When I was in high school, I was lucky to be in what I now believe to be the golden age of video games. I spent entire summers developing custom maps in Warcraft III and playing all of the awesome custom maps in Garrys Mod. Today, these types of games are gone. The new battlefield games no longer allow mods, blizzard has fallen into a downward spiral, and Dota still has no map editor.
Naturally, the game that I am creating in JMonkey attempts to bring back my favorite genre of game. Instead of only releasing a map editor, I am creating both a map editor and a custom map with a single name.
When designing a custom game in my system, there are two files that you must create. The first is a Cubestrukt data file with all of the voxel data, created in the embedded voxel map editor. The second is the GameScript which provides data for all unittypes, items, spells, and structures. Structures are actually made of voxels and spells can be given predefined requirements and effects. This allows mirrors the data editor in the warcraft map editor.
This is no impossible idea, I have this system all coded and have a working playable demo that performs well. I need to add more art, polish, and a bit more gamescript data. I will keep you all posted!
Andy
