epic items at that level anyway, that means there's an even higher chance of getting any normal quality item.

Trying it now.  Nice work!

Especially, nice use of tile variations (e.g. wall features).  I'm impressed with this script.

You'll notice on my other maps using the dungeon tile that I ofen use those cut-away "half walls" so that the hero can be seen and not hidden behind the wall.  Probably a bit trickier to put those in but the result is helpful to the player.

I'm not sure yet how I might integrate a random map generator into the game itself.  But if you wanted to, say, generate a random 100-level-deep dungeon I could easily include it in the game.

nubux, I plan to do so.  This week in fact, for our "Art Tutorial" Weekly Challenge

Tartos: excellent!  aaah those dark goblins are fast!

It's great to see that, even this early, someone is able to figure out how to make content for the game.  Kudos!

nubux: thanks!

If the rest of you are wondering, nubux is talking about this tutorial I just posted: http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/tutorials/isometric_tiles/

Tartos,

In my latest Google Code commit, I made a small change to the map format.  It is about the Event location (width,height).  Before, a 1x1 tile event had a width,height of (0,0).  Now it is (1,1) which obviously makes more sense.  Basically, add +1 to every event location width and height.  I've already converted my current maps.

Tartos, I'll post the tileset to OGA as soon as I have it finished.  I have lots more to add: stalactite/stalagmite pillars, general ground rubble, water, mine shaft features, etc.

And yes, hopefully I'll have a few cave maps in OSARE v0.11

Cybertroll:

• If you're on Windows, I think you can drop that DLL into the Tiled plugins folder.  Otherwise you might have to compile it for your system.  The plugin is still at early stages so it might not really be ready for regular use.
• Not sure if the collision later is created yet in the plugin
• Yes, osare maps currently use only one tileset.  Within Tiled this will be the shared Collision tileset and then the specific tileset for that map (e.g. dungeon, cave)
• Yes, right now monsters and events are placed directly into the .txt files.
• Make sure you're using the latest Qt version of Tiled.  If you're using an older version it won't support the CSV format for layer data.  Also make sure you have these images in the same folder as the TMX files: tiled_collision.png, tiled_dungeon.png, tiled_cave.png
• It's fine to leave squares empty/black
• Right now maps are limited to 256x256, but with Events it's easy to connect maps.
• Right now Tiled doesn't have a way to easily draw walls.  One shortcut, if you're making many walls, is to temporarily use a corner of your map to draw out some walls as a "palette" to copy/paste onto your rooms.

Also, the way collision works:

• Solid red means a solid wall.  You can't shoot through it and enemies can't see through it.
• Solid blue means a low obstacle.  You can't walk through it but you can shoot over it, and enemies can see over it.
• The partial tiles are not yet implemented.  I'm not really sure they will be necessary.
• The faded red tile is for secret passages.  These walls will not appear on the minimap.