Adventure Creation Kit

by **Reiver** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:49 am

Excellent, that is precisely what I needed to know, thanks!

by **Chris H** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:31 pm

Hi Reiver,

The "monster trying to take impossible shot" problem was actually fixed in the most recent patch, so you shouldn't see that anymore. (You'll still hear combat music, if enabled, for monsters you can't see -- expect that to be fixed soon too.)

As for when wandering monsters do their "check" --

For rooms: whenever that room is entered.

For worldmaps: whenever that "chunk" is loaded. Worldmaps are built out of 16x16 chunks, and the engine keeps a 3x3 set of chunks in memory at any given time. So if you walk away far enough and come back, those chunks will reload and new wandering monsters may spawn.

Saving and loading a game will also trigger the check when the chunks get loaded.

by **Reiver** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:42 pm

Thanks!
Hey Chris, I got another question about Wandering Monsters. Basically, as I said I'm working with a single large map (well, its only 128x128, but it's a cavern system so it takes awhile to navigate). The thing is, aside from the entrance to the dungeon, there's pretty much no portals or anything...it's all on one map. Do the wandering monsters only generate when the map is entered? I was trying to test my wandering monsters, and I could tell that some wandering monsters had appeared, but no more appeared from that spot afterward. I guess I could work with it either way, I just need a little clarification on when and how exactly they are spawned.
I'm also having another problem, though it may be more trouble to fix than it's worth. Sometimes I am walking through the tunnels, and a monster who is on the other side of the wall, who is invisible to the player since the walls are opaque, is trying to attack me with ranged attacks, even though realistically the monster can not 'see' the player. This is probably because the way maps are handled, and I know technically the overworld maps are for overworlds, not labyrinthine caverns, but, well, yeah :)
Any help you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks a lot!
-Reiver

by **Garth's Equipment Shop** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 9:21 pm

My my you've been a busy little bee haven't you! lol. Awesome work Chris!

...Welcome Reiver!

by **Chris H** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:54 pm

Okay, this should be available for download shortly. It seems to be working in testing -- I was able to create over 64 static creatures, over 32 wandering creatures, and fire up the game to verify that it all worked and that the wandering creatures were in fact able to spawn into the new creature space.

Wizard party! This would have been impossible before:

There's also a new text report, REGIONS.TXT, that will let you see things like how many creatures you have (and how many more you can add.)

by **Chris H** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:07 pm

I'm very interested to hear your experiences with a map with a dimension (width or height) larger than 256. I "think" it should work, but I've never actually tested it.

It is also possible, by the way, to do a giant map using a portal map edge and a portal with an entrance macro which sets your destination on-the-fly to the appropriate place in the "next" map. This would probably only be practical if you had a map like in Ultima 1 or Questron, where the maps are essentially discrete land masses separated by an ocean. But it is another way to do it, and would give the illusion of a much larger map.

by **Reiver** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:55 pm

Sounds great! Can't wait, it's about time to populate the map :)

by **Chris H** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:40 pm

Here's what I've written, compiled, and am about to test:

* Max number of creature definitions changed from 64 to 128.
* Max number of creatures active on map (per region) changed from 64 to 254.
* Max number of wandering creatures (per region) changed from 32 to 224.

Now I just need to make sure that (A) it works, and (B) it's backwards compatible. I'm sure there will be some bugs I'll need to fix, but I'll let you know when it's working well enough to include in the next patch.

by **Chris H** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:37 pm

I'm with you on the wandering monster limit -- I'll see if I can't bump that up. I quickly ran out when I started placing stuff on my 256x256 Britannia map, too.

I'm glad you found us again!

by **Reiver** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:04 pm

I remember purchasing ACK from Chris Hopkins back in 95 or 96 :) It came on two floppies and came with a paper manual. I am so glad that it is being worked on again, shortly before he picked it back up I had started playing with it, making a new adventure. I tried to register for the forum when Chris first came back but the system back then didn't ever validate my registration so I put it on the shelf till today. I'm so impressed with the changes that have been made, and I hope it continues to grow. If I have one suggestion, it would be to increase the wandering monster cap on giant overworld style levels...I am working on a vast dungeon that is all on one map, but I cannot put enough wandering monsters in it for my satisfaction. But all in all, great work, I love this product and am so glad that it is alive and well again! Thank you Mr Hopkins, and the community that has brought this wonderful program back to life!

by **Garth's Equipment Shop** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 9:46 pm

I'd love to test or help in any way I can. Don't worry too much about the extras right now. Like you said concentrate on what you know and do best. If it is kept opensource then others will come along in due time and develop it further or create new spinoffs from it like they've been doing for years with Nethack [it's amazing how many spin-offs Nethack has inspired! Though it doesn't come close to the number of spinoffs the first MUD produced]. Wouldn't that be cool if years from now the original ACS will have inspired the kind of spinoff legacy that these other classics have?

