Incline Grid Cartographer - Best Tool for Drawing Classic RPG Maps

[Hidden Asbestos]

I appreciate your reply and it's good to get your opinion. Ultimately I'm happy that the price points I've chosen both reflect the quality of the product as it is now, will encourage a subset of players who will only use it for cRPGs (and don't need hexes, etc.) and give me a bit more control over boosting sales at weak times of year (which every year has been exactly when Steam has a sale on). I don't intend to drop to super low desperate levels - I do have faith in this product. Your suggestion of $30 would be achievable with a 40% discount and that seems like a common reduction at sale times.

Ultimately I'll have to see how things go and I can either come down in price more frequently or acknowledge the market isn't there and either drop it permanently or add some kind of game changing new feature. The alternative would be the price going up again or rushing a v5 out in 6 months or something else foolish and I'd rather not do that. If possible v4 will be around for a long time.

I think the best response to any price argument is simply making GC4 a kick-ass product worth twice what I'm asking - I will endeavour to do so !

 

[Grauken]

what where actually the final versions of v1 and v2, I got v1.4.8 and v2.1.1 via wayback machine, but I wonder if these were actually the final ones for each release

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

what where actually the final versions of v1 and v2, I got v1.4.8 and v2.1.1 via wayback machine, but I wonder if these were actually the final ones for each release

Yeah v1.4.8 (48 updates lol) and 2.1.1 (there was a 212 for android but it was a small thing iirc). All the old versions are still hosted on my site - If for whatever reason you want to use them just change the file name /tools/gridcart/files/grid_cartographer_vX_X_X.exe. They're generally worse than the newer ones but I like to give people the option as a fail-safe.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Eh, a bit higher update price than I though, but still day 1 purchase for me.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Eh, a bit higher update price than I though, but still day 1 purchase for me.

Yeah, now the evil publisher has achieved vendor lock-in. Seriously, though, I had no problem with paying full price for version 3, but if had been what version 4 Pro edition is now going to cost then I might have had second thoughts.

 

[Mustawd]

I personally would've started the Pro edition's pricing at around $30 though

Agree. $49.99 is too steep IMO. Especially for the features you're getting. At least bring it down to $40.

Anyhow, this looks good. Probably day 1 purchase on the gamer edition.

EDIT: Also, you might want to think about customer psychology here. The type of people willing to shell out $20 on this, are probably going to be tempted to just add in another $20 to go the pro edition (assuming a $40 price tag). But the extra $10 from a $50 price kinda stops most of us (I'm obviously talking about myself here lol).

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Grauken and I finally got automatic tracking working for 100% of Wizardry 6

How long till Wiz7?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I personally would've started the Pro edition's pricing at around $30 though

Agree. $49.99 is too steep IMO. Especially for the features you're getting. At least bring it down to $40.

Anyhow, this looks good. Probably day 1 purchase on the gamer edition.

EDIT: Also, you might want to think about customer psychology here. The type of people willing to shell out $20 on this, are probably going to be tempted to just add in another $20 to go the pro edition (assuming a $40 price tag). But the extra $10 from a $50 price kinda stops most of us (I'm obviously talking about myself here lol).

It will be $44.99 for the first month after launch.

Anyone here who has v3 already, it will cost $15.99 to get v4 Pro.

(And if you don't have v3 then if you buy today/before launch and then immediately upgrade then it will be $35.98 - a further saving)

So a broad range of options.

 

[Jaesun]

Good luck on your STEAM launch!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Good luck on your STEAM launch!

Thanks! I will post back once the greenlight campaign is up and running.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Grauken and I finally got automatic tracking working for 100% of Wizardry 6

How long till Wiz7?

Grauken was my wingman on this mission but I lost sight of him after we took down the Bane King. Last I saw him he was dicking around with some scary looking metal bird. Stay safe Grauken.

Seriously though it's all on me for being so busy with other stuff. Wiz 7 won't be part of 4.0 at launch and it'll take a few weeks for me to get to it after the other stuff that's gonna kick off from that. Sorry, I know that isn't the news you wanted.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Also, it's a shame you're retiring the free version - it's trying it out that convinced me to pay up for the full version. I can see that v3 free might be a sufficient demo to whet people's appetite, but if I hadn't already bought it I'd want to try out the version I was buying, even if it had very limited functionality.

Having looked at the difference in features between the gamer and pro versions I can that I was overreacting slightly. However, I'm glad I'll be getting the pro version!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Also, it's a shame you're retiring the free version - it's trying it out that convinced me to pay up for the full version. I can see that v3 free might be a sufficient demo to whet people's appetite, but if I hadn't already bought it I'd want to try out the version I was buying, even if it had very limited functionality.

Having looked at the difference in features between the gamer and pro versions I can that I was overreacting slightly. However, I'm glad I'll be getting the pro version!

Thanks, that's good to know.

In future I may introduce a timed trial/evaluation license. Not sure on the details yet but that's the approach I'll probably try out. One of the reasons for retiring the free edition was that it took additional effort to disable and test things weren't there and it was also starting to become less representative of the full experience. An evaluation copy of everything there is to offer (for say 30 days or w/e) would let you try the whole thing without me needing to spend extra time on every new feature.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Ever wondered if you've stepped on a specific map tile in that one corner of a room? Well wonder no more with these convenient footstep markers! By default you'll now get a little checked box drawn automatically wherever the avatar marker moves to, or is moved via Game Link player tracking.

