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| 5 | + <title>SLUDGE Adventure Game Engine - Features</title> |
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| 7 | + <meta name="description" content="SLUDGE is an open source, cross-platform system by which anyone can make an adventure game."> |
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| 9 | + <meta name="Author" content="Tobias Hansen"> |
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| 30 | + <li><a href="features.html">Features</a> |
| 31 | + <ul> |
| 32 | + <li><a href="#current">Current Features</a></li> |
| 33 | + <li><a href="#possibilities">Current Possibilities</a></li> |
| 34 | + <li><a href="#iwant">I Want... I Want...</a></li> |
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| 42 | +<td id="mainColumn"> |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +<h1>Features</h1> |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +<h2 id="current">Current Features</h2> |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +<p>SLUDGE currently contains built-in support for the following:</p> |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +<ul> |
| 52 | +<li><b>Objects</b> - with easy to use "events" defining how the game reacts when different objects are combined |
| 53 | +</li><li><b>Characters</b> - plus automatic scaling (now with anti-aliasing as standard) and special effects such as transparency |
| 54 | +</li><li><b>Animations</b> - suitable for one-shot <i>and</i> automatically looping animations; combine any images from a sprite bank in any order |
| 55 | +</li><li><b>Costumes</b> - with a costume your characters can look |
| 56 | +different when facing different directions (any number of directions you want)... |
| 57 | + plus you can provide different animations for talking, walking and |
| 58 | +standing still |
| 59 | +</li><li><b>Full-screen backgrounds</b> - load 'em from PNG or TGA files in a single line |
| 60 | +</li><li><b>Interactive backgrounds</b> - yes, bits of the background image can represent objects too |
| 61 | +</li><li><b>Sound effects</b> - play any noise (OGG or WAV) at any time |
| 62 | +with a single command; also support for looping sounds, changing the |
| 63 | +volume of individual noises and a whole heap of other audio goodness |
| 64 | +</li><li><b>Music</b> - play up to three tunes at once (MOD, S3M, IT or XM) |
| 65 | +</li><li><b>Full talkie versions</b> - just supply a sound file when you make someone talk or think, and SLUDGE takes care of everything for you |
| 66 | +</li><li><b>Scrolling backgrounds</b> - point the camera anywhere at any time |
| 67 | +</li><li><b>Freezing / unfreezing</b> - put the entire world on hold while you go to a close-up, look through your inventory or run your custom menu system |
| 68 | +</li><li><b>Input handlers</b> - set the engine up so that it calls <i>your</i> function when a mouse button is clicked, when the mouse moves, when a key is pressed... |
| 69 | +</li><li><b>Timers</b> - pause for however long you want, whenever you want, without your character saying "..." |
| 70 | +</li><li><b>Multiple functions at once</b> - keep that character moving |
| 71 | +or talking in the background, animate waterfalls or just devise puzzles |
| 72 | +which must be solved against the clock |
| 73 | +</li><li><b>Z-buffers</b> - so characters walk behind tables, trees, door-frames, alien machinery etc. |
| 74 | +</li><li><b>Floor plans</b> - including automatic path finding without crossing non-walkable areas |
| 75 | +</li><li><b>Lightmaps</b> - set up shadows and spotlights simply by using an extra image the same size as your room |
| 76 | +</li><li><b>True-colour</b> - SLUDGE uses 32-bit colour throughout |
| 77 | +</li><li><b>Any resolution you want</b> - provided your video card can support it, so can SLUDGE |
| 78 | +</li><li><b>Windowed mode</b> - with your own custom title bar and quit message (whoo!) |
| 79 | +</li><li><b>Full-screen mode</b> - and if full-screen mode fails, your game will run in windowed mode instead rather than just keeling over |
| 80 | +</li><li><b>Game loading and saving</b> - plus rename, delete or launch any file you want |
| 81 | +</li><li><b>Single output file</b> - containing all your graphics, sounds and script |
| 82 | +</li><li><b>Scripts are compiled not interpreted</b> - nobody can break in and see how you did all your clever bits... and they run faster, too |
| 83 | +</li><li><b>Shaded variable-width fonts</b> - fonts are just greyscale sprite banks, and if you don't like Hungry Software's demo font (based on Ariel) there are <a href="resources.html#fonts">plenty of other fonts to download</a> courtesy of other SLUDGE users |
| 84 | +</li><li><b>Sprite flipping</b> - just use a negative sprite number and the appropriate sprite will be mirrored for you, saving you file space |
