Basic Game Box Creation ?

Yor · Post by **Yor** » 07 Feb 2013, 21:02

Hi,
I followed all of the sample ZunTzu 'how to create a game box' to the letter; added a map, and I made sure the DPI matched the properties of the JPG's.
I have counter sheets (front and back) and followed the recipe to the letter, and I've rechecked this (maybe 20 times) over 2 days.
Every time that I try to open ZunTzu it just crashes immediately and sends a report to ZunTzueverytime whenever I try to load this game box.
I'm stumped, please help me. I'm working on such basic things that I can't understand why it's failing every time. Really hoping that some of you can help me with this ?
Many Thanks,
Roy.

btrhoads · Post by **btrhoads** » 07 Feb 2013, 21:54

Are you double clicking the .ztb file to run it or loading ZunTzu and accessing your game box through the file menu? When I try to do the first option, my new game boxes behave similar to yours and I get an error message.

If it is the second option, you can post your .xml file contents here so we can take a look.

madDdog67 · Post by **madDdog67** » 09 Feb 2013, 20:17

I'm having the same problem. I even tried to reverse engineer an existing module, and simply change the name & copyright info. I get the "Wrong local header code " error.

I started with the OP NIWY (War Storm Series) module, and just tried to change the module name. Here is my xml file contents:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?>
<game-box
	name="JJ Test gamebox"
	description="I don't have a clue."
	copyright="2013"
	startup-scenario="Demo.zts">
	icon="icon.bmp">
	<dice-hand>
		<dice count="1" color="000000" pips="ffffff" />
		<dice count="1" color="ffffff" pips="000000" />
	</dice-hand>
	<map name="Map" image-file="map.jpg" resolution="300 dpi" />
	<map name="Scenario" image-file="scenario.png" resolution="150 dpi" />
	<map name="Chart 1" image-file="charts 1.png" resolution="150 dpi" />
	<map name="Chart 2" image-file="charts 2.png" resolution="150 dpi" />
	<map name="Map" image-file="map" resolution="300 dpi" />
<counter-sheet name="Counters"
		front-image-file="front.png" front-resolution="300 dpi"
		back-image-file="back.png" back-resolution="300 dpi">
		<counter-section rows="12" columns="8"
			front-left="56" front-top="0" front-right="1544" front-bottom="2231"
			back-left="56" back-top="0" back-right="1544" back-bottom="2231" shadow="0" />
		<counter-section rows="1" columns="7"
			front-left="15" front-top="2259" front-right="1583" front-bottom="2482"
			back-left="15" back-top="2259" back-right="1583" back-bottom="2482" shadow="0" />

I took the starting scenario file and renamed it "Demo" to match what it says in the game box.

btrhoads · Post by **btrhoads** » 09 Feb 2013, 21:07

How are you running the game box?

btrhoads · Post by **btrhoads** » 09 Feb 2013, 21:12

Intially, there is a problem here:

startup-scenario="Demo.zts">
icon="icon.bmp">

I am not sure what you are trying to do here, but to simplify the situation, delete 'icon="icon.bmp">' and then try again.

madDdog67 · Post by **madDdog67** » 10 Feb 2013, 02:56

btrhoads wrote:Intially, there is a problem here:

startup-scenario="Demo.zts">
icon="icon.bmp">

I am not sure what you are trying to do here, but to simplify the situation, delete 'icon="icon.bmp">' and then try again.

the icon is for the little picture that shows up in the list when you browse the files to launch the gamebox.

I deleted it, but I'm still getting the same error. I played around with it for a while to no avail.

Can you launch a module without a pre-loaded scenario? I can't even get that to work.

btrhoads · Post by **btrhoads** » 10 Feb 2013, 03:14

You have to have an initial scenario. In your case, Demo.zts.

You can email me your .ztb file so I can run it on my end. It is very difficult to diagnose a problem if you can't see all the files. btrhoads@hotmail.com. Let me know if you send them, so I know to check my email.

Oh, and my earlier question about how you are running the game box. Are you double clicking the file or loading ZunTzu and accessing it through the file menu?

Yor · Post by **Yor** » 15 Feb 2013, 23:33

btrhoads wrote:Are you double clicking the .ztb file to run it or loading ZunTzu and accessing your game box through the file menu? When I try to do the first option, my new game boxes behave similar to yours and I get an error message.

If it is the second option, you can post your .xml file contents here so we can take a look.

sorry for late reply, was on holiday all last week.

