After more thinking & playing around, I think I'm going to demo Wang 2-corner (called Marching Squares in the blog post above). It seems like a generally useful format, as good for grass/rock terrain textures as it is for Pac-Man mazes.
Now I just need to find (or make) a nice collection of tilesets in this format!
Can you expand on how to use this? I gather you calculate an index number by assigning bits to the 8 surrounding tiles. But that would result in 256 different tiles; this has only 64 (and many of those are duplicates). So I'm confused.
Thanks, will do. MiniScript is a lot easier to embed (and lighter-weight) than Python, and a lot nicer to use (in my opinion of course) than Lua. So I'll send him a note! Thanks for the assist.
I haven't tried flare, but it looks to me like its modding is currently limited to data: adding item/unit types, and changing configuration parameters. That's always a good start for a modding API, but either your modders are limited in how much they can change actual behavior/logic, or you end up with some abomination like Wesnoth Markup Language [1].
What would really help in cases like this would be to embed a real scripting language. MiniScript [2] was designed for just such embedding. There is a C++ implementation of MiniScript [3] that would be very easy to integrate with flare, and then modders could use a simple, elegant, Unicode-savvy, fully-featured programming language to script the game.
Who should I contact to explore this possibility further?
Mini Micro was designed for exactly this sort of thing. You would use a TileDisplay, which allows you to simply set the tile index (i.e. which picture to show, from a tile sheet) for any cell (position on screen) of the display.
Tile displays support scaling and scrolling very easily. They also support transparency and can be layered, so more likely you would use *two* tile displays, one for the environment and another for the player and monsters (and possibly a third, in between, for items lying on the ground).
Mini Micro has a small but active and very supportive community. If you decide to go this route, you can count on lots of support from me and other Mini Micro users. Mini Micro runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, and the web, and you can package your game for all those (there are already over a dozen Mini Micro games on itch.io, for example). Also, it is free. Give it a try!
After more thinking & playing around, I think I'm going to demo Wang 2-corner (called Marching Squares in the blog post above). It seems like a generally useful format, as good for grass/rock terrain textures as it is for Pac-Man mazes.
Now I just need to find (or make) a nice collection of tilesets in this format!
Nice work! And thanks for including the helpful link to Guy Walker's explanation.
Can you expand on how to use this? I gather you calculate an index number by assigning bits to the 8 surrounding tiles. But that would result in 256 different tiles; this has only 64 (and many of those are duplicates). So I'm confused.
I used Adobe Graphic (another vector drawing app).
And thanks for the words of encouragement. I think you're right.
Oops, just sent you a PM before seeing this. Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me! :)
Thanks, will do. MiniScript is a lot easier to embed (and lighter-weight) than Python, and a lot nicer to use (in my opinion of course) than Lua. So I'll send him a note! Thanks for the assist.
I haven't tried flare, but it looks to me like its modding is currently limited to data: adding item/unit types, and changing configuration parameters. That's always a good start for a modding API, but either your modders are limited in how much they can change actual behavior/logic, or you end up with some abomination like Wesnoth Markup Language [1].
What would really help in cases like this would be to embed a real scripting language. MiniScript [2] was designed for just such embedding. There is a C++ implementation of MiniScript [3] that would be very easy to integrate with flare, and then modders could use a simple, elegant, Unicode-savvy, fully-featured programming language to script the game.
Who should I contact to explore this possibility further?
[1] https://wiki.wesnoth.org/AdvancedConditionalWML
[2] https://miniscript.org
[3] https://github.com/JoeStrout/miniscript/tree/master/MiniScript-cpp
Awesome! I'm going to remix these for a "treasure hunt" game in my upcoming book, Learn to Code in 30 Days!
Hmm, I was thinking straight-on rather than rotated 45°, but those are adorable. Maybe I'll change my plans! Thanks for the tip.
Mini Micro was designed for exactly this sort of thing. You would use a TileDisplay, which allows you to simply set the tile index (i.e. which picture to show, from a tile sheet) for any cell (position on screen) of the display.
Tile displays support scaling and scrolling very easily. They also support transparency and can be layered, so more likely you would use *two* tile displays, one for the environment and another for the player and monsters (and possibly a third, in between, for items lying on the ground).
Mini Micro has a small but active and very supportive community. If you decide to go this route, you can count on lots of support from me and other Mini Micro users. Mini Micro runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, and the web, and you can package your game for all those (there are already over a dozen Mini Micro games on itch.io, for example). Also, it is free. Give it a try!
https://joestrout.itch.io/mini-micro
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