Hacking Programmer Patterns into Age of Empires
summary
Age of Empires II scenario editor gets pushed into doing things the engine never supports by wiring GUI triggers into functioning systems, for example an admin panel via colored flags that moves a hidden unit to kick or destroy a player, and a recurring siege ram timer that spawns and walks a unit to a flag to implement timers and observers. No variables or functions exist so maps use trigger chains, positional unit grids for state, empty triggers for grouping, and even minification by deleting names; top campaigns exceed a thousand triggers and the hacks generally work though recursive chains can crash the engine.
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chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction to Age of Empires hacks
- 1:26Crash course in scenario editor
- 3:10Custom maps and mini-games
- 7:22Building an admin panel
- 12:46Implementing timers with siege rams
- 18:00State management in RPGs
- 20:46Summary and Q&A intro
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