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2D All the way! / DM or EOTB Clone. How?

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Cecil Cheah
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Joined: 24th Nov 2005
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Posted: 5th Sep 2013 12:14
Hi there
Is it possible to make the EOTB or DM clone game with Dark Basic pro. Any pointer as to how to start or any tutorial as to the theory and stuff?

I always wonder how do they do this Pseudo 3D in walking only 90° and not free walking. And how to make the creatures look larger as they approach you. Any good books i can read?

TIA
Van B
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 6th Sep 2013 18:10 Edited at: 6th Sep 2013 23:48
Well, it's actually something that is better done in full 3D, someone is making a game like this in DBPro, I've even tested some ideas out for a 3D dungeon crawler game - it's definitely possible.

The movement, camera control etc are so straightforward that they're practically a non-concern, I'd say you could disregard it for now, and consider the theme and tech etc first. I mean, you could make a game like GrimRock in DBPro, no problem.

I'm guessing that you've used or are using FPSC?

Well, FPSC is really a dungeon crawler without the crawling. The grid based map editing in FPSC is exactly what you'd do with a modern dungeon crawler - in fact, you could use FPSC to make your dungeons if you wanted, seriously that is a real option. Bolting a dungeon crawler camera and movement onto a FPSC level would take very little time and effort - it might be a great start to your project if you already have FPSC.

For enemies and stuff, well you probably wouldn't use FPSC for that - because ideally you'd want just the dungeon mesh and textures from that, you'd still need to replicate the map in data, to control collision and stuff like that. Anyway, you could use 3D models for your enemies, but also there's the option of using sprites - like rather than a 3D model of a creature, you'd have a 2D render, painting, or whatever with whatever frames you wanted for it. If you can paint, then paint the enemies, if you can model, then model them - if you can't do any of these, then you'll have to consider getting a model pack or two. There would be no problem with using a FPSC model pack in DBPro - same licensing and stuff.

Anyway, the jist of these late Friday afternoon ramblings is that yes, DBPro can easily handle a game like GrimRock, so remaking something like DM, EotB, or Captive (my personal fave) is possible, and it'll be fairly straightforward to work on and get started on - so you may as well just get started.

There is AppGameKit as well - which might also be a good option - say you wanted to make a dungeon crawler for the iPad and Android tablets, or just a dungeon crawler for any and every platform you want to support (Ouya, Mac, PC, iOS, Android, Blackberry...)
It lacks animation support for 3D models, but with hand drawn sprites on 3D plains, 3D dungeon, humble polygon counts, well that has to be worth thinking about.

I mean, personally I probably wouldn't get too excited about a PC dungeon crawler... but an iPad one, heck theres a DM remake on the iPad already, but people are livid because it's terrible, bugs, looks bad, it's basically sitting waiting on someone to come along and show it how to do a grid based dungeon crawler. An iPad game like EotB would do very very well on the App Store - just as long as it's solid, has decent visuals and doesn't bug out... there's certainly market potential for it.

Heck, there's market potential for any mobile RPG that puts in real effort to be fun.

This is the best website I've found for raw information about these games and the 2D techniques...

http://captive.atari.org/

The page links at the left hand side lead to tons of information on rendering, even dungeon generation. The main concern I have with 2D is drawing those damn walls, it's incredibly tricky to get it right, and I'd always opt for 3D just for pure ease of development.

I am the one who knocks...
Cecil Cheah
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Joined: 24th Nov 2005
Location:
Posted: 7th Sep 2013 16:14
Thanks for the answer. Very informative.

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