Incline GRIDMONGER — a new free & open-source cRPG mapping tool

[Rincewind]

Also I didn't know the MT-32 support is busted.. I don't suppose it has General MIDI or SC-55 support? I think it came out in 1991 so right about the same time, maybe that one was too early?

World of Xeen came out in 1994, and according to Mobygames it has Sound Canvas support (can't be bothered to load it up right now).

https://www.mobygames.com/game/might-and-magic-world-of-xeen/techinfo

The Clouds and Darkside of Xeen original games from 1992 and 1993, respectively, only support the MT-32, and like I said, that's the module the music was composed on (and for). Not sure about the quality of the Sound Canvas adaptation; it's generally a hit or miss as the MT-32 was a fully programmable synthesizer compared to the relatively "dumb" later General MIDI modules (although the SC-55 included a cut-down version of the MT-32's LA synthesis engine, it was a major step back when it comes to fully programmable synth patches).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, I have the two big boxes of xeen disks and later ended up with several compilations of xeen on discs including the Trilogy Set. I don't recall any issues on my 486 dos machine at all. I think i played the discs on 98se and xp but damn if I can recall. I haven't booted up the gog versions. Knowing that there was more voiced content on MAC makes me wonder if there was ever a patchfix for PC. This reeks of annoyance just like the end of EOB I having the end sequence cut from dos. Fortunately, I finished the Amiga version first. Another game that needs patching.

 

[unseeingeye]

Hello, Rincewind!​

So, with a bit of advice and some of the utilities and emulators provided by flyingjohn, I was able to finally comprehend Mac emulation enough to get every game I wanted to try to work. This is going to be a some what long post; I am posting it both to help anybody else who may be struggling with getting these games to run as well as to record the process by which I got it to work for my own future reference because my memory is unfortunately very weak. Thank you very much,

flyingjohn​

So at first I'd installed Mini vMac and got some of the older black and white games to run using OS 6.0.8 with the necessary system disk, ROM file and a blank disk taken from an archive that I was able to source myself before looking at the package from the recommended emulation thread, as detailed in my previous post. I used a copy of a 024M blank disk for the virtual drive and after expanding a copy of the 6.0.8 system disks with StuffIt on Windows in Explorer I installed the OS to the blank disk by dragging and dropping the System Startup and System Additions disk images right onto the running emulator when prompted. Since the older games are such small file sizes it left me with plenty of room, so I made a new "Games" folder on the aforementioned virtual drive and started copying the disk images for the games I downloaded to it. I added the StuffIt expander to it, as well as ImportFl and ExportFl but found that in most instances the game disk images I was using sufficed by simply dragging and dropping to the desktop and then moving them to my Games folder. Having all of the older CRPGs I'm currently interested in available in one folder on the virtual drive within vMac is very convenient; I simply start the emulator and open that folder then double-click on whichever game executable I wish to run.

I'm attaching screenshots below of some of the games but to share they are the Gold Box AD&D games, the MacVenture series games, all of the Wizardry series I could find Mac copies of (so Wizadry 1, 2 and 6 because 7 isn't compatible with System 6), The Dungeon of Doom and The Dungeon Revealed, the first Bard's Tale (does anybody know if the second and third games have Mac versions?), Breach, Might and Magic 1 through 3, Scarab of Ra, Quarterstaff: The Tomb of Setmoth, Citadel of the Dead, Citadel: Adventure of the Crystal Keep, King's Bounty, Alternate Reality: The City, Ultima II and Ultima III, Legends of the Lost Realm and its sequel scenario, then Dark Castle and Return to Dark Castle. All of my games were sourced from: https://macintoshgarden.org/ and I downloaded when available multiple versions of each game so that I could have the original installation disk images and .SIT files for Mini vMac, as well as the .ISO and .BIN files for the later color games.

