Hired Guns Map Editor for Windows

[Cherno]

Hello everyone, after three months of work I can finally release the Hired Guns Map Editor for Windows (HGMEW)!

The creation of the editor was made possible after the source code was released in 2021. It's layout will be familiar to those that have used Scott Johnston's original Hired Guns Map Editor in the past, but this new Windows editor adds a host of features and user interface improvements (for example, a Locations.dat writer and a conversations editor). A short manual of sorts has been provided in the "Help -> Manual" toolstrip menu, which also lists all keyboard shortcuts.

Tutorial Video:
[ Show youtube player ]

Download link:
HGMEW.zip



Even if you don't plan to create any custom maps, it can still be fun to use this program as a map viewer and browse through the maps. Maybe you will find something interesting, I know I did!

Interesting things I found in the original game maps:

• 01 Demo 1: One map level has blocks that spell "EY SJ"
• 02 Demo 2: Re-uses the conversations from Demo 1, which makes them nonsensical on this map, and some of their triggers are in inaccessible places.
• 05 Refinery: Inescapable water tanks full of dead monsters
• 09 Temple: Amost two dozen conversation triggers
• 10 Ammunition Depot: Minefield room and a deep cistern or well filled with dead monsters
• 11 Satellite Uplink Tower: Unique trap where you approach pushable blocks that have floor triggers in front that make them disappear, surprising you with the monsters behind them
• 14 Temple: The top of the spire-like structure has you on a small platform surrounded by Level 4 Morgs in alcoves along the outside walls firing non-decaying fireballs at you
• 15 Tomb Vaults: At the bottom of a deep water-filled, unreachable and L-shaped trench are dead monsters. Maybe it's supposed to be a mass grave, but then again the remains are Leahdiles and ED-209s.
• 17 Operations Center: Many of the ED-209s have Repair Kit items on their cells for some reason, likely an oversight when cells were pasted. Some bugged conversations are scattered throughout the map, some in unreachable places, but at least one is where the fusion bomb is found, so maybe they were corrupted at some point. Some panels have Repair Kit items. Near the bottom is a map level that has the wall cells set to be filled with water (but not the rooms and hallways), tinting them blue.
• 18 Fusion Reactor: The top of the building has fairly detailed, tower-like structures, but those will never be seen in the game.
• 20 Urban Development: This map makes heavy use of ambush mechanics. Triggers in the alleyways near the trees make squirrels drop from above, and inside the buildings are triggers that spawn squads of AHL-CIMs in the streets near the starting position.
• 21 Space Port: Interestingly, no monsters are loaded for this map. The fusion bomb receptacles are spawned from the same byte values that would otherwise result in the following monsters (for fusion bombs 1-4): Leahdile 2, Leahdile 3, Leahdile 4, Sentry Gun 1, which are byte values of 16,32,48 and 64. Coupled with the aforementioned fact that no monsters are loaded, this might mean that either the map number 21 or any map set as an "End" map is hardcoded to have Gargoyles as it's monsters and spawn the Fusion Bomb receptacles as outlined above. So far, I have not been able to load the Gargoyle monster into a map; it always frezes when entering. The Gargoyle can still be placed and will spawn in the map and behave as usual, but will be invisible since the graphics for the monsters haven't been loaded.
• 23 Animal Enclosure: Some panels have .44 THV ammo (lift level panels) or ornamental keys (exit panels) as their items.
• 26 Penitentiary: Players start in a room filled with ankle-deep water and dead sharks. Lights are placed under the narrow walkway that leads from player 3's cell over and around the courtyard deep down into the basement of the facility. Some of these lights have no effect since the blocks below them are solid.
• 27 Staying Alive: One map level has a large platform with some obstacles in the center and the outer walls with alcoves occupied by level 4 Morgs that spawn when their eggs get damaged, leading to an escalating firefight once the small number of level 1 Morgs on the center platform start casting fireballs.
• 28 Garden of Jarrys: The map description reads "Beware the colour red!", apparently referring to the squirrels. One of the conversations read "What a good looking guy" next to a panel with a caricature of a human head in profile with the words "Flodna". Edit: As Steve Hammond tweeted, this refers to "artist Graeme Anderson who had the nickname "Andolf". One conversation expressing relief over having found the exit of a labyrinth has it's trigger in an inaccessible place.
• 30 Generator: Some conversation triggers are in inaccessible places
• 33 Big Cheese: Aside from the creative use of a cheese item as the key to the exit, this map features a large room with the letters "HG" as walls.
• 34 Escape to Death: High above the starting level are Rahls that will drop from the ceiling immediately after starting the map. They are arranged in a swastika pattern. It is unclear if this is intentional or not, since the pattern does match the free cells on the ground level below. Even further up, the inaccessible roof of the tower resembles a smiley face, complete with pushable blocks and water cells for it's eyes.
• 37 Buckminster Park: Some monster cells have repair kits as their item, likely an error when cells were pasted. Interestingly, this map has no panel grapics loaded.
• 38 Leisure Center: One of the panel graphics seems to be corrupted (looks to have been a large exclaimation mark).
• 39 Skeleton Hall: All level 4 Skeleton cells have a submachine gun as their item, alongside some otherwise empty cells next to them.
• 41 Graveyard Shopping Mall: Some of the bathroom stalls are locked and feature conversations like "I think someone's still in there." and "I can hear flushing noises from behind this door.". The mall has "Guns 'R' Us" stores and restaurants / diners, complete with shopping windows (represented by forcefields). Some panel cells have Fusion Bomb 3 and Laser Cannon as their item.
• 42 Lemming Wars Chapter Two: A maze spanning over several map levels uses grass floor cells to create thin ceilings/floors between levels so they can be directly on top of each other without the need of a level of solid blocks in between. At the top is a building that has it's wall cells set to be filled with water, tinting them blue. One of the conversations, in a room full of level 4 Lemmings, is corrupted.

