Unflappable Drayk The Loquacious Lord Grimm Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 Looking for a rather distinct monster graphic for my port-in-progress. To quote the help file of the original: Quote: Manticore: monstrous guardian, originally created by sorcery. The manticore has the body and claws of a great lion, feathered vulture-like wings, the face of a cruel, bearded man, but with tusks in the wide mouth, and a long, rather insectile tail behind. The many-jointed tail is tipped with a pinecone of barbed quills, which it can fling with the accuracy and effect of a company of crossbowmen; with this, a manticore will try to slay lesser opponents at a distance, or cripple stronger opponents before closing with claws and jaws. Too, as a crossbowman can empty a case of quarrels, so can a manticore exhaust the spines on its tail, though it will usually cease fire before such exhaustion and so hazard a few quills against emergency. While manticores are intelligent, their bestial, angry nature overrides most subtlety. They talk, and will mock their prey during combat. Will take either small or large template. Would really like to have the attack pose include the quoted tail flinging, for proper in-game effect. Bonus points if the graphic is flying, and the death animation invoves the creature falling to the ground. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Mea Tulpa Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 You're porting Castle of the Winds, really? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 hey we've already got one roguelike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 Castle of the Winds was on a CD with 1000 Games. CD also contained Exile 1 and Exile 2, that is where I first discovered Spiderweb games. Magic Arrow was my first spell, I initially used hit and run tactics, until I reached the second experience level and obtained the Heal Minor Wounds spell. Screen captures could be turned into a temporary Manticore graphic, until you came up with something better. Ditto, as I recall, the SSI Gold Box Savage Frontier games had Manticores in them. (These two games, Gateway to the Savage Frontier and Treasures of the Savage Frontier, are abandonware nowadays.) If there are any Manticore graphics in any BoE scenario they can be used at a pinch too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 What was the roguelike scenario? I like NH and rogue, maybe I'll play it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Smoo Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 Blades of Rogue was the roguelike scenario. You can find it at The Database and it's in TrueSite. I suppose you could also find it at Niemand's site... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha Castle of the Winds was on a CD with 1000 Games. CD also contained Exile 1 and Exile 2, that is where I first discovered Spiderweb games. I, on the other hand, discovered Castle of the Winds when I bought Jazz Jackrabbit from Epic Classics a few years ago and the first part was included on the disk. (Or maybe it was the Jill of the Jungle disk; I forget.) Exile I discovered on MacCubed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is another BoA adaptation of an old game. I don't know if it has random terrain or not. Castle of the Winds had randomly designed dungeons, like Darkstone. Hints on how to try and implement this in a BoA scenario could be found in the files for Blades of Rogue. Edit: I don't know if the Castle of the Winds save game file has a complete map of the current level or not, it may only have a numerical level seeding code. If it has a complete map that could be converted to a BoA style town record by an appropriately designed spreadsheet. I will have to look into this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 It would make more sense for it to just store the seeding code, but... it's worth checking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Niemand Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 Proving Grounds is entirely static; all terrains and monsters are pre-placed. The choices in doing so are just so bizarre that it doesn't particularly look planned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 To return to the topic at hand... if I had the requisite artistic talent, I would sketch up a manticore in no time. Sadly, I'm more of a flora person when it comes to Blades graphics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord, with an emphasis on the word "Mad". So if the original game was bizarre that might be appropriate, it was designed by a madman after all. I will look at a Castle save game and see what I find. Edit: This may not be as easy as decrypting most games that I have seen. You have provision for angled walls and so on, I don't know how the game handles the notation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Mistb0rn Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 If you have an image I could look at I might be able to do something. I haven't done any BoA graphics yet, so no promises, but I'd be more than happy to give it a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 This will have to do for now: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4mspot/20080314 Edit: Does anyone have a resource editor that can handle 1990s vintage programs? This would speed the business up. Reshack can only handle 32-bit programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Mea Tulpa Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 ResFool will work, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 I am on Windows and that is Mac. If anyone has Resfool, or anything like it. can they look at Castle of the Winds? (Not too sure where you would find the freeware Mac version of CW.) Here is the Windows version of the application: http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/castl11a.zip If anyone has a Windows resource editor that can handle this game can they look at it? We need to know if there are distinct terrain bitmaps and if so what they look like. If all else fails I can try analyzing screenshots. It may have a simple structure like the Exile games with terrain bitmaps. Then again the dungeons may be drawn by the game using point to point lines. Edit: There might not be a Mac version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 Windows resources and Mac resources are completely different formats, just so you know. ...why on earth did you upload it to your webspace when you could have linked to the freely available download from the creator's own site? Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha Then again the dungeons may be drawn by the game using point to point lines. ...seems incredibly unlikely, though not impossible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Mistb0rn Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 I'm not entirely pleased with it, but here's my first attempt. Like I said, I've never done any BoA graphics before, so please feel free to tell me anything I've done wrong. Or anything that you'd like improved. Or if it's completely awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 Whoah. That's pretty awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 The nature of Mac resources have been discussed on these boards frequently enough... As for downloads: http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/castl11a.zip (The game seems to have no Mac version?) There may be a one-to-one map. Again, the notation may simply say "n1 copies of terrain type N1, followed by n2 copies of type N2..." As for the size of the CW dungeons, it seems that the individual squares are around 32 pixels in width, which makes for some large dungeons, much larger than BoA varieties? You might need to string together several BoA towns just to accomodate one CW town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Niemand Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 That looks to me like a pretty excellent manticore graphic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 The manticore does look very good. The death sequence seems slightly odd, in particular the transition from the living pose to the first frame – suddenly it turns upside down? Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha (The game seems to have no Mac version?) Hole in one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 There are graphics in the Treasure of the Savage Frontier game that I could extract, but they might be inferior to what we have here. As the game is freeware the author might be able to tell us about the maps and give us the terrain graphics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn here's my first attempt. That does look pretty sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Mistb0rn Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel The manticore does look very good. The death sequence seems slightly odd, in particular the transition from the living pose to the first frame – suddenly it turns upside down? You're right. I have no way to see how it may look in-game as I don't currently own BoA, but here's a slightly edited version with a new death animation. (The original intention is that it gets knocked out of the air, falling over backward.) Please let me know how it looks, and anything else that should be improved. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Don't own BoA? Just download the relevant Mac or PC demo. You can play the first scenario: Valley of Dying Things. Add your graphic to the folder of this scenario and give it a name like "G527.bmp". Simply alter the scenario data script so that one monster has your custom graphic. Play the scenario for a while and see how graphic looks. Death sequence graphics are no big problem because they are gone so quick. Dungeon Craft may have manticore graphics, I will have to check the various relevant sites. As for a Castle of the Winds scenario, features like Identify spells don't exist in standard BoA. I devised a work around, see the Codex: http://thelyceum.yuku.com/forums/16/t/The-Codex.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Ishad, what on earth are you talking about? Nobody's saying they don't own BoA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 He may or may not have lost his marbles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha As for a Castle of the Winds scenario, features like Identify spells don't exist in standard BoA. I devised a work around, see the Codex:http://thelyceum.yuku.com/forums/16/t/The-Codex.html I'm sorry, I have no desire to scroll sideways forever just to see what you're trying to say. (Assuming you meant this thread. It looks like wz arsenic's post is the culprit...) Originally Posted By: Ephesos Ishad, what on earth are you talking about? Nobody's saying they don't own BoA. Actually, Mistborn did: Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn I have no way to see how it may look in-game as I don't currently own BoA, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Oh, okay. But seeing as the graphic is complete, it seems a little late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 My own initial thread in the Codex lacked paragraph marks too. It was not hard to fix: I copied the text into a Word document and used Replace All to replace semi colons with semi colons followed by paragraph marks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Those are both pretty awesome Mistb0rn. Not that anything needs to be changed, but since you asked for feedback on how to make it better, you could add a shadow underneath or some action lines on the tail. A stirring of the wind as it whips around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Niemand Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 A shadow might help to show that the creature is up off of the ground, but I would recommend against motion lines. There's nothing wrong with adding them, but doing so wouldn't really fit the usual style, and they might end up looking funny when they got highlighted along with the rest of the graphic when the monster is attacking. Of course, it's Grimm who wants the graphic, so it's his opinion along with yours as the artist which matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk The Loquacious Lord Grimm Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 Mistborn, it looks awesome. May need to check the bottom edges to ensure that it fits in the tile constraints. I'll see if I can give you an in-game demo of what it looks like in action, but that probably won't happen for a day or three. And yes, I'm attempting a port of Castle of the Winds. Pertinent info can be found at Shadow Vale and The Blades Forge. I am interested in any suggestions from fans of the original, in order to help the success of porting the core of this classic. _________________________ The Silent Assassin likes to favor a male human archae... no wait, wrong rogue-style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Author's homepage: http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks He can tell you how the maps work. You have two choices: Completely random dungeons like the original game and the Blades of Rogue scenario Choose one standard dungeon for each level Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk The Loquacious Lord Grimm Posted November 17, 2009 Author Share Posted November 17, 2009 While randomly generated levels would be very true to the original, I