MazeHelper BETA - new app for TeaseMe writers!

[Nezhul]

Greetings.
Everyone loves Maze teases. But they are a real pain in the ass to make. Well, not so much anymore!

With this app you can simply draw your maze in Excel document, place traps, make intersections, and even make PORTALS that will link two places on your map together! And with one press of a button my app will turn your map into a ready TeaseMe script.

NOTE: My antivirus triggers a false-positive on it. I googled and apparently it's a common problem for delphi. It's a FALSE positive, all this app will ever do is open an Excel file and process it.

All the notes and instructions are in the "Readme" file that I included.
Note, that this is a BETA, that's why some functions are off and interface is crummy.

All comments and questions go to this thread, don't PM me unless I don't reply for 2 days.
Feedback/ideas appreciated, but I'm lazy-ass so maybe they will never come into being. If I drop the project I'm ready to provide source for an enthusiast, but RIGHT NOW I will not, so don't ask.

http://dfiles.ru/files/6u36gcurz

Also A list of features I plan to add, but who knows if I add them:
- Customizable text for interceptions.
- Save Progress feature. Goes like this: on any non-trap non-start page if you wait for 1 minute, you will be prompted to save your progress. If you agree, you will be provided with a code, and you can use that code in the beginning of a tease when you next time want to play, and if you do - you will start on the same intersection, facing the same way from which you left.

p.s. Help me with a good filehosting service, no registration preferrable. I don't know how good this one fares. And yea, it's too big to attach it to the post.

[philo]

Russian Server - tick
Triggers anti virus - tick
Will not share source code - tick
Must be dodgy

Seriously sounds very good and as it is you I am very tempted to download.

[Nezhul]

I can share source if you are interested, I'm just not ready to give up project to someone else.
As for server - suggest any, and I'll upload.

And as for antivirus - it started triggering it the first time I run a project, when there was literally NOTHING yet, so I'm damned if I know what the hell's with it. I googled, seems like a common problem with delphi VCL apps.

I pretty much made it for myself because I wanted to write maze tease for much too long, but they are a pain to create by hand, and they're only so big you can create them.

[dbt]

Just took a look at this, it looks like a great idea. It would be good if you included an example excel file with it, even an easy one to illustrated.

A couple of quick comments. If I draw it it'll be easy to find my way around., so some randomness would help. Any chance for an option to start at a random location? Also, adding to randomness having the traps assigned randomly would be cool too.

[Nezhul]

Well, about the randomness - I though about something like "Random maze generator", but that's another story whatsoever. it's intended for teaseme AUTHORS, not for yourself to make a tease for yourself. If you want some cool mazes - ask someone to make a map for you, generate a script of it - and you'll never know how it goes. You get a script that doesn't tell you anything, you fill up traps with tasks and you are set. Just ask someone on this forum to draw a maze for you, even if they don't have the app - just give them the excel file, and then use it (without looking at it) to generate a script.

Random start - won't help that much. If I'd go ahead and chose random intersection - there's a chance that it'll be too close to the tease exit. If you could specify a few places for a start - I don't see this being that different because I'm sure in your own map you'll figure it out pretty quickly.
one of the things you can do - is choose a random number, than instead of going to MazeStart page at the beginning - go to MazeX page, where X is your random number. Just check that such a page exists, because some numbers are skipped due to this or that reason.

As for random traps - they are kinda random. As it is now you can open excel file and just see where each trap is - not much deduction needed there. But the way the script is generated - you shouldn't know where the trap number 1 actually is on your map.

If you talk about filling the traps with randomized tasks - I'v had thoughts about that, but currently I'v decided agains it. Mostly because it is no fun.

If you want to play more cool maze teases - the best way to start is build a maze tease yourself. The more people get a kick out of it - the more chance some of them'll build a maze YOU will enjoy.

[dbt]

OK, I'd still love to see an example xls file with the script that it generated. An example would IMO make it way easier to get others to try it.