• ScottMaps:
• 17PuzzleP: One of the map levels has ceiling lights above solid blocks. Possibly an oversight when cells were pasted, as a similar, more complete pattern of lights is higher up above proper empty cells.
• ChaosP: Some of the ceiling lights are above solid blocks. The "Chaos" in the map name might refer to the forces of Chaos from the Warhammer universe, since there are panels that depict the 8-pointed star symbol of Chaos Undivided.
• ChurchP: Stained glass windows are represented by water cells
• CLightP: Near the bottom of the map is a seemingly unfinished and unreachable room.

Credits:
Hired Guns data structure help, testing and feedback:UnnamedCourier, Doomer, Dunny, Devlin, nivrig
Windows Forms extensions:Nathan Baulch & DMTintner
Help with bitflag enumeration:styx
RNC ProPack release by Vladimir Kononovich (lab313ru) via https://github.com/lab313ru/rnc_propack_source
Original RNC Packer by Rob Northen
WordWrap: honey the codewitch from https://www.codeproject.com
Various "Behind the scenes stories and anecdotes": Steve Hammond Twitter: @snap2grid Homepage: Steve's Home on the Web
Special thanks to Scott Johnston and the DMA Design team for creating one of the great Amiga classics.

Related links:

Forum thread: Hired Guns for CD32??

Forum thread: Hired Guns: Your memories (plus some fun fan-created stuff!)

Hired Guns Online 3D Map Viewer by FromWithin (Mike Clarke)

[stevsurv]

Cool! Thank you!

[Cherno]

Uploaded a bugfix that screwed up worldmap descriptions, detailed descriptions and intro messages.

[gimbal]

Cool. Too bad FromWithin's viewer cannot currently be used to fly through your own creations in 3D

[FromWithin]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Cool. Too bad FromWithin's viewer cannot currently be used to fly through your own creations in 3D

It might be possible if the current map data can be uploaded to a Url somewhere from the editor.

[Cherno]

How about adding a file request dialogue to the viewer which accepts map files from the user's hard drive?

[FromWithin]

I'm looking into it.

[FromWithin]

It is done.

Hired Guns Map Viewer

You can now click the button on the menu and upload a .map file from your hard drive.

[Cherno]

Very good! I added a link to your map viewer in the OP.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by FromWithin

It is done.

