As I’ve mentioned before I created a number of tools to realize the creation of Snatcher. Some are more generic then others. Here’s what might be interesting to others:

1. The Music Engine + Converter
Wav files can be played on the virtual boy. This was done before and is actually rather simple. The converter and player do support a very basic compression to reduce the rom size.

2. The Dialog Engine + Level Generator
I wrote a tool (it’s called DialogSnatcher) that goes through the Snatcher dialog trees and stores them to a xml format. The tool has a UI and allows me to edit what has been extracted. I could go ahead and make this more generic so everyone can make his own adventure game.

3. The 2D to 3D image converter
A tool that allows the generation of stereoscopic images through the usage of depth maps.

4.Shooting Game Engine + Generator
A tool that allows the generation of shooting games as used in Snatcher. It doesn’t have a UI right now but I could add one.

If you want to use any of these to make a game in the near future just write a post. Be aware that it cost be a reasonable amount of time to make these available as all of the tools are rather Snatcher specific right now.

I will eventually release everything anyway. So if no one replies all of this will be released at some point in the future.

Feel free to ask questions. If there’s something else about how Snatcher works feel free to ask that as well.

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O_O

Seems amazing. As time flies by, I’m more and more interrested in VB development (though I don’t have any programing skill at all)

i love following what you are doing with this game. i found it very interesting how you are storing the images to reduce rom size. these tools are great because they help to show those interested in making a game that tools can save you a great deal of time and make specific tasks easier to replicate.

thanks for sharing.

Amazing, thunder! While those all sound very interesting, I am especially looking forward to 1 and 3. I’d love to add the music converter as well as the 2D to 3D image converter to VBDE’s toolchain. Also, the PCM music engine would be a nice addition to the VBJaEngine, if you’re OK with that. 🙂

For all intents and purposes, this could become a “visual novel toolkit” for the Virtual Boy, and that’s fantastic. 🙂 I look forward to both Snatcher and seeing other people tell stories through art with these tools. Thanks, Thunderstruck!

Thunder doesn’t program a game..he programs a program to make a game.

-Eric

i’m interested in the : 2) The Dialog Engine + Level Generator

🙂

The 2D to 3D image converter sounds awesome.

bigmak wrote:
Thunder doesn’t program a game..he programs a program to make a game.

-Eric

Ha. I couldn’t help it…

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I think that is great 🙂

bigmak wrote:
Thunder doesn’t program a game..he programs a program to make a game.

-Eric

Heh… yeah, that’s the way that works best for me. I learned that with GameHero already. As soon as things somehow work it is hard to motivate yourself as filling a game with content isn’t that interesting.

Programming a game like Snatcher is actually not that hard. Most of the vb code has been written in very short time. The real challenge is to get all of the content out of the original game. Also porting a 100mb game to just a few mb is tricky as well.

About the tools:

Surprisingly, the dialog engine got quite some interest. It is the hardest to make available though. I will keep in mind to make it more generic whenever I add something.

The 2D to 3D converter also seems to be of interest to some. That one should be rather easy to release. Maybe within the next month or so.

The music engine should be easy to release as well, but I want to build a proper converter for it first. So that might take a while.

I’m on top of a different project right now. So if you really really need anything of these for making a game right now send me a PM and I will see what I can do.

Unless someone contacts me first wanting me to make graphics for him, I don’t think I’ll need your converter soon ^__^’

These are cool and will allow for many new games.

Wow! Impressive stuff, is like a professional developer program. Is cool to allow others to enjoy!

I really wanna remake this abandonware game “Monster Manor”, and of course I will add a part that says “This port is based on the game by Ambrosine.”

Anyone think they could help me do this, as it was one of the best PC games from 1999. 🙂

http://www.ambrosine.com/mmanor.html

Hey thunder, are you back to working on releasing the tools now that the Virtual Fishing patch is out?

Instead or right and left images, could the image converter also create separate images for all (non-empty) z layers? I wonder if this could be used to create 3D scenes to walk around in with a playable character, much like Resident Evil.

KR155E wrote:
Hey thunder, are you back to working on releasing the tools now that the Virtual Fishing patch is out?

Instead or right and left images, could the image converter also create separate images for all (non-empty) z layers? I wonder if this could be used to create 3D scenes to walk around in with a playable character, much like Resident Evil.

I actually still need to finalize the Virtual Fishing patch. My work kept me quite busy lately so I didn’t get around doing any VB stuff. I will definitely go back to Snatcher early next year.

I don’t think the converter can output images like that. I actually thought about that idea for a game once. What you would want to do is model your 2D image as an actual 3D environment (maybe with blender?) and then use that model to produce your depth map (for the 3D conversion) and your data for the collision detection. You can then place a player sprite in the scene. You could use a affine map to scale the player sprite according to it’s position on the z-layer.

Any chance if these tools being released? I’d love to look into making my own game lol.

Wyndcrosser wrote:
Any chance if these tools being released? I’d love to look into making my own game lol.

What kind of game do you want to make?

thunderstruck wrote:

Wyndcrosser wrote:
Any chance if these tools being released? I’d love to look into making my own game lol.

What kind of game do you want to make?

An adventures game, similar to snatcher. Your tool for creating backgrounds from pictures is great. I wouldn’t look into selling it or anything obviously, but for my personal use, I think it would be killer.

Thanks

Wynd

Wyndcrosser wrote:

thunderstruck wrote:

Wyndcrosser wrote:
Any chance if these tools being released? I’d love to look into making my own game lol.

What kind of game do you want to make?

An adventures game, similar to snatcher. Your tool for creating backgrounds from pictures is great. I wouldn’t look into selling it or anything obviously, but for my personal use, I think it would be killer.

Thanks

Wynd

Sounds cool. I will have some days of at the end of this month. I will try to put something together around that time.