This article is now up to date with my posting on www.gamefaqs.com After this post the blog should be a lot cleaner with each post being a much more reasonable size. I'll post updates here as they come. Or you can see them at www.gamefaqs.com (on the game programming board or LUE if you happen to have access).
Posts from 6/1 to 6/16
Worked on the LOS system a bit more today. Almost have all of the kinks out of it. There is only 1 bug remaining that I am aware of and I know why it occurs so I should be able to fix it soon.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26996118@N06/2542616962/sizes/o/
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Color is working now. I'm thinking of keeping the player red so (s)he stands out more from the map. Also that yellow "r" is a little rat. The only creature I have defined in the game code yet. Current no AI exists so it can't do anything and you can't do anything to it.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26996118@N06/2543615018/sizes/o/
Anyways now that color is in I can focus on implementing combat, monsters, monster generation(right now the rat is hard coded to appear next to the player), items, and item generation.
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I started writing code for physical combat. Just tested it and everything went smoothly. Currently there is no AI and no turn system implemented so the enemy(only a rat for now) just sits there until you kill it. Also I haven't written the code to handle leveling up yet but that will have to wait until I have at least 1 player class/job defined.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26996118@N06/2549343103/sizes/o/
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I did a little coding this morning. Worked a bit more on physical combat and spent some time defining the human race and the fighter class, for testing purposes as I start to write the code for character generation, leveling up, combat, etc. Probably won't be able to get any more done today, however, due to having about 5 hours of class and needing to finish up some stuff before finals week(next week).
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Started working on the inventory screen.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26996118@N06/2557399294/sizes/o/
As you can see it is very crude at the moment. I still need to finish adding the other category headings to it. Also I plan to make it so that the category headings display in color. I still need to code in item-key association and show that in the menu as well. I'll probably be able to get a little bit more done today but I have four finals next week I need to prepare for, so I'm not sure for how long I can work on my game for.
After finals are over the development pace should pick up quite a bit, especially as I continue to finish coding in the core game mechanics. Once I have all the framework of the game done I'll be even more motivated to work on it since I'll be able to start implementing actual game play.
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Took some time off studying to do a little bit of coding. Worked some more on the item menu.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26996118@N06/2565293154/sizes/o/
If you have enough items new columns will be formed to display all the items you have. The item menu isn't quite finished yet but it is fairly close. I still need to display how many of each item you have for stackable items(which is fairly trivial to do) and I also need to decide item key association. I'm thinking what I will do is bring up a sub menu when you need to choose what item to use.
So if you press "e" for eat then a screen showing only your food items would pop up and they would be assigned letters, then you would just type the letter shown. Items would not retain their letter assignment like in Nethack, since with the opening of the menu you wouldn't need to do that plus it allows the player to carry more than 52 different types of items.
Unfortunately I probably won't be able to get much more done today. I might work on it some more but I still have all four of my finals to continue to prepare for.
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Started coding again.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26996118@N06/2583635059/sizes/o/
That image is of the apply menu. Visually it is no different than the item menu, other than the fact that it only shows usable items. The basic framework of it works now. Basically all I have to do is to code in the effects of each usable item in the game as I create them. If you were wondering that item "Magic Map" in the screen shot is a test item I created that reveals the entire map when used.
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Did some behind the scenes stuff so nothing really to show you. A few things I implemented in the last hour and half or so: Monsters disappear when you move out of sight(previously it just checked to see if that map tile had been revealed yet before showing it), streamlined the direction choosing process for actions like open/close(previously you had to type "8" or whatever direction then press enter. Now you just type the direction with no need to press the enter key).
And some other various things like creating some constructors and some a couple helper methods for certain things. I think I'm done for today.
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