Eleutheromania - 2D RPG - Work in progress

[zsbzsb]

I really love to make rpg game.
So, would anyone please give me some recommendation (Books, Website, Video, ...) about how to make a 2d rpg  game like this?

This is really not the place to ask, instead you should make your own thread if you have any specific questions. Making a game is not simple, so you should start with a good C++ book and learn that before even attempting to use SFML.

On topic: Sleepless that game does look really good.

[Geheim]

Hey Sleepless,
Very cool game you already made, I know its hard work, because I am working on a very similar thing too.

Did you make all the graphics your own? If so, you have some talent
Keep up your good work, I know its gonna be a great game!

[bcvz]

that's impressive !

I was working on a similar project but I had problems with perspective when a player was between two tiles

how did you manage perspective ?

do you draw every tile in a loop or they are attached together and drown in one call ? do you use the sf::sprite class for tiles or vertices ?
thanks

[lezebulon]

Hi !
I'm pretty impressed with what you have done !
I'm wondering : how do you manage the collision detections ?  Is it just a grid or a more complex structure ?
thanks!

[Sleepless]

Wow, so many new replies to the thread! Really cool! I'm really thankful for all the new comments and compliments. I'm sorry that I've not replied until now, I've started at my new job and have had alot on my mind. I'm gonna do my best to answer all the questions, better late than never. 

Since I made this thread I've added texture blending to the games tiles. It makes it alot easier to create a more varied and seemless look. I've also started writing a multiplayer version of the game. I've barely written any code on it yet but I got alot of the design planned out in my head. 

[Sleepless]

Wow, your rpg game is very impressive!

I really love to make rpg game.
So, would anyone please give me some recommendation (Books, Website, Video, ...) about how to make a 2d rpg  game like this?

Thank you so much. (Sorry for my English is not good )

Thanks slucis7593! Well, it's hard to say where you should begin without knowing how experienced you are at programming. If you are new to writing games, I would first do as zsbzsb recommended and learn a programming language by writing small games, like Pong for example. I recommend you to learn to write and design Object Oriented code. I use an event based approach in my game, which is something I learned to use in college. When designing the game core you can take inspiration from existing game engines, for example the UDK.

To write a game like Eleutheromania you will need to learn about Pathfinding (I use a modified A* that I've written), Collision Detection, Vector math amongst other things. I learned about alot of these at school. I'm afraid I don't know any specific books to recommend you, alot of my own design are from projects I've done at school or work.

[Sleepless]

@zsbzsb: Thanks! Glad you like it!

Hey Sleepless,
Very cool game you already made, I know its hard work, because I am working on a very similar thing too.

Did you make all the graphics your own? If so, you have some talent
Keep up your good work, I know its gonna be a great game!

Hi Geheim! Thanks for the compliment! No, I do not make all the graphics on my own, thankfully .

that's impressive !

I was working on a similar project but I had problems with perspective when a player was between two tiles

how did you manage perspective ?

do you draw every tile in a loop or they are attached together and drown in one call ? do you use the sf::sprite class for tiles or vertices ?
thanks

Thanks! In Eleutheromania, the dynamic actors (like the player or NPCs) are not locked on a strict "grid-to-grid" movement. They are all free to move as they like and the world scrolls after the player on a pixel basis. You can find good articles on this by googling "Scrolling tiles" for example.

I only draw the tiles that are within the visible area of the screen. Those tiles are drawn in a loop. I will maybe write a caching function for this (when it can be applied) to save som CPU performance, but it's not really that big of a deal.

I use sprites for the tiles right now because I had trouble getting the texture blending to work otherwise. I re-use the tiles for the map, so the world map only consists of IDs that tells the tile engine which tile to render. That means that it only exists one copy of each unique tile type. This allows me to have a very big game world.

Hi !
I'm pretty impressed with what you have done !
I'm wondering : how do you manage the collision detections ?  Is it just a grid or a more complex structure ?
thanks!

Hello lezebulon and thank you! I use two systems for collision detection, one for the player and one for the pathfinding. The player is checked against a complex structure of shapes. The NPCs are using the pathfinding algorithm I've written, and it checks for collisions when calculating a path. This algorithm uses a grid that is generated out of the complex structure that the player uses. This grid includes possible collisions from tiles that are not walkable (like water), and static actors (like trees). The grid is basicly a sparse matrix that is on a more detailed level than the ground tiles. Sorry if this explaination is hard to understand .

[BaneTrapper]

what algorithm you use for path finding? EG: AStar

[Mutoh]

Hey, Sleepless! First, I would like to compliment on your game. Though I will admit that, as with others, the graphics don't really suit my tastes, I'd say that the general design, layout and flow of the game is very pleasing to the eye. Good job. 

But now, allow me to curiously ask: why are you writing your own level editor? I'm using Tiled for my project, which is free and powerful, and I'd say that it does the job flawlessly, it saved me a lot of time I would have spent writing my own editor. Is it because of the isometric view (which I think Tiled maybe does not have)? For scripting the entities? :0

[Sleepless]

what algorithm you use for path finding? EG: AStar

A* yes.

Hey, Sleepless! First, I would like to compliment on your game. Though I will admit that, as with others, the graphics don't really suit my tastes, I'd say that the general design, layout and flow of the game is very pleasing to the eye. Good job. 

But now, allow me to curiously ask: why are you writing your own level editor? I'm using Tiled for my project, which is free and powerful, and I'd say that it does the job flawlessly, it saved me a lot of time I would have spent writing my own editor. Is it because of the isometric view (which I think Tiled maybe does not have)? For scripting the entities? :0

Thank you Mutoh! I kinda agree on the graphics but for now it will have to do . I've updated the rendering with tile blending which gives me more freedom to add new tile textures and combine them. I whipped together an example map and took a screenshot. Now I don't need to have "cross-over" tiles between different ground textures.
http://imgur.com/Dl3RGGa

As for your question, I wrote the level editor on my own because of multiple reasons. I wanted to write a native application in C# and I wanted to have total control over it. Tiled is probably a great level editor, I've never used it though. By writing my own level editor I can always be sure that I can add whatever feature I feel like. It's fun to code it as well .