Project Preview

Back during my month off between work and school I started a new programming project. (Yes, another one - for me the trick isn't starting projects, it's finishing them.) This project I have dubbed the "Quasi RPG Tools" (QRT) and it is intended to be similar to RPG Maker 2000, at least in its goals, though it will likely vary in a number of key points on its implementation.

I haven't spent a lot of time on it since starting back at school, though I'm still plugging away at it from time to time. Now that FASS is over and I've more or less settled into my school routine, I'll probably start spending a bit more time on it.

The project itself will use 2D tile-based graphics (as with RPG Maker). I decided to go this route as it makes it a bit easier to deal with the graphics, both programming wise and for me to create them (or borrow them from elsewhere until I've had a chance to create some) and lets me focus more on the design tools. I think I would eventually like to do a 3D version, but if I design things well, much of the back end stuff like creating character classes, items, scripting and so on should be more-or-less reusable with other graphics engines in the future.

So far, I've been working on the tile set editing features which is almost finished. As is typical of me, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by allowing tile sets to have a flexible layout rather than a fixed layout like RPG Maker. While I think that this added flexibility will be a good thing in the long run, it does complicate the UI design an implementation somewhat. It will also make use of the tools more complicated, which is one thing I'd like to avoid, so I'll also include a simplified fixed tileset layout to allow for ease of use with the flexible layouts offered as an advanced feature.

While the project as a whole is still a long way from being complete, what I've got so far is, I think, more advanced than the map editor I created for my FR project back in highschool.

Freak Out,
-TFitC