I'm fairly fluent in Python (but unfortunately, that's about it). If there are any Python questions to which I don't know the answers, I'll try to learn them for you.
Yeah, a terrain generator is probably a huge library in itself. But I figured someones probably done similar work already, and sure enough I found a couple of free bits of software:
1) Mercator ( http://www.worldforge.org/dev/eng/libraries/mercator ) is a library made as part of WorldForge, an open MMO framework. It's designed for sharing procedurally-created worlds with low bandwith usage.
One more note on our hypothetical library: I'm personally less interested in on-the-fly generation than I am in pre-generation. As bart mentioned, Daggerfall was bland; I would rather take a generated world as a base and adjust as necessary to make it interesting for a game. This is sort of what the guy who makes Love (quelsolaar.net) does (not for terrain, but with lots of other procedurally-generated content).
If such a library existed, I would excitedly check it out. But I haven't much thought about procedural generation, so I don't know what I would want from the library.
And Tartos, that's gorgeous. Is the terrain just a fractal heightmap textured based on height and angle?
Hey Bart, I'm curious: in a recent blog post, you mentioned projects that help game content creation, including map editor Tiled. So why did you decide to roll your own map editor instead of using Tiled?
"Your game must run on top of an existing FOSS game engine."
I'm guessing that this rule is to prevent people from making games on top of closed-source tools like Unity or Game Maker, right? In which case, it should probably read "Your game must be built only with FOSS tools".
See, I tend to write stuff with Python and Pygame. Despite its name, Pygame is not really a game engine. The current rule would disallow me from writing my own engine, and I don't think that's your intent.
I concocted this as an entry in the Zelda series, but of course that series's tropes are sufficiently universal that it could be used anywhere:
Link witnesses Ganon's rise to power and learns that he is the Hero of Time, destined to defeat evil and save the world until the cycle repeats itself. But Link is a second-year philosophy student with strong opinions about free will (these opinions may also conveniently support his preference of pot to anything resembling a quest). The game consists of struggling against his competing desires to thwart the concept of predestination and not let the world be consumed in hellish flames (he may be a slacker, but he still has morals).
I'm fairly fluent in Python (but unfortunately, that's about it). If there are any Python questions to which I don't know the answers, I'll try to learn them for you.
Yeah, a terrain generator is probably a huge library in itself. But I figured someones probably done similar work already, and sure enough I found a couple of free bits of software:
1) Mercator ( http://www.worldforge.org/dev/eng/libraries/mercator ) is a library made as part of WorldForge, an open MMO framework. It's designed for sharing procedurally-created worlds with low bandwith usage.
2) Fracplanet ( http://www.bottlenose.demon.co.uk/share/fracplanet/index.htm ), a tool for generating fractal planets, probably not too different from Tartos's work above. At least, it doesn't look as nice as Tartos's work.
One more note on our hypothetical library: I'm personally less interested in on-the-fly generation than I am in pre-generation. As bart mentioned, Daggerfall was bland; I would rather take a generated world as a base and adjust as necessary to make it interesting for a game. This is sort of what the guy who makes Love (quelsolaar.net) does (not for terrain, but with lots of other procedurally-generated content).
If such a library existed, I would excitedly check it out. But I haven't much thought about procedural generation, so I don't know what I would want from the library.
And Tartos, that's gorgeous. Is the terrain just a fractal heightmap textured based on height and angle?
Hey Bart, I'm curious: in a recent blog post, you mentioned projects that help game content creation, including map editor Tiled. So why did you decide to roll your own map editor instead of using Tiled?
The best karma you could award would be an entry to the contest ;)
Yes, I'm being a talentless hypocrite here.
"Your game must run on top of an existing FOSS game engine."
I'm guessing that this rule is to prevent people from making games on top of closed-source tools like Unity or Game Maker, right? In which case, it should probably read "Your game must be built only with FOSS tools".
See, I tend to write stuff with Python and Pygame. Despite its name, Pygame is not really a game engine. The current rule would disallow me from writing my own engine, and I don't think that's your intent.
I concocted this as an entry in the Zelda series, but of course that series's tropes are sufficiently universal that it could be used anywhere:
Link witnesses Ganon's rise to power and learns that he is the Hero of Time, destined to defeat evil and save the world until the cycle repeats itself. But Link is a second-year philosophy student with strong opinions about free will (these opinions may also conveniently support his preference of pot to anything resembling a quest). The game consists of struggling against his competing desires to thwart the concept of predestination and not let the world be consumed in hellish flames (he may be a slacker, but he still has morals).
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