Incline GRIDMONGER — a new free & open-source cRPG mapping tool

[Atlet]

Going to test this out with EotB. BTW, this is my first time using a mapping program. Many thanks!

 

[Rincewind]

Going to test this out with EotB. BTW, this is my first time using a mapping program. Many thanks!

That's a nice choice, I approve. When Gridmonger was in a usable state, I did a full EotB run with it as a test.

 

[Rincewind]

Salathor

I'm thinking of adding support for the following in the first iteration of the notes list:

• filter by note type (none, number, ID, icon — each category can be toggled individually)
• show notes from all levels, or only for the current level
• sort by note type, level elevation, or note text (secondary sort criteria are always silently appended, e.g. elevation sort also sorts by note type as the secondary criteria, and the note text as the third)
• can jump to the location of the note by clicking on the list entry

Just trying to find the smallest useful subset of features. Any thoughts?

 

[Salathor]

Salathor

I'm thinking of adding support for the following in the first iteration of the notes list:

• filter by note type (none, number, ID, icon — each category can be toggled individually)
• show notes from all levels, or only for the current level
• sort by note type, level elevation, or note text (secondary sort criteria are always silently appended, e.g. elevation sort also sorts by note type as the secondary criteria, and the note text as the third)
• can jump to the location of the note by clicking on the list entry

Just trying to find the smallest useful subset of features. Any thoughts?

I would say a key when revealing non-numbered notes (icons, etc.) would be to also provide the x/y locations visually but in an unobtrusive color (I dunno, not a visual design guy). That way if you're scanning the list and looking at your floor you can just visually match them all to what you're looking for on the map. If you can show notes from multiple levels, then maybe X/Y/Z.

Ie.:

• 3 | -4 LORD HEINMEITY: unfriendly at start
• 22 | 6 THE MAD STOMPER: find some foot powder

An issue when showing notes from all levels would be collisions between numbers. Ie., which "1" am I looking at? Might only make sense in that case to see the current map. I don't know if this would be a problem in games with multi-map spreads though (like the big M&M overworld).

Sounds like a great feature!

 

[Rincewind]

Salathor

I'm thinking of adding support for the following in the first iteration of the notes list:

• filter by note type (none, number, ID, icon — each category can be toggled individually)
• show notes from all levels, or only for the current level
• sort by note type, level elevation, or note text (secondary sort criteria are always silently appended, e.g. elevation sort also sorts by note type as the secondary criteria, and the note text as the third)
• can jump to the location of the note by clicking on the list entry

Just trying to find the smallest useful subset of features. Any thoughts?

I would say a key when revealing non-numbered notes (icons, etc.) would be to also provide the x/y locations visually but in an unobtrusive color (I dunno, not a visual design guy). That way if you're scanning the list and looking at your floor you can just visually match them all to what you're looking for on the map. If you can show notes from multiple levels, then maybe X/Y/Z.

Ie.:

• 3 | -4 LORD HEINMEITY: unfriendly at start
• 22 | 6 THE MAD STOMPER: find some foot powder

An issue when showing notes from all levels would be collisions between numbers. Ie., which "1" am I looking at? Might only make sense in that case to see the current map. I don't know if this would be a problem in games with multi-map spreads though (like the big M&M overworld).

Sounds like a great feature!

Yeah, good points. I guess I'll just need to try a few things and see how they work in practice with a few games.

 

[Gamezor]

I'm just posting this if there are any retards out there like me who happen to read this thread. I just spent like 15 minutes mystified that I couldn't draw anything on my map until I realized that you have to create a new level on your new map before you can start drawing stuff and the legend shows up on the right. I'm sure that's in the manual somewhere, but I didn't look closely enough.

 

[Rincewind]

It has been brought to my attention that someone has created an ArchLinux package for Gridmonger. Nice one! I will provide official Linux binaries myself too starting with the next release.

About the next release: I started working on it a few days ago and it will contain lots of fixes and some enhancements suggested by people in this thread, plus some handy new features such as wraparound support when nudging maps and moving selections.

