A Tutorial to making custom scenarios

Latest revision as of 21:20, 3 September 2013

A sample of player made custom scenarios

Introduction

Custom scenarios are a feature of the Card Hunter game universe. Players are given free rein to design custom game boards with the board editor and setup scenarios to enjoy stress free tabletop-like games with friends or other players. You can play with your own multiplayer party or take on the role of monsters. Make escort missions or King of the Hill battle scenarios. Decimate countless mob waves or survive single character challenges. As of writing, custom scenarios support only single player vs AI and single player vs single player custom games. The custom scenario functionality is steadily growing and future work into co-operative modes and custom monsters are expected.

Building a simple custom board

This guide introduces the steps required to making a simple custom scenario in Card Hunter. Custom scenarios are found in the Multiplayer Lobby when you click on the Create Custom Game icon (Fig.1). After clicking on the icon, you will be presented with a user interface. Figure 2 shows the Setup Custom Scenario user interface (CSUI). There are a multitude of settings and buttons in the CSUI. While it may look intimidating at first glance, in actual fact, it is fairly straightforward and simple to use. This tutorial will take the reader through board creation and scenario creation right up to playing a custom scenario with the AI. We first set off by designing the custom scenario in an outline form. What type of scenario to create: Single character challenge on open type board with some obstacles. What type of monsters to play against: Zombies ! What type of party to play with: Single character from the multiplayer party Time estimated to create the scenario: Not more than 30 minutes

Fig. 1: The 'Create Custom Game' icon

Fig. 2: Setup Custom Scenario User Interface

We start by making a new board. Click on the Create button (Fig.3) to make a new board. Gary will prompt with a warning, click Continue to load the board editor. The board editor contains all tools required to make a custom board. The Layers menu in the top right corner is the primary level menu. Clicking any of the buttons open a sub menu found in the top left corner. For example, clicking on the Table button opens the Table Layer sub menu as shown in Figure 4. Note that all campaign games are played on a wooden table and all multiplayer games (including all MP and SP custom scenarios) are on green felt. Hence, this guide will not touch on the topic of Table Layers. The bottom right corner of the board editor is reserved for the File menu. You can create/open/save a board here. The Close button exits the board editor. We will not cover all functions of the editor in this guide. The interested reader is advised to explore and experiment at his/her own leisure. To start off, let's lay down some tiles. Click on the Tiles button in the top right Layers menu. The leftmost menu now switches to a Tile Layer menu. Click on the Tile Palette to show all available tiles. Go to the dropdown menu on the right and click on it to activate the dropdown list. Choose Forest to load the forest tile palettes (Fig. 5). Choose the ForestGrass Random open tile by clicking on it. The palette menu will close and the mouse cursor now has the chosen tile attached. Time to make the board ! Click anywhere to lay a tile. Continue until you have five by five forest terrains on the table (Fig. 6). If you have made a mistake anywhere, do not fret ! Click on Clear Brush from the Tile Layer menu, open the tile palette again and choose the Eraser (top leftmost) tile. Click over any unwanted tile to delete the forest. After you are done laying down the forest tiles, it time to add in some obstacles ! Open the tile palette again, navigate to the forest tiles and click on ForestBoulder Random Blocked. Drop the boulder tiles over any of the forest tiles. This creates blocked terrains in the board. Figure 7 shows a semi-completed five by five board terrain.		Fig. 3: Create a board
		Fig. 4: Board editor
Fig. 5: Forest Palette	Fig. 6: Laying down tiles	Fig. 7: Finishing the board

We are close to finishing the custom board for good. Now its time to place the board edges. Click on Lower Doodads in the Layers menu. Check the Snap to grid option and Place multiple option in the Lower Doodads Layer menu. Click on Place Doodad to display the lower doodad palette. Choose the board edge doodad (top row, third tile) and click on forest tiles on the edges to place lower doodads. Manually delete unwanted doodads using the Delete Doodads button. Next, spawn points are needed for the game to place characters and monsters. Click on Spawns in the Layers menu. Click on Player 0, facing North in the Spawn Layer menu and click on a forest tile. A red circle with an orientation indicated by a straight line is shown over a tile. This sets the spawn point for the single character challenger. Since this is a single player challenge, there is only one Player 0 spawn. Click on Player 1, choose appropriate facing and click on three other forest tiles. These set the spawn points for the monsters. You can remove unwanted spawn points by clicking None button and clicking over the offending spawn. The last step ! Just as there are spawn points for units, markers for dead units also need to be added. Click on Upper Doodads in the Layers menu. Place a red marker 1 and three blue markers (1, 2, 3) around the sides of the boards. Remember to click on Save in the lower right File menu and save the board as forest_challenge. Click on Close in the File menu to return to the Multiplayer lobby.
Fig. 8: Placing Lower Doodads	Fig. 9: Placing Spawn Points	Fig. 10: Placing Markers

Building the custom scenario

Once the custom board is built, its time to setup the custom scenario. Click on the Create Custom Game icon (Fig.1) to activate the CSUI. Type in Forest Challenge in the name of the custom scenario. Next, click on Import and bring in the forest_challenge board made in the board editor. Activate the dropdown menu in the Audio box and select FOREST. Move on down to the Opponent options and check Is AI. Activate the Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3 dropdown menus and select Zombies1, Zombies2, Zombies3 respectively. The custom scenario is complete. You should get similar settings as shown in Figure 11. Click on Save As... to save the custom scenario. Play the game by clicking on Create Game button in the lower right. ENJOY !!!

Fig. 11: Setting up the Forest Challenge scenario

Fig. 12: Playing the Forest Challenge custom scenario

Advanced custom boards and custom scenarios

This guide presents a step-by-step approach towards making a very simple custom board and custom scenario. There are many other features of the board editor and scenario editor which are not explained in depth. The interested reader is highly advised to visit the in-game forums and other excellent threads on player made custom scenarios. Some links of interest are presented below:

• Custom Scenario Editor Interface Guide
• Custom Board Editor Interface Guide
• Blog entry on Card Hunter
• Some collection of player made custom scenarios
• Kalin's Custom Scenario Editor Tutorial
• Lance's video tutorial on the Board editor
• Card Hunter Dev Diary #11