The contest is now over and the game is, finished?
Development Milestones
Completed milestones are shown in italics.
-Removed unneeded functionality from engine.
-Add loading of different maps
-Walking vs. sailing
-Write gamestate class (i.e., flags)
-Add support for triggers
-Working “map jump” trigger
-Working “text display” trigger
-Working “bump” trigger + dialog
-Very basic character management
-Combat
-Character advancement and experience
-Splash screen
-Save and load
-Items
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Dev Diary
Saturday 17 Nov 07
9:38 AM
Awake, drinking orange juice, and ready to go. First task is to make a list of milestones to work on today.
9:50 AM
The other participants are laughing at me in IRC for “planning”. Made a list of development milestones.
11:15 am
First milestone finished! Now working on map loading.
12:35 pm
It’s now possible to load different maps and walk around them. Why did I make this engine so complicated? Loading a map involves about 5 different classes. I think before I use this for any future projects I’d better refactor it a bit. Onward and upward. And also, lunch.
2:20 pm
Gaelan is here and getting set up. Walking and sailing is almost working except for one small bug. And also, it’s possible to sail on land and walk on the ocean. So two small bugs. Or is that more of a feature?
3:40 pm
Finally got walking and sailing done. This was supposed to be an “easy feature”… Oh well, it works now.
4:10 pm
Well, the “gamestate” class was crazy easy. Hopefully I’m not forgetting something that I’ll have to add later.
7:00 pm
It is now possible to walk on to a square and be “teleported” to a new map. This is useful for going in and out of buildings, for example. Three kinds of triggers to go. Hopefully this was the most difficult one. Gaelan is drawing olive trees.
7:55 pm
Dinner break over. Shengrong contributed significantly to our efforts by cooking us some nice food.
9:05 pm
We have basic interactivity! Walking on to certain triggers causes popups to appear and display text. Huzzah. I’m going to re-use this code for the “bump triggers” too. Realized I need to add a little more functionality to the game flags code: some triggers need to set and clear flags I guess. Hmm…
9:32 pm
Added “bump triggers” for talking to NPCs, and even made it so they say different things when you talk to them a second time. Gaelan has the overworld pretty much done and is starting on interior environments. I’m starting to feel like we might pull this off…
10:03 pm
Gaelan has gone to catch his bus. He made a lot of art today and our over-world map looks really good. I fixed a couple bugs and am now going to tackle characters. If I can get some semblance of character management done tonight I’ll be very happy.
10:27 pm
Decided existing character code is actually sufficient for our needs, at least until combat is finished. Great. Am planning the combat system, which can reuse some existing party-management code. I think I’ll rough it out tonight at least. Getting sleepy…
11:55 pm
Wrote a bit of the underlying code for combat. Monsters now show up on the map and the appropriate trigger is called when you bump into them. I’m making silly mistakes, so it’s time to call it a night.
Sunday 18 Nov 07
9:28 am
Time to get started again.
9:52 am
Other people are posting screen shots so I thought I would too. Uh oh, am I procrastinating? Must… make… combat… system….
11:13 am
You can now walk up to a monster, challenge him to fight, and then automatically defeat him, causing him to disappear from the map. Now “all” that is left is the actual combat in between… Time to take a short break.
11:28 am
Back at it. It occurs to me that with a little bit more code, it would be possible to put in all the dialog, encounters, and plot at this point (though obviously combat would be “automatic”). Good sign I guess. I wonder how Gaelan is coming along with his interior maps?
1:00 pm
Combat now consists of a picture of the party 3x enlarged and a “win” button. I’m also pulling together a new map editor and build of the game for Gaelan so he can start putting NPCs on the map.
2:37 pm
Things are moving slowly. Ran into problems trying to get the game to work on Gaelan’s computer but I think I can sort them out when it comes time to release it. Got drawing of the party and monsters in the battle screen.
3:30
Wrote a text box that keeps track of the last few strings passed to it: this will record who does what in battle. Chugging along slowly…
4:58 pm
The participants have just voted to add a three-day extension to our two-day contest. It boggles the mind. I guess the idea is it’ll give everyone some time to wrap up their entry after they finish at work. Little do they know that my team is unemployed… Muhahahahaha. In all seriousness, I’m not adding any new features, and I’m going to do my best to get all the code done in the original 48h time-period. What it will give us is a chance for Gaelan and I to get together again and put all the pieces together to make the final release.
5:15 pm
Progress! The enemy centaur took a swing at the party, missed, and then, I can only assume out of frustration, crashed the game.
