Skara Brae in Fortress craft

[Grimmoer]

Gentle beings,

I am a long time Bard's Tale enthusiast and hasve played all of the games and even dabbled with the Constructor Set. I was a member of the team that built the Devil's Whiskey RPG, an homage to BT and am even writing a novel derived from my experience there.

Currently, I am working on a new project: Skara Brae in Fortress Craft. XBox players may be familiar with Fortress Craft, a construction game along the lines of Minecraft. I am building the BT 1 city and plan to include the mazes. No monsters or traps as FC doesn't support that sort of thing, but anybody interested in getting in on this is welcome to come in and build a house or tower or bakery or whatever would be suitable to the original BT. I work under Felony Wolf and my avatar is a werewolf (of course.)

Come on in and take a look-see. I am really just getting started, but the Guild, taverns and Garths is up, though not all complete as there are no weapons to put in it. Yet. I also made a Bakery, furniture store, house of ill repute (I couldn't think of anything else to do with those stupid pink bricks and heart wallpaper) and a couple other things.

Come see me when I am on-line there!

Wolf

[dulsi]

You're not the only Devil's Whiskey team member on the forum. I'm still working on btbuilder my BTCS remake.

[Grimmoer]

Really? Cool. BTW, I also wrote a book. Fuzzy Ergo Sum is on Amazon.com and the sequel comes out this summer. So, are you involved in Fortress Craft on the xBox? I have the city mapped out and the streets all in. I am looking for house builders to fill it out. Too much for one man in any kind of reasonable time frame.

What is this BTCS thing you are working on? Sounds interesting.

Wolf
aka
Felony Wolf

[dulsi]

No xbox so can't help on Fortress Craft. (I've had planned on getting the PS3 but Sony's bungling of the backward compatibility has made be skip even doing that.)

Bt Builder is a remake of the Bard's Tale Construction Set. I started it a long time ago. It's almost implements all the components to play games.

[Grimmoer]

Ehhhhx-cellent! My hope is that Fortress Craft will advance to the point that you can design monsters and traps. Then I can do Skara Brae completely. The hardest part is fitting in Harkyn's, Kylearan's and Mangar's towers. The map was far from proportionate and I was limited in the geography. Go too far out and it becomes all static.

Let me know how the progress on you project goes. I am not a programmer, so I won't be much help. However, I am a writer...

Wolf

[Grimmoer]

I was wondering what you were going to do about spells and items. Obviously, I would like to see the old classics in your version of BTCS, but I would also like to see some new things like a Belt of Strength and Hammer of Thunder as well as new spells. The original actually left out the ability to craft many of the spells and items from the BT series. When I bought it I expected it to be able to use all of the items and spells from the three previous editions. My disappointment was great. Could tell me more about what could be expected from your version?

Wolf

[dulsi]

Could tell me more about what could be expected from your version?

My goal is to allow you to remake any of the games within btbuilder. This means it needs more functionality that the original BTCS. It currently implements several spells not available in BTCS (compass, push, attack rate bonus, regen mana, save bonus, block encounters, block magic). Basically all the bard song abilities in BTCS have been made into spell effects. There is still more that is needed for batch spell, aport arcane, and other classic spells.

Since there is no editor at the moment adding one of the spell available only in btbuilder isn't easy. Here is my current list of functionality from BTCS that isn't complete. If people need something for a game they want I will certainly prioritize the request. (For example animation, bard songs and ogg vorbis support came because someone wanted to do animation and music.) I am trying to finish the BTCS functionality before adding too many new features.

Special Commands
* anti-magic zone
* play sound $!
* chest holding $I,trap $T,damage $#,message $$
* force a random encounter

Spells
* Youth
* Restore Lost Levels
* Age
* Drain Level
* Dispel Illusion
* Scry Sight
* Dispel Magic
* To Hit Bonus

Other features
* Monster special attacks except magic
* Bard songs not restricted to one person singing
* Hide in shadows
* Level drain, item-zot, aging, and point phaze
* Using items

[Grimmoer]

Wow! That's good stuff. How long do you think it will take to get it all together? You have the age/youth spells, will you also be going for eating/drinking or lose health deal?

Big question is, will you try to market it? Obviously you would need to change some spell names and NOT call it BT anything to avoid the legal hassle. Unless you get EA or whoever currently holds the copyright to produce it.

BTW, you better set me up as a beta-tester or I will send a horde of Fuzzies to trash your lawn!

Yeek!

Wolf

[dulsi]

How long do you think it will take to get it all together? You have the age/youth spells, will you also be going for eating/drinking or lose health deal?

Age/youth spells are in BTCS. They cause/cure the "old" condition. I wasn't planning on doing anything for eat/drink or lose health.

Big question is, will you try to market it? ... BTW, you better set me up as a beta-tester or I will send a horde of Fuzzies to trash your lawn!

It is open source. You can download the latest build now. I don't intend to sell the program. I've though about selling adventures for it with art/story/maps/etc but my sample game is bad and I'd like that to be a least a reasonable example first.

[Grimmoer]

Sounds like you need a story writer/editor. When I get some time, likely after I finish my current collaboration novel with John F. Carr, I might be able to put something together. Is there a link for downloading the current version?

Wolf