New BoA scenarios from pre-existing sources

[Ishad Nha]

New BoA scenarios can be made from pre-existing sources.

Creating new scenarios from existing BoE scenarios is now easy with the new Editor.

Another source is pre-existing abandonware computer games. Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord is the first BoA translation of such a game.

Here you will need to do everything one square at a time, unless you can automate the process. This requires decrypting the relevant game files then constructing a spreadsheet or a program that can translate the existing game into BoA format. For an example of how to do this see my Avernum Trilogy Template posts in this subforum.

[Ephesos]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

Here you will need to do everything one square at a time, unless you can automate the process.

This alone makes the process more trouble than it's worth, in my mind.

[Ishad Nha]

That is where you will need automation, unless you really are a FAN of the game concerned. With BoA templates it only takes a minute or two to do each town:

open the file in a hex editor and copy from the file

paste into the spreadsheet, it will take a few seconds to calculate all cells

see if there is custom terrain in the town concerned and handle that

then paste into the bas file using another hex editor.

(In the Avernum trilogy, every town had 16 terrain slots for custom terrain existing only in that town.)

Decrypting the files of the old game and creating the spreadsheet takes hours or days. But it is interesting and is a one-off thing.