But then last night I was encouraged by the success where I'd failed multiple times in the past (having been utterly unfamiliar with the Mac OS of any kind outside of the most basic functions) to see if I could manage to do the same thing but for the later games with color. So I installed Basilisk II and had it create a virtual hard disk at 500 MB, sourced a copy of the Mac OS 8.1 (https://archive.org/details/MacOS_8_Version_8.1_691-1912-A_Apple_Computer_Inc._1998) and a copy of the Quadra 630 ROM (oddly I didn't find a copy of this within the Old World ROMs "1 MB" subfolder within the Firmware folder included in the emulation package provided by flyingjohn, though I most likely just I missed it because I did find copies of the 600 and 650, etc) which I downloaded and stored in a subfolder of the Basilisk install folder and renamed it to 630.ROM. In the Basilisk II GUI volume section I added the Mac OS 8.1 disk image and in the settings pointed the ROM directory to the 630.ROM, added my new virtual drive and then loaded Basilisk II for the first time, and it worked beautifully. I was able to install the OS 8.0.1 and it left me with somewhere just under 400 MB of space.

After I had the OS up and running I was a bit confused about how to add the different kinds of games, but initially I added ImportFl and the StuffIt expander. Adding the older black and white games and the less intense color games and/or variants was relatively simple, so I added all of the same games I had put on Mini vMac and copied to the disk and installed. There are some more newer games I downloaded that I didn't include in the list above, but it was basically a handful of colorized CRPGs and a handful of adventure games. However, I was very confused by games that required CDs to be mounted and threw myself at the problem for a while until I grasped the functionality of the GUI and the manner by which disk images are loaded. So after much frustration I finally figured it out; sourced an updated and patched version of World of Xeen and copied the .SIT file to the desktop, moved it to my new Game folder and went to unpack it but didn't have the room; another brick wall.

But then, as if a divine intervention descended upon my soul and lifted it up out of my body and off into the heavens, it occurred to me that I should in theory be able to add more than the one virtual drive... so with high hopes and determination I had Basilisk II create another virtual drive with the same 500 MB size, installed another Mac OS version on it with only the most minimal basic installation requirements, found a copy of then added the Virtual CD CD/DVD-ROM Utility, and then loaded up the emulator again. Lo and behold, I saw my mostly empty second virtual drive and the Virtual mount utility folder on the desktop, so using the "My Computer" folder also on the Basilisk II desktop I clicked-through my Windows C drive to where I store all of my downloaded Mac games folder and dragged and dropped the World of Xeen .SIT file over to this new drive, and unpacked it with StuffIt. Next I used the Virtual mount utility to mount a copy of the unpacked Install.DSK, but couldn't progress with it because I hadn't mounted the 5 or so Data disks and couldn't figure out how mid-installation! So I closed Basilisk II again, then added through the GUI directly the Install disk and all of the Data files along with the two virtual drives, relaunched the emulator and ran the Install disk and sure enough, it rapidly went through and installed the game! I moved it to another Games folder on the new second virtual drive, trash-canned the .SIF archive to clear up some memory and tested the game out and it worked flawlessly, beautiful vivid colors, awesome music and sound effects, and the toggleable options for full animation and other settings all worked. Since I dedicated basically the whole second drive to having a permanently installed copy of World of Xeen, all I have to do now to play it is mount the disk image which is saved to the virtual drive for convenience and double click the games executable icon and I'm good to go. I'm so happy that I finally figured this out! But regret now the absence of sleep, lack of dinner and back pain from sitting there all night and morning long demanding to figure this all out before stepping away.

So here are some screenshots of the two emulators running. The size of the emulator screen is unfortunately fairly small and the images are downsized, and with Mini vMac running System 6 (I also made an instance of vMac running System 7 for older games with color) I can use the CTRL + M keys command to make the emulators screen size double, but I haven't figured out how to increase the size of the screen in Basilisk II beyond the basic resolution and maintain aspect option settings from within the GUI. I need to check if there is a way to have it display either at a higher resolution or if it is possible to make it full screen in Windows without manually adjusting my monitor display resolution. I use a gaming laptop but it always remains closed and stuck inside a cooling unit with a fan beneath it, and have it connected to an external keyboard and mouse, and a widescreen external monitor, so it I don't like having to change the display every time I switch things up.

