Hi list,
this is an informal update to let everyone know what the future plans
will be for Raceway and Montezuma's Revenge. I realize many of you will
be wanting a copy of one of these games soon, but unfortunately I have
made some discoveries about the projects that will slow production time,
and has to be addressed. That is why I am informing you all of this now
so there is no surprises down the road.
When I received the source code for the Montezuma's Revenge and Raceway
engines I at first assumed that I would be able to patch the bugs in the
current engine, create the new levels, and it would be done.
Unfortunately, James North created a level editor that can only be used
by someone with sight. The levels are drawn with the mouse, and then
properties are set on those drawn areas. Since I am totally blind I have
no way of actually creating the levels on my own using the original
engine. The raceway engine has a track editor which is equally unusable
by me.
There is however a solution to this problem, but it is time consuming. I
can rewrite the engines using a .NET language, include DirectX 9, and
totally redesign the engines from the ground up to be fully accessible
by me. Instead of drawing the levels I can hard code the levels and
items such as walls, gems, doors, etc in to a 2D table called an array.
Then, in my game engine I can scan the array to see if the player is
near a wall, gem, on a ladder, etc.... That way will be completely
accessible to me.
Another issue is the current audio module in the Monty engine is causing
problems with levels loading quickly. Since I am rewriting the engine
from scratch I will of course use my own type of audio processing which
will avoid this load issue with levels, and hopefully be easier on the
sound hardware.
One other good reason to actually do the rewrite is I can add game
controllers to the Monty engine. That means in the new version you could
use a joystick or game pad to play in addition to the keyboard.
This is what is going on, and if you have suggestions say them now
before I actually get the engine written. Smile.
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