overhead DM

[Ryan]

@Seriously Unserious: I sent you a PM where you can contact me.

[Seriously Unserious]

Excellent, we can use that as a starting point for more detailed discussions then and leave this thread for posting updates and collecting suggestions and feedback.

[Ryan]

No new screenshots yet, as visually nothing has really changed, but now the scenery does a lot more. Actuators work for doors & pits, and actuators that require items (like keyholes) take them! So a lot of the level 2 puzzles are mostly playable. I still have to fix issues where toggle pressure plates toggle when you step within the same pressure plate, I figure that should cause no effect.

The way keys are used is you get the item off the floor, take it from your inventory and 'drop' it onto the keyhole. Then it vanishes if it's the right key/object. It works pretty well!

[beowuuf]

Sounds a cool implementation!

[Ryan]

Another design idea is for the hall of champions to be the characters all standing there, ready for someone to connect in and control them. Of course I'd make it so you can't kill anyone on this level, otherwise that'd be a great way to grab everyone's gear! Since it's multiplayer, it'd be amusing to see every champion come to life and all play at the same time.

[Seriously Unserious]

Yeah, that sounds great. I'd love to see all 24 champions mobbing chaos' minions.

[cowsmanaut]

So Ryan is notoriously bad at asking for help in a way that drives the production forward.. He's just been constantly working on it moving it forward and doing it all himself. If you do want to help script operators or anyone wants to help with tile graphics.. make the offer, and follow up on it.. as he's unlikely to chase after anyone.. and he's more likely to say "No it's ok.. " and then wander off and do it himself

I say this so that you all know that if you want to see this thing completed, he needs the help and input or it may never see the light of day if he simply figures people have lost interest

[Gambit37]

Would love to but simply way too busy with other things, sorry.

[Ryan]

No it's ok... (goes off to do it by myself). Hehe, well I can't really blame anyone given all I'm posting is screenshots. I'm not blocked yet.

Latest progress is the hall of champions works as I described above. Every character is standing in front of their portrait, waiting to have someone connect in and control that character. All of the actuators are visible (keyholes, switches, buttons) and are starting to become functional.

Gambit is probably way too busy eating more pies...

[Gambit37]

They keep falling out of my ribs and leaving crumbs on my pelvis

[Seriously Unserious]

That's because you never eat enough of them!

@Ryan: I'm still interested in helping. Just let me know what you need, and I'll get started on it. If you need some script to handle a new type of object or anything like that just let me know what you need and what it's supposed to do, and in what language, and I'll get right on it.

[Ryan]

I'm not sure I'm understanding actuators correctly. Whenever there are multiple actuators on a square, it's only the topmost that's visible, but when you interact with it, it runs through every actuator's actions on the square? Does it only run the action if the actuator's activation condition is met?

For example, on level two there are switches to control doors/pits. The topmost switch has the action to toggle the target, but the switch underneath it (with the flipped graphic) has no action, but it's the one with the 'cycle the graphics' property set. So it looks like it must do all actions on all actuators in the same square.

@Seriously: That's part of the problem, it's not obvious to me exactly what I need. I'm just going one step at a time. You'll have to try it at some point and see something you want to add (like spells, or monsters & combat).

[beowuuf]

It's been a while playing with hex in Dmute, but my recollection was that it is the topmost graphic that determines whether that square can be interacted with, but if the square can be interacted with, all get triggered by an interaction.

So yes, as long as a switch is visible, anything that can be switched is 'pressed.'

There is a sub-set of actuator (or a setting on the actuator) so that is only activated if it is the topmost actuator. I do not believe it is used in DM / CSB, but can be created with an editor like DMUte, CSBuild, etc so was available in the engine.

So for example, if you wanted a gemhole that could be pressed with a gem, and become a gem switch, you couldn't do it normally because the switch would always activate when you pressed the gemhole with your hand. Instead, you'd need to use the special actuator instance for the switch, so that only when the gemhole was pressed with a gem, and toggled position, would the switch come to the front.


That's my recollection, if it helps!

[Ryan]

Yep, that agrees with what I'm seeing, so that helps!

[Seriously Unserious]

Judging by beo's comments, there are obviously many things I need to know about this engine and how it's coded and how it words to be able to contribute in a meaningful way.