 

[unseeingeye]

The colour version works fine on this setup; the only problem is that the text scaling is a bit off, but only in some dialogs. Any tips how to resolve this flyingjohn?

So I unfortunately didn't even see your post until after posting my lengthy post a bit earlier.. damn that could have saved me easily two or three hours last night when I was figuring everything out through pure trial and error. There is remarkably little guidance available online for certain errors I encountered throughout the process, not even in the form of forum conversations like our own. I suppose I understand why that is so but it does somewhat surprise me given how many people are active in the emulation communities. Thank you for all of the information though, and I love seeing your screenshots! About this one in particular though, I'll check my copy of Might and Magic II color when I get home to see if I have the same scaling issue. I don't remember if I tried running it in System 7, I think I only tried the color version in System 8 with Basilisk II and don't think I saw any troubles.. I did have some trouble with the colors making text unreadable in some of the AD&D Gold Box games, but simply changing the color display options to a lower settings completely fixed the issue and I've not any major scaling problems so far regardless of what resolution I set within Basilisk II, though as I mentioned I haven't looked into yet how to increase the display without having to change my actual desktop resolution so it could become a problem.

I saw in your post that you managed to find copies of a virtual hard drive disk image with the Mac OS 7 already pre-installed.. that could come in handy should I need to repeat the process, if you happen to recall from where you got it? Although now that I know how to configure a blank disk of different sizes as an empty virtual HDD and install the different OS versions within Mini vMac and Basilisk II it isn't really necessary, but I'd still be interested to check it out. I haven't tried OS 9 yet which is what flyingjohn tentatively suggested, nor have I tried SheepShaver (at least not in this recent successful burst of study and practice, I have tried it in the past though), so I am going to give that a shot next. I believe System 9 will require to run on SheepShaver, as Basilisk II only supports Systems 7 through 8.1? I'm not interested in any OS after System 9 though and ultimately may not even need to use it at all considering the games I want to play all seem to work within the System 6 to 8 range, so I may be set with the emulators and tools I already have?

The emulation package flyingjohn provided also came with a full set of tools beyond the expander and importer / exporter, such as four different CD related tools like Toast and Virtual CD Utility, HVFExplorer, and a whole bunch more, it is really a fantastic set. I also found a 7.1 and 7.5.5 set with a whole bunch of cool things but most of it was either redundant for me or software and updates that I'll likely never use. I really enjoy the classic Mac OS interface and so I'll definitely make use of these three OS emulation instances I've now established, mostly to play the several CRPGs I'm interested in and maybe mess around with the original MacPaint. My daughter who is 13 is fascinated by old computers and regularly plays around with Windows 3 and 95 browser-based emulators and when she walked by and saw what I was setting up got super excited, so I'll likely set them up on her laptop too.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Looks great Rincewind, keep up the good work

 

[Rincewind]

Nice one, unseeingeye! Glad to see you've made significant progress during the last day.

I was referring to this page earlier that hosts a number of pre-installed Mac HDD images and various other tools. I can't remember if I used any of these images or just decided to set up everything from scratch like you have done, but here we go:

https://www.savagetaylor.com/downloads/downloads-macintosh/

I was too surprised how little information is out there about emulating these classic Macs. I guess in the "entropy vs humans" battle entropy will always come out as the winner — at the very least, I'm attempting to delay the process a little bit with my article series.

I've only set up Mini vMac and Basilisk II as I'm definitely not interested in post System 7 era games myself. In most cases, I find little reason to use anything else than the DOS/Windows versions from about 1992 onwards (there are always exceptions, though).

