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Oneiromancer
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File: DROD template.xls (17 KB)
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icon DROD Template Now Available! (0)  
How many times has it happened to you...sitting there at work, in school, or at a fancy restaurant, and you suddenly have the best, most evilly fun idea for a DROD level! You feverishly try to keep that idea in your head until you can safely make it reality, but somehow, you know the final result isn't exactly what you wanted. If only you could have transcribed your level the second you thought of it!

WELL NOW YOU CAN!!!

With the new patented* DROD Template, anyone can transcribe their best DROD ideas whenever they want to! Just print out a few copies of the template, and keep them in your desk, backpack, back pocket, bedside table, etc. Since you play DROD you are clearly an intelligent, attractive, and discerning person who could make it look like you were actually doing something other than designing levels for a computer game!

This template was painstakingly handcrafted,** using hardly any copying or pasting! It is also ideal for solving those rooms that require you to make a map...it's like graph paper, only DRODized!

So what are you waiting for...download today!

NOTE: this file is in MS Excel format. If the demand is great, a pdf version can also be supplied.

* not actually patented
** the hand moving the mouse was quite crafty, indeed

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
06-27-2003 at 12:21 AM
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bradwall
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I converted it to a .PDF file. It have attached it to this message.
06-27-2003 at 10:02 PM
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bradwall
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File: DROD template.pdf (2.8 KB)
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I can't get it to attach right. If you want me to email it to you, just tell me and I will email it to you.
06-27-2003 at 10:04 PM
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Schik
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Right-clicking it and selecting "Save as.." works for me.

Just clicking on it brings up the Acrobat splash screen, but then the window just goes blank. Weird.


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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi
06-27-2003 at 10:14 PM
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bradwall
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Yeah, right clicking on it and "save as..." works for me too... but, unlike what you are experiancing, it opens for me. Weird.
06-27-2003 at 10:18 PM
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Oneiromancer
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File: DROD template 2.pdf (9.3 KB)
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You know, I wasn't even sure myself if I was posting this thing as a joke or as something serious. I figured it would depend on how people reacted. And then...20-something views, 10 downloads...no responses. It's like if a stand-up comic got total silence after each joke he told: no laughter, no booing, just silence. It was unnerving, I tell you!

But now that people seem to actually care (unless you are just humoring me now), I have another version. I removed the inner grid lines, thinned the outer border, and made a pdf, and I think it works a lot better.

So, feel free to make rooms with 25 orbs that affect 10 doors each, 'cause now we're ready for you!

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
06-27-2003 at 11:35 PM
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ErikH2000
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Oneiromancer wrote:
But now that people seem to actually care (unless you are just humoring me now), I have another version. I removed the inner grid lines, thinned the outer border, and made a pdf, and I think it works a lot better.
Here's my take on it: I might like scribbling out room designs while I'm away from the machine, so this perks my interest. It's only a slight improvement over graph paper, though (The 38x32 area is "pre-marked" in your template). I'm wondering if there is anything else that can be added that would make it more useful or appealing.

Hmm. Maybe along the left edge of the page, show each of the elements just to remind you what is available to use. Otherwise you might be like me and completely forget about invisibility potions. :-)

It is just the grid, right? I thought maybe you had some other stuff in the template that didn't come through.

-Erik


[Edited by ErikH2000 on 06-28-2003 at 12:47 AM]

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The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
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06-28-2003 at 12:46 AM
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Schik
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How about lots of little roaches, goblins, walls, etc. that you can cut out seperately and paste in the places you want them? :)

Oh, and there were probably so many views on the first 2 pdfs because I was having a problem with it and kept trying different stuff - I probably downloaded it 6 or so times myself.

Another thing - would there be room to put 2 on a page? If not, would making the one landscape and larger make it TOO big?


[Edited by Schik on 06-28-2003 at 01:17 AM]

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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi
06-28-2003 at 01:09 AM
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Oneiromancer
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No, it is just the grid. I was thinking about putting a kind of legend next to the grid, though. Like, a simple symbol that is easy to draw that corresponds to each DROD element. Some kind of DROD "code", like editor's shorthand! I could do that in Photoshop, perhaps, instead of handwriting something.

So if people have interesting suggestions, I could try it out. And I will have to figure out how to extract the game symbols from the art files from DROD, but that shouldn't be too tough.

