Sure. I was a avid d&d player when I was a kid and now my kids want me to make a game for them in Adventure Maker. I thought long and hard about how to approach this. Adventure maker is a great program but does not allow for much code design freedom because of the lack of code implementation (the language is very limited and no OOP (would be killer if we had classes), ability to call the main sound mixer, or dll support).
I have not coded in VB6 since 2001 (Because of the release of VB.Net) and have to re-learn the language to use Adventure Maker.
Don?t get me wrong I love the program.
Anyway, Using adventure maker I have learned that it?s power is in it?s frames. You can use them for video (Adventure maker lacks power here as well) or conditional statements.
I don?t like to spend 400 hours rendering images so I decided to make the game like the old D&D games with a top view map that you travel and areas that are mixed with 2d, 3d perspective and isometric renderings. Kind of a mix of all. There is no need for characters that move just an image of them. Let the player use their imagination a little.
I thought long and hard how to create a battle system and though I have not tested it I think it will work fairly well for my purposes.
Make a folder in the frames explorer and call it ?Ogre? find a nice picture of a d&d miniature online and apply virtual painter to it or you can render some images of the monster attacking or what ever. Use a variable that stores the name of the frame the PC came from and send him to the ogre frames. Use the Ogre frames to your advantage.
The first frame could have the fight, run, use magic .
If your press the fight hotspot run a script to determine initiative then send the PC to the proper frame (Monsters turn or PC?s turn).
Whatever frame write a script that handles the turn then automatically adjust: If the PC is dead send him to the dead frame, If he missed send him to the missed frame, If he hit send him to the hit frame where damage is calculated, and if the PC Killed the monster send him to the awards frame then send him back to where he was.
Same with Dexterity: If there is a place where the PC has to climb. Check his dexterity and send him to the appropriate frame. 1-He fell , 2-he made it.
It takes a lot of frames but like I said Adventure Maker?s Real power is in the use of it?s frames to pass judgment.
Many time I thought I had to write a bunch of code and then found out later that if I had made 10 frames to handle whatever I was doing it ran better.
The PC_HP and other variables are just to store the players stats.
Sorry it was so long.
if you are into top view I used a 3x3 800x600 grid in PSP to produce these images:
stuffs getting better, stuffs getting better everyday.