goldchest

[sproket]

Hi All,

I've been lurking here for some time. Finally have the guts to post something.



I've been working for several months on a new open source game.

The game I'm writing is inspired by the old goldbox styled games. My goal is to create a game with the same Look and Feel of the goldbox games while bringing to it newer graphics, sounds, music and network play.

So where am I now?

• Basic game layout implemented
• 3D perspective view and movement
• Overhead view for maps
• Overhead view for combat with characters and monsters and movement
• Scriptable events engine
• 45 degree movement

Game maps use a simple text file definition which allows for various wall, ceiling, floor, sky, shape textures and even 3d models to be displayed.

You can check my web site and see some screen shots.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/goldchest/

I'm looking for some feedback. What do you guys think?

 

[Kosmonaut]

Looks cool, do you have some kind of design documents? or examples of how did you designed the text format to store map information?

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

Nice. I'm working on something similar.

I downloaded the files, and tried running the 'goldchest.jar' file. A splash screen (I think that's what it is - looks like an image of a rock wall) appears for a short moment, and then the program shuts down. Here's the contents of the game.log file.

DEBUG Mar 11 2010 18:24:57 ui.Main - [The Java(tm) Look and Feel - javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel]
WARN Mar 11 2010 18:24:57 core.LocationProperties - ExitSouth not found.
WARN Mar 11 2010 18:24:57 core.LocationProperties - ExitEast not found.
DEBUG Mar 11 2010 18:24:57 ui.Main - 0 time 547

I'm running it on Windows XP, if that makes a difference.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's another project to create a more modern version of FRUA (Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures - a toolset for creating Gold Box games) called Dungeon Craft. Its open source as well, and could be useful for some ideas.

 

[Kosmonaut]

I'm interested on that, care to share a link to the project?

 

[sproket]

Looks cool, do you have some kind of design documents? or examples of how did you designed the text format to store map information?

I haven't documented it yet. But the format is like an INI file. I will document it all eventually. At this stage I'm just trying to get it all to work.

 

[sproket]

Nice. I'm working on something similar.

I downloaded the files, and tried running the 'goldchest.jar' file. A splash screen (I think that's what it is - looks like an image of a rock wall) appears for a short moment, and then the program shuts down. Here's the contents of the game.log file.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's another project to create a more modern version of FRUA (Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures - a toolset for creating Gold Box games) called Dungeon Craft. Its open source as well, and could be useful for some ideas.

Yes sorry I should have mentioned. It also requires Java3D
http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/desktop/java3d/


Yes of course! I love dungeon craft. It's one of the tools out there that's inspired me.
My goals are a little different. I eventually want to build a MMORGP out of it.

 

[sproket]

Looks cool, do you have some kind of design documents? or examples of how did you designed the text format to store map information?

The JAR format is just a ZIP format. You can just unzip it with any ZIP program. There's a folder called resources and you open the files under maps in notepad.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

So, I played around with it some, and I've listed some things I've noticed.

- I'd suggest including Java3D with your download. I'm pretty sure that's allowed, as long as you include everything in the original download. You can't assume everyone has certain libraries (with some exceptions), and should include everything necessary to run your program out of the box.

3D View
- Collision detection when moving along the 45 degree angle isn't consistent. For instance, at 13,8, you can move NE, but not SE. Also, at 13,6, you cannot move NW, but at 12,5, you can move SE. This is particularly strange when facing a corner, where one of the walls has a door, like at 12,13. When facing NE, I can move forward into the room, which doesn't seem right.

- I'd recommend increasing the height of the walls. Maybe its just me, but when standing in front of a wall, being able to see over it seems strange.

- I'm not sure if its intentional, but a 'secret door' is offset strangely with the neighboring walls. At 5,10, facing west, there's a wall that you can walk through, which I assume is a secret door. However, it looks like its moved slightly further west than the wall next to it. I'm guessing its because there isn't actually a wall at that location, and I'm simply seeing the backside of the east wall in the tile to the west.

