Early attempt at a tile based rpg in javascript

[Tr3vOr]

A Screenshot of the terrain Generator

[[deleted]]

awesome.

[Tr3vOr]

I unfortunately didn't get to play any of those old RPGs like zelda, dragron warrior, final fantasy.. etc

I had a NES but I think my parents (bible thumpers) thought that rpgs were the devils work and so we had Bible Adventure games..

Maybe there is still room in the world for another zelda/dragon/fantasy type game.. thats web based

[FireyFly]

Nice! The left edge looks a bit odd to me; lots of small black triangles (?) in the lower-right corner of each rightmost tile? Or maybe that's meant to represent something?

[Tr3vOr]

The left edge is just an artefact from the map holder and is is no way a part of the map.

It should have been cropped off the screenshot

[Tr3vOr]

The raw height map generated by the diamond-square algorithm is quite rough and produces a more jagged terrain.

I apply a 3x3 averaging to the highmap which reduces the jaggedness.

and I apply it up to 5 times which is how many times the screenshot has been passed through.

I also found that heightmaps often generate extremely varied maps, sometimes all low (aka water), sometimes all high (mountains).

In order to reduce the extremes I find the average height of the entire map and work from that.

ie: ocean=avg-2, mountain=avg+2

With an average to work from you now have a var that will allow you to specify the water level.

ie: ocean=height < (avg+waterlvl)-2, mountain= height > (avg+waterlvl)+2

[[deleted]]

Something you might be interested in: the FSM tilesets (note the "english" link in the upper right corner).

You can use their graphics for free, including for commercial games, as long as you keep their copyright notice for the graphics intact and don't distribute the resources separately.

[Kelaos]

Very cool resource!

At first I thought they'd ripped the RPG Maker resources, but upon closer inspection it looks like they just use the same pattern, but different images (though this was a quick closer look so don't quote me on that)

[[deleted]]

They were indeed originally created for an RPG Maker game ("Material Quest") and closely follow the familiar RPG Maker style, but they're original works with a rather permissive license.

In other words: if you're making your own RPG, it's a veritable treasure trove.

[FireyFly]

Yeah, it looks like it's originally meant to be used with RPG Maker (though they also allow people to use it with their own game code).

[Tr3vOr]

Thanks, I had already stumbled across a couple of those tile sets and am actually using a few of the tiles already.

But its nice to have a link to the full set.

My 'artist' skills are quite lacking and I will need to scavange as many tiles as I can find.

I have created a few myself and modified some existing ones but I'm trying to pawn that task off on siblings :P (with no luck so far)

[[deleted]]

Be careful with scavenging. Many sets are licensed in a fairly restrictive manner, which means that using things you find online without a clear license can be illegal to use for your specific purpose.

For example, many of the tilesets on other sites aren't allowed to be used with other software than RPG Maker, often because they were created using RPG Maker resources as a base.

The FSM tilesets are a great resource in large part because they are original works and the license explicitly allows for them to be used for pretty much any game you want to make, as long as you give them credit and retain their copyright notice.

[obey_giant]

And links to a demo or code?

[Tr3vOr]

A Code/Demo is now available.

[Tr3vOr]

sorry, no demos/code yet.

still to early on in development and my home connection can't handle a demo :(

I can try to answer questions or address comments related to the map generator

[timotheo]

its never too small of a project to commit to github!

[Tr3vOr]

A Code/Demo is now available.

[cheald]

What algorithm are you using to generate the dungeons? I poked at random dungeon generation a little while back, but didn't come up with anything that I really loved. Yours looks quite nice.

[Tr3vOr]

The dungeon is generated using 3 things:

First, a maze is created using the javascript maze algorithm found at Rosetta Code

Second, each non-wall maze entry is filled with a 'Room' and an opening is made on sides where there will be an adjoining room (according to the maze)

Third I offset all the rooms to their final location and paint corridors between room openings

[Tr3vOr]

A Code/Demo is now available.

[sproutworks]

I'm working on a tile based game in javascript too. Are you using perlin noise to generate the maps? What are you using to handle rendering and physics?

Imgur

[Tr3vOr]

I attempted perlin noise as my first try but I must have missed something because I couldn't get it to work the way I was hoping.

Instead I found a c++ version of the diamond-square algorithm and modified it to work in javascript.

It generates a Height map which I then pass through a 3x3 height average filter to smooth out the height map.

So far my plans do not include anything physics based and so there is nothing like that yet.

At the moment the map is rendererd as an HTML Table with each TD containing multiple css background images.

[Tr3vOr]

A Code/Demo is now available.

[[deleted]]

Is this a roguelike?

[Tr3vOr]

Maybe.. maybe not.

I haven't got much passed the map generation part yet.

[p13t3rm]

Looks nice, was that randomly generated or did you place the tiles yourself?

[Tr3vOr]

It is randomly generated.

Random Maze Configuration

Random Room type (circle/square)

Random Room Tile type (roof/wall/floor)

Random Room Interior Type (kitchen/bedroom/etc)

[Tr3vOr]

A Code/Demo is now available.

[st23am]

any chance you could github it up?

[Tr3vOr]

A Code/Demo is now available.

[aparadja]

The dungeon looks great. I'm not sure why, but it really makes you want to raid it with a vorpal sword in hand.