Please let me know if you can get Might and Magic II working without the text scaling issue. Just an idea: maybe running System 6 with a special colour-enabled version of Mini vMac would solve the problem. It is possible to build custom versions of it through this web-based "variations service", which is quite nifty! There's' some useful info about colour support on System 6 here:

https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5781

 

[unseeingeye]

Thanks, Rincewind!
Last night after I finished work I didn't do anything because the previous two nights I barely slept at all, another problem the night before and then setting up the Mac emulators Wednesday evening well into the early morning. So when I came home I said hello to my children and told my wife I was out of it and collapsed on the bed and the next thing I know my alarm was sounding this morning. But now that it is Friday I've got the whole weekend coming up to try out the games, so I'm very much looking forward to that. Knowing me I'll get caught up in something or other before allowing myself to just slow down and focus on playing a game, but I'll do my best.

I am thinking I may be ready to actually do the Might and Magic series play-through, starting with Might and Magic 1 and going up to Might and Magic 8. I have all of the games in many different versions for the very many different systems they were released on, starting with the Apple ][ and Commodore 64 and up. In my copy of LaunchBox with RetroArch I have them all set up nicely with the box art, the manuals and maps and listed by system with two main categories between computers and consoles. So for the series I have them spread out across Apple ][, C-64, Amiga, Atari ST, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sega-CD, MSX, PC-E, the first Nintendo, and probably others I'm forgetting. Early last year I spent weeks downloading ROM packs for all of the systems that had versions of the games I like and setting them all up in LaunchBox, it was a huge effort and I am very happy with the results. You probably will recall that Amiga package somebody made that contains every official game ever released for it that I shared with people here back a few months ago? And there is an even better, but curated, version for the Commodore 64.

I had to get rid of my MAME arcade collection because I was running out of room, but I kept everything else even the Japanese systems like PC-88 and PC-98, the PC-E or TurboGrafx-16, MSX and MSX-2, a few handhelds like NeoGeo Pocket Color and PSP, all of the major consoles up to Dreamcast and PlayStation 3 (exclusively for Demon's Souls), and many different computers which are the bulk of my 20,000 + games (though far from taking up the majority of the actual memory weight). Most of my console ROMs are heavily curated by myself rather than ROM packs because I don't really have much interest in the vast majority of console games anymore, so the NES and SNES, Mega Drive etc only have between 100 and 300 games at the most, where my Amiga selection has like 2,500 or so I forget exactly, and the Commodore 64 (not the curated pack, but a separate category I keep for not mixing the curated selection with my ROM pack) something like 11,000. I was able to setup a few complicated emulators to run through the LaunchBox interface, like the Amiga, the Atari ST, and Apple ][ but I've not yet figured out how to setup my new Mac emulators. It may not even be practical because of the way the games appear to require being launched from within the emulator, and I don't know the commands that would enable it to be launched directly, which I imagine would need to be customized for each game? And all of my MS-DOS games are from the "light" version of ExoDOS which is designed to work through LaunchBox.

Well anyway, suffice to say that I spent a long time gathering copies (sometimes multiple versions of each) of every release of every Might and Magic game up to VIII: Day of the Destroyer, and now I just need to determine which version to use for every game as I go through them. I was up until this very week intending to use the MS-DOS version because of that graphics mod for it I mentioned a page or so back in the thread, then the Amiga version of the second, and then the MS-DOS versions for all the rest, whether through ExoDOS or the GOG versions which always ran well. There is also the matter of the Might and Magic Merge mod that combines the games 6 - 8 as one contiguous thing, but since I've never finished any of those three games (although I got close with Mandate of Heaven) I think I'd prefer to just play the originals in the intended order as they were released.

By the way, am I missing something obvious, what article are you referring to? Were those LP articles made by you? Or you have a different article that I haven't seen?

Sorry for sending your thread in such a different direction, I do intend to try out your program with the first two games though but I don't want to mess your thread up further.

 

[Rincewind]

So when I came home I said hello to my children and told my wife I was out of it and collapsed on the bed and the next thing I know my alarm was sounding this morning.

Sounds all too familiar. But hey, look at the bright side—at least you can sleep through the night!

You probably will recall that Amiga package somebody made that contains every official game ever released for it that I shared with people here back a few months ago? And there is an even better, but curated, version for the Commodore 64.

Cool, care to share a link to the C64 collection? Although I tend to set up every single game I'm interested in manually, like yourself, these collections can still come in handy.

I think I'd prefer to just play the originals in the intended order as they were released.

I'm the same; I'm wary of modder-level content, in general. There are exceptions to that, but that's like in 1-2% of the cases.

Based on the guy's description, this merged mod is really not something that I'd want to play:

Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 merge redone is finally released. Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 merge was created by Rodril. He used the GrayFace tools to combine all three games into the MM8 engine. I replaced hundreds of textures, icons, and sprites with HD images. Hundreds of trees, plants, and flowers were added to the landscapes. Additional trees, plants, and flowers were added to the game. Also added over one hundred models and added 21 additional quests. MM7 part of the merge has shrines that will take you to Erathia, Harmondale, Emerald, or EvenmornIsland. The shrines are activated with a key that you get when you complete some quests. As inspired by Echo's Monstrosity, I placed additional monsters on all the maps.

Okay, so it's basically like adding extra scenes and rewriting some of the dialogs of your favourite classic movie. Moving on.

I was up until this very week intending to use the MS-DOS version because of that graphics mod for it I mentioned a page or so back in the thread, then the Amiga version of the second, and then the MS-DOS versions for all the rest, whether through ExoDOS or the GOG versions which always ran well.

My picks with explanations:

I – Mac, C64 (the high-res black-and-white Mac version looks a lot better than the rather primitive graphics of the C64 version; the DOS port is an abomination)
II – Mac, C64 (maybe Amiga, but the colour Mac version was based on the Amiga graphics; C64 version looks rather good; the DOS port is just okay with its EGA graphics)
III – Mac, DOS (MT-32 support works perfectly in the DOS port, and it has good 256-colour graphics; the Amiga port has not too skilfully downconverted 32-colour graphics)
IV+V – Mac (the DOS port has lots of issues: enabling MT-32 music and digital sound results in crashes (MT-32 music alone is fine, or using AdLib or General MIDI music with digital sound), there's weird speed & mouse issues, and lots of the quite hilarious NPC voice acting has been cut)

To me, MM I on the Mac is the best looking version, hands down. Given that the C64 version is only so-so, and you really need to import your characters into the second instalment, that makes the Mac the best platform for a combined I+II walkthrough.

I appreciate that the games were originally released for the Apple ][, but I have zero nostalgic feelings towards that machine, and I can't stand those graphics artifacts... A personal fault of mine, I'm sure of it.

Oh, and I don't care about those Japanese console versions; I exclude them with extreme prejudice.

Comment about the Xeen crash with MT-32 + digital sound:
https://af.gog.com/forum/might_and_...nd_lapcmt32_sound_setting/post6?as=1649904300

This Vogons thread contains tons of extremely valuable info from the composer himself about the music he did for the M&M series (emphasis mine).
TL;DR composing for the MT-32 was specified in the original contracts, and the composer has confirmed he used an MT-32 to produce the tracks. The General MIDI (SC-55) variant was done by a programmer, not a musician (!), and he screwed up more than a few things in the process.

MIDI music of the Might & Magic series

The music for Xeen, at least, was originally composed with a Roland MT-32 or CM-32L -- there is contradictory information here from the composers themselves (in fact, SC-55 in MT-32 mode works very good too, and could have been used). Even if originally composed for MT-32, the sound effects seem to have been optimized for CM-32L. The SC-55 version of the game was an afterthought for MM4, and then suggested for MM5. The music compositions do not sound correct in the GS version, because the SC-55 version uses the exact same data as the MT-32/CM-32L version. The difference in volume between note velocities is greater between notes in the SC-55 than the MT-32. Therefore in the SC-55 version, there are entire channels that can become nearly silent or very low. (I know the composers personally.)

Note: MM3 was composed with Roland MT-32 or CM-32L, and then was optimized by the programmers (not composers) for CM-32L.

Different composers were subcontracted out for the music -- most not credited -- so, it's hard to know which device each individual composer had on hand. But the commission from New World Computing was for them to compose music for the MT-32.

