Retrieving map data from KF games

[dmpdesign]

John, I finished most of DD before I got my hands on a map book, but I did go back and rework the west shore to more closely match it.

I used in game maps to help with verdite castle and the east shore.

[HwitVlf]

That gives me a hankering to play DD again!

I've been programming in Dark Basic Pro for some years now, but I'm sick and tired of it's crappy capabilities and effectiveness, and huge amount of bugs(  ), so I've gone back to learning C++ again. :)

That's good to know about Dark Basic. I had mostly crossed it off my list because it seems to have lost Microsoft's support, but I didn't know it was buggy too. Making a game in C++ from scratch is a pretty big undertaking, but I suppose there's a big base of ready-made code out there for handling standard game functions. So maybe it wouldn't be that different than using an existing engine. They released the Arx Fatalis source code recently; I wonder if it would be viable to do a KF remake using their engine.

I always thought it would be neat to make a 3D strategy RPG making engine. Something like a KF version of chess.

[Guyra]

Kind of like that Bloody Checkers game someone posted about not so long ago..?

Anyway, creating a game engine completely from scratch is pretty hard. But, got to learn the stuff anyway, so I'm going through it one step at a time. I don't know that much yet, as I kind of gave up learning the language about ten years ago(I was just a kid back then) and started with Dark Basic instead, as it was much easier. Though, as bad as DB and DBPro is, at least it's taught me a lot about game programming and game design - not that I couldn't have learned that in some other way, but... yeah. xD

It doesn't surprise me the least that it has lost support from MS. It's not a good product.

I'll be looking into the Arx Fatalis source code, maybe I can learn something from it! But personally, I want to make my own engine so I'll have to deal with as few licenses as possible. I want to one day be able to make indie games that are good enough to sell for at least a few bucks. There's a long way there, though. :)

[dmpdesign]

Any chance youd be willing to learn in C# and work on an XNA project?

I happen to know a few folks that could help out immensely ;)

[Guyra]

You know, you're the second person today asking me to learn C#! Haha!

What's the project about? :)

[dmpdesign]

A KF style game of course!

Actually anything.  The programmer Ive worked with on other games is quite busy handling Fortresscraft's success, so some of the games I wanted to make are on hold awaiting a programmer. 

I have a few easier games you could hone your skills on, but the 3d rpg would be awesome, and kilroy (the guy who made BC) is already working on a similar engine and could likely offer any help youd need with creating your own engine.

[Guyra]

Alright, I'm in. I'll PM you some contact info. ^^

[Verdite]

Looks like we've got a good team assembled already.

[HwitVlf]

Guyra, you probably already have the setup, but I'll mention anyways - Microsoft has a Dreamspark program that lets students get a free copy of the latest Visual Studio Pro edition.

[Guyra]

Thanks, but I'm just using the free Express version which works fine for me. :)