@fstm20 I noticed you registered at my Forum. I just now added you to the official members group so you have full posting privelages. Let me know what kind of setup you desire for your project. Like main project Forum title, subforums and their titles, would you like to moderate it, or I could moderate it for you, or both, and would you like a forum image(s), forum and/or subforum(s) descritions, a new members only group for your project with the title of your choice and rank images if you want them, forum description and/or images for the main splash page before entering the Forums area, etc...

@Chris H - all of the above applies to you as well of course. Don't know if you checked it out as a guest but I had already set up an ACK project forum group and link on the splash page. If you want any of that altered or added to in any way please let me know.

by **fstm20** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:46 pm

I think I can only concentrate on a "JACK" (Java Adventure Creation Kit) and I have to pass on the multiplayer stuff. I'm in communication with Chris H and have sent him an example of my ideas.

I foresee a JACK with all the customizability of ACK (minus some of the complicated macro stuff) done in an interface (3/4 perspective arrow key movement etc) as the original Metal Gear for the Nintendo Entertainment System (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCzuDNIKua8).

The JACK would allow all kind of games to be created. The functionality would try to match that of ACK. I believe I will have to avoid some of the Macro stuff because that looks pretty tricky.

Deployment would be via Java Web Start (see www.ziblok.com/jws). Or they could just download the jar for the JACK. Then you load/save the adventures using the menu system (like ACK does).

If we could start a play testing program for this project it would be great. Anyone interested in testing various features of the game? I'm also looking for anyone's input as what should be in the project. Don't expect miracles though! :)

One thing I think would be good would be a way to choose to play the game in turns versus real-time. I thought about that awhile back and I think it could be done.

I'm doing all of this for a college project, so I have plenty of inspiration to get it done. We're talking May 1st, 2009.

by **Chris H** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:30 pm

I'm back in town after a week in the mountains, sorry for the delay in responding.

I'm of course in favor of the idea :) Although as a programmer I doubt I'd be much use, feel free to run ideas by me on the random chance that it was a concept I tried and couldn't get to work out. ;)

by **Garth's Equipment Shop** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:22 am

I guess it would be similar to the way roguelike Nethack server games operate, the ones that use the graphical tile replacements instead of ASCII symbols. Well thats how it would appear to the user anyway. I don't know much about the server side of online gaming though I've always wanted to host one. I did start tinkering with it one time when I set up an Apache server on my home PC.

Or maybe you could create something that runs from a webpage or a Discussion Board like phpBB [since it is free and opensource and widely used]. I'll do some more research and see what has already been done that we could use so we don't needlessly reinvent something. I am sure something similar enough to this has already been done and you could just borrow and customize the server source for your own needs.

A few of the better known DOS games that come to mind that were played online were Warcraft [pre-WWC] and the first Neverwinter Nights before it was reinvented in 3d. Both of those used the old 8bit 256 graphic tiles, so it's definitely been done before.

Oh and speaking of MUDs my favorite was Desolation which is modeled on wasteland. I wish it could use graphical tile packs like Nethack does. That would be awesome to play it with wasteland tiles.

by **fstm20** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:29 am

Well, I really meant a single player game you could launch from the web. MUD/MMORPG sounds very cool but I don't currently have the experience necessary to do it. Does anyone out there have experience in that? I'm willing to learn.

Garth, how do you visualize a MUD ACK would work?

by **Garth's Equipment Shop** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:20 pm

Web deployment as in MUD/MMORPG? I love the idea! I can give you your own sub-forum over at my retro game design forums if you really are serious about this. See link in sig.

by **fstm20** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 2:03 pm

Hi! I just signed up! I am the author of the previous post. I considered starting my own thread but am waiting for response from Chris H if he's interested or not.

by **fstm20** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:46 pm

Hi! I recently have begun planning for an Adventure Construction Set in Java for web deployment. I also chose the name "ACK" coincidentally (good name!). I wonder if anyone would be interested in commenting or contributing to the project, especially the creator of ACK. Of course, now I have to change to something else other than ACS or ACK. Perhaps JACK (Java Adventure Creation Kit)?

by **Garth's Equipment Shop** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 11:37 pm

Yeah I loved that feature. Very cool. It was nice to give my fingers a break for a few seconds now and then, lol.

by **Chris H** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:48 pm

Nope, you reached the end, there's nothing after that point. And 2400AD was a really good game -- and an interesting spin on the graphics, where they use gray backgrounds instead of black ones to pretty good effect. (It also inspired me to add the "move player" action, so I could implement slidewalks)

Adventure Creation Kit

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