A heap of updates in this one, here’s a small list:
- Improved spell support
- Added Heal 1-2, Blaze 1-3 and Bolt 1-2
- Added support for 4 spells per character
- Implemented a VERY basic AI.
- AI will walk randomly within range and then attack whenever possible. You can enable it for any entity by setting “(entitynumber).ai=1” in the accompanying entityfile.
- Battle talk option
- Optimized Smee tile editor
- Improved import tileset and load new tileset features.
- Right mouse button can also hold a color now.
- Fixed the messy SMEE GUI on startup
- Enhanced hit point display in combat
- Additional battle backgrounds and land types :)
You can already see the screenshots below and the download link waay above. It’s still more or less a beta version, so any feedback is certainly appreciated!
I hope you guys will like it :)
Today I spent a lot of work completing the spell support and adding AI to BABS, so that you can also fight computer-controlled players in the battles.
Making screenshots of AI tends to be rather hard, but I can show you some stuff from the spells:
Choose different spells, and with different spell levels using a temporary (and ugly) interface ;)
Torture thy enemies with fire straight from the Paint Shop Pro clipart library (which in fact is worse than the Abyss)!
Stay tuned for a beta release containing these features. The engine gets along nicely all in all, but I really do need some more testing and bug reports in order to get the stuff reliable :)
Yesterday and today I added a lot of new features to BABS, but I decided to wait with the release until there are more graphics around for me to use (or until I made more stuff, in case nobody helps).
Here’s a listing of what I added (among other things):
- Added a battle talk option like in Shining Force 3. Events can be hooked up to talking opponents.
- Optimized Smee tile editor
- Improved import tileset and load new tileset features.
- Right mouse button can also hold a color now.
- Added bucket fill to the tile editor.
- Fixed the messy SMEE interface bug on startup
- Improved the spell support
- Added Blaze level 2 and Bolt level 1.
- Added support for huge range and huge area spells (see screenshot).
- Made some very poor spell animations ;)
Thought this would be an interesting sight to see :P
Anyway, I can most certainly use help in the mapping, spritemaking and animation department, as I’m very short on graphics.
Also, I’ll be gone from tomorrow until Sunday, so if I happen to be silent, that is probably the cause :)
Upon Zylokh’s request, I decided to add a Shining Force 3-like opponent talk feature to BABS. It’s not completed yet, but the fundamentals seem to work :).
I just uploaded a fresh version of BABS. Here is what I changed :)
Updates from 2.01
- Added Walkabout map support. You can now link battle maps to walkabout maps and vice versa!
- Added a rudimentary zone editor in SMEE. Press ‘5’ to switch to the zoning mode. Selecting different tiles on the right will change the active zone number. Zones with a number greater than 0 will be represented in Smee with a special cross mark. The current tile indicator displays the active zone number.
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Added some basics for the events system. Every zone can be linked to an event through some code in the accompanying scriptfile. The only working event right now is a Map Switch, which can be coded in a script file like this:
zone.(number).type=mapswitch
zone.(number).target=(mapname without the .smf extension)
Note that zones and events only work in walkabout maps at the moment. Support for them in battle maps might arrive later on.
- You can’t only switch maps now, but also have different music with each map. Just edit the “general.music” flag in the scriptfile.
- Fixed a bug where maps were slightly misaligned after map switches or loading
- Fixed the Resize tool (thanks to Zylokh for noticing this one!).
- Slightly improved the error output of both programs.
- Did some small code cleanup.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Zylokh, Elvenfyre, Peter van Dalen and Ranges (even though I haven’t had much time tofix the bugs he reported yet) for their ongoing support :)
I hope you’ll enjoy the program! I’m still quite short on tiles, maps and sprites, so if you like, feel free to make some and send them to me :D