Could someone post a link to where I can get/use this engine so that I can get a better understanding of what's already implemented and what would be useful, and in general how things work?

[beowuuf]

Actually those comments are to do with the original. Check out CSBuild to see the range of actuators and get a feel for the logic of DM's engine. It's only a starting point after all, DM's ways of dong things won't be what Ryan is doing, I assume he's just making sure the elements of DM can be replicated?

[cowsmanaut]

well he's parsing the entire Dungeon.dat file.. so anything in there........ 0_0

[beowuuf]

Oh, I missed that...so the idea is that DM overhead would have its dungeon created from the dungeon.dat file?

[Ryan]

Since the main DM dungeons are in that format, it made sense to use them as a data source to convert into my format. All those screenshots were not done by me manually recreating the Dungeon Master dungeon, that's the import code doing that

Since I didn't really want to manually place all of the actuators, I needed to know how they worked in DM to convert them to my format properly. Some things don't convert very nicely, but we're still having fun trying.

Once converted, the original dungeon.dat isn't used.

[Seriously Unserious]

ah, I see.

So is there anywhere I can test your engine, Ryan? I'd like to be able to play around with it a bit to see what it does, then I'd have a better idea of what I'd like it to do, and what you might need in your engine. I would also help to see the scripting language in action so I can get more familiar with it's syntax as well.

[boyflea]

O my, this looked fantastic!
cannot believe missed this thread - has a whole 'Time Bandits' vibe going through it.

Anyway, thanks to Sophia for pointing me to this old thread: I have been an uter cheat and went to the darkside, aka RPGMaker, and put together something, which you can see a preview of here:-
http://dungeonmastercom.weebly.com/

Anyone know what happened to this version? Keen to play it one day!

[cowsmanaut]

yep, the good ol' days.. This got pretty far before we gave up on it. There were some major visibility issues inherent in the overhead viewpoint that we were unable to agree upon.. this eventually led to a stalemate and so it was left to die. The idea that you can see into areas not visible to the characters was part of the issue, the other was translating things which were designed from a facing forward view to overhead. We tried a full 3D version using cubes which ended up rather like Minecraft (before it even existed) since you could also build the dungeon as you were playing it.. but we didn't go too far with that. Not sure if an image of that was ever posted.. hmm..

It was fun while we were working on it though.. and we do talk about it still from time to time.

Cool to see you're trying your own, perhaps you'll finish yours

[boyflea]

...is a game ever finished?

well, the version I do have did re-write some of the puzzles to fit the design: visibility was something I considred too, but it is a different style of game and the extra visibility only helps players solve puzzles.

insofar as my effort being 'complete': all 14 levels are in, you can beat Lord Chaos, you can build your own team from all of the original mirrors. In fact, includes 30 playable characters and 9 additional bonus dungeon-levels to shoe-horn in my version of a backstory.

Reception: fairly nice comments, no solid reviews: so had a few downloads but not sure if anyone ever completed it, .
I learned a few things and enjoyed my six months making it. maybe one day will write CSB with a similar engine. There are links everywhere for the build if interested, [but who has time to play DM nowadays?] .

[boyflea]

... that said: was there ever a demo released of your game? Would love to have seen it.

[cowsmanaut]

we ran a private demo via the chat room when we had it here.. there was about 5 or 6 of us. Played in it for about an hour.

[cowsmanaut]

change in the visisbility code with the input window.. you could use this for code or chat.



in glorious.. ok not so glorious... 3D

[boyflea]

Wow - it looked great... amazing. Puts my effort to shame as this looks to follow the DM mechanics much more rigorously.
Interesting to see your corridors being 2 tiles wide, which must have made blocking enemies and pads a bit more demanding to put in.

[cowsmanaut]

While I try to get Ryan's account working again.. he says:

"Overhead DM might have looked fancy but it was nowhere near playable. Your version is a real playable game, be proud!" "I still keep the code working, it wasn't just meant to be Dungeon Master, but I was more focused on the technology, not making a game."

[boyflea]

Thanks - yes, have been having a chat with Ryan about this - and it is amazing what you guys did here - hope you get his acount working again as it would be nice to share, .