Lands of Elderlore

[Anvilfolk]

I'm not really happy with that multi-level stuff. There was a topic about that recently...

Anyway, that looks awesome! Getting better and better! Let me just suggest that the hidden areas be filled with a lighter overlay. The division is too clear for me - either you go all black, or you have a very light overlay which is still easily identifiable, but not really intrusive. Just an opinion!:)

[Altefcat]

I've tried it, but it seems too light for me...



Another problem is that it doesn't tile well, that's the problem with isometric views, you have to tile diamonded shapes, not squared ones.

[Krice]

Mouse support is not very good at the moment. You should make path finding walk to left mouse button and look command to right button. Also for me the message window is "reversed", I keep thinking that new messages should be at the bottom of the window. And I think walk messages should be removed, I think the player knows where he is going without telling that in a message.

[Anvilfolk]

True, that doesn't look so good... Isn't there a way to use alpha? The dots make it look weird, but maybe a plain black tile with some alpha would make it look better? Dunno.

Good luck

[valianjuan]

I agree, alpha might be a better way to go!  I think I'll have to think about that for my roguelike too. 

[Slash]

Yeah, I use alpha in CvRL, like http://peltkore.net/~szdev/crl-crashed/e107_images/newspost_images/crl1222.png]this

Looks much nicer than dithering

[Altefcat]

I'd like to keep alpha channel for illumination effects, like full light / shadow / dark, to add some Saffron-like infiltration gameplay  , and shadows to trees and walls.

Mouse support will be improved, but I have not thinked a lot about it. Right now you can move with the mouse weel, I find it convenient but it was not done on purpose. Moving the mouse around, with the ALT key pressed for instance, could be the look command. I don't know yet if I'll add pathfinding for the player; what to do once the player clicks somewhere : make him hit <space> several times to get there ? Or perhaps move on real time until disturbed, like the Angband 'run' command... Ok I'll think about it  .

First I thought that the sense I used for displaying text was the one used in other games, like Baldur's Gate, but I've just checked on Youtube and new entries are displayed at the bottom, not at the top. So I have inverted it, thanks for pointing it to me.

[Reverend Prohna]

are you gonna have an option to play with just ascii graphics? please.

[Altefcat]

No, sorry, that would mean too much change in the code, and honestly from the beginning I have choosen the tiles way, so I won't change my mind. Besides there are plenty of ascii roguelikes; I expect a lot from Doryen (http://doryen.blogspot.com/), it has a great overworld, an ascii frontend very next-gen  , and the blog is very interesting.

[Altefcat]

I have updated the algorithm for display of caves. Here are the results so far :


(full image at http://blog.elderlore.com/images/galeries/0.1/Capture-Lands%20of%20Elderlore%200.1.0.29102007f.png)

The same when you have discovered the whole cave area :


(full image at http://blog.elderlore.com/images/galeries/0.1/Capture-Lands%20of%20Elderlore%200.1.0.29102007g.png)

The difficulty here was using the same tiles for 1 cell walls (like walls for houses) and walls for inside caves (which have no other side). Now, if you dig out in a wall (well, when digging will be implemented), other walls around should be displayed accordingly.

And now, let's add some guards at the cities entrance  .

[Altefcat]

A quick update on the game so far :

I have changed a big part of the area code, so that a square of 3 areas by 3 areas is always loaded around the player. If the player exits the area of the middle, the square is updated accordingly.

Display is now about 20 % faster, and the code is easier to maintain, so that's double bonus for  me ! I've been studying OpioId2D, an OpenGL implementation in Pygame for 2D games. That could help me reduce the display time, and add some nice effects, perhaps after 0.1 is released.

Saving and loading are also working nicely now. I have changed a little the way worlds are dealt in the game. At the beginning, you choose a world, and then it will be loaded each time. Then you create a character in that world, a savegame is associated to it, with the ratio 1 world - 1 savegame. Heirs and dynasties will be added later, so that you'll be able to retire a character to start a new one.

I think I'll start adding guards this week-end. It's a big new stuff to add, and I think that unconsiously I've been developing other parts of the game just to avoid that big NPC part. No more of that ! Wish me good luck 

[Adral]

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this...

Keep up the good work!

EDIT: Typo

[Altefcat]

You can download a work-in progress here if you want:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ad1q3d50g5s

You need Python 2.4 or 2.5, Numeric, Pygame and OcempGui to run it.

I'll be uploading works-in-progress regularily on Mediafire as a way of backup.

[Altefcat]

Here are some news about Lands of Elderlore.

There is a new GUI, drawn by David Gervais, that fits the screen whatever its display resolution.

Animals can now chase the player if they have flags PREDATOR and WILD.

The player can now open, close, and even bash doors. Houses have windows the player can look through.

The upper right map has been updated and is much more sharper.

The text area can vary in size (# of lines), and each line of text can have a different color.





As a side note, David Gervais has decided to release his tiles under the Creative Commons 3.0 licence : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. So anyone can use them freely, in a free or in a commercial game, and can modify them as long as they are released under the same licence and David Gervais is quoted as their creator.

Those tiles are back online on the tiles library of Pousse Rapiere; I'll update soon the terms of use to refer to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

[Altefcat]

The bad news is that I am afraid I'll stop posting on this thread; the good news is that I have finally published a website in english where I will blog about developing Lands of Elderlore.

Here is the URL:
http://landsof.elderlore.com/

Feel free to post comments over there, feedback is always welcome !