Thursday, April 24, 2008

Back on Track

Well, we're back at work. The flooding got cleared up and the building is safe to be in so we only lost two days. Every once in a while cleaning people come by to make it a nicer place to be in, but otherwise it's business as usual.

I've been slow about getting the map-maker going because I'm busy rewriting chapter 1 of my book into chapters 1, 2 and appendix A. Appendix A is almost finished, and chapters 1 and 2 shouldn't take too much longer. Then I'll have 3 chapters and an appendix finished! Yay!

As for the Map Maker, it is still being worked on! I've got it so the form is split up, it loads a map image by default, and you can draw on the image. Hopefully I can have it working by the next post. If I get it working I'll take a screenshot and show you guys.

-Califer

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Free time because of a flood

Well, I get today and tomorrow off of work because of flooding at the place I work at. I was one of the few people that was inside the building when it started (I get there early to exercise) so I got to check out the walls cracking right before my eyes and watch the water slowly try to take over the building.

This is only half a blessing, because odds are that when things get cleared up at work we'll need to work weekends to make up for the days that we weren't there. We still have milestones that we need to keep with the publishers!

But back on the Darkened Dreams side of things, I finished the item maker and have started on the map-maker. I got some code off of the internet showing me how to use the mouse to draw, so it should be easy to put in different boundaries on the map. This will be nice because when I put in a boundary that cannot be crossed it will be that way no matter which direction you are going. Players of the original Darkened Dreams may remember bugs where they could walk into the ocean but not walk back. That will be a non-issue now.

But before I really get cracking on the map-maker

Right after the map maker is finished, well, I'll probably work on chapter 3 and cleaning chapter 2. But right after THAT I'm going to get the game-maker save files working, get actual programming in the game, and get me walking around on the map that Fox got me.

-Califer

Crap, I left my DS charger at work. Guess my game time is limited this weekend!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Munchies and Bling

Almost done with the item maker! I'm currently working on the food, which will be followed up by armor and clothing.

The big question is . . . can armor and clothing co-exist?

The bonus of having clothing instead of armor is that it can hold more powerful enchantments than armor can. Common sense dictates that you can put on a chain mail shirt on top of a cloth shirt, but common sense also dictates that wearing an iron helm and a baseball cap is rather silly.

The two easiest scenarios are as follows . . .

1. Each armor and clothing use a location guide and each location can only have either a piece of armor or some clothing in it.

2. Each armor and clothing use a location guide and each location can have both a piece of armor and some clothing in it.

Either one spits in the face of common sense. This results in a Califer that fuddles around trying to find the best solution.

Darn me and my commitment to excellence!

-Califer

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Ace of Base

Now I'm starting to actually program in details for things that can be crafted. For some games I imagine it doesn't take a lot. No matter how high your skill gets you can never make the item better. But not in Darkened Dreams 2! You'll be able to put points into what you are going to make the focus on then luck and skill helps determine the final product.

In order to make sure that we don't end up with beginning equipment being super-powerful and to make sure that high level equipment has some real benefits from a skilled crafter I need to make a 'base' for all things that can be created. The base is going to hold the max and min values, as well as hold onto the recipe.

So, the last tricky thing I need to do before programming in making recipes is loading that base information in for making regular items. Bases are not going to be actual items, but just guidelines for making items. Thus if you want to make an iron sword to put in a treasure chest in the game you should load up the iron sword base to make sure you're not making it stronger or weaker than it should be.

Meh, this post is a little programmer-oriented.

On a non-programming side (kind of) I'm going to shoot for finishing the item maker this week.

-Califer