Here are some examples:

Door orb: a small circle (o).
Eye: a small circle with a line in the direction the eye is looking in.
Roach: this one is tough...since they are so common we want something that is quick to draw but can't be confused with another symbol. Possibly a lower case r, or an upside-down V. Then...
Roach queen: could be a completed upside-down V, a triangle. Or even a sideways V, like >, to make them easier to pick out from a group of baby roaches.
Brain: the letter B
Spider: an asterisk *
and so on.

Walls are annoying because you don't really want to fill the entire square in (and then have to erase it if you don't like it) for the entire room. If it's not too confusing, a straight line through the center of the square could work: - . Then a breakable wall would have a perpendicular line through it: + . A door could be (taking a page from D&D mapmaking) a square, possibly with a line through it. Special cases of red, blue, or green doors could be accounted for.

So, this might work out, I will see what I can do. But since everyone will probably want their own personal code (since I doubt we will be meeting over coffee to show each other rough drafts of DROD rooms anytime soon), perhaps just putting the little graphics is a good start.

But suggestions, please!

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
06-28-2003 at 01:18 AM
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Oneiromancer
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Schik wrote:
How about lots of little roaches, goblins, walls, etc. that you can cut out seperately and paste in the places you want them? :)

Yeah. Ha-ha.

Oh, and there were probably so many views on the first 2 pdfs because I was having a problem with it and kept trying different stuff - I probably downloaded it 6 or so times myself.

Well, the first one was an .xls file, but never mind anyway.

Another thing - would there be room to put 2 on a page? If not, would making the one landscape and larger make it TOO big?

Ah, I thought about putting two on a page, but if we are going to have the little symbols that doesn't leave much room. And yeah, if you are going to be drawing on this map, then making it even bigger would mean that much more drawing...and erasing...for each level. I think if we can figure out some nice compact symbols then it doesn't need to be too big. But, I could always make the legend a separate page and then try to put two maps on one portait-sized page.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
06-28-2003 at 01:23 AM
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mrimer
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I've drawn literally hundreds of detailed level maps for several games with a DROD-like style over a period of ten years or more, so I have a bunch of experience drafting these kind of rooms. Here's what I found is most expressive, quickest, and least distracting, adapted to DROD:

Walls are pretty easy. Just outline a light perimeter around their area and put some lines at a 45 degree angle through the area to show it's closed off.

Put the 45 degree angle lines both ways (cross-hatching) to designate broken walls.

Leave the inner lines out completely for pits, just draw a line around their edge. Put some widely-spaced stalacmites or something in the pit region if that's clearer.

Draw doors the same way -- outline their area and put the letter of the color on the door (R, G, B, Y, YO -- for yellow-open). Put a separate number on each yellow door. Make a circle for each orb with a letter inside it. On the paper below the room, write a list of orb-door actions, for example:
A,B: O1, C2, T3
C: C1
signifies orbs A and B will (O)pen door 1, (C)lose door 2, and (T)oggle door 3; and orb C closes door 1. This is much nicer than having spaghetti drawn all over your pretty room.

Do a similar thing (combining symbols with letters/numbers) for other customizeable items. For example, a scroll is a roughly square sheet of paper with a number on it. Draw the scroll and number below the room with the text it has on it.

Draw potions with the letter for the type of potion inside it: M or I.

Monsters need to be simple and quick, since there's a lot of them and you don't want your hand getting tired. The idea about the eyes (circle with a line pointing the way they look) is a nice idea. For groups of monsters, just draw a dashed line around a group of squares representing a clump of them, with a letter for the monster type in the middle: R(oach), Q(ueen), W(raith wing), T(ar baby), S(pider), G(oblin), B(rain). For tar mothers, two eyes is more intuitive than a couple letters. Tar is just like walls but with large rounded corners. And snakes are just a line with a head on the front.

Hope this helps!

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
06-28-2003 at 02:11 AM
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mrimer
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Maybe adding:

Room Location __________

where someone can write in where their room goes, like "L2:1N1E", above the room would be useful. Maybe also a:

Style _______

next to it to say what visual motif the room uses would also help.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
06-28-2003 at 02:15 AM
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leventdal
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File: DROD Template Creator.xls (59 KB)
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I have created a macro for this file.

You can change the dimensions and colors if you like. It automatically adjusts the columns and rows to a square form.

06-28-2003 at 03:04 PM
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