Lode Runner 2 - 2020

Since having a child and working mostly away from home, not much has happened on LR2. Some stuff was poked at but nothing major was completed.

The main menu & editor escape menus are now loaded from the Original's XUI files. Most of LR2's files are overly complex and filled with useless data and the XUI is no different. It's also got the added bonus of being inconsistent between files.

We were using the custom format and handy drag + drop tool we wrote for MMR to get things going quickly but using that when the game already has a format seems like a waste so we have finally got back to work on getting it to work.

Like we did for MMR, all windows now grey out the background. You'll also notice the main menu has a star field background instead of the original black screen. We could possibly rotate images each launch here.

The only other major change made (aside from integrating the editor) is scaling.

As you can see from the first image, the Original was designed for 800 x 600 and is pillar boxed on a widescreen monitor.

We did receive feedback that there was no need to fix the scaling and it was a waste of time.
My resolution is 2560 x 1440, so the editor is 3.2 x wider & 2.4 x taller, which I think you'll all agree that it allows for editing more than a postage stamp size and makes for a much more productive editor without changing things drastically.

We're also thinking of taking the same approach for the game itself.
Pillar boxing in 2020 is more on the shit side than 'retro'.

The mock-up below shows the HUD centred, as tiling to fit the width will just create a large section of nothing. Still open to ideas with the HUD but for now that's probably what will be done.

Plans for 1st quarter 2020 is to release a full-working editor for Windows, macOS, Linux. You'll be able to edit/create puzzles and load them in the Original game to play.
Currently, the majority of the editor's functions are somewhat working but only cobbled together to make it usable.