Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Radakan's WorldTool and the importance of game content creation tools


Today I finally gave WorldTool (release 3) a try, which is a map editor for Radakan. To use the tool, one has to download it, extract it and then run java -Djava.library.path=. -jar WorldTool.jar.



The tool allows you to create a map and to raise and lower the terrain and paint textures on it via brushes. You can place objects on it, which will automatically be at the correct height relative to the ground.



It is fun to play around with (though not for too long, as the art asset is tiny and I don't know how to import additional media and because all I can do is make a map, not walk with a character on it or place items or monsters. - Mind you, the editor is in an early stage.)


While using it, I got the thought that if such tools were developed enough to be able to produce content to truly enrich games, their ease of use would attract many potential contributers and could turn a player into a contributor. Even if the advanced features (like creating characters with dialog options) would be more complicated, the simple things would be easy to do, which means that there will be motivation enough to learn how to do the more complicated work.


I haven't given much thought to game-specific editors before, but I will take a closer look at the ones I can find and figure out where their limitations are and if there are any faults with them and write my findings here. Please tell me if you know of any such tools (besides the ones for SilverTreeRPG, Sauerbraten, SuperTuxKart and FreedroidRPG that is. ;) )


In not so dashing news: you can vote for Apricot's official name now. The suggestions are kind of cute ("point blank frank", "frankie’s reign of terror") but I really would prefer "Apricot". Do you like the name "Bick Buck Bunny"? I don't too much..

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I completely agree on the whole Apricot name thing, the "official" names aren't the greatest ideas I've seen.

Also, I had no idea that silver tree had an editor *checks*

ThatJerk said...

The editor stuff was what I was talking about in my blog-post years past. And I still believe that the gaming scene would benefit with more easy editors for regular folks to play with.

Leslie P. Polzer said...

The video is very impressive.

qubodup said...

Tranberry, I actually misunderstood that, I thought you were talking about game-making tools, rather than content-creation stuff. Or I just remember incorrectly. :) Also perhaps I didn't think that content creation tools were so great back then...

Leslie: Thanks, negative criticism is also welcome ;)

Bram said...

I will check out this tool.
I need a good tool to create a map for howitzer skirmish.

qubodup said...

bram: that's great to hear =)

ThatJerk said...

Oh, well for me game-creation tools are next to identical to map editors and similar as I never ever have seen any of these game creation tools rally make the user able to crate a game. Just look at the RPG-makers out there, I don't really see the difference between them and a good map-editor.

ches said...

Still not very useful, I was really betting on this tool to create my terrains for JME game, but exported XMLs were incorrect.

qubodup said...

So what's your jME project ches?

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