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Finally... => Creative Projects => Topic started by: IndigoFenix on November 29, 2015, 11:51:48 am

Title: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on November 29, 2015, 11:51:48 am

BoundWorlds: Reconstructed

Anyone remember Boundworlds?  For those of you who haven't heard of it, or don't remember, the original topic is here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137474.0).

The Basics

In a nutshell, it's an exploration-oriented game that allows users to construct worlds using an RPG Maker like interface, link them together with 'Gates', and explore the network by hopping from world to world, collecting "ontological gems", or "ontons" which are used to sustain the existence of their own constructed worlds.  It was intended to be an expansive patchwork universe, but alas, it never really took off.

Boundworlds was one of my earliest projects, originally conceived almost ten years ago when I was just getting into programming (fun fact: originally inspired by the Pendragon books, the Quintet Heaven and Earth Trilogy aka the Soul Blazer RPG series, and Yume Nikki), and built piece by piece in an experimental and inelegant fashion that made it rather difficult to change or add new features to.  It also had the misfortune of being built in Flash, which was the big game making technology back then but is rapidly becoming outmoded in the Web 2.0 era.

The new Boundworlds will be rebuilt entirely from the ground up in HTML5, and I'm going to try and take audience input into account more.  Seeing as how the bulk of the game's world is supposed to be built by players, it seems like it was a bad design choice to spend a year creating the entire interface before looking for public opinion!  Haha.

Anyway, the basic structure of the game is going to be pretty similar.  Players build worlds using assets uploaded to image hosting sites, worlds are sustained by ontons, you collect ontons by either gathering them from a world or attracting other players to spend time in your world, the ontons you get when someone visits your world is based on the difference of how much time they spend and how much they take away.  Worlds are made up of rooms, rooms are made up of layers, layers are inhabited by tilemaps and sprites, rooms and worlds are linked together using gates.

Some major differences:

No more grid-constrained movement!  The new Boundworlds will have a Zelda-esque feel, it still has an optional grid for block puzzles and precise jumps, but you'll be able to walk around and move diagonally by default.

I'm also taking some abandoned code from another one of my failed experiments, the Lotus Project.  Expect more RTS-like features, such as teammates you can direct with the mouse and a zoom feature for the camera.  Not really sure how well the RTS physics will mesh with the action-based exploration, but experiments will be made.  When in doubt, I will try and give world builders as many options as possible.

Many more basic attributes for easy sprite manipulation.  Enough options to fit on multiple screens, including AI behaviors and team alignments.

Even more options available in the advanced functions.  Almost all object properties will be editable during the game.  I want to make it possible for world builders to make anything in their worlds from Asteroids to Tetris to Final Fantasy to a 2-d version of The Sims.  *Why* one would do this is another question entirely.

Of course, the features that were being planned before (persistent items, dialogue trees, custom animations, shops, etc) are still in the plan.

I should probably reserve some server space for people to upload images directly instead of forcing them to link to external image-hosting websites, shouldn't I.  But server space costs moneeey...ehehe.

A more in-depth and thought-out 'meta-plot'.  The player character will begin a wanderer, become a savior, ascend to be a creator, and as they gather more power the doorways leading to the truth about themselves will be unlocked, and you will discover what, exactly, is the purpose of the Traveler, and the Great Dream itself.  There is something Bound within the Worlds...

I'm expecting the topic of multiplayer to come up.  Boundworlds was originally conceived as a primarily single-player exploration experience and the space between the worlds is intended to feel like a vast, empty 'beautiful void' (as well as being retro and minimalistic enough for players with non-gaming computers that can't handle things like Second Life), but I wouldn't be opposed in principle for players to construct multiplayer-enabled regions within their worlds if that's what they want.  The details will have to be discussed.

I'm also not sure how many RPG elements there will be, if any.  People like RPG systems and leveling up, and the onton system could potentially translate into player abilities, but due to the essential non-linear nature of the game such features may prove to be both pointless and frustrating.  I will leave this up for discussion as well.

What I have so far

The game's physics and graphics are working.  I've got a room and a tilemap, with our old ambiguously-gendered cloaked Traveler walking around and looking rather nice, although collision detection is a little wonky at the moment.  I'll add a few more basic features and then start working on the world builder interface.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Arx on November 29, 2015, 12:00:47 pm

Sounds good. I'll be back on board with this if the interface is less clunky, certainly.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: DoctorMcTaalik on November 29, 2015, 12:21:20 pm

I did a bit on the original boundworld, so PTW.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: FallacyofUrist on November 29, 2015, 03:01:23 pm

I smile at you.

