PDA

View Full Version : Tiles support fo JADE



spectre
03-11-2008, 04:21 PM
I wonder, since it will most likely be possible to create your own UI for JADE, it may be possible to make one that accepts bitmap tiles.

While after al these years of ADOMing I have fairly little use for gfx, and tbh prefer to imagine that the ) is my ighty morningstar of devastation, I wonder if any of you guys would jump at the opportunity to create or enjoy that kind of thing.

Definitely it would help to "spread the word" among the ignorant to the wonders of ASCII, methiks.

Sradac
03-11-2008, 05:27 PM
I hate tiles in roguelikes, i always have. I think they're ugly and take away from the roguelike feeling. I like my ominous blackness behind every character. Also those tiles are not very detailed, half the time I couldnt tell the difference between say a 'k'obold and a cave 'T'roll in the *band roguelikes that have tilesupport.

Macros
03-11-2008, 07:30 PM
I don't think that all tile based roguelikes are bad. It depends on their quality(or quality of ASCII "graphics"). I really enjoyed playing NetHack with tiles, because they are readable and they looks nice. I also really enjoyed playing Adom without tiles, same reason as above. On other hand, I really didn't liked basic tileset of Dwarf Fortress - as for me, it looked awful and unreadable, and I appreciated great wealth and depth of that game after changing tileset.

Anyway, I'm against tiles in JADE. I really like ASCII in Adom, and I think that in JADE it would also look great. It's always possible to make tile based ASCII(so game would look like in ASCII, but it'd be tile based in fact), but I'm sure that they're more pressing things to do in JADE right now.

Dougy
03-11-2008, 09:40 PM
If someone can create their own UI for JADE, surely they would be able to create a tiled version (although it would take time), or one with an mp3 player built in, or one in several languages, etc. The advantage is that TB wouldn't need to program it. You'll need to find someone to program it though...

ZeroTheBird
03-12-2008, 10:03 AM
^
And in a few weeks thousands of mods is released by amateurs.

Ankherias
03-12-2008, 05:46 PM
I think the ascii graphics in ADOM and JADE look great (due to the use of colors and detailed environments among other things) and are an important part of the feel of the game.

To me ascii is timeless, but bitmap tiles feel antiquated.

Having said that there are many roguelikes out there using ascii that don't look good and may need bitmap tiles.

Epythic
03-13-2008, 10:51 PM
^
And in a few weeks thousands of mods is released by amateurs.

That might be a problem. But there'll always be the "real" thing.

This is what I think might work: TB opens up the sources. We use the RFE Tracker. After community approval, either we or TB make a patch. TB either applies it or vetoes.

One mainline, no plugin functionality except for the user interface thingy.

Macros
03-14-2008, 09:58 AM
This is what I think might work: TB opens up the sources. We use the RFE Tracker. After community approval, either we or TB make a patch. TB either applies it or vetoes.

And on every patch there will be 2-3 variants of JADE and 2 programs like Adombot released by other people. I might be wrong here, but I don't like that idea.

Epythic
03-14-2008, 11:33 AM
And on every patch there will be 2-3 variants of JADE and 2 programs like Adombot released by other people. I might be wrong here, but I don't like that idea.

Adombot was written anyway, and it plays bad enough that we dont really need to worry about it.

I dont think that we would get lots of mods (a mod being a rejected patch here). Its not like in other games: there is no point-and-click-editor and so on. And, if people like a specific mod, it is very likely that in the end it will be merged into the mainline. If not, noone will play it anyway.

And it would help JADE get better in less time.

I believe in Free Software.

heavensblade23
03-14-2008, 01:39 PM
I enjoy tiles and hope there will be an option to use a tileset if you so choose. No one is forced to use tiles anyway if they don't like them.

Sradac
03-14-2008, 03:16 PM
Theres actually a *band that combines ascii with tiles to the users discretion. WHen I play it I leave all items and monster in ascii and turn the floor and wall grids to tiles and i think its pretty cool. if you have nice tiles you get a really cool looking dungeon with all kinds of 'D's 'g's 'o's and 'k's crawling all over the place hunting down a lonely @ who is just trying to find more $. Fun stuff lol.

Dougy
03-17-2008, 05:11 AM
Perhaps I have been misunderstood. UI=user interface, it's not the JADE code. I do not suggest releasing the code for JADE/ADOM. You don't need to release the code to allow users to create their own UI's.

If the output is formatted in a manageable way, then a skilled individual can turn that output into a UI - they don't need to see the code, just understand the output format.

An analogy: If someone wrote a program to play chess and the program says to play Nb5. Then the UI shall display the move by moving the picture of a knight on your screen to the b5 square. It is possible for someone to program a UI to display the move Nb5 in the format they like. Upon seeing this move, do you know anything about the code used to write this engine? Obviously not.

Grey
03-17-2008, 06:32 AM
A more notable example would be ADOM Sage, which filters ADOM input and output in very clever ways so that, for instance, you never see the choice "Do you really wish to attack <foo>?" - it automatically swap places with them. How it does all this I don't know, but if JADE were set up to be more friendly to customisable UIs then we could see similar stuff.

Dougy
03-17-2008, 07:20 AM
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. It would be easier if JADE was programmed to allow such things, then when people say "I want tiles," "I want a built-in notepad," etc. it is possible, while TB doesn't need to program them in.

Hmm... The 'macros' feature might be a problem.