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Thesis Interface
1995

 

The central theme of my MFA Thesis was multiplayer interactive tile-based adventuring, using Director 4.0. You can see the elements of the screen here... it borrows much from Ultima I and IRC. In fact, it worked like you'd expect such a hybrid to work.

The map is actually tiled graphics. I wrote a Director XObject to do fast screen scrolling using QuickDraw calls, which gave the game acceptable performance. By using a tile as an "stamp sprite", I could both overcome the 24 sprite limit and have a dynamic, fast display. I also wrote a map editor in Director that would load/save maps as you walked from location to location. Alas, I spent more time programming than drawing, so the tile graphics were rather rushed.