Pumpkin_head's Forum Posts

  • 14 posts

  • Like the graphics, really earthwormjim-esque feeling too. Keep going !

  • Really nice background graphics, and the gameplay seems promising !

  • Awesome art and ambiance, I'd love to play it !

  • Pecek,

    That's Clever. I should be able to limit the loop from the loader to a given range with this method, in order to update only the tiles on screen, thanks !

  • Alright, then, is there a way to limit the loop through an array ?

    maybe with a "for" ?

  • I just bought it on amazon, can't wait to read it ! Good work Jayjay !

  • Pecek, thank you so much for the tips, I'm definitely going to check this !

    So it means a full Sprite engine is a possible solution, with thoses improvement and the map streaming !

    Thank you again for testing the cap !

    EDIT : Just disabling the group allows a performance of 600 to 700 fps for me :)

  • Hi construct users,

    Here is my attempt to create an isometrical map editor AND engine.

    There's no y or Z sorting here, I focused on these thing :

    Isometric Map Editor/Engine (IM2E) v0.18 by Pumpkin_head

    Basic features

    ---------------------------------------------------------

    • painting tile directly on screen.
    • custom map size (disabled here)
    • save and load map on file with Array object
    • dynamic tile loading while scrolling for optimisation.

    ---------------------------------------------------------

    The last point is where I got on the wrong way.

    The editor is only sprite based (I know, i know, sprite is evil :)), so i decided to make a dynamic map streaming system, to improve optimisation.

    When you scroll (with mouse or arrow keys) the tiles away from a given range to a special object called the loader, are moved to the opposite position.

    For example , if a tile is, let's say, 8 tiles south from the loader, then move that tile 8 tile north, from the loader.

    And, it works ! We have the feeling that the map is scrolling, but there's always the same number of tiles on screen. the only thing that move is the tile XY, and the sprite animation is set by their coordinates.

    You can try it and paint a few tiles, then scroll to make them dissapear. Go back, and the tiles reappear.

    Could have been nice, but the performance is too slow. On my computer, it runs at 40 to 60 fps, which is not acceptable, considering we have only one type of tile.

    So why is it useless, can't i make the same thing with a tiledBackground object ? Well, not really. I tried, but my system uses collisions and picking of the the sprites, so even if I made something quite similar it's not working very well. In addition to that the performance gain would be unsignificant. A huge map of 100*100 tiles made of TiledBackground Object runs at 500+ fps, so there's no need for a map streaming....

    Anyway it's been a real pleasure to create this on contruct, and I learned a lot while making it ( sprite is memory consuming, not good for static elements). This experience will be helpfull on my other projects :)

    You can download the .cap and use it for your own purpose:

    dropbox.com/s/qprzt7lt48a4ygk/IM2E_0.18.cap

    Any comments are appreciated :)

    ---------------------------------------------------------

    Controls :

    Right click : show painting menu, select one tile and paint it on the grey tiles.

    R : reset your map

    Space : restart layout (buggy)

    Ctrl + s : save map

    Ctrl + l : load map

    arrow keys : scrolling

    moving mouse on the application borders : scrolling

  • Nice ! Could be helpfull !

  • Nice animations ! I love the graphics :)

  • Alright, I bought your game, and I had a lot of fun playing it.

    It's a real pleasure to see that such a game can be acheived with construct, and I hope it will motivate other devs !

    So what about the game in itself ?

    Well it's for hardcore gamers imo. It's really hard if you play in the "I'm invicible !" mode. Death always happens suddenly if you're careless, poisoned or out of potions. And the level randomness makes it even more difficult. Finding NPC ( for buying antidote for exemple )is sometimes a real releif ! Definitely not the kind of game which takes you smoothly by the hand, you're in a dark, violent and pityless world !

    Graphics are simple & old school, without animations. Definitely not a "next gen" game, but It works well, and with the patch you can change every images (and sounds), and mod the game. Yeah you can make a ramdomly generated dunjon with lolcats, dead presidents, or whatever you like !

    I must write a note about the weird NPC's design, because it's real humoristic and add a lot of "brittish nonsense" to the athmosphere.

    For example, the naked gay friendly Blacksmith, who welcomes you with a large smile ( so fresh !), the potion lady which I assume has made an internship with duke nukem ( really ? a gorgeous women wearing a tight dress in a dunjon infested with zombies and deadly creatures !??). The thief who really seems to live in a cave, and daily eating rats, the seemingly drunk merchant.... It works well because while the game remains serious and dark, those NPC are real fun by constrast.

    About the game mechanics, even if it's defined by the donjon crawler genre, the combats are a bit repetitive, and I would have like to find more varied weapons. Something like, some weapons much effective against a certain kind of enemies ( maybe in a future patch ?). That said, you can fight with sword AND magic (explosion/ healing ...) so combat is ok, and the "almost turned based system" add a lot of adrenaline to it all.

    The inventory could be improved too. You can't move objects to reorganise your stuff ( strange, but finally not a problem because moving objects is useless)and every item is "cursed" like in roguelike games : if you wear something which add penalties to your attributes you can't remove it unless you have another object of the same type. That's weird, but once you know that you don't get caught again :)

    Well that's a big post ! I hope this tiny "test" can help those who hesitated to get the game. Good work Tylerkitano !

    EDIT : Oh yeah I forgot something, movement can be strange when you play for the first time. Don't forget to download the patch which enable movement with arrow keys, and activate the minimap. Once you'll have cross one or two levels, you'll get used to it !

  • Very cool, can't wait to see that in a game !

    Thanks for sharing the cap !

  • Cool thanks !

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  • Happened to me too, not with this file but with a personal work, I was trying a cap made on xp 32 bit on an another computer running under seven 64 bit. Maybe that's where it came from ?

  • 14 posts