Dungeon Master Forum

Updated version to alpha 18 with champions positioning within party which makes the main interface complete.



Each "game" can be downloaded on separate packages:

Dungeon Master : http://dmbuilder.sphenxmusics.fr/extern ... DCS-DM.zip
Bloodwych : http://dmbuilder.sphenxmusics.fr/extern ... DCS-BW.zip
Eye of the Beholder : http://dmbuilder.sphenxmusics.fr/extern ... CS-EOB.zip
Legends of Valour : http://dmbuilder.sphenxmusics.fr/extern ... CS-LOV.zip

I have not been able to make much progress as I wanted lately; I added the main entrance menu screen and fixed other issues.

I will work on other projects for the few months coming then will resume on DCS by the end of the year.

Still progressing on global engine by testing other crawler. Lol.
I have been working on converting savegames to DCS. It sure looks flat, but it gives interesting results.

Looking nice!

Cool, nice to see you're still working on this. How does the wall and floor graphics replacement work? And what size is the dungeon view? Could this work with high resolution modern graphics?

Thanks, it has been a long time I did not update DCS here (almost 2,5 years I did not release anything new !) ... but I was still working on it from time to time. It is actually a big challenge and a lot of work to get the full dungeon working and I am often lost in my own code thus creating lots of new bugs and weird things...
However I worked harder on it these past weeks to get at least one dungeon playable -- and I have chosen a small one for that purpose.

Let's play with Theron's Quest - Ak-Tu-Ba !
You can download and try this version here : DCS DM (AkTuBa)



The main gameplay is (almost) complete and if you're lucky enough you will be able to play till the end of the dungeon (before it crashes).
There is still much missing and there are plenty of things to fix or improve.
Hence you may see stuff not behaving as expected as this is still a debug and experimental version.
If you have trouble with crash/fullscreen, you can switch to window screen (CONFIG_SwitchFullScreen_OFF.bat or within dcgs.settings.ini)

Note: TQ Champions basic stats have been decreased to a more reasonable level. Formula and numbers are not exact DM rules.

How does the wall and floor graphics replacement work? And what size is the dungeon view? Could this work with high resolution modern graphics?

In fullscreen (at 1920x1080), the viewport is about 1025x664 and a front wall would take about 656x484 while its texture is 768x768. It could be changed to something else. I tried to "upgrade" the wall texture while keeping the DM feeling, but I have most trouble with the floor texture.

I think the floor looks cool, but true: it's not an old dirty, broken dungeon floor but looks more like polished marble. Still like it a lot though

When I opened the batch file my windows 10 said:

Severe threat
Trojan: Win32/Wacatac.H!ml

So I decided not to run it until I hear more about what is going on.

https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/1 ... tac-trojan

Unless I have a problem from my source computer (which I hope not) there should be no issue; at least I can't find any from the zip I've posted. I hope it is a false positive.
If others can confirm or not ? Is there any specific file that gives you this warning ?

DMBuilder.exe

DMBuilder.0.87.a.exe
from: Tool-DMBuilder087.7z

worked OK.

For what it's worth, I've added another compiled exe using MinGW : "dmbuilder_mingw.exe" that you could try as replacement. I've updated the zip for that. You can switch the exe with "CONFIG_Switch_Version_MinGW.bat" (and delete the other one).
Do you get a warning with this new one ?
As it is not the primary version, it may even be buggier than the other...

I tried it for a few minutes, here is my feedback:
- No virus alert issue like Paul
- No crash
- The champion names contain random "star" characters in the middle of champion names and titles
- I could not read scrolls. I could not open chests (maybe this is not implemented yet?)
- I heard sounds similar to snoring during my whole play. Is this the supposed to be the champion's heavy breathing? Really strange ambiant sounds...
- When a door closes on a mummy, the door is drawn too low, behind or in front of the mummy (depending where it is standing on the square front or back), the visual result is weird
- The aspect of stairs is also strange. Stairs going down look like pits, you don't have any clue that there are stairs in front of you.
- If I press the forward key many times in a short amount of time, only two key presses are memorized and applied, the others are ignored. The command queue was longer in original DM
- Food and water seem to decrease very very fast (I died because of that while writing these notes, after eating all the food I had in my possession)

- How did you generate all the champion voices and sound effects?

Thanks for the feedback. Most of this is why I said there is still much to improve. Scrolls and chests not implemented.
The snoring is supposed to be from the mummies as "idle" sound... Maybe a little too much! That's still experimental.

About command queue, that's interesting, even if I don't intend to implement exactly as DM, how long should be the queue ? because I don't feel like stacking too much commands. That's why currently there is just one command that can be queued.
Food and water : yes that is currently too fast, just to check food management. Water consumables are not yet correctly implemented. You can eat waterskin for food!

The new zip file worked well. All the .exe files ran without Windows Defender
warnings.

The two batch files that select the executable do not work on my windows
machine.......no such command as 'cp'. I changed it to 'copy'.

Strange things happen when I run the game. Theron disappeared and
Elija took his place. My single magic box and sword multiplied.
The engine crashed. The images of the objects on the floor are confused.
See:
https://dianneandpaul.net/misc/2023-02- ... -50-28.mp4

Good there are no warnings.
I would change "cp". I forgot I have some GNU commands on my system.

Thanks for your recording. Globally, the "save/load" process is functionally behind the main engine. That's why Theron and other champions get back to DM champions (using the same ID) after reloading. There are others problems too. I'll work on that.
However the item multiplication is new for me. And I can reproduce it. Probably something wrong with "save/load" too. I'll check.
Issues with images is currently a problem with my rendering.

Some little updates, still on the same place : DCS DM (AkTuBa)
Food and water last longer now.

How did you generate all the champion voices and sound effects?

Online readers are quite incredible now ! Other sound effects are generally re-processed sounds from other games.

My single magic box and sword multiplied

An issue with the save game process that creates too much items. Not fixed yet, I am still working on the global save/load function.

There is still much missing or not yet implemented. Progress is not very fast. But I'll continue and will target next "City of Formicia" for the next step.

Time for an update with City of Formicia : DCS DM (Formicia)
It has been quite a challenge to get all actuators/trigger working properly in this one (mainly because of the fireball / teleporter puzzles). There are still small issues I'll try to fix soon, but it is overall playable till the end. Oh, and while it is based upon the original dungeon, I've added some little modifications to better match the ambiance of Formicia (from my point of view).

As usual, here are some screenshots:


And some rework for stairs:

Hey Sphenx,
looks nice, now i know why you said good luck in the other forum When finished, will you opensource it?
Amazing that this engine runs all sorts of different "engines" .. Respect!

Thanks! (you got it).
Yes, there is a plan to release the code at some point. But I would like to reach 2 steps before : 1 is to complete at least a fully playable DM dungeon, and 2 is to clean up the code ... this can be really messy as it is built over 20 years of code here and there ...
Working with different games is one fun part of this project.