This will be nice.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Mesa on November 30, 2015, 01:14:12 pm

Boundworlds was cool, so I'm keeping an eye out for this.
AKA PTW.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: PthariensFlame on December 10, 2015, 06:49:05 pm

PTW!

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: ShadowHammer on December 10, 2015, 10:55:42 pm

PTW as well! A cool concept, as was the first, and hopefully this one'll take off. Good luck!

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: endlessblaze on December 20, 2015, 05:58:33 pm

PTW

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Whisperling on December 20, 2015, 06:08:49 pm

PTW.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 10, 2016, 11:53:56 am

All right, I'm starting work on the world builder.

Given that the user experience with the world builder is one of the most important aspects of the BW universe, I'd like to hear any suggestions or input for how to improve it from the old version.  Was there anything about it that was unintuitive or frustrating?  Any ideas for making it better?

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: TheBiggerFish on January 10, 2016, 11:56:50 am

PTW!

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Arx on January 10, 2016, 12:08:42 pm

Quote from: IndigoFenix on January 10, 2016, 11:53:56 am

All right, I'm starting work on the world builder.

Given that the user experience with the world builder is one of the most important aspects of the BW universe, I'd like to hear any suggestions or input for how to improve it from the old version.  Was there anything about it that was unintuitive or frustrating?  Any ideas for making it better?

Making tilesets the same across layers and rooms (or at least an option) would be lovely. Multi-square sprites would be nice as well - mainly the doors - but that's not really an interface thing, so eh.

Honestly, I'd like to see the whole interface shaken up. Particularly the Tilemap/Sprites/Gates thing is a bit clumsy. Maybe try grouping things by Tilemap/Sprite/Gate first, and by layer second? I'm not sure.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 11, 2016, 06:45:08 am

Quote from: Arx on January 10, 2016, 12:08:42 pm

Quote from: IndigoFenix on January 10, 2016, 11:53:56 am

All right, I'm starting work on the world builder.

Given that the user experience with the world builder is one of the most important aspects of the BW universe, I'd like to hear any suggestions or input for how to improve it from the old version.  Was there anything about it that was unintuitive or frustrating?  Any ideas for making it better?

Making tilesets the same across layers and rooms (or at least an option) would be lovely. Multi-square sprites would be nice as well - mainly the doors - but that's not really an interface thing, so eh.

Honestly, I'd like to see the whole interface shaken up. Particularly the Tilemap/Sprites/Gates thing is a bit clumsy. Maybe try grouping things by Tilemap/Sprite/Gate first, and by layer second? I'm not sure.

I am making a framework to allow the creation of sprite classes with different scopes (world, room, and layer) but I'm worried that it can get confusing, since people will have to remember which classes are global and which are not.

Most people will probably not work with more than one functional layer, with maybe a few more for backgrounds and foregrounds.  While bridges that cross over walkable parts of an area are possible, they will probably be rare overall.  So maybe only allowing two scopes (world and room) would be simpler?

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Trapezohedron on January 11, 2016, 10:44:56 am

Perhaps add some Zelda-y enemies which you can whack with a sword or something. I played a bit on the old BoundWorlds, and while it was fun, there was little to do beyond exploring.

Will you be allowing custom sprites?

Perhaps, allow people to gate rooms by level, disallowing them from entering the rooms until they are at which level. And exploration and fighting allows them to gain levels.

Multiplayer could perhaps be ala Dark Souls, where most of the interaction originates from leaving bloodstains and notes.

Some minimal scripting tool to script events and triggers would also help. You could take some notes from 3Sprocket's Fight the Dragon, except emphasize more on exploration instead of combat, since I particularly liked exploring the worlds people did.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 11, 2016, 12:36:55 pm

Quote from: Trapezohedron on January 11, 2016, 10:44:56 am

Perhaps add some Zelda-y enemies which you can whack with a sword or something. I played a bit on the old BoundWorlds, and while it was fun, there was little to do beyond exploring.

Will you be allowing custom sprites?

Perhaps, allow people to gate rooms by level, disallowing them from entering the rooms until they are at which level. And exploration and fighting allows them to gain levels.

Multiplayer could perhaps be ala Dark Souls, where most of the interaction originates from leaving bloodstains and notes.