believe that it conflicts with the nature and motivation of this port: the point is in fleshing out the world of CotW, not simply copying it from one engine to another. If someone wants CotW, then they can go play it: it is, after all, freeware. That said, you're right, a good deal of the original game's allure rests on the fact that it's impossible to play the same game twice. In order to emulate that factor while maintaining carefully-designed and -purposed dungeon design, I'm taking an approach that blends Ishad Nha's suggested choices. Players will be exposed to "standard dungeons", as he put it; however, I am creating a number of such towns, specifically tailored to the purpose of each dungeon level when applicable (and given an essentially random purpose when not); so the player will be exposed to randomly selected dungeon levels, as opposed to randomly generated dungeon levels. Right now, I'm working on the premise that three different versions of each of the 38-39 originally randomly generated dungeon levels results in something like 1.35*10^18 unique play-throughs. Obviously, that overly large number does not consider the obscene amount of overlap, but realistically, how many times will someone play a port? It does create more work for me in that I have to design (and test. and beta test.) over a hundred essentially unique towns, but it maintains the random play element without having to plagiarize BoR. _________________________ The Silent Assassin points out that anyone simply wanting a randomly generated hack-and-slash with relatively prettier graphics should give up BoA and go play Vulture's Eye. He also points out stars, errors and typos in my posts, candles, and occasionally, accidentally, the glass eyes in mounted animal heads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 I think the levels in the original are a bit bigger than the 64*64 BoA maximum town size. You could have four BoA towns cover the one CW dungeon, but 3*38 = 114, there are only 200 possible towns in any BoA scenario. You could split it into two scenarios... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Niemand Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Quote: . . . without having to plagiarize BoR. I have to say that I would be totally happy to see the techniques used in BoR embedded in another scenario if they suited its purposes. (I can't claim to have invented some of the key ones anyway.) There's certainly a lot more that could be done in that direction, such as different versions of the random level generator tuned to use different terrain and creature sets. On the other hand, there were a lot of restrictions that the dynamic generation placed on what the levels could actually contain, so by manually creating all of the levels you gain a lot of freedom to make them more interesting and detailed. You'll be able to have exciting things like height differences, which were an example of something I thought about putting into BoR, but simply couldn't guarantee working correctly and so had to omit. (The secret doors were bad enough; they were ridiculously hard to get right.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 I sent off an email to the author seeking source code or graphics to enable my decryption. In the meantime I will have another stab at it myself. Edit: A map square may be 32*32. Automap square size is highly variable from what I can see. The towns may look bigger than what they really are, I am still working on this. Fortress level 4 may be 64*62 or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha You could split it into two scenarios... Which, incidentally, would be just like in the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk The Loquacious Lord Grimm Posted November 17, 2009 Author Share Posted November 17, 2009 Most of the dungeon levels that I have encountered are easily Large, though it appears from my playthroughs that 64*64 is the limit. The Automap stretches to fit the dungeon's dimensions to the current window. That said, I'm not really interested in copying maps straight out the the random dungeons, but instead the key elements from them: various room arrangements, types, and sizes, specific rooms scripted to specific levels, the occasional door at a dead end for humor and authenticity, etc. As Niemand has pointed out, things like secret passages and height add a new dimension to the gameplay element. It's been a slow process, particularly in having to use the debug tool to regenerate each level several times to determine if certain rooms are random, or designed specifically for the level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Castle of the Winds seems about as complex as Exile 1. Blades of Exile scenarios can be ported to BoA easily enough. This project should be simple enough apart from the diagonal corridors. Diagonal movement along diagonal corridors should be tough to implement in BoA. The only solution I see is breaking them up into horizontal and vertical stretches. If you want to keep the corridors diagonal you would need to port to BoE which has simpler wall graphics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 You can have diagonal corridors in BoA. They may not look nice, but they're possible. And you could probably make them look nice. That said, are they truly necessary? I expect Lenar could ignore them with minimal difficulty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Diagonal corridors would need a wall to lie along the diagonal of the square not the side as is currently the case. I have never tried to do this, so I don't know if it will work. The party would move like a Bishop in Chess. So you would need custom terrain types that look like walls. He may too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha Diagonal corridors would need a wall to lie along the diagonal of the square not the side as is currently the case. I have never tried to do this, so I don't know if it will work. He may too. Or, y'know, just make the corridor two spaces wide and stagger the walls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Originally Posted By: Thuryl Or, y'know, just make the corridor two spaces wide and stagger the walls. Which would work quite well, I think, since walls take up much less space in BoA than in either BoE or CoW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted November 22, 2009 Share Posted November 22, 2009 Have to see what he comes up with. If Lenar Labs has not done a scenario before he should look at the script checking program Alint, see the topic: Alint Error http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=53234#Post53234 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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