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[goldbuick]

Hello all! I'm working on a general purpose lua driven text console. Since it's emulated text mode I have added some new things.

Consoles can be any size you'd like.
Instead of working with 16 colors you have 255 and 1 transparent.
Consoles can have multiple layers.
Keyboard and Mouse input supported. Should I add Xbox controller?
Audio support will be provided by FMOD. Should I do locational audio?

My ultimate goal is to make a read to use game editor for AsciiWare. So you can just jump in and edit rooms and scripts.

Here are some screenshots to better explain having multiple layers.







Any thoughts would be welcome!

[Cymon]

Wow. Now, take this with a grain of salt, but this sort of thing really drives home the question of "why text graphics". I mean I like text as a zero cost representation, sort of an unimpressive default tile set. However, when you start doing this with it my initial reaction is "why not just make your own tile set? I'll look better."

I understand using ASCII as the brush to draw your art, and I'll bet in motion this could be jizz-in-your-pants-alicious. But I'll bet with a good artist behind it it could be even better. (What's better than jizz-in-your-pants-alicious?)

If you're going to go with this, you need the black space to be transparent around your character ... characters. Like the non-scenery level.

[Hideous]

360 controller support would be lovely!

Also, ASCII is fucking awesome. There's a reason most roguelikes still use it, Cymon.

[Cymon]

360 controller support would be lovely!

Also, ASCII is fucking awesome. There's a reason most roguelikes still use it, Cymon.

I thought you knew me better than that. You know I like ASCII. I said so before. But I'm not convinced the reason folks like ASCII is it's aesthetic quality. Like I said. I use ASCII because it's a quick, (dirty,) and easy way to put something on the screen representing what you want.

[Super-Dot]

ASCII is good because, if you'll pardon the simplified terminology, it's ugly by default and it's really hard to make it beautiful. So when you use ASCII, you're freeing yourself from the constraints of good aesthetic taste. You don't need to be an artist to use ASCII, unlike most other art styles. It's an aesthetic that allows you to concentrate on the programming or the gameplay or whatever. And it's retro!

And, of course, it imposes a bunch of constraints. Constraints are fabulous.

[Gravious]

360 controller support would be lovely!

Also, ASCII is fucking awesome. There's a reason most roguelikes still use it, Cymon.

I thought you knew me better than that. You know I like ASCII. I said so before. But I'm not convinced the reason folks like ASCII is it's aesthetic quality. Like I said. I use ASCII because it's a quick, (dirty,) and easy way to put something on the screen representing what you want.

WTF, really?

ASCII art is fucking AWESOME

Buick, that looks awesome, i want to see a full game that looks like that from you next month, or sooner!

[Ninja Disguise]

It might not look as good as a proper tileset, but it's different and that's worth something. Looking forward to more!

[Lucaz]

I think this is great.

Also, ASCII art is nice, well done it's at the same level as tiles. And those two last screenshots look awesome.

[William Broom]

That is fair brilliant. But like Cymon said, if you layer the clouds over the ground tiles, then why not do the same with the characters?

I guess that might present a problem when your character is walking over snow, though...

[Loren Schmidt]

This is looking good. I didn't know you were planning to make a toolkit. I thought it was going to be a game!

Thanks for pointing me to PixelToaster, by the way. I'm seriously considering using it in the future.

[Movius]

it's Looking great goldbuick.

Pointless aesthetic arguments aside, custom tilesheet support for different fonts/etc would be nice.

In terms of a ready-to-use editor, it might be useful to include some pre-built dungeon generating tools for novice users.

[goldbuick]

In terms of a ready-to-use editor, it might be useful to include some pre-built dungeon generating tools for novice users.

Yeah, I would really love to provide some generation tools with the ready-to-use editor.

[goldbuick]

Just another shot to let you know I'm not dead!

[Eclipse]

360 controller support would be lovely!

Also, ASCII is fucking awesome. There's a reason most roguelikes still use it, Cymon.

because mostly roguelike programmers aren't able to do a tileset that looks nice?

the only reason is legacy, roguelikes are a real niche genre, so they're mostly made and played by people not really inclined to change something that just works.


Lovely stuff goldbrick reminds me of megazeux!

[goldbuick]

Oh, I did add 360 controller support. But still need to test it !

[Hideous]

I can test it if you like

[WiL]

Here's the introduction to two of the main "riddle" NPCs from this thing I am working on  :handshakeR: :






I figure ascii was good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me.

[Cymon]

Now what'd be cool is if a pictures like that was a composite of a few transparent levels that only looked that way once in a while. Make it a clue to a puzzle that you need to be where something looked like something... okay, I'm getting obscure here. I'm gonna stop.