It will be probably out next month. I'll keep updating the changelog as I go, so you can check it out to get an idea of the release's scope:

https://github.com/johnnovak/gridmonger/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

 

[Rincewind]

Salathor Preview of the new notes list pane feature:

 

[Jack Slash]

Rincewind Thanks for the amazing work you are doing with Gridmonger! Checking it out right now, and I am impressed with how easy it is to learn and get started.

I haven't tried a mapping program before, so mind if I ask a very basic question? Do I understand correctly that the main idea is to keep Gridmonger open and frequently switch active windows between the program and whatever game I play? I take it there is no autotracking feature to mirror your key presses in a game and move the cursor accordingly, right? Sometimes I see videos of people using Grid Cartographer in parallel with DOSBox to replicate the movement of your adventuring group on the map, so was wondering if something like that is possible.

 

[Rincewind]

Rincewind Thanks for the amazing work you are doing with Gridmonger! Checking it out right now, and I am impressed with how easy it is to learn and get started.

Cheers, glad to hear you're enjoying it man.

I haven't tried a mapping program before, so mind if I ask a very basic question? Do I understand correctly that the main idea is to keep Gridmonger open and frequently switch active windows between the program and whatever game I play? I take it there is no autotracking feature to mirror your key presses in a game and move the cursor accordingly, right? Sometimes I see videos of people using Grid Cartographer in parallel with DOSBox to replicate the movement of your adventuring group on the map, so was wondering if something like that is possible.

Yeah, so on a conceptual level, such a thing is against my vision for the purpose of the program, which is steering people towards playing these games as they were meant to be played—mapping them manually, and getting completely lost from time to time. It's part of the experience and it's supposed to happen.

On a technical level, what GC does is something called Game Link. Basically, all supported emulators have been patched up so GC and the patched emulator can communicate, then they also need to add specific support for each game. It's not just a simple "keypress interception" mechanism, and if you think about, that won't really work (e.g., what if you're in an in-game menu and press the cursor keys there?). That's quite a few steps too far into the auto-mapping territory.

So yeah, everything is possible, but I can say with 100% certainty I won't add such features into Gridmonger as it's very much against my vision (from the front page: "dungeon mapping tool to replace pencil-and-paper mapping when playing old-school computer role-playing games"). Plus it would add tons of complexity and maintenance overhead for something I'm not interested in.

 

[behold_a_man]

and if you think about, that won't really work (e.g., what if you're in an in-game menu and press the cursor keys there?).

Is this really a problem? You could add a special key, unused during normal play (like `) for deactivating the interception and another (like !) for activating the interception process. Finding a proper, still maintained library for intercepting keystrokes might be a bigger obstacle - I tried to implement such a mapper in Node and couldn't find anything still updated and working for X11. As of now, I use pynput and a browser controlled using Selenium for that purpose - which is limited just like a regular browser, but I only have to press a key once.

 

[Rincewind]

Yeah, cross-platform support is another obstacle. As I said, I won't even go there.

 

[Jack Slash]

Rincewind Thanks for the detailed explanation - I'd give you a brofist, but it'll still be a while before I am allowed to do that by the forum.

I'm off to Grimrock 2 to give Gridmonger a nice and proper test run.

 

[Rincewind]

Rincewind Thanks for the detailed explanation - I'd give you a brofist, but it'll still be a while before I am allowed to do that by the forum.

I appreciate the sentiment

I'm off to Grimrock 2 to give Gridmonger a nice and proper test run.

Actually, I'm planning to experiment with an overlay feature for modern games like Grimrock that people usually play in fullscreen. But that won't come anytime soon, maybe next year.

 

[peterb]

Gridmonger is great, thanks for making it.

Has anyone figured out a way to get KB input to gridmonger when another app is in the foreground? Or am I doomed to have to alt-tab when I want to update the map.

 

[Rincewind]

Gridmonger is great, thanks for making it.

