Lands of Elderlore

[Anvilfolk]

Oh, come on, and you couldn't find ASCII characters and colours for those objects? Shame on you!

And trust me, those tiles aren't that hard to work with. I remember doing some tile programming in php for a webgame that never came to life... we had about 4 or 5 terrain types, and around 184 different tiles. Basically, instead of just dropping a green tile somewhere for grass, we'd check for all the other tile types around it, and we'd have to select a specific tile so that the forest would turn into grass in a nice pretty way.

I REALLY didn't know how to code back then, so I ended up with tiles named: water_nsw_nwse for example, which stood for a water tile with grass north, south and west of it, as well as northwest, and southeast! Oh, fun times! *grin*

Are free tiles that hard to find though? And with that size, I'm sure you can come up with something youself! Here's what seems to be a nice tutorial. Good luck in there!

[Altefcat]

That's a nice tutorial, but my drawing are very limited, I can hardly change existing tiles...

I sought about you said previously, how it can be hard to move on an isometric grid, and I agree with you that I feel it more confusing. I am having different tries to see if I can correct this a little. Here is another screenshot with a grid on it :



What do you think ? I have just moved each tile one pixel right and down to let the grid appear. Perhaps I could make the grid switchable, turning it off most of the time, except during battles ?

[Anvilfolk]

If you can do that, why not give the player the option to turn it on or off? It all comes down the personal preference, methinks.

What usually annoys me the most with keyboard input on isometric is people trying to use the standard arrow movement, when it obviously doesn't fit. If you're going to have keyboard input, maybe you could try out with some keys like:

qw
as

, where q goes up and left, w up and right, etc. I'm really not sure how it plays, but it might be more intuitive to move on an isometric grid if the "arrows point the way you're going to move" - the standard up-down-left-right don't.

[Altefcat]

I have just added the key CTRL + g to switch the grid on and off 

Movements with keyboard are with the numpad right now, but that might change. On my french (azerty) keyboard, a and q are switched, and z and w, so it took me some time to figure out what you were meaning ! I think I'll let in the end the user to choose his own keys, as everyone has different ideas about that.

I have set the point of view of the isometric mode so that it can be turned on 4 different angles with the TAB key. so perhaps I'll make in the future a field of view like that :

Code: [Select]

\       /
 \     /
  \   /
   \ /
    @

and keys like that :

4,6,5,8 to strafe left, strafe right, move backward, move forward and keep looking at the same angle

7,9 to move forward left and right and keep looking at the same angle

1,3 to turn yourself left and right without moving.

[Rabiat]

First of all, nice screen caps Altefcat. Looks very promising.

What usually annoys me the most with keyboard input on isometric is people trying to use the standard arrow movement, when it obviously doesn't fit. (...) it might be more intuitive to move on an isometric grid if the "arrows point the way you're going to move" - the standard up-down-left-right don't.

I was wondering about that too. Personally I don't have any problems playing isometric with cursors or numpad if the display is tilted 45 degrees counterclockwise to the display (i.e. pressing the up cursor moves you up and left). I fiddled with game controls once to try a 45 degrees clockwise rotation (i.e. pressing up moves you up and right); it took me a lot longer to get used to and it kept feeling strangely unfamiliar. I always figured that's because I'm right-handed. Then again, I remember playing some ancient turn based strategy game with isometric display where the controls weren't rotated at all (i.e. pressing up moves you, well, up). Having to use diagonal movement keys on the keypad to move along the grid is absolutely horrible. I think your suggestion to use the 'qw/as' keys (or 'az/qs' in French ) could work very well.

[Gamer_2k4]

Then again, I remember playing some ancient turn based strategy game with isometric display where the controls weren't rotated at all (i.e. pressing up moves you, well, up). Having to use diagonal movement keys on the keypad to move along the grid is absolutely horrible.

I don't suppose you're referring to Civilization 2?  I never had any trouble with the unrotated setup, because the controls are intuitive.  If you want to move to the tile above you, you press the up key.  Simple.

[Rabiat]

I don't suppose you're referring to Civilization 2?

No, it wasn't Civ 2. I don't remember what it was called, some kind of war game from the Civ 1 period. I didn't play it for very long, for obvious reasons. But didn't Civ 2 support custom control configurations?

I never had any trouble with the unrotated setup, because the controls are intuitive.  If you want to move to the tile above you, you press the up key.  Simple.

That's why every isometric game should support custom controls. To you it's intuitive,  I still wake up screaming fifteen years after. Maybe it has to do with the perception of grid lines as cardinal directions.

[Altefcat]

I've been trying yesterday to extend the display area to the whole width of the window. Here is the result so far :



I think I will implement the view system, with different levels. With those kind of (mapable) keys :

Keys to move while looking in the same direction:
4 : strafe left
6 : strafe right
5 : move backward
8 : move forward
7 : move forward and left
9 : move forward and right

Keys to turn without moving :
1 : turn left
3 : turn right
2 : turn 180 degrees

The viewing area will depend of your moving speed. Something like that :
- when you walk, you see all around you
- when you run, you see half of the screen
- when you sprint, you see 1/4 of the screen

So I won't implement a speed system, like in Angband, but a walk / run /sprint system, linked with endurance. I think this idea has been discussed on rgrd, I don't think its mine  .

[Lavastine]

Is this still getting worked on? If so I'd love to hear about any new features/whatever!

[Slash]

Best bet is poking at his blog so he can reply here

[Ex]

It looked like such an awesome game, too.

[Altefcat]

Yep, I'm still working on it, but I haven't updated my blog since quite some time.

You can try the SVN deposit if you want at http://sourceforge.net/projects/elderlore, it contains the last dev and I am updating it two or three times a week.

I have added a feature website there : http://bug.elderlore.com/, but right now it's only in french, sorry  As soon as Flyspray supports different languages, I'll add english to it.

[Altefcat]

I have added field of view to the game; here is a preview :







Images are at full size at http://blog.elderlore.com/index.php/gallery/version-01/01-dev.

Next step  is to add PNJ to villages, like guards, sellers and quest givers (captain of the guards, mayor, ...)

[Slash]

Looks pretty nice, good work!

Also, you mean NPCs, not PNJs >D

[Altefcat]

oops, yes, NPC, thanks Slash  ! My french side is invading my english cortex !!!

By the way, if you are looking for an amazing roguelike with an overworld map, honestly don't wait for mine and go for Dwarf Fortress. Next big release of DF is nearly there, and it's gonna be so huge and immersive !

Have a look : http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1183

Too bad they are not taking the open source way...