Some minimal scripting tool to script events and triggers would also help. You could take some notes from 3Sprocket's Fight the Dragon, except emphasize more on exploration instead of combat, since I particularly liked exploring the worlds people did.

Custom sprites, graphics, scripting, etc. is the main point of the game; the main issue is making the interface user-friendly enough to attract a large userbase so that the universe gets populated with worlds.

If you want a small taste of the things that should be possible with the world builder, check out Protea in the old BoundWorlds.  It's a small adventure with things like collectible items, a dungeon with enemies, an infinite 'Lost Woods' puzzle maze, etc.

I'll check out those other things you mentioned.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Daren Kazzarch on January 15, 2016, 02:25:34 am

So i noticed this a few days ago, started playing the old one and realy like it so far.
As for suggestions: Please make it possible to rename worlds, rooms, layers, ... . Rebuilding a world, because i no longer want to call it hahaha is somewhat tedious.
It would help, if the interface allowed editing several rooms simultaneously, build from several tilesets, see all the gates in a room or similar, so i do not have to back up the interface tree evry time i want to make a smal change somewhre.

(http://orig02.deviantart.net/9d41/f/2016/014/e/8/world_by_darenkazzarch-d9nzrv2.png)

Prevent gates from sending you anywhere when you land on them while entering a room.
A quick reference for the scripting as the ingame tutorial is nice but not very practical.

As for gameplay i would like to allways see in which world i curently am and how many ontons i curently have.
Also an option for muting the music would be nice. After a while it gets repetativ.

That should be most of it. Maybe i will remember something later.
I am realy looking forward to how this will evolve. Going to build some more in the original in the meantime.

update:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/y369/Toggledit/after_zpsxw7rfxea.png?t=1452803721)
(http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/y369/Toggledit/moreafter_zps5i8mqjox.png?t=1452803724)
The world now can be found as Azora Kazz and features 3 rooms, a handfull of functions and, with the exeption of the background and the player, compleatly selfmade graphics.
I also spent quite some time on details, which turned out to be barely visibel.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 16, 2016, 01:32:16 pm

That is a nice world you've got there.

Renaming most objects is reasonable, although renaming worlds, rooms or gates could mess up any external gates that link to them.  I guess I could make it an option that gives a warning so that you know the consequences.

In the original you can copy objects (including entire worlds) by editing the XML directly, but I'll work on making copy-pasting an option in the interface.

There are some technical issues that could make having multiple rooms open at once difficult, but I'll make cycling between them simpler.  A lot of the nature of the interface had to do with working inside Flash's fixed-size box, so building in HTML should allow greater flexibility.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Daren Kazzarch on January 16, 2016, 01:59:18 pm

thanks
While working i also got another suggestin, namely: navigating big rooms by middle mousbutton would would ease my day, so i do not have to haunt for the little triangels on the sides.

Also currently trying to get my brother hooked so there might come even more activity.

edit:
Just remembered. Could you make it so, that it does not scroll the whole page, while scrolling in a menu.
And tell me if any of my requests is unreasonable. I have almost no idea what the limitations of HTML5 are.

edit:

Quote from: IndigoFenix on January 11, 2016, 06:45:08 am

I am making a framework to allow the creation of sprite classes with different scopes.

Will you do the same for tilemaps?

edit:
It just keeps comming. The option to not only hide a tilemap but a whole layer.

edit:
The ability to rotate and flip tiles while placing them, would nicely reduce my tilemap size.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Asgarus on January 17, 2016, 02:29:18 am

Quote from: IndigoFenix on January 16, 2016, 01:32:16 pm

That is a nice world you've got there.

Renaming most objects is reasonable, although renaming worlds, rooms or gates could mess up any external gates that link to them.  I guess I could make it an option that gives a warning so that you know the consequences.

...

Why not just let the gates use the ID instead of the name?
You could even add a name log/history. (leads to -> bla, formerly known as bla bla)

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 17, 2016, 06:13:34 am

Keep the suggestions coming, this is just what I am looking for.  HTML5 is extremely flexible, all of these suggestions have been reasonable.