I love it when a plan comes together. Or in this case, software creations come together. I must admit that sounds kind of dirty. I'll just be over there --->

[UnnamedCourier]

Awesome that you got this all finished, great job Cherno! One thing I would point out as well is that with this new editor you can finally create a new locations.dat file. The significance of this is that the game gets information for things like the map description in-game, what enemies are on a map, and what tile sets the map should use from THAT file, and not the map file itself (even though the map files include them). Therefore when you make a new map file, playing it will always use the attributes of the old map you are replacing to play it and not what you chose for your new map (so enemies, map tileset etc will likely be wrong). With this ability to make a new locations.dat you can now have this correct for the first time ever! It was possible to do this with the released source code of the game (and if you somehow reverse engineered the format yourself and hex edited it, which it seems no one ever did), but this editor lets you do it in an easy way.
The findings you list above are really interesting too, I will definitely have a look.

[Cherno]

Thank you! The Locations.dat file writer was one of the last major things that got added and needed a couple of tries to get it right. As of now, it always rewrites the complete file by looking for map files and if one for the currrent slot is not found, it will just fill in default info. This could be improved by opening an existing dat file and only changing the info for the current map... But hey, it works either way. I hope Graeme Anderson will also see the release of this editor and of course your map viewer.

[Firestone]

Amazing

[JemyM]

This excites me, but I get this error on a lot of the maps (Map 2 in particular), either immediately when trying to open them, or changing the floor;

https://gyazo.com/0a3929daba20652b8dad04b1a89da244

Due to the interruption the map is then only partially displayed.

https://gyazo.com/f7236d3c04d027535a28082cd3945311

I tested it in both Windows 10 and 11, and even in a VM Ware Windows 7. I tried compatibility options, I tried placing the HGMEW folder in the root folder, I tried to redownload the app, I tried a different copy of the .map files, I tried to set game and dev folder manually in the .ini etc. No matter what I do I get the same errror.

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: image
at System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(Image image, Rectangle destRect, Rectangle srcRect, GraphicsUnit srcUnit)
at HGHelperUtilities.HelperUtil.CopyRegionIntoImage(Bitmap srcBitmap, Rectangle srcRegion, Bitmap& destBitmap, Rectangle destRegion)
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.PasteMapTile(Bitmap bm, Int32 x, Int32 y)
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.UpdateMapView(Int32 minX, Int32 minY, Int32 maxX, Int32 maxY)
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.UpdateMapView()
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.set_ZLevel(Int32 value)
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.LoadMap(HGMapData mapData, Boolean fromState)
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.LoadMap(String path)
at Hired_Guns_3_Map_Editor.MainForm.OpenToolStripMenuItem_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4515.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
HGMEW
Assembly Version: 1.6.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///S:/Amiga/Hired%20Guns/HGMEW/HGMEW.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4550.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4536.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4390.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4190.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_B
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Core
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4590.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_B
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Core/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Core.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0 built by: NET48REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

[Cherno]

Thanks JemyM, I was able to fix the error. I forgot to include one single tile graphic (hydraulic pillar without shadow) in the graphics folder. I uploaded the fixed version that works

[Meeko]

Hello!


I think I encountered a bug in your map editor, or perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

I placed a teleport and for testing purposes I want it to teleport just few blocks away, as seen on the picture below:

https://imgur.com/e30y76b

After entering the teleport, it transports player to the black void, as seen on the video below. Shooting while in the void breaks all controls, even for other characters. Any ideas what to do with it? I tried selecting teleport's target both manually (by entering coordinates of desired location) or by using the target button, I tried targeting different locations on different levels but results are still the same.
I'm using the "new" CD32 version of Hired Guns.

[ Show youtube player ]


12.06.2023 edit:

This bug has nothing to do with your editor, it's a game bug. Exactly same thing happens when using "official" editor. I also found out how to avoid it - if teleport block has sky on it - it teleports into the void. Removing sky drawing on it fixes the issue.

[Robbson]

Hey Cherno,

thanks for the editor. Pretty useful for some insights and on the first sight
better usable than the original one from the Amiga in Hires Interlace .

But unfortunately I can't use it for editing maps yet because for some reason you didn't
implement undo/redo or do I have a deprecated version?

Also it's not a great idea to start the editor in edit mode, especially when you don't have undo.
You just accidentally click on a tile to get some info about it and wooops... you overpainted it,
all information lost . The only way back is to reload the map.

So it would be really great to have undo/redo.

[Cherno]

I never bothered to implement the undo/redo system, it was too complicated at the time.
I agree on the editing mode at program start.

[Robbson]

Is the source code available anywhere, like on Github?

[Cherno]

No.
Maybe I'll implement undo/redo in the future.