Cogmind Development Tools?

[Nikolai]

I know this is kind of an open question, Kyzrati, but what tools have you been using to create Cogmind?  I love the animation bits, and I'd love to use RexPaint to construct screens and get a feel for what's needed to translate from concept to useful software.  I was going to go with the Python libtcod library, but I don't yet know how easy that is to integrate with sound or create GUI animations, or if you've found other things that are more helpful.

Thanks in advance for any response you can offer.

[Kyzrati]

Hi Nikolai, you can totally use libtcod to make a game like Cogmind. I use my own SDL-based engine (C++), but the first roguelike prototype I ever made was done in libtcod (in combination with the Umbra framework, though I don't think anyone uses that anymore), and it included animation and whatnot just like you see in Cogmind. I've seen other devs do amazing things with it, too. In the end I prefer using my own solutions since they're more tailored to my specific coding habits (and I like the idea of having written as much of my own engine as possible--understanding what's under the hood and all rather than trying to decipher others' code...).

I put together a pretty comprehensive list of my main tools here, actually

[Nikolai]

Thanks for this!  I, too, am a bit of a control freak, and would value the opportunity to learn what's going on by constructing it myself.  I'm just in the middle of a cost/benefit analysis as far as developing goes, and am trying to figure out the best way to proceed to get what I want.

[Nikolai]

Yeah -- it looks like all the links for Umbra are dead.  I'll hunt around for another sound library to run alongside libtcod, I think.  Thanks again for your input!

[Kyzrati]

For sfx you can still just use SDL_sound.

More help incoming: I've uploaded a copy of Umbra if you'd like to take a look at it. It's the version I was playing around with back then, apparently five years ago!

[Nikolai]

Thanks so much!  It looks like I have some experimenting to do.