I could use ids in the place of names, the main objection to that is just that editing the world through the text would be less confusing, but that isn't such a big deal.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Asgarus on January 17, 2016, 06:26:58 am

Well, you can still let them use names and simply check and inform them in case the name is used more than once. Then they can stil use the ID to make sure they got the right world/whatever.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Daren Kazzarch on January 17, 2016, 06:33:25 am

It would be nice if the game window used my screenspace better. Idealy the comlete browser window.
Do you know Blender? It is a modeling program and has an extreamly custimizabel user interface. video demonstration:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQKsXmlDf78 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQKsXmlDf78)
If you feel like implementing something along these lines. Or any other way to have open sevral tilemaps at once.
Nothig realy necesary, but maybe showing the looks of sprites in the sprite list.

edit:
A city appears ...
(http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/y369/Toggledit/city_zps8h7m56tw.png)
but i know not whit what i should fill it.
I got sideway stairs working. But now i have two issues:1) chained move comands do not execute correctly. 2)i do not know how to restrict the activation to only one direction.
Also have an (unfinished) tilemap:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/y369/Toggledit/B_structure%20-%20generic_zpspph1bmzn.png?t=1453472173)
Having loads of fun creating these tiles. More so than actualy using them in the game.
This is a more saturated and generic version of the tiles i use in the city. On the wooden and stone chest there are engravings, but they are hardly visible at all at the current game resolution

Now a highly hypotetical question. If i were to make a default tileset for those who just want to play wih the world builder or those who can not be bothered to get/create thier own. What should it entail? Would you be interested? Would the style of what i made so far be fitting enough? I remember there beeing some discusion in the old thread about this.
Just asking though, i do not know if i would bring up the determination to create something compleat.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 23, 2016, 11:49:25 am

Quote from: Daren Kazzarch on January 17, 2016, 06:33:25 am

Now a highly hypotetical question. If i were to make a default tileset for those who just want to play wih the world builder or those who can not be bothered to get/create thier own. What should it entail? Would you be interested? Would the style of what i made so far be fitting enough? I remember there beeing some discusion in the old thread about this.
Just asking though, i do not know if i would bring up the determination to create something compleat.

I'm not sure how file sharing in the new version is going to work.  One thing that will certainly be a possibility is to store a tileset on an image site and distribute the URL.  There might also be a place to store images on the site, and possibly some method of publishing them so it can be used by other people using a menu of some sort.

As far as 'official' tilesets are concerned, I want to keep the style very organized.  For instance, to have several tilesets that all map to each other and have the same parts.  The new version is probably going to have some means of saturating or colorizing tiles within the game, so that should simplify some things.

I made some gates leading to your world, so it can be part of the network.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: chaotic skies on January 24, 2016, 06:29:12 pm

!!IDEAS!!

1. A world that has signs and stuff, with a list of the most-traveled to worlds, largest worlds, oldest player, etc. going from 1 to, say, 25? Kind of a leaderboards thing? Or this could be a seperate page.

2. I like the ID idea, but here's my thoughts on it: IDs are Universal (can be used anywhere), and act similar to a fancy variable; They are just a string of numbers and/or letters, but the worlds they connect to have a Global variable, which an ID could read, so that you get things like a sign with text "Welcome to "worldName", you just left "1AB3(id number, which feeds the world name)"!", which turns into "Welcome to Azora Kazz, you just came from Hogwarts!" once variables and things are filled in. Of course, I'm pretty sure this is more similar to a Lua string, but it's the same idea.

3. Ontons are like a universal currency, which is worth a huge amount of basically everything else. In worlds, people can define their own currency, and set conversion rates. But if you bring currency from one world to the next, it's useless unless shops are set up to accept them, similar to how American Dollars are mostly useless in places like Russia, and visa versa; they have their own currencies, which can be converted, but is otherwise difficult to use in the opposite country. This could also lead to interesting areas, like worlds that are full of conversion booths, and other worlds that are full of multi-currency shops.

Any of that make sense? Number 3 seems a little pointless, but it could add some interesting situations, such as where someone makes one onton worth less than the local currency. Although this would probably end up with some funny exploits :P

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Whisperling on January 24, 2016, 07:07:24 pm

Quote from: chaotic skies on January 24, 2016, 06:29:12 pm

Although this would probably end up with some funny exploits :P

Spoiler: Infinite money (click to show/hide)

Step 1: Make Currencies X and Y

Step 2: Set the conversion rates to 1 onton -> 3X, 1 onton -> 1Y, and 1X -> 1Y

Step 3: Infinite money.

