Well from my last update about my map editor I managed to add a few more features and updated the video for the editor in the projects section. I mainly added collision editing and a fill tool for quicker editing, also I managed to get double buffering working on the map so it doesn’t flicker when being edited. The one thing I need to fix about the fill tool is that it is recursive and if the map is large enough it could cause overflow errors in certain situations. There are a few more features I want to add to the editor before posting it on the the site, but overall I am happy with where this is going.
The other thing I am working on is the java library for reading these maps. I want to get this done for the next Ludum Dare! So far the only issue I ran into is that the DataInputReader in java reads files in Big-Endian format, where as the map files I discovered are being saved in Little-Endian(didn’t realize this at first but glad I found out quickly). So far so good, I just gotta finish writing my own input reader and it should be done for the most part. I have also worked on an XNA Content Pipeline extension for my map files, and so far so good. I am almost done, just need to test it some more and work out a few kinks.
Once I finish most of the above work I think I am going to go back to the concept for the game I came up with during the previous Ludum Dare, tweaking it, and working to get a full game done. I really want to make a game similar to one of my favourite games from the NES days, Star Tropics. I love that style of gameplay and adveture, so with my new map editing tool creating a game like that will be most satisfying!
Also another update. So far the web design I have been doing for a local business has been pretty successful! My client loved the work I did! I am thinking about doing a re-design of this web page, and making it a bit more fancier maybe, oh and also UP TO DATE mark-up. One of the things I absolutely hate about my current page is the mark-up is freakin ugly. I also need a banner graphic I feel, the site right now just seems so plain :/.
That’s about it for now, hopefully in the next update I will have much more done on the editor, and the libaries//extensions for it. I love programming so freakin much <3!! Peace.