- When scrolling through the list of characters, I feel it should wrap. So, if you press down while on the last character, the highlight should move to the top. And when on top, pressing up wraps to the bottom.

- I'm assuming the outer woods area isn't complete yet, as all I'm seeing is the ground and sky.

Viewing Characters
- It would be nice to be able to view the other characters by scrolling through the list of characters that appear on the right. This is preferable to needing to exit the view screen, navigate to the next character you want to view, and then opening up the view screen again.

- In the inventory of the first character (Sproket), the last item in the list is 'Last ITEM?'. Is this a bad string value? Or is there some sort of test item with that name.

- When an item is dropped, there's a small grammatical mistake '...and then quickly disappears into to the shadows'. The 'to' after 'into' should be removed.

- The message when trying to trade more money than a character owns to another character is not particularly descriptive of why there was a problem. Maybe it would be best to just have the character trade away all of their money of the selected type.

- Is there any particular reason why attributes are displayed as being accurate to tenths? Whole integers is usually the way to go, and if you really need more accuracy, why not just multiply all values by 10?

 

[sproket]

Hi Flux,

Thanks. Remember this is a 0.0 release

"- I'd suggest including Java3D with your download. I'm pretty sure that's allowed, as long as you include everything in the original download. You can't assume everyone has certain libraries (with some exceptions), and should include everything necessary to run your program out of the box."

Yes - eventually I will create a universal installer. At this point I have most of the core parts in place but I have a lot of other work to do.

"3D View
- Collision detection when moving along the 45 degree angle isn't consistent. For instance, at 13,8, you can move NE, but not SE. Also, at 13,6, you cannot move NW, but at 12,5, you can move SE. This is particularly strange when facing a corner, where one of the walls has a door, like at 12,13. When facing NE, I can move forward into the room, which doesn't seem right."

Yes thanks. There are a number of remaining collision detection issues. Allowing for 45 degree movement makes it quite a bit more complex.

"- I'd recommend increasing the height of the walls. Maybe its just me, but when standing in front of a wall, being able to see over it seems strange."
OK


"- I'm not sure if its intentional, but a 'secret door' is offset strangely with the neighboring walls. At 5,10, facing west, there's a wall that you can walk through, which I assume is a secret door. However, it looks like its moved slightly further west than the wall next to it. I'm guessing its because there isn't actually a wall at that location, and I'm simply seeing the backside of the east wall in the tile to the west."

Yes. The map defines walls on both sides - so in this case I forgot to add the wall to the other side. To have secret walls you would add a door to the other side without a door texture on it.


"- When scrolling through the list of characters, I feel it should wrap. So, if you press down while on the last character, the highlight should move to the top. And when on top, pressing up wraps to the bottom."
Yup OK.

"- I'm assuming the outer woods area isn't complete yet, as all I'm seeing is the ground and sky."

Right. In fact my plan is to do all outer areas in 2D overhead view.

"Viewing Characters
- It would be nice to be able to view the other characters by scrolling through the list of characters that appear on the right. This is preferable to needing to exit the view screen, navigate to the next character you want to view, and then opening up the view screen again."

Yes OK.

"- In the inventory of the first character (Sproket), the last item in the list is 'Last ITEM?'. Is this a bad string value? Or is there some sort of test item with that name."

It's all test data.

"- When an item is dropped, there's a small grammatical mistake '...and then quickly disappears into to the shadows'. The 'to' after 'into' should be removed."
Ok.

"- The message when trying to trade more money than a character owns to another character is not particularly descriptive of why there was a problem. Maybe it would be best to just have the character trade away all of their money of the selected type."

Yeah OK. It's because of encumbrance. A couple of the test characters have STR=0.

"- Is there any particular reason why attributes are displayed as being accurate to tenths? Whole integers is usually the way to go, and if you really need more accuracy, why not just multiply all values by 10?"

Java is strict with numbers so if I use ints and want accuracy I have to cast to float anyway. I shouldn't be displaying the decimal part.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Hoodoo]

looks gut