Project Darkwood

[MrFalcon]

Darkwood is the working title of a project that was inspired by the old "gold box" Dungeons and Dragons games by SSI. My goal is to create a frame-work for turn-based combat based on D20 game rules (which are based on Dungeons and Dragons) realeased by Wizards of the Coast. My hope is that it will encourage people to create more games that have the kind of thoughtful, tactical elements that SSI put into their games so many years ago. A good modern example is Atari/Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil. But that is the only one I can think of, since the field is mostly dominated by real-time RPG's like Baldur's Gate.

Anyway, here's a screenshot

The project is still very rough. Its just to the point where you can get an idea of what it will be like, and play with a few spells and weapons, although actually there's a surprising amount of stuff going on under the hood with combat modifiers. There's a readme.rtf file with instructions . I also included the open-gaming license that comes with the D20 rules. If you want to use any of my source, I suggest you also read the software FAQ that WoTC has on their D20 license page.

I could really use some help with this, just because of the sheer amount of work involved, so one of the reasons I'm putting this up here is to see if anybody is interested in helping reunite tactical, turn-based combat and the D&D ruleset. The reactions I get will help me determine the direction for this project.

Here's the demo (exe and source)

The source should work with un-registered GM6. Sorry the source is really messy . I will be trying to clean it up.

Oh, and I used the Angband graphics from molotov.nu, which are apparently public domain. And the .txt files that come in the zip are database files created with GM Database Support 3.1 and can be read/edited with software available here.

[Nailog]

I finally got a chance to look at the source. I have a few suggestions to perhaps make it easier on other people when they are editting it ...

• Prefix all objects with obj_. This keeps conflicts from happening when you are making bigger scripts and trying to come up with good variable names.
  
• Prefix all sprites with spr_. Same reason, as well as stopping name conflictions with objects.
  
• Try to replace pieces of code with scripts. I don't know about other people, but I find using scripts a whole lot easier than using pieces of code. Especially when pieces of code are easier to accidentally delete.
  

When I find more time I'll take a more indepth look at it.

(The orcs won this time. They did a standard chaotic evil rush, and caught the goody-goodies off guard.)

[MrFalcon]

Yes, I tend to rush headlong into projects and then clean them up later , so the next thing I'm doing is definitely to clean up the source, write more comments and rearrange some things.

I've already prefixed the sprites, but I'm not sure if I'll do the objects, just because it would be a pain to go through all the GML and change the names. I didn't realize at first that variables could conflict with object names. I should know by now that that's why standard practice rules exist!

Thanks for taking a look at it tho!