To confirm, I followed the Zun Tzu sample from the support page identically. After a bunch of playing around with it, I decided to remove the second map and the map started to work (however, 2 maps are in the support example, but I absolutely cannot get that example to work). So I now have a working map. But the counters (again, following the example *exactly* as on the support page) does not work. I start the map and there are no counters (unless there is a key function to pull up counters that I'm not aware of with Zun Tzu ? please let me know if I'm missing something there).

Here is my XML. To keep it simple, I stripped everything down to a single block of counters, even with this I see no counters when I start the game-box. Any advice from people that have built games would be great.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?>
<game-box
	name="TestGame"
	description="Test Game Box"
	copyright="2013"
	startup-scenario="Start1.zts">
	<dice-hand type="D6">
		<dice count="2" color="ff0000" pips="000000" />
	</dice-hand>
	<map name="Map1" image-file="Map1.jpg" resolution="96 dpi" />
	<counter-sheet name="Counters1"
		front-image-file="Counters1a.jpg" front-resolution="200 dpi"
		back-image-file="Counters1b.jpg" back-resolution="200 dpi">
		<counter-section rows="10" columns="6"
			front-left="16" front-top="10" front-right="550" front-bottom="903"
			back-left="581" back-top="13" back-right="1112" back-bottom="907" />
	</counter-sheet>
</game-box>

Many thanks,
Roy.

btrhoads · Post by **btrhoads** » 16 Feb 2013, 15:28

To get a more complete picture, can you post the xml for Start1.zts as well?

Yor · Post by **Yor** » 16 Feb 2013, 23:06

btrhoads wrote:To get a more complete picture, can you post the xml for Start1.zts as well?

Hi, sure, I also sent it to your email posted in the above, but here is the .zts
Many thanks for having a look at this !

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"?>
<game
	game-box="TestGame"
	scenario-name="Start1"
	scenario-description="1234"
	scenario-copyright="2013">
	<layout board="Map1" />
</game>

Bill Barrett · Post by **Bill Barrett** » 17 Feb 2013, 00:26

Yor,

You need to add the line <layout board="Counters1" />

After:

<layout board="Map1" />

Regards, Bill.

btrhoads · Post by **btrhoads** » 17 Feb 2013, 03:07

That is exactly what I was looking to check.

Bill is correct. You have to identify each resource in the scenario that will be used by the scenario.

The game file associates the details of the resources to an id and then you reference that id in each of the scenarios that uses the resource. If you have any other issues while figuring out the process, just let us know. Someone here will help you.

Yor · Post by **Yor** » 17 Feb 2013, 12:36

btrhoads wrote:That is exactly what I was looking to check.

Bill is correct. You have to identify each resource in the scenario that will be used by the scenario.

The game file associates the details of the resources to an id and then you reference that id in each of the scenarios that uses the resource. If you have any other issues while figuring out the process, just let us know. Someone here will help you.

Excellent, thanks guys, works now !

I've just rechecked the Support page and although it discusses adding counters on page 2, when it discuses the required .zts, the counters tag is *missing* from that description on page 3. Maybe that should be revised slightly so that the game box example discussed is complete and consistent. http://www.zuntzu.com/create_gamebox-3.htm

Is there more detailed documentation for the xml setup somewhere ? The Create Gamebox page is excellent with its very concise and quick run through (but with the bug of the missing counter tag on page 3), but is there more detailed documentation including all possible features ? I've been hunting for something more in depth, but not found anything.

Bill Barrett · Post by **Bill Barrett** » 17 Feb 2013, 13:45

Try here:

http://www.zuntzu.com/gamebox-grammar.htm

Regards, Bill.

Yor · Post by **Yor** » 18 Feb 2013, 00:33

Bill Barrett wrote:Try here:

http://www.zuntzu.com/gamebox-grammar.htm

Regards, Bill.

Thanks Bill, that's very useful.

Regarding the counters that I have now created, I have a problem that the counters are huge (covering 2-3 hexes of the gameboard map).
I thought this might relate to the dpi tag in the xml so I altered those for board and counter, but no matter what changes I make there, the counters are huge (in fact, alteriig dpi seems to make no difference to the relative sizes of map / counters).

Do you know how to change the relative size of the counters so that when they are pulled to the map, they fit inside a single hex on the gameboard ? (specifically I need to reduce the counters in size).
My counter sheet is 1581x2013 pixels and is 200 dpi
map is 2485x2178 pixels and is 96 dpi

oh, also, is there a way to bulk move all counters to the Map so that I can save a game setup ? I can only seem to move 1 counter at a time into the Map tab, quite time consuming to pull 300 counters onto the board (obviously, I can create a .zts once they are on there, but I'm hoping there's a quick way to get all counters into the Map view ?).

Regards,
Roy.