Tim Tully's (uncredited) commission for MM3:

"Each work of music shall consist of a maximum of eight, monophonic tracks, each usable by one of the instrumental timbres found in the Roland MT-32 synthesizer."

Tim Tully's commission for MM4:

"Contractor will deliver music in the form of Standard MIDI Files, voiced for the Roland MT-32 synthesizer. The MIDI files will consist of no more than eight tracks apiece. Each track will be monophonic, such that no more than one note plays at any one time. At Client's request, Contractor will produce from two to three of these pieces more fully, in a way that takes advantage of the MT-32's polyphonic capability. Contractor will deliver these files by modem or on floppy disc."

Tim Tully's commission for MM5:
"Contractor will deliver music in the form of Standard MIDI Files, voiced for the Roland MT-32 synthesizer, according to Client's specifications. The MIDI files will consist of no more than eight tracks apiece. Each track will be monophonic, such that no more than one note plays at any one time. At Client's request, Contractor will produce any number of these pieces more fully, specifically to take full advantage of the capabilities of the Roland SCC-1 Sound Card. These productions will be billed at two-thirds the rate of the MT-32 files..."

The only track composed uniquely for SCC-1 by Tim Tully, who worked with Greg Alper (uncredited), on the soundtrack was the SC-55 version of "Dark Lord Theme" which is the opening theme (though most of the instrument patches were changed by the time of the final game). All of the other SC-55 verisons were created by Mike Heileman, who was the sound programmer on MM5 (Mike is credited in MM5, but absent from the World of Xeen credits, in which Todd Hendrix gets credit for both MM4&MM5, even though Todd only did MM4). As I said above, Mike simply re-patched the MT-32 version with SC-55 instruments -- and he made a few overlooks and mistakes in the process.

(source)

By the way, am I missing something obvious, what article are you referring to? Were those LP articles made by you? Or you have a different article that I haven't seen?

Not sure what you're referring to as I was referring to many things previously I did not write those LPs, no.

Sorry for sending your thread in such a different direction, I do intend to try out your program with the first two games though but I don't want to mess your thread up further.

I don't mind, man Let me know how it goes, and if you're running into any issues or have improvement ideas, you know where to post it!

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

So I finally got around to using this. Tried it with Bloodwych, didn't end up playing very far, but that's an issue with Bloodwych. I do note that there are a few things that the program doesn't have and could use in the special tiles department. There's no in-tile pillar or statue icon. You know, something to indicate there's something on a tile, you can see through it, but can't walk through it. There also isn't a store or encounter tile. Yeah, I know I could use notes, but its nice to be able to put down a shop tile and then put a note there. Something to represent a building where I can talk to someone or buy something.

 

[Rincewind]

There also isn't a store or encounter tile. Yeah, I know I could use notes, but its nice to be able to put down a shop tile and then put a note there. Something to represent a building where I can talk to someone or buy something.

Have you checked out the "Icon" tab in the "Add note" dialog? Those icons were specifically chosen to address these sorts of needs; they're generic and abstract enough to represent all sorts of different things. For example, you can use the little house icon to represent stores or shops, then use that convention consistently in your maps:

Similarly, you can assign yourself a meaning to any of these icons and come up with your own conventions; you're not restricted to only using letters ("ID" note type). E.g. the standing man icon in the left bottom corner for friendly NPCs ("male toilet icon", I know...); the skull, bomb, or thunder icon for hostile encounters, and so on. I think that gives people a lot of flexibility without complicating things unnecessarily with custom icon sets, hundreds of built-in icons, etc.

There's no in-tile pillar or statue icon.

You could use the rook (tower) icon for that purpose

For example, in this map we have a general store, a pillar next to the store, a hostile encounter around the corner, and a friendly NPC at the end of that dead-end road.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Okay, that'd work with a store, but the issue is that its mildly inconvenient to have to write "statue" or "pillar" every time I need to put down one. I understand why you don't want to have an icon for every single possible encounter, but an icon in say, the 8th special slot for this kind of thing doesn't seem like that much trouble. I feel like I've seen more games that need a pillar than need a bridge.

