Heresy, Flare mod - First Act Released!! Bug fixes

[Danimal]

Hi Freem, many of the points you raised are a result of how poor Flare engine is, let me explain; Slow level gaining (and lvs total count) is a way to offset the overall development difficulty, lesser levels means that the enemies can be reused a lot, the reason is that Flare doesn´t have level scaling for enemies, so I made each enemy by hand. Meaning that if player raised level easier I would have to make way too many enemy definitions files (seriously, boar_lv1, boar_lv2... for every single critter). It´s the very same for items, there is not a random item generator, all items are made one by one, that´s the reason that they repeat so much, since there is not many of them declared. Declaring more while possible would be a waste, since any change in powers(skills), balance, aspect... would make all the definitions useless.
Missing barricades and monsters are a linux only problem due to case sensitivity, it´s working on windows, if Barricade_lv1.txt is called as barricade_lv1.txt ingame Linux will not uset it. Those ones slipped by me.

Now, regarding difficulty it was my fault, I tried for it to be challenging, but as you saw a few things are all over the place, like enemies at map entry points, items stats being too strong, unfinished proof of concept pasives... I had hoped that all of that would be fixed since the only dev said that they would code enemy lv scaling and item generator into the game. Just to say the next day they were not interested in developing the game anymore and will just maintain it from now on.
Now, as someone pointed me, all those issues can be fixed by employing unholy amounts of time to work around them (creating definition files for every enemy lv, declaring tons of items) but I already gave up. Flare is a deficient engine no matter how charming the retro looks are, and I won´t be using my free time on it anymore when basically any other engine has those tools included.

I´m happy you liked it, if you read the first posts I had planned a whole campaign, but had to settle for this. The book fight was meant to be very hard (enemy scaling would help here), sorry you perma-died, you must be kinda hardcore to play like that.

[Hessed.E]

Hi !
First of all congratulations for such excellent work (considering what you had available for it).
On the one hand, sad, knowing that you are not going to continue with this work that you had achieved so well.
But on the other hand, I understand you perfectly. It's not easy when you do it from the heart, and with such strict basic limitations.
I would like to know if you plan to do something similar with any other engine.
Best regards!

[Danimal]

Hi, for a long time I have been considering Unity3d, but I´m an useless coder, I don´t really know any other engine that does the same as Flare but is up to day and has good qol for modders.

[bzt]

I don´t really know any other engine that does the same as Flare but is up to day and has good qol for modders.

You could give a try to TirNanoG (see also the user manual, just by the length of it you can see it's very featureful). It can do everything that Flare can, but it can do lot more.

You can create plane text files and assets for modding like with Flare, but it also has a GUI editor (100% done and tested). The Player part is about 95% ready, probably will be finished and bugfixed within a month. The Server (because TirNanoG supports network multiplayer unlike Flare) is about 85% done.

A few notable features that I've added because I couldn't do them in Flare:

• Configurable HUD. You can display as many user properties as you like (not just HP + MP).
• Dynamically loading maps, concatenated into an open world (I hate when I leave and reenter a map in Flare, all the enemies are respawned).
• No programming skills required with the GUI, implements an easy to use, self-explanatory, drag'n'drop visual editor for creating game logic.
• Easy to use game file build system: one single click on the GUI (or running tnge -c on the command line), and everything is automatically taken care for you: creating sprite atlases, collecting referenced assets, objects, maps etc. etc. etc. Everything that's troublesome in Flare is easy with TirNanoG. It Just Works (tm) :-)

Oh, and in case it wouldn't be obvious, TirNanoG does support Flare's FantasyCore asset set. It is not as fully uploaded as the Base asset set, but at least it's there, you can already start creating games using that set.


Cheers,
bzt

[Julius]

You should note however that the editor comes with some very strange and non-libre licensing requirements for the output file format and thus you can't make fully libre games with this engine. I actually doubt these licensing requirements even make legal sense, but it would be rude to disrespect the author's intent, so I personally would not recommend using this engine as long as this license restriction remains.

