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Old February 12th, 2024, 01:46 PM
Logrey Logrey is offline
 
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LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 20 ye

(I cross posted this over on Boardgamegeek, but figured more 'Scapers would find it interesting here)

My 3 year old son has recently discovered my Heroscape tiles, and it’s rekindled my love for designing battlefields. Nearly 20 years ago (Sept 2004), I released a battlefield designer called LandSCAPE - which I believe was the first fan-created application for Heroscape? But it had a lot of drawbacks: it was Flash-based and suffered from a lot of Flash’s limitations (no 3D, no external saving of data, etc) Definitely a product of its time. Other fans would create great products to make up for some of these deficiencies (SolidSCAPE, VirtualScape, etc.)

Anyway - I’m a few weeks into a paternity break for our second baby, and I always like to use my time away from "real work" to just have fun and be creative. This time around, I’m choosing to brainstorm and imagine what a LandSCAPE app would look like in 2024.

There would have certain “must’s”. The most important (to me) is I would want it to be fun: to feel like a game, not just a utility. Part of that is getting it on as many platforms as possible. And letting users design with all the input methods we have now: mouse/keyboard, game controllers, touch. It has to be 3D, physics-based, and scale across devices - so things like using lower-poly tiles on mobile platforms to supporting advanced lighting and ray tracing on higher end ones. The data format would need to be saveable, shareable, and open to other developers.

And then there’s the “nice to have’s”, which are probably the most fun to explore. Things like a multiplayer mode, where you can create battlefields with friends, in real time. Or instead of just drawing with single tiles, how about defining your own custom groups of tiles (ie, a cool tower) that can be saved and placed just as easily as a regular tile. Or support for new spatial headsets like the Quest and the Vision Pro. And how about support for other games and other hex-based tile systems like the upcoming Source system.

For the last few weeks, I've been exploring a lot of these through a technical prototype. Its working name is LandSCAPE 20 - and here's a fast-cut highlight reel of where I'm at. Please note - everything in this video is temporary. There’s been zero UI/UX work (user interface/user experience). Even the 2D buttons and 3D tiles are clearly placeholder art. Right now, this project is just about exploring the creative and technical possibilities.


I’m sharing all this now simply because I think the community might get a kick out of it. It's an exciting time to be thinking about Heroscape again. But full disclosure: this may never become a released product and my kids might be the only users. It really depends on what happens with Heroscape in 2024. It would be a lot of work to complete this and support a 20 year old game - whose tiles are becoming more expensive and more brittle every day (RIP a bunch of my road tiles…) So I’m anxiously waiting to see what Renegade does with it.

With that said, I hope the old timers who spent hours designing top-down maps with the old tools, will find something to smile about here.

- Logrey
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Old February 12th, 2024, 01:50 PM
Logrey Logrey is offline
 
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

And since the highlight reel was just a bunch of quick cuts, here are two more in-depth videos showing off some features.

To start off, I figured I’d focus on something that didn’t even exist 20 years ago (when I wrote the original LandSCAPE) and that’s Spatial battlefield design. (fyi “spatial computing” is a new-ish industry term that basically wraps up all old terms of AR, VR and Mixed Reality). In this case, I’m using a Meta Quest 3 with color passthrough video to design a battlefield on my dining room table.

This is a live capture from my headset, so it’s kind of shaky and filled with a lot of my voice, rattling off what I’m doing. You’ve been warned (on both accounts..)

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Old February 12th, 2024, 01:50 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

And then one more. A big thing that interests me in using spatial headsets for LandSCAPE is using it on the day of play. Twenty years ago, the only way to setup a battlefield was to grab a printout or PDF, and to begin the slow back-and-forth between map and physical tiles. I really think that spatial headsets (and in the future, things like smaller spatial glasses) will be a huge boon for game setup: instead of glancing back and forth to a map, the spatial headset walks a user through every step: telling them what tile is needed, and where it goes (not unlike a Lego manual)


Build Notes: Right now, I’m advancing to the next tile by clicking on the left controller, but I think the final solution would be full hand tracking and gesture recognition (ie after placing a tile, the method to advance to the next tile will be something like a pinch in the air, or a tap on the last placed tile. No controllers needed.)

Also - the current effect is very basic and a bit ugly, but again: it’s just a tech prototype. Something much for visually interesting and obvious would be in place for an actual product.
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Old February 12th, 2024, 02:37 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

This is AWESOME! I'll be checking in on this to see if it ever gets released because the community really does need an app like this. Virtualscape is fine for me since I have a PC, but I've heard countless people ask if a map builder is available as an app or on Mac. Definitely will depend on what Renegade's/Source's plans are in the future, but I'm glad someone out there has got the ball rolling! Great work!
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Old February 12th, 2024, 03:15 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

Woah that was so cool! No more making my map wrong. The controls look so intuitive and looks like most of the basics are done with models and terrain types.

Maybe one addition would be personal inventory amounts as I do not have that much lava or ice and keeping track would be nice. So many times I've tried to build something only to realize I don't have enough to do what I want to do.

I can just picture playing online scale with a headset now and building maps IRL via headset. This looks super promising keep it up!

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Old February 12th, 2024, 03:24 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

This is amazing! Would be really cool to be able to add custom terrain, there's a lot out there!
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Old February 12th, 2024, 04:15 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

This is incredible @Logrey ! I'm excited to see you continue to develop and work on this. This is definitely a need for our community!

Also, I noticed you're in IA...me too! where at? If you're close enough, we could meet up for some Heroscape, or even carpool to some tournaments or something

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Old February 12th, 2024, 04:21 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

Wow, Logrey! What a difference 20 years make! The potential for what you're showing here is phenomenal.

This old timer was initially intrigued by HeroScape's interlocking, stackable terrain and your original LandSCAPE design was a game changer for map building enthusiasts. It helped explode map and scenario making by providing a shareable, standardized format (and I had so much fun with it).

No matter what happens with LandSCAPE, I wanted to thank you everything you brought to the HeroScape community.

-ODB
P.S. - Congrats on your growing family!

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Old February 13th, 2024, 12:08 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

AWESOME. Posted this on reddit too. One thing would be great is if you can import/export to any or all of these formats:
1. Your old LandSCAPE format
2. PDF
3. Google Docs (for online play)
3. TableTop Simulator
4. Virtualscape hsc format
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Old February 13th, 2024, 03:39 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

Please make this a reality or work with Renegade to make it more "official"

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Old February 13th, 2024, 06:55 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

Best of luck with this project! A new map design program would be a huge boon to the community, since Virtualscape is starting to show its age.
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Old February 13th, 2024, 10:25 PM
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Re: LandSCAPE 20 - reimagining a Heroscape battlefield app 2

Very awesome stuff. I am still old school Virtual HS in map building, but have to use my old computer to get quality images. But, I concur with Tmoney9 that you see if Renegade is interested. Just dreaming for you ... it could lead to something for you. Who knows what they have in the plans. Very cool and I applaud the work - even though I don't quite get it, yet.
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