 

[Rincewind]

Okay, that'd work with a store, but the issue is that its mildly inconvenient to have to write "statue" or "pillar" every time I need to put down one. I understand why you don't want to have an icon for every single possible encounter, but an icon in say, the 8th special slot for this kind of thing doesn't seem like that much trouble. I feel like I've seen more games that need a pillar than need a bridge.

Yeah, you've convinced me, I'll add a "column" floor type to the key "8", represented as an unfilled circle. Then I think I'll add a "statue" type too as a filled circle.
I vaguely remember I was considering to add column & statue types at some point, but then forgot and haven't personally needed them.

Btw, the bridge was specifically added for Grimrock 2.

Probably there will be a new release later this week for this. Any other wishes?

 

[Glop_dweller]

Any other wishes?

• When I put GM on a secondary monitor, and click Maximize, GM maximizes to the primary monitor, rather than the secondary; as one would expect.
• Left mouse clicks place the focus on the clicked tile; dragging the [held left-button] mouse does not pan the map if on the edge, and there is more of the map off-screen.
• Could holding the middle mouse button be made to pan the map?
• Is there an intentional reason that the 1,3,7,9 numberlock keys do not move the map cursor diagonally?

A minor tick, but if using the numberjack, then (possibly) having the + and - keys on the jack affect the zoom makes sense (to me). Though it would make it possible to accidentally change the zoom by mistake; when typing 9 & 6.

 

[Rincewind]

Any other wishes?

• When I put GM on a secondary monitor, and click Maximize, GM maximizes to the primary monitor, rather than the secondary; as one would expect.
• Left mouse clicks place the focus on the clicked tile. Could holding the middle mouse button be made to pan the map?
• Is there an intentional reason that the 1,3,7,9 numberlock keys do not move the map cursor diagonally?

The first one is a bug that needs fixing.

The rest are good suggestions; I'll see what I can do.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Have you considered a PNG or PDF —or

...
... a printed map export option? [screenshots, to allow saving a folder of map images.]

 

[Rincewind]

Have you considered a PNG or PDF —or

...
... a printed map export option? [screenshots, to allow saving a folder of map images.]

Yes, PNG export could be done relatively easily, so that will be added in the future.

PDF is more complex, mostly because of the themes, plus alignment issues, etc. Maybe I'll do that too, but not if it's too much hassle, so don't hold your breath for that one.

 

[Rincewind]

v1.1.0 has been released with column & statue support, as requested by Morpheus Kitami.

I'll probably look at the other requests next week (maximise window bug on multi-monitor setups, middle-click drag map).

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I'm probably gonna switch to this when I finish up my current Wizardry playthroughs, solely on account of the keyboard-focused interface. My dungeon crawler setup right now is to have the game in DOSBox on a smaller, 4;3 monitor on my left, and my main 16:3 monitor on my right displaying Grid Cartographer and whatever documentation the game needs. But when you have a game in fullscreen in DOSBox, your mouse is tied to that window, so I need to enter a key combination to switch back, which means I have to keep moving my right hand from the mouse to the keyboard and back constantly when I'm mapping out a new area. To avoid this, I keep the DOSBox window in windowed mode, and simply have the window size set to a resolution that completely fills my smaller 4:3 monitor, but this is a pretty inelegant and sloppy solution. It'd be best to have a mapping utility that can be easily used with a keyboard alone.
I know all this is extremely autistic but it is what it is

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Or use two computers. I did that for a while.