[Danimal]

Licenses issues aside, it sounds good, much than Flare anyways.
What about mapmaking? Is it made in the same editor or does it take tiled input?
Does it have enemies scaling and ramdom item generator?
Only 2d, no 3d?
I take you are the creator, how mature it is? can it create ready to use exes to use in WIN and Linux?

[bzt]

You should note however that the editor comes with some very strange and non-libre licensing requirements for the output file format and thus you can't make fully libre games with this engine.

That's absolutely not true.

I actually doubt these licensing requirements even make legal sense, but it would be rude to disrespect the author's intent, so I personally would not recommend using this engine as long as this license restriction remains.

I see. Your actual problem is, you misunderstood the licensing terms. The editor is GPL'd, and the TirNanoG File Format is dual licensed: either CC-BY-NC-SA, or with written permission, anything you want, including libre, CC0, commercial even proprietary, whatever you wish. You literally can use any licensing you want for your games with TirNanoG, it's just that commercial usage needs a one-time permission first (and I don't want to know nor care how many games you sell afterwards).

These licensing terms are actually much more permissive than RPG Maker's for example.

Licenses issues aside, it sounds good, much than Flare anyways.

Thanks!

What about mapmaking? Is it made in the same editor or does it take tiled input?

Actually both. TirNanoG uses .tmx files for its maps, so that you can also open them in Tiled (but first you have to unpack the sprite atlases with tnge -u, because Tiled does not support sprite atlases... Just checked again, the Tiled issue was opened nearly 8 years ago and still unresolved...)

But using the built-in map editor is very comfortable, has lot more features than Tiled and uses GIMP's shortcuts (select, invert selection, fuzzy select, intersect selections, flood fill, etc. etc. etc. all using exactly the same keyboard shortcuts). It also has intimate knowledge of the engine and its map layers, so you don't have to write xml property files like with Tiled, it just works as-is.

Does it have enemies scaling and ramdom item generator?

It has what you configure. For enemies scaling you can set conditions in spawners to spawn different kind of enemies with different properties depending on the player's level. As for the random items, you can configure probabilities in percentage to items in the NPC's inventory (loot boxes are stationary, non-moving NPCs in TirNanoG).

Only 2d, no 3d?

Yep, but it can generate sprite sheets from 3d models automatically (although file format support is a bit buggy because it uses Assimp. Wavefront OBJ and M3D always works because those formats are supported natively).

I take you are the creator, how mature it is?

Pretty much. The editor is very well tested by the worst testers, my boys. The player is very near to completition too.

can it create ready to use exes to use in WIN and Linux?

That's not how TirNanoG works. It has a player, ported to many different platforms (Win, Linux, WebAssembly, etc.), and your game is just a single .tng file that can be played on all platforms without any modifications (just like how ScummVM works). If the player will get ported to new platforms in the future, then your game will run on those too automatically, no steps required on your part. (BTW, the player is just a single file, a portable executable, so in theory you can just distribute it with your game. But keep in mind that due to GPL restrictions if you do so, that would mean your game must be GPL too. I've introduced player and game separation for several reasons, avoiding GPL problems being one of them.)

I've added an in-game launcher and game downloader just before Xmas. You can store your game whereever you like, it just needs an URL to be added to this JSON (currently only has test data, as I've said, this feature was just recently finished), and user will be able to download (aka. "install") your game within the app. However downloading a game outside of the app works too, there are absolutely no restrictions, the launcher is just for convenience.

Cheers,
bzt

[Julius]

Your actual problem is, you misunderstood the licensing terms. The editor is GPL'd, and the TirNanoG File Format is dual licensed: either CC-BY-NC-SA, or with written permission, anything you want, including libre, CC0, commercial even proprietary, whatever you wish. You literally can use any licensing you want for your games with TirNanoG, it's just that commercial usage needs a one-time permission first (and I don't want to know nor care how many games you sell afterwards).