[Nezhul]

here's the exact thing it generates:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

<Page id="MazeStart"><Text><p>START PAGE - This page is shown at the start and will never be shown again</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap2v2">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze38">Back</Button><Button target="Trap4v2">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="MazeEND"><Text><p>This is the end of the maze. Weee! There is no buttons</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /></Page> <Page id="Trap1v1"><Text><p>Trap 1 ver 1 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap1v1end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap1v1end"><Text><p>Trap 1 ver 1 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="MazeEND">Straight</Button><Button target="Trap2v1">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap2v1"><Text><p>Trap 2 ver 1 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap2v1end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap2v1end"><Text><p>Trap 2 ver 1 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze28">Straight</Button><Button target="Trap1v1">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap2v2"><Text><p>Trap 2 ver 2 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap2v2end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap2v2end"><Text><p>Trap 2 ver 2 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap1v1">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze28">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap3v1"><Text><p>Trap 3 ver 1 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap3v1end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap3v1end"><Text><p>Trap 3 ver 1 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze30">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze29">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap3v2"><Text><p>Trap 3 ver 2 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap3v2end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap3v2end"><Text><p>Trap 3 ver 2 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze29">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze30">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap4v1"><Text><p>Trap 4 ver 1 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap4v1end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap4v1end"><Text><p>Trap 4 ver 1 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze36">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze35">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap4v2"><Text><p>Trap 4 ver 2 START</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap4v2end">Continue</Button></Page> <Page id="Trap4v2end"><Text><p>Trap 4 ver 2 END</p></Text><Image id="*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze35">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze36">Back</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze23"><Text><p>Unfortunately, that was a dead end. You had to turn back</p><p>Page 23</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap3v1">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze23">Back</Button><Button target="Maze25">Right</Button><Button target="MazeEND">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze25"><Text><p>Page 25</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap3v2">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze32">Back</Button><Button target="Trap4v1">Right</Button><Button target="Maze33">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze28"><Text><p>Page 28</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze38">Straight</Button><Button target="Trap2v2">Back</Button><Button target="Trap4v2">Right</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze29"><Text><p>Page 29</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze23">Straight</Button><Button target="Trap3v1">Back</Button><Button target="MazeEND">Right</Button><Button target="Maze25">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze30"><Text><p>Page 30</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze32">Straight</Button><Button target="Trap3v2">Back</Button><Button target="Maze33">Right</Button><Button target="Trap4v1">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze32"><Text><p>Page 32</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="MazeEND">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze25">Back</Button><Button target="Trap3v1">Right</Button><Button target="Maze23">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze33"><Text><p>Unfortunately, that was a dead end. You had to turn back</p><p>Page 33</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap4v1">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze33">Back</Button><Button target="Maze32">Right</Button><Button target="Trap3v2">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze35"><Text><p>Page 35</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Maze33">Straight</Button><Button target="Trap4v1">Back</Button><Button target="Trap3v2">Right</Button><Button target="Maze32">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze36"><Text><p>Page 36</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap4v2">Back</Button><Button target="Maze38">Right</Button><Button target="Trap2v2">Left</Button></Page> <Page id="Maze38"><Text><p>Unfortunately, that was a dead end. You had to turn back</p><p>Page 38</p></Text><Image id="corridor*.jpg" /><Button target="Trap2v2">Straight</Button><Button target="Maze38">Back</Button><Button target="Trap4v2">Left</Button></Page>

it's not XML sctipt as such, it's a script for a number of pages. You still need to create a tease yourself with a start page, and then paste this script somewhere inside <Pages></Pages> section, and point it to MazeStart page.

[d3vi0n]

Great tool i added it to the TeaseMe thread...

[SkyLigth]

Any chance for a new download link?

[Nezhul]

I don't have it anymore after HDD failure. If anyone has the app still - you may upload it. If not - it's gone for good then.