Hi Tom.
I wasn't actually suggesting! shades of doom in particular should have an
editer since I'm quite aware of how David created the engine, and indeed
anyone who has played gma tank commander, packman talks, shades and sarah
would be, only that editers for exploration based games in particular can
provide a great deal of replay since obviously if the maze your entering and
what you find in the maze can be varied, the game can vary hugely and have
large amounts of replay value as has been seen in doom, quake etc.
while I do see the point that editable game content needs to be added from
the start rather than later (one reason the entombed dungeon creator never
got finished, though might be a possibility for an Entombed Ii), the
scripting business I see slightly differently, since while in a game like lw
where objects can have different set behaviour according to a preset script,
in many exploration or puzzle games which use a standard set of objects it's
only necessary for a person to place them, perhaps with some modded sfx
rather than design their behaviour.
In many graphical games, especially puzzle games like sokoban (the game robo
E is based on), editers exist like this which are essentially paint
programs, and work rather the way a person would create a sudoku puzzle, by
simply adding correct elements to the game board in a specific
configuration.
this is actually one reason i really hoped Aprone would bring out a level
editer for his towers of war game, since then all you would need to do is
place the squares on the map for the various elements, defign what sort of
enemy you want, (optionally adding a sound file for their movement), and
defign how much hp the enemies have, how fast they move and how much bounty
a player gets for slaying them.
take your original montizuma's revenge game. Unlike the more complex mota
varients that game had a comparatively simple system. Your character could
only move horizontally (no analogue jumps), accept by climbing ladders or
ropes, and the only game elements were fire pits, lava pits, spiders,
snakes, sculls, electric barriers, red blue and white doors and keys, gems,
gold and torches.
while I know you didn't creat create the game to be editable, it wouldn't
have been beyond the realms of conception for someone to do so.
of course, one major difference in audio game editer terms is back to the
overview problem, since while such an editer would be a comparatively easy
thing to overview visually (I have seen cracked editers for the original
prince of persia game that worked like that), it would not necessarily be so
easy in an audio form, and one thing I do! know is that it's far easier to
create a paint program similar to the graphical editer and tie this to your
game elements than it is to create an audio grid overview with game
elements, which is likely why scripting hear is a good idea as indeed has
been seen in all the sound rts maps created, however we've not yet seen an
editer for an exploration based audio game as yet, other than the tactical
battle and adventure scripting engines which are more going towards being
full game creation tools than map editers.
Perhaps however, if you ever did create an audio based varient of a
comparatively symple game with exploration such as berzerk with it's mazes
or pitfall, these are things you could considder, indeed I believe this is
also something greymatter are thinking about with their sparcle game too.
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
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