I don't want to argue with you, but that is exactly how I understood it and this is absolutely incompatible with libre licensing terms. CC-BY-NC-SA is not FOSS due to the NC clause, and asking for permission is 100% proprietary as this isn't a transferable license as required for anything FOSS (this is the core of all FOSS licenses and can absolutely not done without).

A small example should clarify why this makes this engine unusable for FOSS games: Lets say I chose this engine for my game today. I work on it and then 10 years later decide to hand over maintenance to someone else (or someone decides to fork my game). This other person then needs to ask you again for permission. In 10 years it is very likely that you can not be reached any more or that you changed your mind on handing out licenses so liberally.

On a side note: The reason why I think this doesn't even make legal sense is that you are trying to put licensing terms on an output file format. I can not think of any legal way to do that, but as I wrote before... ultimately that doesn't matter as your intent is clear.

[bzt]

CC-BY-NC-SA is not FOSS due to the NC clause, and asking for permission is 100% proprietary

I'm only asking permission if you're NOT creating a free game. Let me rephrase the terms like this:

• without registration: only Free and Open Source games, and by "free" I mean really, truly free, as in free beer (aka. non-commercial), and by "open source" I mean the game files can be loaded back in the editor and be further manipulated.
• with registration: totally up to you, you get free hands, any licensing terms you please. (For actually proprietary games, registered TirNanoG Editor can create encrypted game files and can generate decryption keys that you can sell. Encrypted game files cannot be loaded back and manipulated further in the editor.)

Only commercial usage needs permission (because it has to enable the encryption/decryption key generation feature somehow), and forgive me, but I've put nearly 2 years of development into TirNanoG, implemented many AAA-games grade features, let me be selfish and not allow anybody to take advantage of my work without my permission. This is still lot more permissive than the competition's licenses, and lot more permissive than "free for personal use", because you can legally share the free games you've created with it (which is more than "personal use", yet allowed).

A small example should clarify why this makes this engine unusable for FOSS games: Lets say I chose this engine for my game today. I work on it and then 10 years later decide to hand over maintenance to someone else (or someone decides to fork my game). This other person then needs to ask you again for permission.

No, he does not need my permission. That's important. When you register a game, I'll send you a license.txt file (here is an example, for the game named "for_testing_only"). If you want to hand over maintenance of your game, you just have to pass this license.txt along with the other asset files, and that's it. You can even share the license.txt publically if you want to, that's totally up to you, I don't care.

On a side note: The reason why I think this doesn't even make legal sense is that you are trying to put licensing terms on an output file format. I can not think of any legal way to do that, but as I wrote before... ultimately that doesn't matter as your intent is clear.

The file format is quite complex, including even bytecodes and compression techniques, so this is definitely an "original creative work", and it is entirely my intellectual property, so I can license that any way I want.

And for the legal way, it is exactly the same way how any other codec does it (for example as Java bytecode format copyrighted to Oracle, GIF copyrighted to CompuServe, PKZIP copyrighted to PKWare, or how .bik is copyrighted to Epic Games, etc. etc. etc.).

It's not uncommon at all that a file format is copyrighted, actually it is pretty commonplace (do not confuse with patented algorithms used in those formats; I'm talking about format copyright here, not patents. To make this absolutely clear: GIF uses an algorithm that was patented to Unisys, but GIF as a format is copyrighted by CompuServe. There's a difference. I do not claim any patent rights with the TirNanoG File Format (all algorithms used are libre licensed and publically available elsewhere too), but I do claim copyright of the format).

Cheers,
bzt

[Julius]

A non-commercial license is not Free/Libre as by the common definition (for a long list of reasons). And your open-source definition is commonly called "shared source" and is not "open" at all.

As for you explanation about not needing permission; This can't work for two reasons: 1st a license is always linked to a legal person (but you can allow people to sub-license / transfer it) & 2nd what happens if that other person makes a commercial fork resulting in a totally different game from from the source covered under your the license.txt that you claim is libre? Either they can do that, or the license in your license.txt is not open-source.

The legal construct you are trying to built here is just not open-source at all... it is plain and simple CC-BY-NC-SA or a roality-free proprietary commercial license.

