Reply to Re: 16-bit colors, and other things
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Note: I don't know the FreeDink code as well as I know the original Dink engine. Beuc did a terrific job with cleaning up the code for reading the different .dat formats, and the DinkC script interpreter, but besides that, I wouldn't know.
Back to the point: what scratcher said. Dink's status bar and sidebars aren't "over" any playable area at all, so moving the info around wouldn't get you more visible space, it'd just require the game window to be smaller, or a smaller fullscreen resolution.
The gameplay area is 600x400. Of course, because you have the source, you can increase that if you want, but it may be more trouble than it's worth. Maps are stored with a 12x8 array of tile numbers, and tiles are 50x50. Changing the screen size would invalidate the map.dat format, and it would make the existing map editors useless, unless you change those as well.
Tilesets are 600x400 too. Again, 12x8 tiles. This isn't related to the map.dat format as far as I know, but if they're linked, hard.dat will need to be rewritten as well.
Changing the tile size to something other than 50x50 will invalidate hard.dat and you won't be able to use the original tilesets anymore. Which isn't all too bad for your purpose.
While the features you listed are at least somewhat doable in the (Free)Dink engine, I think Someone's right. Once you get the hang of it, and are aware of the restrictions and other oddities, you'll rewrite the entire thing yourself anyway. Alternatively, you can use Novashell, or one of the other engines listed on the page Someone mentioned.
Back to the point: what scratcher said. Dink's status bar and sidebars aren't "over" any playable area at all, so moving the info around wouldn't get you more visible space, it'd just require the game window to be smaller, or a smaller fullscreen resolution.
The gameplay area is 600x400. Of course, because you have the source, you can increase that if you want, but it may be more trouble than it's worth. Maps are stored with a 12x8 array of tile numbers, and tiles are 50x50. Changing the screen size would invalidate the map.dat format, and it would make the existing map editors useless, unless you change those as well.
Tilesets are 600x400 too. Again, 12x8 tiles. This isn't related to the map.dat format as far as I know, but if they're linked, hard.dat will need to be rewritten as well.
Changing the tile size to something other than 50x50 will invalidate hard.dat and you won't be able to use the original tilesets anymore. Which isn't all too bad for your purpose.
While the features you listed are at least somewhat doable in the (Free)Dink engine, I think Someone's right. Once you get the hang of it, and are aware of the restrictions and other oddities, you'll rewrite the entire thing yourself anyway. Alternatively, you can use Novashell, or one of the other engines listed on the page Someone mentioned.
