Exult Forum

I was just wondering if anyone has made or is working on an entirely new game that runs on the Exult engine. It seems like an awful lot of work has gone into Exult Studio, but I haven't seen any mention of anyone working on any new games thus far.

The reason I ask is because I have been thinking of doing exactly that myself. The only catch is that I don't have much artistic ability, so I'll have to use the BG or SI artwork for now. Maybe if my game is any good, someone will volunteer to redo the artwork eventually.


-Karl

So far, there's just the "island patch" on our download page. We're probably going to start working on it again. But it still uses the U7 data.

You're in the same spot I've been in. You want to write a game; but it's hard to get started without artwork; and you can't do artwork; and it's hard to get someone else to do artwork unless you already have some progress.

So, using the U7 files is a good way to start. Let us know if/when you find bugs or deficiencies in EStudio or the Usecode language.

I've run into a snag already. I'm using the 1.1.0 CVS from yesterday, and I'm following the "New Game" instructions at http://exult.info/newgame.txt, but when I get to the point of starting exult to edit the map for my new game, exult complains of a missing intro.dat file:

karlos@platypus karlos $ exult --game winewomensong
Exult version 1.1.0cvs
Built at: Feb 20 2003 13:07:58
Compile-time options: HAVE_TIMIDITY_BIN, USE_EXULTSTUDIO, HAVE_ZIP_SUPPORT
Compiler: gcc, version: 3.2.1 20021207 (Gentoo Linux 3.2.1-20021207)

Platform: Linux version 2.4.20-gentoo-r1
Data path = /usr/local/share/exult
Starting 'winewomensong' game
Current path settings:
Static : /home/karlos/winewomensong/static
Gamedat : /home/karlos/.exult/winewomensong/gamedat
Savegame: /home/karlos/.exult/winewomensong
Patch : /home/karlos/winewomensong/patch

============================
An exception occured:
Error opening file /home/karlos/winewomensong/static/intro.dat
errno: 2
Error Description: No such file or directory
============================

The documentation says that if editing is set to yes for the game in question in .exult.cfg, then it should ignore missing files like this, right?

Here's the relevant section in my .exult.cfg:



/home/karlos/winewomensong


/home/karlos/winewomensong/patch


yes


/home/karlos/.exult/winewomensong/gamedat


/home/karlos/.exult/winewomensong



Any ideas as to what may be going wrong here?


Thanks,

-Karl

Oh, one other thing: I copied the graphics files from my Serpent Isle static directory into the static directory for the new game, overwriting the default ones that Exult Studio created for me. Could the Exult engine be getting confused thinging that it's trying to start Serpent Isle, and therefore trying to load intro.dat? If this is the case, is there any way to work around this?


-Karl

I guess you already found a 'deficiency':-) I'll have to try the 'New game' sequence when I'm home. It used to work, but it's been a while. Copying over the graphics files shouldn't break things, but I'll have to check under what conditions Exult skips the intro.

Upon further testing, I believe this to be an issue with the --game option. I discovered that I can't even launch BG with --game blackgate since it still tries to load intro.dat, which BG doesn't have. I can launch BG normally via the menu, however.


-Karl

the "new game" option strangely won't work for windows user. I complained to jeff about this ages ago but as it worked on his non-windows system there wasn't muche he could do...

Could Ryan have fixed it? All 'new game' does is create and copy files, so it shouldn't be too hard to make it work on other platforms.

Well, considering I didn't know about the problem before just now, I think I might look into it. I seriously doubt you are doing anything fancy in the code.

-Colourless Dragon

Oh, speaking of platforms, I'm using the Linux version, in case that helps.


-Karl

I haven't tried the new game option for ages, so I don't know if it works now, but it used to not work for me and we did have a little discussion about it on the ML.
I'll try again when I return (sob, less than a week left )

Okay, back to my problem of not being able to launch a custom game via the --game option ... or actually not being able to launch anything except serpentisle ... I was poking around in the source, and saw the following in devgame.h:

/*
* Inheriting from SI_Game is a temporary kludge.+++++++++
*/
class DEV_Game: public SI_Game {
public:
DEV_Game() : SI_Game()
{ }

Could this explain why Exult is trying to load the SI intro for my custom game? I could be way off base here, since I'm not really proficient with C++.


-Karl

I don't think so. Are you running with "exult --game winewomensong"? It should go directly to your map if it's working right. I just tried it with one I created a long time ago, and it worked. However, when I tried ctrl-alt-m to bring up ExultStudio, it crashed. I'll get to that soon...

Maybe you have skipsplash set to yes in your .exult.cfg? I was able to get as far as you did after setting this option myself to work around the problem. Exult also crashed for me when doing ctrl-alt-m as it did for you.

Anyway, it's not a big deal since I can just put that option in my config file when I need to, once the crashing problem is fixed.


-Karl

The latest CVS fixes the crashing problem. Thanks for the update.


-Karl

Ahem, did somebody say graphics artist?
*grins*
*raises hand*

hey Skutarth, are you an GRAPHIC ARTIST or better said PIXEL ARTIST?
my team and i still need some of them for our freeware-selfmade-RPG in ultima-style

I do pixel by pixel. I use paint, which sucks, even though I have photoshop because it's better for it. Give me some credit for at least that.

Hehehe, Micro$oft Paint sucks.

hey Skurtarth!
where can i see some of your work?
please email me some impressions:
trevor_clim@gmx.net

Heh, so your online, eh?
My AIM name is Skutarth. I'll log on.

I'm on. Ready when you are.

sorry, Skurtarth, didnt watch the forum yesterday anymore.
didnt see your posts
so i have problems with AIM getting run, do you have ICQ?
last possibilty:
email! whats your email? my email is trevor_clim@gmx.net

thx

I'm working on a "mod" (if you would) for Ultima7 on Exult called Giridion. Need people to help me on it though

Check out http://u7giridion.sourceforge.net or http://sourceforge.net/projects/u7giridion

@ Wizardy Dragon:
When will it be released?
work looks stopped?