As for licensing file formats... that is like trying to license the house I made with the hammer you sold me. That just doesn't work.

What companies do is make thier exporter include a lot of proprietary code automatically over which they can then claim copyright, but since your editor is fully AGPLv3, where is that proprietary code supposed to come from? Alternatively some companies try to patent file formats, but that is also on shaky legal ground or outright impossible in many countries.

Obviously IANAL, but it is quite clear you do not understand open-source licensing.

[freem]

Hi Freem, many of the points you raised are a result of how poor Flare engine is, let me explain; Slow level gaining (and lvs total count) is a way to offset the overall development difficulty, lesser levels means that the enemies can be reused a lot, the reason is that Flare doesn´t have level scaling for enemies, so I made each enemy by hand. Meaning that if player raised level easier I would have to make way too many enemy definitions files (seriously, boar_lv1, boar_lv2... for every single critter). It´s the very same for items, there is not a random item generator, all items are made one by one, that´s the reason that they repeat so much, since there is not many of them declared. Declaring more while possible would be a waste, since any change in powers(skills), balance, aspect... would make all the definitions useless.

If those features would be implemented, would you revive your project?
No promise, but maybe I can hack them. Giving some coding time to "buy" an interesting solo game is perfectly fine to me, if you see what I mean Maybe you have some place where I could find descriptions of how those features would work, at least from a data point of view?

Missing barricades and monsters are a linux only problem due to case sensitivity, it´s working on windows, if Barricade_lv1.txt is called as barricade_lv1.txt ingame Linux will not uset it. Those ones slipped by me.

No problem, really, it's what testing is for

Now, regarding difficulty it was my fault, I tried for it to be challenging, but as you saw a few things are all over the place, like enemies at map entry points, items stats being too strong, unfinished proof of concept pasives...

That's still a pretty start. Reporting issues is the only way I see to see them fixed at some point, *IF* they can be.

Now, as someone pointed me, all those issues can be fixed by employing unholy amounts of time to work around them (creating definition files for every enemy lv, declaring tons of items) but I already gave up.

Would be silly to ask people to generate configuration files to embed in the release, when it should be possible to just embed their source and get the game do the job.
Working around is not going to scale well, and would be a nightmare to maintain or balance.

I´m happy you liked it, if you read the first posts I had planned a whole campaign, but had to settle for this. The book fight was meant to be very hard (enemy scaling would help here), sorry you perma-died, you must be kinda hardcore to play like that.

Well, the book fight was only hard because I got instantly killed without a chance to do anything. And next time I went there, I was prepared too much, and thus it was too easy...

The reason I play perma-death in flare-based stuff is because otherwise it's just too easy. What I would prefer though, is a way to only get saves on specific places, like what's done in JRPG games: this prevents loosing all progress on a death, while preventing saving every few minutes for nothing. I think that's the best save system for RPGs, when I usually don't like JRPG that much from a gameplay's PoV (for those I know, that is).

But I was not going to talk about that in my previous post, as I tried to focus on the gameplay's problems only, not on the engine ones.
I already know about several engine/UI problems, from a player's PoV:

* no transparency for walls/trees/whatever when a player or monster is behind. The small "tick" above them they introduced is *far* from being enough, and semi-transparency is something that was present even in diablo 1 IIRC, so the "retro" style is not a good excuse.
* can only use right and left buttons of mouse, while mouses have had at least 3 buttons for at least 20 years, so same, no retro excuse here.
* hard to see health/mana pools. Diablo 1 didn't suffered that issue, so again, no retro excuse.

And probably more than I don't remember right now but those are unrelated to a game's content.

[Danimal]

If you want you can contribute to the project, it´s open source and available in Github; but I won´t retake the deveploment of this, my passion for it dissapeared and real life issues are hitting me hard as to care about it.

[freem]

I understand.
Well, I'll see if I'll give them a hand or not, but if I don't have an incentive I'm less likely to spend much time at it.

Hopefully your life problems will be fixed soon (interest in heresy or not)!