Event: A dungeondesign contest where I'll turn the winning map into a standalone game
When: Starts mid - late April 2011
Duration: Preliminary plan is for 6 weeks of development
Each participant is presented a GMare file preloaded with the relevant objects and backgrounds from my game. No additional resources may be used. All particants attempt to build a actual dungeon, which is later graded on originality, fun factor and general appeal by the general. I personally will grade it on feasibility. The winning design will be converted into a stand alone game, so we actually play it in action. Should be a fun experiment to pass the time.
At the enddate each participant will return the following:
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The finished GMare file containing the designed dungeon
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A secondary textfile detailing the dungeon for the general audience
The goal is to describe the general working of your dungeon and how you'd like switches and doors to behave.
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Further files aimed towards me giving me the needed information to build your dungeon.
Think along the lines of indexnumbers for a range of different objects and detailing the roomparameters.
I will do my best to describe below how to build your dungeon.
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Step 1. Downloading GMare & resourcesGMare can be found here:
http://gmare.codeplex.com/Resources can be found here: <will only be available at the start of the event>
< Maybe I'll include more information on how to get started with GMare >
Step 2. Determining roomsPart AWhen building your dungeon you will need to determine how large each individual room will be and where it is placed. To help you achieve this I have include the objects: obj_Room_Block_Large_A t/m D. Set your GMare grid to 320x320 and
place up to 10 blocks to make up your dungeon. Here's an example:
The example shows that I want to build 3 rooms in my dungeon, using four blocks of 320x320 pixels.
Just a friendly warning: do not make rooms consisting of more then 6 blocks. It may murder the framerate if you are going place lot's of objects in them later.
The following is an example that is wrong:Rooms must always have a rectangular shape. The example above has a room that is a different shape and thus will not be usable.
Part BAfter you have layed down the blocks to build your dungeon it is time to document the basic variables needed. Give each room a indexnumber starting from zero and create a seperate textfile to document the following per room: room index / x / y / width / height.
For the example I would have to document the following.
Index / x / y / width / height
0 / 0 / 0 / 320 / 320
1 / 320 / 0 / 320 / 320
2 / 0 / 320 / 640 / 320
Part C (not manditory)
You
may list a name per room. This name will be briefly displayed in the center of the screen if a player enters that room. The game remembers the last name to have appeared. If the character walks into a room with a different name then that new name gets displayed. Nothing happens if a room does not have a name. You can use this to give the player a message when he first enters an area, whenever he enters a new room or when he moves from once section to another section.
Given the example screenshot I have been using I could send along the following information:
Index / x / y / width / height / name
0 / 0 / 0 / 320 / 320 / Shrine
1 / 320 / 0 / 320 / 320 / Shrine
2 / 0 / 320 / 640 / 320 / Treasureroom
The result will be that the player will once get a message that he's entered the shrine (assuming he starts in either room 0 or 1). Whenever he enters the treasury he will get a notification. Whenever he leaves the treasury he will get a notification.
And that concludes defining rooms.
Step 3. Building bare rooms< explination is being worked on >
Step 4. Connecting your rooms< explination is being worked on >
Step 5. Adding roommasking< I'm skipping this step to keep things simple. You will not have to do any masking>
Step 7. Placing various objects< explination is being worked on >
Step 8. Placing enemies< explination is being worked on >
Step 9. Detailing dungeon conditions< explination is being worked on >
Step 10. Detailing the start and ending positions< explination is being worked on >