6:05 pm
I now have player characters dying properly. I need to add a “game over” screen and then I can work on having them actually fight back. Added a preliminary screen shot of combat.
6:38 pm
Dinner break over. I’m getting a little tired. Going to push on and finish as much as I can.
8:46 pm
It’s now possible to tell party members to “defend”. Which means they are basically still standing around getting killed, but at least now it’s an interactive process…
9:32 pm
Attacking and defending is now possible! I think I’m going to scratch combat off the list and come back and add other capabilities later if there is time. Hmm, it seems I wrote a combat system from scratch in 12 hours less meal and break time. Not bad if I do say so myself =) I’m feeling like if I did want to finish this sucker before bed tonight it might actually be possible, though we’ll use the extra time to put some polish on I think.
22:44 pm
With combat done I decided to rest on my laurels and do a little artwork for variety. Coding for two days straight has me a little tired of it, and with the extension I don’t feel the need to hack together the remaining pieces tonight. Drew a Greek warrior that will probably be our #2 character.
Monday 19 Nov 07
2:38 pm
It’s day three of our two-day contest. I haven’t really done anything on it since last night. Time to get back to work! I am going to create animated walking and sailing sprites and then get back to coding. Four new sprites I drew:
3:53 pm
Finished the animated boat and tried it out in-game and am quite pleased with the result. This is one nice thing about the extension: having animated player-controlled sprites makes the game feel much more “alive”, but they are time-consuming.
6:49 pm
Greece needs women! I still haven’t done the main walkabout sprite. Time to make dinner.
9:21 pm
Created a bunch more sprites from one template. These are mostly “civilians” but I added a few warriors too. Not sure what I’m going to work on next. Gaelan is producing weapons and armor for our warriors to carry. I guess I should code up item management soon…
11:19 pm
Finally made our hero. He fits well with the other members of the starting party. Meet Soscarides, Nikos, and Theophitus. It’s getting late, but I’ll at least start a walkabout animation based on our hero there. Tomorrow I need to program again…
Tuesday 20 Nov 07
9:43 am
I finished the forward-view walkabout sprite last night. I’ll try to get the other three views done quickly this morning and then switch back to coding. My goal is to finish all the programming today.
12:33 am
Finished the walkabout sprite. There are 17 different frames of animation. Go me. Time to have lunch and then tackle the last of the coding.
3:35 pm
Characters now gain experience points in battle, level up, and can boost their stats in a special “advancement” screen. Not bad for three hours’ work. Next on my list is the “splash screen” but I’m skipping that in favour of saving and loading, given that the splash screen is likely going to have a “load game” button on it…
6:09 pm
Realized why I put the menu screen before saving and loading: it’s a bit hard to test saving and loading if you don’t have a “save” button to press… After fighting with my GUI toolkit for a couple hours I’ve got a nice menu screen that doubles as an initial welcome screen and a “Game Over” screen. Now working on save/load.
10:42 pm
Save and load works. The only thing left on the original feature list are Items. Theoretically I could have them done before bed tonight, but I think I’d better come at them with fresh eyes in the morning. Instead I’m going to add “special abilities” to combat (healers heal, sorcerers cast spells, etc), and then call it a night.
Wednesday 21 Nov 07
9:53 am
Last day. I think I’m starting to know how people in the game industry feel at “crunch time”. I have a couple bugs to fix, an item system to implement, a few more features to add to combat, and then I have to meet Gaelan, put in all the content, and build a final release.
2:39 pm
Inventory is finished! That’s my last milestone. Hurray! I’m going to go back and add a few tweaks and fixes and expand combat slightly. Added a new screenshot below showing my fancy inventory.
4:43 pm
Lost… an hour? On the most inane bug ever. I’m an idiot. Oh well, moving forward. Not a lot of time left here…
5:00 pm
I have a bunch of neat ideas for combat but I shouldn’t let them stop me from finishing the other stuff. I think I’ll give myself two hours to implement as many as I can.
8:30 pm
Did my two hours and then another hour and a half, got in all but two of my combat ideas. Still waiting for Gaelan to send me his stuff, but I think I’d better start pulling together what I do have.
11:13 pm
Gaelan has sent me all his maps and art and I am plugging the content in to the engine. It’s starting to come together =)
Thursday 22 Nov 07
11:25 am
I didn’t actually update again last night, but I did get the first couple of islands finished, and submitted a mac release to the contest thread. This is the last entry here, but we do plan to finish work on the game, hopefully at a more leisurely pace.
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Screen Shots
The starting island on the over-world. Hopefully that boat is “place-holder” art…
The beginnings of combat.
Items! Nearly everything is finished now.