XML Spreadsheet -> MMF2 Array Converter

[MuddyMole]

I'm pretty sure Scrabble is an American invention - I remember seeing a TV documentary about it. Apparently half the top competitive scrabble players don't even speak English - they just memorized the dictionary, and in particular, they learn all the 2 letter words - rubbish like "za", which is apparently allowed as an abbreviation of "pizza"?!

Interesting about the word "chance". So when (English) people say "Bon chance!" they're really saying "Good good luck!" (and probably looking like idiots).

I really should know all this, as I got an "A" grade in French at school, and did live and work in France for 6 months - unfortunately, I just forgot how to speak English, without actually picking up any French beyond "Demi mutzig s'il vous plait".

[therickman]

lol !

however you can put your mind at ease regarding the expression "bonne chance" which is perfectly ok !!

This is due to the fact that etymologically the word is closer to the English meaning ( literally : what befalls you ) ; some instances of usage retain this in French...as in " bonne chance"

[therickman]

Hi muddymole ,
your example is great ; I get quite a good picture how everything works.

Now I can get back to working on this project.

erix

[MuddyMole]

A new and improved version of my Array Editor is now available:
http://www.create-games.com/download.asp?id=8360

It opens both XML Spreadsheets (Excel/OpenOffice) & MMF2 Arrays, and can now also save in both formats.
In addition, it has some basic built-in array viewing/editing tools.
Plus, I've fixed some bugs.

[Del_Duio]

Sorry to bring this thread back form the dead, but I had a question for Sketchy / Muddymole: I've been using this program you made to make quick & easy maps for my new game (this thing is awesome, what a good job you've done on it!).

Anyhow, the application runs perfectly on one computer, but on my main one at home it doesn't work and gives me some sort of error like it's missing something (a .dll, perhaps?). I don't have the exact error message on me now however I was wondering if you've ever encountered a problem like that before. This happens when I try to run the XML Spreadsheet -> MMF2 Array Converter .exe.

Also, for ****s and giggles I opened up an XML spreadsheet on this same computer and all the code (unicode?) came up- which had my name and place I work at all through it. Is there anyway to, ah, I dunno NOT have my work, ssn, and daily routine stamped into an XML spreadsheet somehow lol?

Thanks again!

[MuddyMole]

It uses the EasyXML extension, and because of that, it requires msvcp71.dll & msvcr71.dll (as far as I know, they're the only two).
Re: The second part - that's definitely something Excel has done automatically. I would hope there's a setting you can change from within Excel to stop it happening, but I'm not sure where exactly. My converter certainly doesn't preserve any of that information - even just opening the file in the converter and then saving it again (still in xml format), would remove all non-essential data like that (and styling, etc).

[Del_Duio]

Just d/l'd those 2 .dlls, thanks Sketchy!

One more question: Is it possible to somehow make procedural-generated maps using Excel spreadsheets (and then convert those using your app to array files)?

I want to make a dungeon crawler akin to a slightly more involved "Dungeon Dash" and I think if the dungeon floors were all randomized that'd make for a better game.

[MuddyMole]

Excel is really very powerful in the right hands, so I'm pretty sure it would be possible - but it might not be the easiest way. Personally, I think I would find it easier to code something like that in MMF2 (or even Javascript).
I believe "Dungeon Dash" uses the dungeon extension to randomly generate levels - could you not use that, and maybe add extra features on top?

[Jacob]

Dungeon Dash is open source also. Dungeon Dashers is the full commercial version Andy is working on now.

[Del_Duio]

Yeah, I actually talked with the artist who did Dungeon Dash awhile before because I wanted to mod the crap out of it and add new items and stuff like stores to spend all that gold on

The thing is, the surface.mfx extension never worked correctly on my home computer no matter what I tried or where I put it. I put a copy of it in the data folder, the extensions folder, the runtime folder, even the MMF1 folder but no dice. So the .mfa never loads, it just says "cannot load surface.mfx" and that's it. That REALLY sucked because I agree it would have been the best way to learn how to do something like that.

I have an older build of MMF2 though, I think it MIGHT be 248 or something I can't remember. I D/L'd 255 the other day from here but was a bit afraid to update it in case the new builds radically changed something I didn't want changed or screwed with the interface or something weird like that.