Will there be a level editor?

How does one go parsing sprites.dat and if so.. putting it back? Is it a messy, command-line driven process?

It'd be amazing to put in a real Juni and some npc's. I mean, they all seem to work on tiny lil nub legs and bodies. Is every animal shoved into that file?

I've found and slightly modified a Python script to extract all PNGs from Sprites.dat. Putting them all together on Linux would be as simple as using 'cat'.
However, adding new Sprites probably won't work, as the data about where to find each frame seems to be hard-coded in the game.

Attached a Python script for extracting the World.bin.

It's quite a simple format. It's just this pattern repeated until EOF:

• NUL-terminated string containing the filename. Always in format "<coordinate> <type>" e.g. "1,1 Script", "40,40 Objects"
• 4 byte integer containing the file size
• [File Size] bytes of data

Change the extension to .py and either run the file in the same directory as World.bin (it should create an "extracted/" subdir) or import it and run """unpackWorldBin("World.bin", "extracted/")"""

Unfortunately it's not very useful at the moment. I've found it easier to just open World.bin directly in Notepad++ (or any other editor that doesn't mess with the format of binary data) and just ctrl+F to the desired location.

Nice job there!

Unfortunately it's not very useful at the moment. I've found it easier to just open World.bin directly in Notepad++ (or any other editor that doesn't mess with the format of binary data) and just ctrl+F to the desired location.

If you want to edit it by hand, you'll still have to update the size of the various sections, so if you make a script to put things back together it may be handy.

Here's hoping an editor also comes out for PS.  Unfortunately, I find that very unlikely.

Having emulated rpg-maker titles on some consoles, I'm not sure how useful that would actually be. Console-based level-editors/game-makers tend to end up as a very slow, awkward way to reorder existing game content; it sounds like a lot of work for very little gain, although this is only half-educated guesswork.

^ Well, you can attach a keyboard and mouse to the PS3, so the only differences would be in file management (that could be handled by the editor itself) and the ways to gather artwork for your level. But yeah, probably too much effort unless they think they can monetize it via the store.

Its unlikely that there will be a PS version of the editor.

I was going to put these under a spoiler, but they're kind of compact because of the way the forum handles quotes, is that too long for a quote list or no?

Anyway, I don't really see why it wouldn't be possible to have an editor on the PS3 version of the game. I'm not sure how different the PS3 code is compared to the PC version, so if it would require being recoded from scratch then yeah, I can see how that would be a problem, but otherwise the fact that you have two controls sticks, a directional pad, and shoulder buttons for quick array swapping, control wouldn't be an issue as long as it was well thought through.

The biggest problem would be custom content and sharing. I'm not sure if it's possible since I've never seen a game do it, but since games can write .PNG files there's a small chance they might be able to read them too, which is obviously a way to handle custom tile set support, but also a possible way to import/export levels (A game called Voxatron (or was it Voxeltron?) managed to save 3D voxel-based worlds as photo files with long bar codes to represent all the in game data, and also have a cool thumbnail on every one).

I mean you could also just put up a server for levels, but that sounds really expensive and not worth it.

If you can figure out a good way to do sharing I think a PS3 editor is completely in the realms of possibility doablility.

Soooo...I guess there will never be a Level Editor. That's a real shame.

I was introduced to Nifflas' games (and this forum) because of the editing capabilities of KS. I imagine that KS did the same for many other people too. I think its because Nifflas was an indie game developer who created an amazing stepping stone for others who wanted to do the same.

With zero chance of future editors, that unique and amazing thing is gone from Nifflas' work. 

Soooo...I guess there will never be a Level Editor. That's a real shame.

I was introduced to Nifflas' games (and this forum) because of the editing capabilities of KS. I imagine that KS did the same for many other people too. I think its because Nifflas was an indie game developer who created an amazing stepping stone for others who wanted to do the same.

With zero chance of future editors, that unique and amazing thing is gone from Nifflas' work. 

I don't understand, where are you coming from with this?

Soooo...I guess there will never be a Level Editor.

Technically speaking there's Nifflas's own Level Editor already available (and my own incomplete editor); what's really missing is explicit support for third party Levels.

I was under the impression that Nifflas was not releasing his editor because it was too difficult to use.  Is there a level editor that is similar in usability to the old KS editor???

Nifflas sort of released it in the end. I don't know if anyone's working to make it more usable, but I doubt it's a priority now.

My Level Editor is made like the KS editor, but it can't be said to be 'usable'. I've stopped woking on it; the Java code is included with the download just in case anyone wanted to use it.

Ahh... I see.  Maybe I got scared away by the "It's not at all intended for anyone but myself" line. 

I'm still intending to do a user-friendly editor, but there's other stuff I'm working on, including getting my PhD.

Very nice, may I digress for a second and ask what in?

In computational math. I'm little more than a month before the final presentation.
As for the editor, probably in Lazarus. I think Great Work would be a good starting point for the editor.

Cool.  So, are you saying the editor would work for the Great Work?  I did notice how similar the designs and engines are.