Incline Grid Cartographer - Best Tool for Drawing Classic RPG Maps

[rusty_shackleford]

Recently found out Vaporum uses GC for map design. Are you aware of any other gamedevs that use it?

 

[Narushima]

Just as long as GC doesn't become STEAM exclusive DL or updates.

Yeah, please go with Epic instead!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Recently found out Vaporum uses GC for map design. Are you aware of any other gamedevs that use it?

nothing as high profile as that, but I think there's a couple of indiedevs on my Discord

edit: Oh I totally forgot but Das Geisterschiff / Der Geisterturm used it too

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Just as long as GC doesn't become STEAM exclusive DL or updates.

nah, never gonna happen.

Of course Fastspring decided to email me last night, out of the blue, saying they're going to completely overhaul their payout system in mid October - so we'll see whether I can continue to sell *new* copies via my website. They've not given me too much confidence right now.

Regardless of that should still be able to provide downloads to existing customers. Presumably... never say never, because who knows, Chrome or Windows might block that one day LOL

Suddenly Epic store not such a joke option :D

 

[Grauken]

Why not switch to itch.io for the DRM-free version. They don't just have games

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, i picked up some sort of mapper via a bundle there.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'm currently investigating itch.io.

I also need to consider the fact that I offer an upgrade service from Gamer -> Pro or Gamer -> Steam ... but maybe fewer than a dozen people do this per year. That might be something I opt to handle manually in future, but I think people are either happy (or unhappy) with Gamer Edition and don't feel the need to get the extras, or go straight in at Pro with the Steam edition when that's on sale.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Surprise! Great news! Grid Cartographer is now officially a 'one-time purchase' product.
The latest version of the software will made be freely available to customers for as long as I'm able to do so.

Read more here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/42325648

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I've just updated the beta build on Steam / Discord with a performance boost in map loading.
For example A test map for Nox Archaist that used to take about 30 seconds to load on my i7 desktop is now basically loading instantly.

I couldn't wait until November for this update, so it's available now :D

edit: There are still some known issues with performance in 2D and 3D rendering but .. well, one step at a time!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

If you bought GC from me directly, you can now download the latest beta version (and stable version) from the Grid Cartographer website. (Steam customers keep using Steam!)
https://gridcartographer.com/download/

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ah awesome. You read my mind.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Ah awesome. You read my mind.

I'd originally hidden the beta away as it had those performance issues but now those are fixed - I figured it's safe to make it more widely accessible.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Of course Fastspring decided to email me last night, out of the blue, saying they're going to completely overhaul their payout system in mid October - so we'll see whether I can continue to sell *new* copies via my website. They've not given me too much confidence right now.

Regardless of that should still be able to provide downloads to existing customers. Presumably... never say never, because who knows, Chrome or Windows might block that one day LOL

Suddenly Epic store not such a joke option :D

Seems like FastSpring behind-the-scenes change won't have too much effect, so until it all goes wrong somehow I'll be continuing to sell via them (+ Steam)

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Here's a sneak peak at a new feature coming in the November update - "Stein Cubes"

https://twitter.com/gridcarto/status/1318480798354464769

 

[Narushima]

That's funny, it reminds me of that thing, which turns PNG maps into Doom levels:

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Hi, update 2020.11 is now available. Enjoy

New features video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-yQ68j2ZHo

Full change log:
https://docs.gridcartographer.com/release/2020.11

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Look out for Steam sales.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/684690/Grid_Cartographer/

 

[Grauken]

Thanks to @RikRetro we can now hook up Applwin with GridCartographer and play old Apple II games natively

Here's the AppleWin fork to use, you have to activate Remote Control under options
https://github.com/hasseily/AppleWin/releases/tag/v1.29.14.0-rc

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'll be making a manual page and a formal download link available, along with a patch to add Apple 2 support to a few games, ... soon

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Apple II support is here ! big thank you goes to Rikkles for spending the past week working on this.

Download AppleWin for Grid Cartographer here: https://gridcartographer.com/download/#clients
(at the bottom of the page)

Download update 2020.11_f4 here: https://gridcartographer.com/download/
(Steam customers will auto-update as usual)

The update _f4 adds support for the following games:
* Might and Magic 1
* Wizardry 1
* Ultima 4
* Ultima 5

These need to be in the .WOZ file format or they won't be recognised.
Search for "A Woz A Day" for maximum satisfaction.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Updates to Commodore 64 / VIC-20 / Plus4 emulator plug-ins are now available: https://gridcartographer.com/download/#clients

New Features:
* Multi-disk support (+auto-detect drive model on C64)
* Screen border size option

 

[rohand]

Hey Hidden Asbestos I recently reinstalled it for DND maps and tried importing donjon TSV and HTML maps. It is however CTD'ing during the HTML import.

Have you experienced that? I can attach the HTML if you want.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Hey Hidden Asbestos I recently reinstalled it for DND maps and tried importing donjon TSV and HTML maps. It is however CTD'ing during the HTML import.

Have you experienced that? I can attach the HTML if you want.

Dang, yeah I just saw that. Will need to investigate. There should be a new update out soon so I'll make sure a fix is in there.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Hey Hidden Asbestos I recently reinstalled it for DND maps and tried importing donjon TSV and HTML maps. It is however CTD'ing during the HTML import.

Have you experienced that? I can attach the HTML if you want.

I've fixed the bug and released 2020.11_f5
This patch also adds support for ultra-wide monitors.

 

[Snorkack]

Hey guys! After Stormcrowfleet pulled some pretty cool stuff for online D&D with Grid Cartographer, I bought it too and tried tinkering with it.
Wanna use it for online tabletop rpg stuff as well - mostly mapmaking - , so it's kinda off-label use and I'm still not sure whether its the right tool for the job. So basically what I'm trying to do is to make a regional hex map with custom tiles as the available tiles are pretty decent but not very numerous.

My problem is that importing of tiles doesn't work out the way I hoped. Let's say I have some custom hex tiles in 32x32 format, like this: https://opengameart.org/content/hex-tileset-pack
No matter what I do, I get a result similar to this:

Also, some bug I found: when I choose 'Import as Tileset' and enter an invalid size, e.g. 40x40 clicking the grid button in the lower left corner causes the program to stop responding. But I guess this won't get me closer to my goal anyways.
So, my question is, is it possible to import hex tiles properly at all? How can I align them with the grid properly? Or do I have to resort to seamless square textures for hex maps as well?