So... it's a neat idea, but very easy to abuse.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Daren Kazzarch on January 25, 2016, 01:31:21 am

For my part i am not a fan of leaderboards. I feel like they would just reinforce the leading position of the first few and discurage players from exploration, or in case of largest world there is no real importance because the world could be empty.
As for currency ontons allone are enough i believe. You can call them whatever you want in your world and set prices how you feel they are apropriate, so creating more currency types would just complicate things.
Good that you mention worldnames, i would like to request a feature where it shows the worldname when you arrive there from an other world for easier orientation if it is not already planned. Just something small like the onton number in the current version.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 27, 2016, 08:04:11 am

My plan was to use the ontons invested in a world to determine its overall 'popularity level'.  In general, the ontons invested in a world will be a relatively decent measure of that world's overall popularity and enjoyment factor, since worlds naturally accumulate ontons by players spending more time in them than the amount of ontons they take away, and making it to an exit (as opposed to quitting).  It also enables some player-driven flexibility, since a player can 'promote' their world by investing their own ontons (acquired through either exploring or building another popular world) in it.

Of course, this does give a benefit to long-time players, so there would have to be other factors involved.  There will certianly be a newly created/recently edited list in the Universal Gate, as well as other options like 'newly rising' and so on.  I'd like to give some sort of benefit to players who help promote new worlds by creating links to them, but I'm not really sure how to balance this.

At some point, there will be a system for purchasing or acquiring items (which, at its most basic level, is just a variable that is retained when you leave a world), and at that point any item could potentially be used as a kind of 'currency'.  As for players accessing items created by other players (for exchange rates and so on), I would like this to be possible, but there are a lot of conceptual issues to deal with before this will be viable.  What if they create have a tile that you step on and it invisibly takes away all of your money (or the Crystal of Plot Advancement) from another player's world?

This can be avoided by explicitly setting items as private or public, or creating a hardcoded shop interface that ensures players can't have their foreign items taken away without their permission.  But even this leaves open the possibility of someone setting an absurd exchange rate, charging a hard-to-acquire item or a bunch of money from another person's world for a worthless item disguised as something important, and other feats of trolling that could reduce the game's fun factor overall.

As for using ontons as currency, this should be a possibility, within limits.  (Actually, I think that ontons should be the smallest possible currency unit.)  However, this must be done carefully.  Ontons are not technically 'created' or 'destroyed' by modifying their variable, they are created by players spending time in a world (currently one per second, this value may be modified in the future) and destroyed by the World Devourer (meta-plot stuff, but basically ontons invested in a world will be gradually reduced over time, mainly to get rid of low-quality content).  'Acquiring' ontons while exploring a world puts a certain amount into your account, and all of them you created and do not 'take away' are added to the world's account instead.  This should be the only way of 'creating' ontons; there should never be more in circulation than the total amount of time all players have been playing BoundWorlds.

Normally this isn't a big problem, since it basically falls on the world builder's shoulders to limit the amount of ontons they will 'give' a player; just don't make it possible for a player to get more ontons than the amount of seconds it took to obtain them.  But if a player can sell items in exchange for ontons, they might take a short trip to a world, sell a whole bunch of vendor trash at once only to have all of that hard-earned money be swept away into the void the moment they step back through a Gate.  Buying items for ontons is more reasonable (provided it was done through a hard-coded interface to prevent automatic onton-stealing tiles), but still makes it possible to cheat players by setting up shops full of worthless junk.

In the end, it might be simpler for world builders to just use their own world's local currency and set up an exchange booth near their world's Gate to handle conversion between local currency and ontons.  The time the player spent in their world will be a readable variable, so it will be possible to make those kinds of calculations if you know how the system works.

(For those wondering, it is not canonically important what you call ontons; that's just a name we decided on in the last topic to make discussion about them simpler.  Individual worlds might call them coins, gems, energy units, whatever.  As far as the game's code is concerned, they are just '$', and as far as the meta-plot is concerned, they are...well I don't want to spoil it too much, but suffice it to say that their origin is too incomprehensible to be given a proper name.)

All or most variables used by the system will be readable in the new version, so it will be possible to read the name of the world a player last visited and display it on a sign, because the 'returning gate' system retains information about the last world a player was in.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: Daren Kazzarch on January 28, 2016, 02:25:01 pm

So few more sugestions:
An option to make gates linkable only by selected players. In the spirit of having a coherent geography, if i make an intersection world with many portals leading to differend worlds i would like for players to be able to travel back to the portal from which they came to that world, instead of apearing at an universal entrance, but realy only when they come from that world. Of curse only if the other wolrdowner wants to set it up that way. Actualy while writing this it ocured to me, that maybe it would be easier to have a function called, while the world is loading, which reads variables from the player and puts him depending on circumstances in the desiered location.

