Aourhgad

Well the game was originally ment to be a Hack N slash like zelda but maybe have charecter advancement with an rpg story line (something sword of mana seems to pull of wonderfully)

anyhow, in the beginning of this game each room was individually loaded one at a time. So i would only have enemies from 1 map loaded up at one time. Unfortunately, now since i load up 9 maps at once that would mean i would need to load up enemies from 9 maps at once. This could really take up some memory. Another solution would be making it an rpg so i wouldnt have to load up enemies from the 9 maps at once.

I would like to keep it hack n slash. What do you suggest, i foresee htis becoming a problem soon.....

Eggbert

Why do you need to load 9 maps? Your player is only on one map at any given point in time, so it makes more sense to load and unload them dynamically. You can use a clever transition trick (Zelda loads the static background, and scrolls to hide the loading of dynamic enemies) to disguise the time that it takes to load a new map, thus saving memory and tricking the player into thinking that the game is progressing smoothly.

Aourhgad

if we lined up maps all next to eachother in a 3 by 3 map grid, you can see a maximum of 4 maps at a time. This does away with room by room and lets you walk smoothley within an uninterupted world. If i remember correctly crystalis does this quite well. But i do know that it loaded up different area's if you went out of one into another. hmm SNES zelda again scrolls but is also seperated into different area's if i was scrolling and trying to just load up one map at a time it would be disasterous because if i was at the top left corner of one map i would see these other 3 maps one above the current map, one to the left of the current map and one above the one to your left whish is also to the left of the one above you.

Ooble

Why not just have one mega-map, and use random access to load the bits you need?

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Aourhgad

You mean one surface being the entire game containing all maps?

I like that idea yes but as of now i do not know how many maps i am going to use. Currently the engine handles any graphics and maps i throw at it to render. this allows me to just add and drop things as i go.

Ooble

You should be able to add stuff as you go even if the map's huge. Why limit yourself like that? Make yourself a map editor, and go nuts.

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Aourhgad

I've made myself a map editor but if i am to understand you correctly you mean oen huge mega map surface. In order to have it all setup correctly i'd need ot know exactly how many maps i'd want and where they'd all need to go.

Ooble

Why would you? You should be able to resize things and move things around. Make an "Add Tiles" button, and fiddle until it works.

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Aourhgad

the way it works currently is the world is now broken into 20 by 20 tile chunks, and i can add and drop chunks as i please

Ooble

That'll work, but save them all to one file.

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