Automap - Further progress

Further work on the automap is going well. I've tweaked the images slightly so doors look more like the ones on old Dungeons & Dragons maps. Personally I think they look much better. I've also fixed a problem about the map display wrapping when viewing the edge of the map and added some additional checks for wall types in the Dungeon such as barred doors.

I've also added a large map display. Initially this could display a maximum map size of 64 x 64 like the City map or first level of the Dungeon but it was quite hard to read so I've changed this display to show the 32 x 32 segment that you are currently located in for larger maps. I also added a key for locations in the City.

Need to fix a wrap around display bug for smaller maps and also make the map display only those areas explored so far. Let me know what you think.

Automap working



After my setback at the weekend with the power supply failing on the PC I managed to swap it today and have also managed to get the automap working correctly. Currently the automap shows you everything regardless of where you've been. As you can see from the screenshot it shows you where special places such as shops, taverns and smithies are on the map. I think this is a really useful feature - hopefully it won't spoil the game for anyone.

Originally I made the mini map cells much smaller (8 pixels) but it made it difficult to see some items such as multiple doors in single cells so I've opted for bigger 16 pixel cells.

I'll work on making the map show only those areas explored tomorrow if I've time as well as starting work on the full map level view.

PC disaster

disaster struck on Friday evening - I came back to my pc after a few pminutes and found that it was dead. Hopefully just temporary - it appears that it might be a power supply failure so I'm hoping I might be able pick up a suitable old one on Monday.

Of course I just happen to have my sons school project on there and my recent version of ARX with no recent backup. Hope to get this sorted on Monday or at least swap the hard drive into a another pc suo I can copy off these files.

Alternate Reality - Automapping

I've talked about adding an automap to ARX before and decided I will try and add one into the next release. This will mean a delay in the next release but hopefully the feature will be seen as a positive addition. The original Dungeon game didn't have an automap but it did feature an item known as the Map stone which when used revealed your x and y location.

I think a game like ARX will really benefit from an automap and it could also be useful as a means of teleporting about the map or editing map layouts in the future. Maps vary in size from 64x64 cells to 8x8 so the automap needs to accomodate these. There are likely to be two views for the automap:

• Full screen view which will display the whole (or most of) the current map
• Mini map view located alongside the 3D view

The northeast corner of Dungeon level 1