The Create Chapter Program
This is a tool I wrote to create the entirety of each chapter; from the map itself, the friendly, enemy, and neutral units, chests and villages with loot and conversations, win conditions, and more. All of this can be accomplished directly within the GUI and whenever changes are made they are immediately saved and the chapter reloaded to reflect those changes. This happens quickly enough where there is no noticeable pause, despite loading nearly 450 files within 50+ directories. The main screen for this tool likes the following:
A video breakdown of what this does
This is a ~15-min long video where I cover the various functions and capabilities of this program:
How to set this up yourself
For instructions on what to download and where, reference the Downloading Scripts, Files and Folders page.
What still needs worked on
- I still need to decide on the structure for how neutral units will be written and how they will act in-game, so part of that is preventing me from writing their portion in this program.
- Another aspect is the “Backup to Z:” option in the top left corner. This is specific to me, but I am looking into how exactly I can create backups of all the chapters to a local file server at home, which is that “Z:” drive. Normally I wouldn’t want to be backing up thousands of files and folders on the regular, however, combined these files only make up just over a Megabyte. Many of these text files are only a few lines long after all.
- Lastly, all the missing graphics. If you’ve watched the video then you’ve seen all the red tiles denoting missing graphics for character images, weapons, etc. That is lower on my list of priorities since I am more focused on the software and hardware (game console) side of things right now, but I will work on it when I have time.
Some screenshots of the tool
The right side has a variety of tabs to edit different parts of the chapter:
There are many different buttons that will prompt screens as seen below. These offer options to select from already designated weapons and staves, friendly or enemy units for possible recruits or for protect / kill missions, and more: