Has anyone here used TuDee?

Around six months ago, I first became aware of TuDee ( http://www.gojoentertainment.com/tudee.html ) and it seemed like it was off to an excellent start. Since then, I've seen absolutely no progress and heard nothing more about TuDee. There's no official forum, there have been no new releases, and no one seems to be talking about it. There isn't even a usable default exporter. The "demo" exporter creates either a text file or an undocumented (as far as I can tell) binary file, neither of which is the least bit useful.

I really like what I see of TuDee, so far, but I wouldn't call it feature complete and I am not interested in purchasing dead software. The only other posts I've been able to find (on other game developer boards) seem to revolve around not being able to get ahold of the TuDee developers, so I thought I'd ask here, first. Has anyone used TuDee for a Blitz Basic project? Is there an existing exporter and/or importer for any of the Blitz family of languages? Besides MapEditor, are there any other 2d map editors that are in the same ballpark as TuDee feature-wise that I should check out?

Thanks,
SpaceAce

I originally had trouble getting through to the guys, but that was an issue they were having at the time with their email. Eventually I did, and all is fine.

Due to a few things happening in life, I haven't yet got around to using it. But, it's a solid app.

Yeah, it seems like one of the better 2d map editors in the wild. I'd purchase it, but there are several things that I definitely want to see changed/added and it looks like development just stopped dead after they went public with the program.

SpaceAce

World Artist looked good but is no longer developed. However, the source was released.
Mappy is pretty good although I find it a bit 'geeky' and has a Bmax lib. TileStudio was more user-friendly but not as powerful.
What features are you after?

I actually purchased World Artist way back when and got the beginnings of a game out of it. Binary Phoenix must have abandoned it right around then. Just today, I visited the site and saw the source was available.

I've used Mappy and Tile Studio. I've tried every 2d map editor I can find. I've actually gotten a few working projects out of Tile Studio, although I never completed any of them.

Among the features I consider must-haves are undo/redo, the ability to paint collision data onto tiles, a tileset importer that allows for tilesets that may have borders and/or space between the tiles, an intuitive copy/paste setup (one of the worst features of Tile Studio is its copy/paste functionality, in my opinion), zooming and scrolling of the map, especially while painting (when the brush hits the edge, the map should scroll), and some sort of usable exporting function, XML being just fine in my opinion.

TuDee is very close. I think the lack of a usable base importer is ludicrous, and there are a few other issues, but it looks like a quality program, overall. I just don't want to buy any more abandonware, the way I did with World Artist.

SpaceAce

You should email the guys and have a chat.

I usually make my own map editor for each game I make so it will always have the features I want and nothing more nothing less :)

its a new experience each time

I probably will. In the meantime, I'd like to hear from anyone who has actually used the product, but I have yet to find anyone who has. I'd love to find out that someone has already written an exporter, as that is one of the main barriers to using TuDee.



Yeah, that seems to be a popular way to go. I don't enjoy the process of building that type of support tool every time I start a project, and I am not a brilliant programmer, so I can't knock out a working map editor in an afternoon the way some people can.

SpaceAce