www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Dungeon...
I'll update this thread soon with a brief walkthrough of how to use all the various features of the mod. However, if you're familiar with DC and if you've used Vassal before it should be pretty easy to figure out. [Hint: just don't forget to click the Red button at the top of the page when you're finished your turn!]
If you find any bugs (not unexpected, since this is my first full module designed from the ground up), then please let me know and I'll try to fix them asap.
I hope that this tool will help to maintain interest and feed more life into the game we all love!
I installed it and I've been playing around with it tonight. Nice job on the cards and creatures!
It would be nice if:
-tapping affected both the card and the creature
-spawning a mini would apply the same number to it if you have numbered the card
-multiples of creature cards were automatically assigned numbers
-there was somewhere for discarded cards so that you don't have to delete them
-you could right click your decks to check how many cards are remaining
-you could save your creature and order decks as one file and it would include your preferred commander and tiles
-there was more space on the board for creature cards (I may just need to play around with the zoom)
-deckbuilding was easier - on time i hit undo too much and it messed up the deck and I had to restart the module
-laying out tiles was a phase at the beginning and then you could lock them in, so that you can play around with where the walls are etc. without having to trial and error undo to delete the tiles (after you place them down you can't select them anymore after you place another tile)
-there was a status similar to tapping to indicate whether or not the creature had activated yet
-in your guide you had some suggested screen layouts as I'm running 1920x1080 and I'm still struggling to fit everything in.
It would be nice if:
-tapping affected both the card and the creature
-spawning a mini would apply the same number to it if you have numbered the card
-multiples of creature cards were automatically assigned numbers
-you could right click your decks to check how many cards are remaining
-deckbuilding was easier - on time i hit undo too much and it messed up the deck and I had to restart the module
As far as I know, there is no way to do these things on Vassal. Vassal is quite a simple system, and there are limits to what it can do. Actually, I tried to find ways of doing each of these things during development, and I couldn't find anything that worked. It's quite normal on Vassal to have to do a bit of clicking...the more you play, the more natural it will become.
I didn't design this module as a deckbuilder, though I guess it can work for that in a pinch. If you want a deckbuilding program check out the one designed by Frankp77 (post #4 on community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...). It will probably work best to build your deck via FrankP's program, and then load those cards into Vassal with the Save/Load function. The Save/Load function is really just there so that you can save time by loading pre-saved decks, rather than pulling out each of your 42+ cards every game. It won't work all that well for design (which frequenty involves adding and subtracting cards repeatedly).
-there was somewhere for discarded cards so that you don't have to delete them
Good idea; it would be useful for the Reinforcement Order Card. I really don't want to clutter up the interface though, so I'll have to give it some thought.
-you could save your creature and order decks as one file and it would include your preferred commander and tiles
Again, Vassal is quite a simple program...I'm not aware of any way to do this, though, again, I tried to make it happen during development.
-there was more space on the board for creature cards (I may just need to play around with the zoom)
This is another good comment, and it's useful feedback. Part of the difficulty in designing this mod is that I wanted the card text to be clearly visible on the screen, which required loading the cards in a fairly big format (5x7 squares) rather than a smaller format (3x5 squares would be ideal). I'll look into adjusting all the cards to be smaller, which would open up more space on the board.
The other option is to add more empty squares to the map, and then have the players Zoom Out more so that they could still see the entire map. I almost did that, but then you'd have the problem of not being able to see the minis on the board very clearly...and the minis are kinda essential to the gameplay.
I'll continue to listen to feedback in this regard; if it continues to be clear that the current board size is too small, it won't be much work to enlarge it.
-laying out tiles was a phase at the beginning and then you could lock them in, so that you can play around with where the walls are etc. without having to trial and error undo to delete the tiles (after you place them down you can't select them anymore after you place another tile)
Actually, you can already do this. The tiles are designed to be immobile once you've placed them...this feature prevents you from deleting a whole tile when you're just trying to delete a single piece or a marker.
Press "SHIFT" while you L-click on a tile...that tile will be selected/highlighted in pink...now you can rotate, move, and delete that tile as normal. Once you select a new piece, the tile will "lock" into place again.
-there was a status similar to tapping to indicate whether or not the creature had activated yet
Doesn't tapping serve this function?
-in your guide you had some suggested screen layouts as I'm running 1920x1080 and I'm still struggling to fit everything in.
Yes, there is a problem with representing Dungeon Command on a limited play space (even on a big computer monitor), because there are so many elements (Decks, Creature Cards, Order Cards, etc), and all of those elements need a place.
Part of the idea with the Player Hands is that you can open them up (F1, F2, etc) and then close them with a single button press, which makes it easier to shift between your Hand and the minis on the board. People have often commented that Dungeon Command takes up a lot of space on a table...the same is true when it is played on a screen.
As I mentioned above, I'll consider a couple of different options for fixing this problem:
--Re-size the cards (but lose text readability) or...
--Re-size the boards (but lose clarity about the minis and tiles in play).
I'm open to suggestions here. Is it important that we can read all the text on the cards? Or is it more important that we can see the minis clearly on the board? My current-but-not-long-term solution (which not everyone has access to) is to use a dual-monitor setup...it works great for me.
I saw the deckbuilder thread and it is excellent. I usually do mine in text files from memory but I can see how the excell file would be awesome if you need to keep track of a different amounts of minis (I only have one of each box and no singles so it's easy). One thing I'm really looking forward to re:vassal is being free of the physical restrictions and being able to run really crazy "expensive" decks with 4x goblin archers or drow wizards etc. Saving and loading functionality is fine imo as long as you're playing with someone you trust not to put more than 4 copies of something in or less than 30 cards etc.
I suppose another thing people could do re:order cards is leave them on the "stack" pile and just keep covering them up. Obviously doesn't work for creatures though.
Interface is a difficult problem for sure as it is a "big" game. Ultimately if DC were "properly" ported to PC by a computer game development studio I'm sure that there would be a vastly improved UI - there are tons of ways to do this and other computer games would be drawn on for inspiration. Obviously that's not what vassal is and I'm sure nobody is expecting that so we just have to deal with the limited space available. Thanks for the hotkeys with regards to that (F1, F2)
Also thanks for the hotkeys to rotate the board pieces after losing control of them (again I'm new to vassal)
As I said before all in all great job now I can play DC with friends over skype and that's not something I could do before!
I'm very open to suggestions; I'll always try to see if I can find a way to make them work.
I'm especially still open to suggestions regarding the size/space issue: I'd like to know if people would prefer 1) smaller cards, 2) an enlarged board, or 3) things stay as they are. I could just "make the call" myself, but I'd rather wait and see what people would prefer the most. Is it important to be able to read the card text easily, or do people just have their physical cards with them anyway and so it's unimportant? I could go either way on it.
And seriously, I've found that it's very helpful to have a second monitor!
I was actually thinking it might be a good idea to set up some sort of Vassal Tournament of some sort. I think the game is very playable over Vassal...obviously it will always be more fun to play in person, but playing DC on Vassal is far better than playing no DC at all. We just need to start some momentum for online play.
Is this project still up? I tried the link in the first post but the page didn't load.
I just re-checked it and it worked fine for me. If you have any trouble please send me a PM and I'll see if I can help.