[and]

Actually, IMHO, it should be possible for all tilebased SF derivations when it comes to base, excluding game-specific stuff, like events & object/terrain effects which I thought to be possible if there's a good hacking doc.

There's a variety of map editors around, such as Mappy and TileStudio, and they're pretty customisable.

*cough* open-source and platform independent *cough*

I think there's need of some shared resources among YOB (graphics repository is one of them!) to prevent people re-inventing various things.
Like map editor.

How feasible is it to create a generic map editor?
The specifications I can think of are:

-platform independent (java would make life easier.. but there's still wxWindows)
-opensource with a hacking doc
-it'd be best to gather all functions that will be customized in a seperate module

SMEE is platform-independent & opensource, but IMHO still far from being generic (in restricted sense of course). Were you considering any updates recently Devlyn?

Graphics repository? That'd be damn good

All SFFC tracks + sound effects. The ones Silender ripped still exists somewhere??

Actually, there are already some graphics ripped from SFFC aroud, along some map pics (which can be "saved" with a tool img2map).
However, they're incomple. And there's still sound problem...

In general, I think it raises the problem of more graphics ressources available at the shining source...

Indeed...

edit: no external downloads at gbadev, you can get it at http://gbadev.org/tools.php?section=gfx

http://geocities.com/cortez_ralph/

(make sure to edit nasm flags in makefile to compile for non-win32, or just comment out USE_ASM in config.hs)

Well, if you think it's gonna be some help, it'd be great to post on the news

There's already an old (not too old actually) version at http://www.geocities.com/darkangel064/prealpha/
With a simple makefile and very little tweaks, it should compile on Linux, MacOS X, IRIX, ... I can upload the latest version with makefiles (for linux and win32) if anyone wants though. I seriously doubt it's kicking though...

BTW, my mail address is cortez_ralph at yahoo dot com.

[not]

For those who're not aware that there's already an engine for the game: uses SDL, is cross-platform, C++/some i386 asm, opensource, gpl'ed. Only battle engine & AI is missing.

I have not abondened the project. People who have promised to help me bout specific things abandoned me. There's no progress, because there's no one who's gonna rip the graphics for me, and make the maps (I've written a map editor too). Sir Phill was going to do this, but somehow changed mind.

Well, anyway. I'm telling to those who want to see this game remade: I'm not going to rip graphics, make maps & tilesets, rip sound, etc. I will only write the program. I've found a friend who may do z80 disassembling. If you want to see progress, do a data ripping job. If there's no one who's eager to take this job, this project is hereby canned.

In case there's someone who's gonna help, my uni's going to start soon, depending on my exam periods, there may be delays too. Otherwise, you already know.

Some "sharp-minded" guys are still using sexuality as a tool for their commercial purposes, and what's even worse is, for years, it usually works, and probably will for many many years...

BTW, there free version of the above:
http://www.dvara.net/HK/gpbb.asp

It's more likely not work, because everyone has different needs and methods in programming. These method may be useful only in a limited scale.
Take the .AddPlayer for instance. It requires to use Your engine, in other words. This serves as an engine rather than a library. This reminds me the Verge.

What language are you using to write it? Is it platform independent? Most important issue, is it open source?

Here's one from me: (graphics programming black book - Michael Abrash)
http://www.byte.com/abrash/
And the source code:
http://199.125.85.76/abrash/code.zip

This's a bit off-topic, but here it goes.

Does anyone knows which language uses this alphabet in it's original form (russian?). And is the character set for the alphabet is 16-bit unicode or normal 8bit?

I think that bitmap fonts are better, because:
-they're easy to create & manipulate, w/o requiring very specific software for the job
-they're platform-independent
-you can freely specify the specs of the font

But actually, I've found that it's not a perfect method, ie it doesn't handle all situations. For instance:

(movement from Source to Destination)

Code:

000D00
000000
011110
010010
01S010
000010

I guess this is why player prefers weird & incorrect paths in some games (eg StarCraft, Diablo). However, it's quite fast.

Does anyone have a correct pathfinding routine? (no matter which language)