DizzyAGE Wish List

[xelanoimis]

I guess that the keyboard screen is too particular for a classic Dizzy game, so you should implement it in the script, using a dialog (or something similar in the DrawHud handler).
When up and down keys will be added, a "selection cursor" could move on four directions.
Until then, you can scroll horizontaly a single line with characters, use action to select a character, have special character for delete, or accept, etc
If it turns out well, it can be posted as an article or a code pack, for others to use if need it.

[Peter]

how about tile scaling x2 x3 etc...

[delta]

i've already done that for Dreamworld Dizzy...

i just scaled them in GIMP, then added them as custom tiles...

i'm guessing you're asking cause you've had to do something similar to the Daisy tile for Magicland?

[Peter]

yeah for magicland i've already done it via gimp. but for some situations being able to do it via the script would be nice

[delta]

hmmmm i guess, altho i think i prefer the greater control over them that using custom tiles gives you.

Dreamworld is only using two scaled-up tiles.

[xelanoimis]

Tile scaling of tiles/brushes would be a problem because:

The selected tile portion (mapping rectangle) is repeated inside the brush/object rectangle
so a scale property on the brush would be ambiguous, because it could reffer to the
tile mapping to be bigger (less repeats) or to the brush dimension to be bigger (more repeats), or both.

Since in editor you draw the exact brush size with the mouse, it could not use a scale property already set to a higher value. Also the dynamic scale change could affect some brushes/objects partitioning at runtime and other technical details.

Also if scale would be used, a scale center is also necessary and the things get too complicated.

And the same problem is with the rotation of tiles (with 90deg angles) - this one would have been even more usefull.

So, it is better to use custom sized tiles and change them and the object size (and position) manually in the script, for each particular case.

If you size the tiles correctly (with no filtering, keeping the same number of colors), they will be compressed very well, and they would not be a game size problem.

[xelanoimis]

However, I am looking into the custom room size request.
It would be nice for accurate Dizzy1 remake.

You will probably have 4 properties like
G_VIEWX,G_VIEWY for position of the room on the hud (in the 256x192 Z80 screen)
G_VIEWW,G_VIEWH or G_ROOMW, G_ROOMH for room size on the hud
the room size would be fixed per map and saved from the editor (that I think already supports different sizes - not tested thow).

So, pteal, you might want to wait for v2.0 before doing the map of Dizzy1

[Peter]

Excellent!

with that you could also do things like move the hud to the bottom of the screen, and other nifty things

doing that i could do a fantastic dizzy and crystal kingdom remake or even bubble dizzy

[xelanoimis]

Still,
I'll look into the scale thing that it might be considered in the following way:

Like the FLIP XY property that affects only the selected mapping rectangle (from the tile), independent of the brush size, a FLIP ROT or a SCALE property would also affect the mapping rectangle only.

So, if you select a mapping of 10x10 pixels from a tile, and use a scale of 2, you will have to paint a brush of 20x20 to see it all.
For dynamic changes, you would still have to change the size (and position) of the brush/object at runtime, but you will be able to resize the mapping with the scale, without the need of a bigger tile image.
If you have a brush with 10x10 with a mapping of 10x10 and set the SCALE to 2 without resizing it, you will only see half of it.

Also as an example, if you want to rotate 90 degree an object, you will have to adjust it's position and size (reverse width and height), and just set the FLIP_ROT property.

This way the rotation and scale would make sense and it would be usefull to avoid painting resized or rotated tiles.

I'll see if implementing it into the engine and editor is not too hard and if it doesn't take to lookn it might be in v2.0

[xelanoimis]

Ha,Ha!

I amazed myself this evening, finding two bugs in the DizzyAGE engine.
The funny thing is that they were hiding each other so nice, that to the
user everything was looking fine, but the brushes partitioning was a mess!
I fixed the first one, when I found it, and most of the rooms were not displaying anymore.
Digging in, I found his brother too, and now it's all as it should be

I'm working on the custom room size, and it all goes well.
I can walk The Other Side map with half width rooms - very strange feeling...