Somewhat related, another option to hide a gate from the universal gate, so it can only be found by exploration.

All right, so i do not know if i can describe this well enough but going to give it a try. I have an idea for managing resources in the worldbuilder. Basicly, have a menu on the same level as world selection, in which you create an entry for each resource you want to use. This entry will contain the uploadet tilemap/sprite/whatever or the link like they are used in the current version. Also the option whether the rosource is private(only for entry creator) or public (acessible by other players). Then while building a room, instead of uploading or linking a resource for each layer you can just use an entry from your resource list over and over again, i would say choosed by dropdown list? and the option to use public resources by other players. This would make it easy to manage your resources and for instance to update a tileset acros your whole world at once. Of curse one would have to be carefull with public resources and use idealy only finnished once.
I hope you get what i have in mind.

Further: an easy way to implement randomnes, to create rare events, puzzles with changing solutions and similar, so the world keeps being interesting.

Will you be making proggres updates? I am quite curious as to how the development goes. And i guess it would help avoid suggestions for stuff you alredy implemented on your own.

Title: Re: Boundworlds: Reconstructed
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 30, 2016, 12:59:42 pm

Quote from: Daren Kazzarch on January 28, 2016, 02:25:01 pm

So few more sugestions:
An option to make gates linkable only by selected players. In the spirit of having a coherent geography, if i make an intersection world with many portals leading to differend worlds i would like for players to be able to travel back to the portal from which they came to that world, instead of apearing at an universal entrance, but realy only when they come from that world. Of curse only if the other wolrdowner wants to set it up that way. Actualy while writing this it ocured to me, that maybe it would be easier to have a function called, while the world is loading, which reads variables from the player and puts him depending on circumstances in the desiered location.

This seems basically the same as the returning gates option in the original.  A Gate can be given the 'returns' and 'traceable' options.  If you step on a Gate with the 'returns' option ticked, you return to the previous room's exit, provided that the previous room's exit had the 'traceable' option ticked.  It only works with one world back, though, and only if the entrance room is persistent.

Making non-spatial/variable entrances seems reasonable.  There was a trick to doing it in the original version (by placing a tile directly on the entrance and moving the player from there) but I'll try to come up with something better.

Quote

Somewhat related, another option to hide a gate from the universal gate, so it can only be found by exploration.

Is this any different from un-checking the public checkbox?

Quote

All right, so i do not know if i can describe this well enough but going to give it a try. I have an idea for managing resources in the worldbuilder. Basicly, have a menu on the same level as world selection, in which you create an entry for each resource you want to use. This entry will contain the uploadet tilemap/sprite/whatever or the link like they are used in the current version. Also the option whether the rosource is private(only for entry creator) or public (acessible by other players). Then while building a room, instead of uploading or linking a resource for each layer you can just use an entry from your resource list over and over again, i would say choosed by dropdown list? and the option to use public resources by other players. This would make it easy to manage your resources and for instance to update a tileset acros your whole world at once. Of curse one would have to be carefull with public resources and use idealy only finnished once.
I hope you get what i have in mind.

Hm... well, it's certainly possible.  I was planning on keeping each world's resources separate, to avoid clogging dropdown lists; in general a world is supposed to be its own 'project' so user-level resources would probably be somewhat redundant.  Maybe an option to copy resources from one world to another would work better?  If uploading files to the site becomes an option, that might be different.

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Further: an easy way to implement randomnes, to create rare events, puzzles with changing solutions and similar, so the world keeps being interesting.

Yeah, I'll definitely do this.

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Will you be making proggres updates? I am quite curious as to how the development goes. And i guess it would help avoid suggestions for stuff you alredy implemented on your own.

There will be progress updates, but probably not until I stabilize the syntax for saved data, to avoid breaking existing user-created worlds with version changes.  I'm still working on the scripting system; development's slow at the moment because BW is only one of several major programming projects that I'm working on *outside* of my official job (not to mention getting sidetracked by DF's new version, ha ha).  But, keep the suggestions coming; once I get fully focused on a project development can move *really* fast.

If BW is going to have real-time multiplayer online gameplay, I should probably get more familiar with coding online games.  I *may* create a simpler project for this purpose first.