Pakkuman !

Haha. I'm working on this stuff in my spare time, so it's hard to nail down a date exactly. I have the UI done, and the basic serialization code for scenario transfer disk<->UI->server. So, I think I just need to fix a couple of bugs there, sanitise the data both clientside (for UI niceness) and serverside (so nobody hacks in a scenario with a million zombies and brings the server down), clean up the server request handler a little to support all the new scenario data, lock it down to Club members, test, bugfix, and submit. So it's probably still a day or two of work but I'm not anticipating any serious technical headaches. I'll work on it Tuesday and Wednesday, so hopefully the next build after that.

I might post a screenshot of the scenario editor UI beforehand, if I remember.

 

Our current thinking is:

• Anyone can run the board editor and load/save/build maps there. It's waaaay too scrappy for us to feel comfortable charging people to use it.
• Anyone can join a custom scenario. So, if you have a friend with club membership they can set up scenarios to play with you.
• Only club members can start a custom scenario.

This effectively means that club members can GM for any other player, and can also play any single player scenarios they get their hands on.

The serialization code I just wrote can save a scenario (including its board) into a single file, which you keep offline on your own computer. People can then share these (very small) files, host them online, gather them up in compilations etc, exactly as they would any other file in this modern age of web literacy. I figure players will do a much better job of this than we ever could.

 

The new files, which I've dubbed .scn, encapsulate a .brd. You can import or export a .brd to/from a .scn. But yeah, given how small they are maybe we should allow them on the forum. I... have no idea how to do that.

 

Dragonmind - there's just one .brd in a .scn. Along with the board data a scenario contains info about what monsters to spawn, what time limits to use, whether to play against humans or AI... stuff like that. So if you wanted to build a module you'd just build a collection of .scn files along with some instructions for the GM about which scenario to use when.

Neofalcon - that's beautiful! Very interesting use of impassable terrain.

 

Here's a quick screengrab of what I'm working on.

 

Bwahaha! So, I have a lot of work to do before I can submit this new feature, but...
I just played a match against Gary where my 27 zombies decimated his 27 zombies.

 

I wonder who could take on that many zombies. Hmm. Will have to try a few scenarios

I'm keeping this custom scenario discussion hidden here for a little while, just until there's something in the live build for people to play with. Once it goes live though I might write a blog post, or start adding tutorials to the wiki, or something like that.

 

Map limits: Not sure yet. Will have to think about it.

Custom monsters: Not yet. Maybe some time in the future.

 

Sorry yeah, I meant there's no deliberate map size limit yet. You'll hit either float precision or integer size limits at some point though. Regardless, we'll probably want to set a limit at some point. I'm sure we'd be fine with people running extremely large maps.