cs121av@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (cs121 Student) (03/05/91)
How many of you out there regularly engage in fantasy role-playing? Those of
you who do probably have before now wished for some way to integrate your
Amiga with the gaming experience. Over the years I have a developed a number
of utilities organized around making my job as referee a little easier. Some
of these have shown themselves largely useless, and some are now central to the
efficient operation of the campaign. Those that are still with us are,
somewhat surprisingly, completely graphically-based. These have been honed
over time to the point where they are highly functional and quite unobtrusive.
To be quite honest, I've found that anything that sticks out during gameplay,
be it time-consuming, distracting, or otherwise, doesn't deserve to live, no
matter how flashy or "neat".
With this in mind, I have begun development of the Digital Dungeon. The
program will nominally incorporate the following features:
1. Extensive facilities for creating customized, animated character
representations. By this, it is meant that you may transform your
favorite player characters into smoothly animated "pieces" that may be
moved about on the screen. The characters will be quite detailed:
Shadow patterns, custom clothing, armor, weapons, movement.
2. Importing of IFF backround graphics. These are the "floor patterns",
and are bird's-eye view. One could create them with any IFF paint
program.
3. Spot animations: Torches, water, traps, and pretty much anything that
would add to the realism of the production or be of some functional
importance.
4. Scripting: the referee can "script" a particular scene. This could
involve loading a backround, setting marching order, loading monsters,
setting light levels, starting and stopping animations, all controlled
by the function keys. The program will generate a printed list of the
of function key map for each scene on a printer. Scripting will be
accomplished by means of an interface I have devised that I believe is
both very efficient and simple.
5. Extemporaneous mode: There are times, of course, when the referee
simply won't be able to generate the scenes ahead of time. This allows
the realtime construction of simple rooms and areas. They should still
look nice.
6. Active features: When the program is actually in use (when you are
in fact fantasy gaming) there will be several options, including a
running meter for distance (to monitor character and monster movement),
a "range display" for determining the scope of spell effects, and active
control of light levels and so forth.
7. Artwork: THERE WILL BE NO WANT FOR EXCELLENT ART. I am a competent
artist. My brother is incredible. Between the two of us we plan to
provide several disks with the program that contain the following:
1. Backround scenes. Perhaps a whole disk to get started. There will
probably be future releases, and possibly some completely scripted
adventures (maybe even TSR ones, like the G series for example).
2. Characters: The editor should really prove simple and powerful
enough for most users to want to generate their own characters (we
REALLY got into this), but there will be many, many premade ones.
3. Monsters: I haven't decided whether or not to allow customizable
monsters. It would be considerably more involved. But bundled with
the program will be at least 100 unique ones. I promise.
4. Animations: Torches, trap doors, fountains, etc. These may or may
not be customizable. In any case, there will be quite a variety of
these as well.
I am designing this program to be as convenient as possible, and you may rest
assured that it will be completely play tested before it gets out. I do not
think that I have a gimmick here. The scope of the program and speed should
make it a suitable replacement for lead figures and paper maps. Much of the
programming will be geared towards minimizing the time the referee must spend
in preparation. Believe me, it will be minimized.
All right. What I need to hear from all of you guys is the wisdom that YOU
have achieved over the years of gaming. I want to know what you think of the
above, and what you think could be done to improve it. To be honest, I don't
think that anyone really wants an electronic hit point counter or anything like
that, and it would be impossible to arrange it such that the players couldn't
see te referee's personal information. But if there is enough demand...
Come on, guys, tell me what you think. Thanks.rld@engr.ucf.edu (Robert Deck) (03/06/91)
Hello! I like the idea! I am a code / software person, and would be glad to contribute to this. Net mail me at rld@engr.ucf.edu if you would like any help in this area. Will this system be game specific? I like AD&D and WarHammer, along with several contemporary game systems. Producing various "graphics packs" for each game system? I hope this comes out shareware or freeware...philosophy etc. Robert .