Thanks! New version coming... sometime. Hopefully soon

Has anyone figured out a way to get KB input to gridmonger when another app is in the foreground?

Can't do that, it's not supported.

Or am I doomed to have to alt-tab when I want to update the map.

Hey, it's not a bug; it's a feature! That's how you're supposed to use it. Beats moving your hands off the keyboard to grab a pencil and eraser, IMO.

 

[peterb]

A manual errata, and a question.

On the "Advanced Editing" page the manual says:

Press Ctrl+E to enter Nudge Preview Mode

This should be Ctrl+G. (It's correct on the quick reference and in other pages, just not here.)

The question: Is there any way to increase the size of the text and icons? I can zoom into the map (though not as much as I'd like...) but all the text stays at its existing tiny size. My old eyes would love to multiply the font size by about a factor of (checks notes) 5352.3%.

 

[Rincewind]

A manual errata, and a question.

On the "Advanced Editing" page the manual says:

Press Ctrl+E to enter Nudge Preview Mode

This should be Ctrl+G. (It's correct on the quick reference and in other pages, just not here.)

Thanks. Will fix in the new version.

The question: Is there any way to increase the size of the text and icons? I can zoom into the map (though not as much as I'd like...) but all the text stays at its existing tiny size. My old eyes would love to multiply the font size by about a factor of (checks notes) 5352.3%.

Sorry, but no. If you have a general problems with interface font sizes, I'd suggest to use OS-level zooming as I'm sure you'd have the same small interface text problem in pretty much any other program.

I might support UI-scaling in later versions, though (but much later, dont' count on it anytime soon).

 

[peterb]

Perhaps this is a silly question, but what symbol do people use to represent an elevator? I don't see a specific symbol for that (I'm overloading 'entrance door' for this.) Is the best practice to just use an annotation instead?

 

[Rincewind]

Perhaps this is a silly question, but what symbol do people use to represent an elevator? I don't see a specific symbol for that (I'm overloading 'entrance door' for this.) Is the best practice to just use an annotation instead?

Personally, I tend to use a custom ID annotation type with the letter "E".

 

[peterb]

I think even with notes and annotations, representing "forced movement" floors (as found in Wizardry and Labyrinth of Galleria) doesn't quite work well in Gridmonger. Are there arrow glyphs somewhere that I'm missing? In Grid Cartographer I'd represent that like this:

 

[Rincewind]

I think even with notes and annotations, representing "forced movement" floors (as found in Wizardry and Labyrinth of Galleria) doesn't quite work well in Gridmonger. Are there arrow glyphs somewhere that I'm missing? In Grid Cartographer I'd represent that like this:

Well, there are one-way doors as shown below. Are you talking about something else?

 

[peterb]

These aren't doors, but moving floors - think conveyor belts. Stepping on the first tile with the arrow moves you (and potentially also spins you) to the last tile in the sequence. Similar in effect to a teleporter but not quite the same (since you see the motion).

EDIT: Just published a YouTube video specifically about Gridmonger. Enjoy me getting literally everything about your lovely little program wrong.

 

[Rincewind]

These aren't doors, but moving floors - think conveyor belts. Stepping on the first tile with the arrow moves you (and potentially also spins you) to the last tile in the sequence. Similar in effect to a teleporter but not quite the same (since you see the motion).

I see. I haven't encountered moving floors in the cRPG I played to date, but seems like a worthy addition to the upcoming new release.

These will be special floor types that can be rotated.

EDIT: Just published a YouTube video specifically about Gridmonger. Enjoy me getting literally everything about your lovely little program wrong.

It's a very good review, there's nothing factually wrong in it.

Also congrats for getting the spirit of the program and working *with* it, not against it. To quote you from the beginning of your video:

"I map not because I must, I map because I like to map."



I will probably put a link to this on my front page, it's really well done.

 

[S.torch]

Fancy and handy tool. Without the ability to make screenshots the usability gets very limited though.