Re: [liquidwar-user] more maps

[Christian Mauduit]

Hi,

On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 05:17:55PM +0000, Kasper Hviid wrote:
> Hello again! I have created a few more maps! Download them here: 
> http://levels.2v1.cz/
> 
> In Liquid Wars graphical options, I found this really cool on/off switch 
> called "Page Flipping" ... does anyone know what it does?
mmm, page flipping is a basic graphical technique very often used in
games, which prevents some graphical bugs/inconsistencies but requires
more video memory. As LW 5 was first developped in 1998, saving video
RAM made sense in those days, especially under gready environments like
Windows or X11. Moreover, in previous versions of LW5 the "info bar"
(with the time left) could overlap the game, and this "page flipping"
option would fix some bugs related to this. Now, AFAIK, the game works
well with this option disabled, and the option itself is not very
usefull anymore indeed.

> I found a little secret of map design! When maps are too big, they will 
> slow the game down a lot. But its only the white area, where your army can 
> move around, that slows the game. So if you let your map consist mostly of 
> walls, the game will still run fast! Try out 
> http://levels.2v1.cz/paper.html which is uses 562 x 480 pixels, but is 
> still fast.
You're perfectly right, it's the "useable" size only that slows the game
down.

> Christian, if you want the menus in Liquid War in danish, I will be habby 
> to translate! Also, Liquid War dont seem to support foreign keyboard 
I'm *very* interested by Danish support 8-) If you want to translate
stuff what you need is to translate the contents of src/langen.c and
save it in a src/langdk.c for instance. Unless you hack the game and
have some knowledge of C you won't be able to "test" your translation
before I include it in the game. One other important point is to think
that some labels must stay short enough to fit in the menus...

> layouts - I cant write Æ, Ø and Å, and characters like - and _ are 
> misplaced. Fix it if you bother! :-P
mmm, this is Allegro-related I think. I'll see what I can do. I
personnally have some french-layout keyboard over here so I assume if I
could fix the problem for French keyboards it could be fixed for Danish
keyboards too.

One other bothering point is that LW is unable to *display* caracters
like éÆô and this is a problem for French, German as well as Danish and
possibly all languages except for English 8-(

> I also got this idea: Let some of the maps have the playfield wrapped 
> around, so when the warriors and cursers moves outside the playfield, they 
> will re-appear on the opposite side. For example, if a warrior disappear to 
> the left, it will re-appear on the right.
> I think it would add an extra challenge to the game. It would also make the 
> playfield appear bigger, I think. Of course, special maps should be created 
> for this.
Yep, in fact I was planning to add a bunch of features like this for the
"coming later" release 6 of LW. With also support for playing on Moebius
rings and all other weird surfaces.

> It should be easy enough to make the objects wrap around when they reach 
> the borders. It might be harder to make the warriors decide their route.
Nope, the LW algorithm can handle this aspect (map wrapping) relatively
easily, it will require some hacking but it's theorically completely
possible, without any major change.

Have a nice day,

Christian.

-- 
Christian Mauduit <address@hidden>     __/\__ ___
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