Yanotavar, formerly knwon as Iso-Angband

[Hajo]

My successor project for Iso-Angband doesn't feature an isometric display anymore, so it seemed wrong to keep developing under the name of Iso-Angband. Since I'm bad at inventing names, I gave the project the working title Yanotavar - Yet Another Angband Variant.

I opened a new thread under the new title to continue the discussion from Iso-Angband ( http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpos...1&postcount=96 ) under the new project name

The project goals are much the same which I had before, just without the requirement of using an isometric display:

- World representation by shape+color combinations
- Depth illusion by stacked graphics

The idea the close to traditional text mode, where colored ASCII symbols are used to display the game's world, just that I want to replace the ASCII symbols by shapes which resemble the shape of the represented objects. I want to keep it quite abstract, and "realistic" graphics are not a primary goal (although I have to admit, the screenshot below isn't looking very abstract - monsters and items will be outlined shapes though, and much less detailed that the rooms and walls). "Good looking" is a goal though, whatever this means

To give the illusion of depth, these shapes will partially overlap. This also allows to condense the map display in one direction, offering more information in the same space.

At the moment the map display looks like this:

Click for full size

There are almost all graphics missing, but I have a lot of reusable graphics from Iso-Angand, which I can adjust and include, it will just need a while.

The project now also got a home at Sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yanotavar/

[Hajo]

I found a solution for displaying directional doors (not perfect but should do in 90% of the cases). Also I think I could fix the direction input problem - if you use the keypad to move the player and the arrow keys to move in menus, it should work. Otherwise I'll need to find another solution. The extra terms work now, too, with the exception that map display will only work in the first "Angband" term. Fonts can be switched between two sizes, too, for each term.

Finally, the display code now draws a fake shadow under items and monsters. If you don't like the shadow, you can taggle it on/off with Scroll-Lock (one of the last unused keys it seemed )

Click for full size

There are still lots of graphics missing, and things to be improved, but I think the code should be complete enough to run test games. Well, two times I had crashes which I couldn't reproduce, so there are lurking bugs in my code, still. I'll try and see if I can find those.

[d_m]

This looks really great!

[Hajo]

Thanks!

I've continued to tinker with the display code, and configured more items and monsters to show graphics. Also I could fix at least one reason for the strange crashes which I had experienced.

Click for full size

The thing in the middle of the room is a grey mold, the round thing down-right is a wicker shield. The graphics must be learned, but all molds share this image, also all shields. They differ in color though so you can quickly tell "this is a mold" once you saw one, and then tell them apart in the group by color. I took the freedom the separate all shields by color, in the original Angband 3.4.1 config some shields had the same colors (and the same character).

I hope this won't confuse players - the wicker shield is now orange instead of light umber, and the large metal shield is now light grey instead of mid grey.

PS: The shiny wall segments to the left are quartz veins. The dark, rubble-like wall top-right of the room is a magma vein.

[Hajo]

I have put together a first public release. It's still very incomplete, and it's likely to have a lot of quirks and bugs, since it's so little tested. Many graphics are missing and will show as letters, unfortunately most of them are shown about ten pixels too high, but the ground shdow will indicate where something actually is. Because I want to replace all the letters with graphics anyways, I didn't spend time to align them properly (alignment was right for Iso-Angband which had different ground tiles).

Download, Windows version (5mb):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yanotavar/files/r001/

It shoudl compile for Linux too, but I haven't tried that yet. I'd think it's enough to cd into "src" directory and type "make". You need developer versions of SDL, libpng and libz installed to compile it.

Movement, aiming and such work correctly if you use the numpad keys. To navigate in game menues, you'll have to use the arrow keys. Maybe I can improve this some day, but for this preview it seemed to be 'good enough' - at least you can run around a bit and get a feel what this display frontend might be like.

[Hajo]

Since the last release I have added a lot of low level monster graphics, and the town population should be all-graphic now. Also, the wall display got a small improvement:

Click for full size

There are still about 95% or more of the item and monster graphics missing, so you will find a lot of letters, too.

Download, Windows version (5mb):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yanotavar/files/r002/

[Hajo]

Slowly it begins to looks a bit better.

- Dungeon wall and floor shades are now of the same darkness level
- Torchlight also lights walls yellow (Torch light option is off by default)
- Stairs are now light umber to make them stand out more
- There are more floor variations now
- Removed the "Options" buttons which was mostly meaningless in conjunction with the new display

Click for full size





Click for full size

Download, Windows version (5mb):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yanotavar/files/r003/

Known problems:

- Scrawny cat graphics doesn't show, just the shadow

[Derakon]

This looks nice. Keep it up!

[Hajo]

This looks nice.

Thanks

I've published a new version. It features a slightly redesigned game menu with a new button style, and better use of screenspace, as well as some new item and monster graphics.

Click for full size

Windows version, 5mb:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yanotavar/files/r004/

PS: I like the scroll title "singus pro" from the screenshot, and I'm curious if that is a priest chant,

[LostTemplar]

Looks cool !

[Hajo]

I want to continue this project, but my mother became seriously ill, and taking care of her has priority for me at the moment. The project isn't forgotten though and I wanted to let you know why there was no progress anymore all of a sudden.

[Raajaton]

Best wishes to you and your family. I wish your mother a speedy recovery, and look forward to seeing more progress on your project in the future.

[Hajo]

My mother still is in hospital, but not in immediate danger of life anymore. I hope that soon the situation will normalize further. At least I have a little time to breath now and then again.

I've been reading the forum now and then, and I saw some interesting ideas about traps and better use of terrain features. I'm not sure if and how much I want to change the code base, but maybe I'll try to add some more variation there, too. Particularly more terrain options would compliment the graphical display.

One change that I have implemented, but which is untested yet, is to have 1 in 16 traps on a level visible right away (badly build, old age revealed it or just faulty). I hope it will work. Maybe I should scale that with depth, so that on early levels almost all traps are visisble, and the deeper one gets the better hidden the traps are?

I've also configured images for all blade class weapons, still need to do polearms and hammers/maces. And of course all the armor types. But that is just a matter of time, not a problem.

Terrain will take a longer while, at the moment I'm just gathering ideas. But I think at some point I want to separate floor and a feature on the floor, e.g. to have a floor and a door in a grid. I need to look for an easy way to implement that, which allows clean expansion of the features, without the need to change too much of the existing code. Maybe that's not possible, but I'll see.

I can't make any promises right now, but some day I hope to have time to play and test some more and publish a new release.

[Hajo]

I didn't have much time to test this release, so there is a chance that many things don't work as intented.

Change list (from memory):

- Basic sound support
- Configured a lot more item graphics
- Better cursor support e.g. for the look command
- Some traps are visible right away

Windows version, 3mb:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/yanotavar/files/r005/

I could compile the sources on Linux meanwhile, and it worked there, too. You'll have to edit the Makefile though, find the lines "for windows" and "for linux", comment out the "for windows" lines and activate the "for linux" lines. I tested this with Linux mint. I'm not good at writing makefiles, sorry for the clumsy solution.