 

[Rincewind]

I'm probably gonna switch to this when I finish up my current Wizardry playthroughs, solely on account of the keyboard-focused interface. My dungeon crawler setup right now is to have the game in DOSBox on a smaller, 4;3 monitor on my left, and my main 16:3 monitor on my right displaying Grid Cartographer and whatever documentation the game needs. But when you have a game in fullscreen in DOSBox, your mouse is tied to that window, so I need to enter a key combination to switch back, which means I have to keep moving my right hand from the mouse to the keyboard and back constantly when I'm mapping out a new area. To avoid this, I keep the DOSBox window in windowed mode, and simply have the window size set to a resolution that completely fills my smaller 4:3 monitor, but this is a pretty inelegant and sloppy solution. It'd be best to have a mapping utility that can be easily used with a keyboard alone.
I know all this is extremely autistic but it is what it is

I'm planning to add overlay support to Gridmonger, similar to how Steam Overlay works. Combined with the auto-pause feature of DOSBox Staging when the window becomes inactive, you can get a semi-seamless experience in fullscreen DOS games, *or* even in newer games such as Grimrock (although probably without auto-pause on Alt-Tabbing).

 

[Rincewind]

Btw, this is how I generally use Gridmonger myself in "split screen" mode. It looks even nicer with DOSBox and WinUAE than VICE because you can completely hide all the window decorations and emulator UI elements in those.

 

[WhiteShark]

A few things to report, sorry if any are duplicates. I'm on Windows 10.

• After hitting 'u' to undo something, 'd' now moves the cursor to the right one square instead of excavating. Nevermind, this was just my not being aware of WASD mode and turning it on accidentally.
  
  • ASD have all turned into movement keys and 'f' excavates. This persists even if I close and reopen the program.
• Clicking the maximize button at the top right always maximizes the program on my main monitor instead of the monitor on which the window is located.
• The program doesn't respond to the normal Windows shortcuts for moving and maximizing a window.
• After creating a new map and a new level and then deleting said level, the program crashed.
• Manual says Ctrl+E to nudge, but that's the same hotkey for resize.

 

[Rincewind]

Thanks for your report!

A few things to report, sorry if any are duplicates. I'm on Windows 10.

• After hitting 'u' to undo something, 'd' now moves the cursor to the right one square instead of excavating. Nevermind, this was just my not being aware of WASD mode and turning it on accidentally.
  
  • ASD have all turned into movement keys and 'f' excavates. This persists even if I close and reopen the program.

Yeah, it can get confusing a bit... The WASD indicator should help (once you know what to look out for).

• Clicking the maximize button at the top right always maximizes the program on my main monitor instead of the monitor on which the window is located.

Already reported, and I've worked it out how to fix it; I just need more time to implement & test it properly. It's coming.

• The program doesn't respond to the normal Windows shortcuts for moving and maximizing a window.

You mean these? Gridmonger basically runs like a game in windowed mode, so it (almost) fully takes over the OS-level shortcut handling. I think I'd need to add these shortcuts manually and handle them myself on each platform differently (macOS, Linux, Win). I might look into it.

The icons in the toolbar are basically to replicate the Win+Left & Win+Right shortcut functionality; it's kind of a workaround on one hand, plus it makes the feature cross-platform on the other hand (e.g. no such built-in functionality in macOS, then anything goes on Linux...)

• After creating a new map and a new level and then deleting said level, the program crashed.

This is useful feedback; apparently, some edge case trips it up (I don't think I've ever seen a crash on deleting a map, so generally it's stable).

But this is too vague, that's not enough info to reproduce it. Next time this happens, don't restart Gridmonger yet (!), but report the bug first as described here, including attaching the log file, and the autosaved map file (if you don't mind sharing it). That should give me some pointers.

https://gridmonger.johnnovak.net/manual/appendixes/reporting-issues.html

• Manual says Ctrl+E to nudge, but that's the same hotkey for resize.

Thanks, I'll fix it. It's Ctrl+G, and I got it right in the keyboard shortcuts table at least.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Crap! I took off my win buttons because it was fucking up my gaming! Where thd hell did I put them?

 

[EtcEtcEtc]

Thanks for this, it's rad. Bug report though -

Started a new map, drew a bunch of cells, then ctrl + z'd (same thing happens if I hold down u) and held down till they all got undone, but once it hit the last cell that was created - and there was nothing left to undo, holding ctrl z past that point crashed it. Replicated 3 times just to make sure.