I took this idea for Dark Heart of Urkel and I think it really helps for games like Might and Magic where you can easily draw the outside of a bunch of rooms as you walk past, but then forget which ones you actually went in.

If you want to remove footstep marks for whatever reason it's hooked up as an option in the eraser tool and you can also select the footprint icon in the brush palette and paint them on like any other brush. You can also hide them temporarily from the view tab (or stop them drawing automatically from the new Options > Editor sub-menu).

Since I've only just announced the Gamer edition I should make sure to tell you all that this will be a feature in that edition as well. Basically for any feature related to enjoying cRPGs you can have a safe bet that it'll appear in both versions.

 

[Grauken]

Yeah, I was waiting for that feature, excellent

 

[Grauken]

Grauken and I finally got automatic tracking working for 100% of Wizardry 6

How long till Wiz7?

Grauken was my wingman on this mission but I lost sight of him after we took down the Bane King. Last I saw him he was dicking around with some scary looking metal bird. Stay safe Grauken.

Seriously though it's all on me for being so busy with other stuff. Wiz 7 won't be part of 4.0 at launch and it'll take a few weeks for me to get to it after the other stuff that's gonna kick off from that. Sorry, I know that isn't the news you wanted.

I powered through W7 but lost steam in Munkhamara after completing the left side of the world map, though I do plan to go back to it and provide HA with saves and a map so that he can add it, but as he said he's probably busy with 4.0 in the near future

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Two-for-one update:

1. Resizable side panel.
2. Support for 8x8 and 16x16 pixel custom tiles (while keeping the 32x32 from v3). Recreate maps using classic retro game tile-sets.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Now you can play games on an Apple computer !

Plus a couple of smaller changes:

* Display and theme settings are now stored per-region rather than an application setting. So when you configure your map to look how you want it you can share that file with people and it will look exactly the same for them too. Alternatively if you like to use a certain theme for a certain game then that will automatically change too.

* I've increased the number of recent slots in the brush palette. It stops at one row though so to see more than the usual 5 simply drag the size over.

I also updated / raised the system requirements a little. Hopefully it's not too problematic for people:

- Windows 7 or later 32/64bit

- macOS 10.9 'Mavericks' or later (fingers crossed 'Sierra' doesn't cause problems)

- Linux Mint 17 32/64 bit. (no change here from v3, plus the usual caveat of 'other distros might/might not work')

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Have you considered static compilation for Linux? It would significantly increase distribution compatibility.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Have you considered static compilation for Linux? It would significantly increase distribution compatibility.

I do statically compile most things in except GTK and libpng (there aren't many libs used anyway) - but even if I did everything, the requirement comes more from the practicalities of testing - I only really have the resources to commit to saying it works on the distro I develop the thing with. Mint is a popular one and usually implies Ubuntu will work just fine - but the thing I'm doing is to avoid just saying "All Linux!" since it's likely someone will eventually make/find a distro that it doesn't work on and that could potentially turn into a complicated tech support problem. Better to be stricter and clearer, I'm afraid.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I forgot to mention that, in case you didn't know, every time you've seen dosbox in one of my screenshots it's been a modification of the official trunk version of it. For example what is running macOS above is practically the Linux build really, not Boxer or any of the other spin-offs like Daum, etc. Those versions could be converted to be compatible with Game Link (as could emulators for other systems) but for the 4.0 release this will be the reference point.

edit: I'll be releasing the modified source code as well so if anyone wants to add support to something you can go hog wild (at least for things that work using a software frame buffer)

 

[Bumvelcrow]

I do statically compile most things in except GTK and libpng (there aren't many libs used anyway) - but even if I did everything, the requirement comes more from the practicalities of testing - I only really have the resources to commit to saying it works on the distro I develop the thing with. Mint is a popular one and usually implies Ubuntu will work just fine - but the thing I'm doing is to avoid just saying "All Linux!" since it's likely someone will eventually make/find a distro that it doesn't work on and that could potentially turn into a complicated tech support problem. Better to be stricter and clearer, I'm afraid.

I'm not too worried. Version 3 worked on Arch with an AUR package installed, so if it's compiled on 17.3 then there shouldn't be any major problems with any sensible distro.

 

[udm]

Any new features for tabletop gamers?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Any new features for tabletop gamers?

So far the named floors, extended colour palette, new 's' door/wall, grid on-top/thickness controls and tweaked parchment background were all added with tabletop players in mind, but there's a benefit to gamers and devs with those too I imagine.

Is there anything you had in mind? Something people mapping a cRPG might think "wtf is that useful for ?!" but a tabletop player would know what's up. I have a few things in mind - they're big projects in themselves.

 

[udm]

Just one: the ability to export maps (or snapshots for big maps) to images that automatically scale to a user-defined grid size

Btw is it possible to add custom objects now? It would be a great quality-of-life addition to import tokens from RPGMapShare. I'm actually thinking of using GC with rear projection underneath the table.