| 85 | +</li><li><b>Compressed sprite files</b> - yep, your sprite banks are now compressed, saving you even <i>more</i> file space |
| 86 | +</li><li><b>Per-pixel mouse-over-sprite checking</b> - the mouse will only register a character when you're actually pointing at it, <i>not</i> just anywhere within its bounding box |
| 87 | +</li><li><b>Spinning characters</b> - on command <i>and</i> automatically when turning a corner while walking, at whatever speed you want |
| 88 | +</li><li><b>Semi-automatic font conversion ("Fontify")</b> - courtessy of the new sprite bank editor |
| 89 | +</li><li><b>Fantastic audio support</b> - not just your standard WAV |
| 90 | +files, but Ogg Vorbis and FLAC compressed samples and lots of track-based |
| 91 | + music formats (MOD, S3M, IT and XM) |
| 92 | +</li><li><b>Improved keyboard handler</b> - catch more keypresses |
| 93 | +including function keys, cursor keys and - should you want to - Alt, |
| 94 | +Ctrl, Shift, Alt Gr, Caps Lock, Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, Page |
| 95 | + Down, Windows and any extra quick-launch keys your keyboard may have |
| 96 | +</li><li><b>Multiple transition modes</b> - Bored of your screens |
| 97 | +appearing and disappearing too quickly? Now you can disolve or fade in |
| 98 | +and out, or even cross fade between one scene and the next |
| 99 | +</li><li><b>Your own choice of icon</b> - well, you can't change the |
| 100 | +icon for the SLUDGE engine, but here's the next best thing... give your |
| 101 | +project a 16x16 or 32x32 image and the engine will use it as an icon in |
| 102 | +your game's title bar, and in the taskbar while it's running |
| 103 | +</li><li><b>Silent running</b> - no sound support? So what! The engine |
| 104 | +can now carry on regardless, letting people with no sound cards play |
| 105 | +your game too! It's also an easy way to make a much smaller file for |
| 106 | +a faster download for people with slow modems |
| 107 | +</li><li><b>Portable custom data files</b> - save an array to a file for |
| 108 | + use later, or even use by another SLUDGE game... you can even encode it |
| 109 | + all so nobody else can understand it, and all you need to do to read it |
| 110 | + is provide the same key |
| 111 | +</li><li><b>Background parallax scrolling</b> - leave holes in your room |
| 112 | + through which you can see a sky or background which scrolls at a |
| 113 | +different speed to the rest of the scene |
| 114 | +</li><li><b>Multiple language support</b> - make your game playable in as many languages as you have the time to provide, all within the one game file</li> |
| 115 | +</ul> |
| 116 | + |
| 117 | +<h2 id="possibilities">Current Possibilities</h2> |
| 118 | + |
| 119 | +<p>SLUDGE does <i>not</i> contain built-in support for the following, but all this stuff - and a whole lot more - <i>is entirely possible</i> using the language (and, therefore, a lot more customisable):</p> |
| 120 | + |
| 121 | +<ul> |
| 122 | +<li><b>Inventory system</b> - SLUDGE uses |
| 123 | +one array / stack / queue / linked-list type container which is ideally |
| 124 | +suited to implementing an inventory (source code in example project) |
| 125 | +</li><li><b>Scrolling credits</b> - You can paste to the screen, and you can scroll the video buffer... what more do you need? (source code |
| 126 | +<a href="resources.html#src-scrolling-credits">here</a>) |
| 127 | +</li><li><b>Text entry boxes</b> - Freeze, write your message on the screen, unfreeze... and make it look exactly how you want (source code |
| 128 | +<a href="resources.html#src-text-box">here</a>) |
| 129 | +</li><li><b>Automatic character following</b> - just update the position of the camera every frame, and hey presto! (source code |
| 130 | +<a href="resources.html#src-smooth-scrolling">here</a>) |
| 131 | +</li><li><b>Fake foreground parallax scrolling</b> - a la Broken Sword... simply update the location of an inanimate "character" every time you move the camera |
| 132 | +</li><li><b>Interactive conversations</b> - there's nothing in SLUDGE to |
| 133 | + handle this, but with such an impressive scripting language the code |
| 134 | +for a complete interactive conversation mechanism is less than 100 lines |
| 135 | + (source code in example project) |
| 136 | +</li> |
| 137 | +</ul> |
| 138 | + |
| 139 | +<h2 id="iwant">I Want... I Want...</h2> |
| 140 | + |
| 141 | +<p>More suggestions? Make them known on the <a href="http://www.adventuredevelopers.com/forum/index.php?topic=2276.0">SLUDGE wishlist forum thread</a>! You never know, your ideas may appear in a future version of SLUDGE!</p> |
| 142 | + |
| 143 | +</td> |
| 144 | + |
| 145 | +</tr></table> |
| 146 | + |
| 147 | +<P class="copyright-notice">© 2000-2011 Hungry Software and contributors</P> |
| 148 | +</body> |
| 149 | +</html> |
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