Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 20:52
OK I've done that and it shows me this:
At least since 2004 on Lon Matero's Secret Beta Page.
Yes, I explicitly added support for the beta version, as some other person (I don't remember who) gave it to me and I was happy to finally have it. It has some flaws which were fortunately mitigated in the final release version.
Then please check two things:
I basically agree with you. From a programmer's point of view, I find this game to be rather simplistic with not very many features and with many limitations and big lack of flexibility. The big problem you are referring to is, that items (crystals, points...) are not sprites, but are tiles, so the background tile is part of the item's image and that greatly limits you where you can place them. There is also big limitation of amount of graphics that can be used in a level, limiting number of tiles in a tileset and monster types.Roobar wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 19:30 Look, I was just looking. For me, it's a love-hate relationship with this game. I love to play it, but I don't like the limitations. Limitations like you can't place crystals or columns in the sky. There's not much variety in a single tileset to work with either.
Well, I suppose that everyone is used to his own control sheme and mindset when using such game's level editors. I think that the editor a person used at first or for most of time teaches them some habits and it can be hard to adapt to something else.Roobar wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 19:30 The editor is full featured, but I'm used to different type of control schemes. My favorite editor is the one in SAHD (and CCHD) which is a joy to use. I like to right click to select and copy a tile/tiles instead of deleting them. I use middle mouse button and wasd to move the camera.
Unfortunately, zoom-in/out feature is unfeasible to implement due to technical/design reasons. One of the reasons is, that I draw various markers (like rectangles on tiles which are part of some level action, or markers on special objects like items, switches etc) containing text in them. As a compensation to missing zoom-in/out feature, there's a minimap, a schematic view of the whole level, so you can always see the whole level and position of your current view. I think the minimap feature is rather uncommon in level editors and it's something unique to my editor. On a FullHD monitor you can see quite big portion of map, so I just thought it's still feasible to use without zoom-out.
It is possible to show monster sprites, you probably just missed this feature, which is off by default. Below the minimap there are several buttons to toggle specific layers to be shown or not, and one button shows also the sprites. Try it out.