Hey David,

I hope You read this post. Tried to find contact info everywhere, but this (though 12 years old), seems to be the only way to reach You.

I wanted to thank You for your great work. Your tileset is the best that happened to my own little ZPG (Zero PLayer Game) game project. Your graphics just fit so perfectly.

I think you might be happy that your work is still of great use for new games.

You can have a look at:
https://epicidlequest.com


Yours,
Klaus

Am Dienstag, 15. Februar 2005 13:54:16 UTC+1 schrieb David Gervais:

On 14 Feb 2005 15:03:02 -0800, "Bill" <wpeterson1@socal.rr.com> wrote:

Hello,

...

Gervais probably did take a lot of his tiles from other projects,
my impression being that he was recruited by Tim Baker to
create tiles for AngbandTk.

It's comments like this that pull me out of lurk mode.. ;)

Time for a little history lesson.. I have always been a fan of roguelike games
and way back when, I found the TK versions of Angband. I played the game for several months (Mainly KAngbandTK my personal favorite) I was using Adam Bolts
tiles and found that they looked fuzzy when played at 32x32 (I believe they were originally made at a scale of 16x16) Well, I first took Adam's bitmap and
slowly began to replace the tiles with new ones that I drew myself (from scratch) I was however basing them on Adam's tiles so they would fit in with the game. My first tiles were the objects, walls, weapons and terrain. When I finished that I contacted Tim Baker and asked if he would like to use them in KAngbandTK, he said yes. I also contacted Adam and let him know I was 'editing' his bitmap and asked if he mined, he didn't and said have fun. Once I finished all the 'objects etc, I decided to tackle the monsters, the first batch being the 'townspeople' I again tried to make them look similar to adams
tiles (only drawn to a scale of 32x32 from the start.) Tim suggested that I start making separate files from Adams and so I did, That's when I chopped the
tiles into the individual tile sets you can find now in the TK versions of Angband. At some point I also made some of the UI widgets that are in the TKBands.

we interrupt this rant with some links..

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/newuploads/1050512585.gif

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/newuploads/1050665451.gif

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/newuploads/1050665571.gif

Those are some of my workscreens that I used when building the various tiles.

..and this is where you can find all of my free tiles, including all the ISO tiles I did for Dungeon Odyssey.

http://pousse.rapiere.free.fr/tome/index.htm

As you see I would build workscreens by making different heads, body parts, etc. I would then grab the pieces and build different monsters. All were drawn
fram scratch, although I started out using Adam's tiles as a guide I soon wandered off the beaten path and made my own. I did make a lot of monster tiles. I thought, that someone would like them and create a version of TKBand that used my tiles and renamed the existing descriptions for the monsters and players to match my tiles. That was a big mistake, I got several e-mails saying "Your monsters don't fit the *band monster list, blah, blah blah.." And
"When are you going to make the missing monsters to complete the set for Z, K,
O and Vanilla?" then I started getting requests for 'custom' tiles for individual 'variants',.. no one seemed interested or wanted to use the tiles I
made to create an all new Variant. I didn't have the time, But I did make a few modules for KAngbandTK and that was kind of fun. Then a guy nammed Aaron Hall contacted me and asked if he could use my tiles in a game he was making, I was thrilled, and he contacted me just when I was in the process of making the ISO versions of my tiles. I agreed and made more tiles and designed the UI
for Dungeon Odyssey and decided to make the UI fit with the look of my tiles. (which I must say have a very 'retro' look to them.) When the game came out, PCGamer actually liked the game, but said the graphics were a little too 'retro' for today's gamers. (I laughed, unknown to the reviewer, he gave me the ultimate compliment. I made the UI look 'retro' on purpose. :)

We interrupt this rant for a not about my ISO tiles..

Something to note about my ISO tiles, they are not 64x64, they are 54x54. I was often asked why I went with this non-standard size. Well, when I mad ethe tiles innitially I wanted to save and use my existing monsters and well, they looked too small on the 64x64 tile size so I srunk the tile size down to 'visually' fit the look and size of the monsters. (Just so you know, I have never been one to 'follow the crowd' I do program in my spare time, and never saw the reasoning behind tiles having to be multiples of 8 ie:16x16 to 32x32 to 64x64 for building tiles. As a programmer I know that I can make my sprites
any size I want, so I did.) Another 'reason' I think my ISO tiles are a better
size than the 'traditionnal' 64x64 is that you can fit more tiles onscreen.

Anyway, I made a full set of tiles, both overhead 32x32 and ISO. I also make these tiles available for free. I hear people saying that there is a lack of 'tiles' available for programmers to use, I think there are lots of tiles, the
problem is that 'most' of the programmers that want to use tiles can't make them themselves and are looking for people to make new tiles that fit their 'game concept' (kind of a vain attitude, but I think I'll adapt it for my tiles too.) I made all these tiles, I think you programmers should find a way to use them and make your 'game' fit my tiles, after all, programmers are a dime a dozen and we artists are a dying and rare breed. ;) just kidding. Everyone has a certain amount of pride in their work, I like my tiles, and know several people that like my tiles and the bottom line is this, if you want to use my tiles 'as is' or edit my tiles that is fine with me.

Well, that's enough history for today, I hope I haven't bored you all to sleep, have a great day, Cheers!

David E. Gervais

P.S. For those that might like to know, Tim Baker is alive and well. I heard from him just before christmas. I for one was relieved to hear from him, I had
thought the worst when he dropped off the net. Happy gamming people.

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