Wednesday May 29, 2013
This past week was an exciting one. Matt and I revised the game code to allow it to read in levels the same way the level editor reads in levels. We also got the game to display multiple monsters on the screen at the same time. We were also able to interact with both of those entities separately, which is a major stride. Matt began creating the QA level in the level editor and it will be finished by the end of the week. We are going to work on implementing code that would randomly disperse the monsters around the QA level and spawn more over time. We want people to be able to level up at least once or twice in order to test balance with the experience ratios and the stat upgrades when people do level up.
I may end up tweaking the experience per level before testing begins. I think it is going to be really high if I leave it the way it is, but I have not tested it yet. Friday will be interesting as that will be our first glance at how the testing level will work out. We should have everything we need for the level to work correctly. Matt just has to take care of allowing the player to see their stats and experience in a menu. He designed the menu system, so I do not like messing with it. It is a rather complex framework, but it works really well.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Dev Blog #2
Wednesday May 22, 2013
This past week Matt and I finalized the level editor for our game. It was a major triumph seeing the output from the editor in the correct format, after coding the save function once. The only change I had to make to that function was making it output the actual number, not the data stored in memory at that location. Minor flaw, but nonetheless it was practically a one shot success. In programming, nothing feels better than getting something right the first time.
I ended up rewriting the whole battle system, which included moving the damage calculations out of the battle state and putting them into the player and monster base classes. This gives direct access to the stats of each entity, instead of having to access them in long strings of function calls in the battle state. I also had to rewrite some other functions inside the player and monster classes, which meant moving some of them into the base Entity class, of which monster and player are extended. Simple ones that every class needed to have, so the move was inevitable and I am glad I did it now.
For next week, Matt and I are going to finalize the text parser we have for reading in data, creating an area for the QA testing portion of the class that will include enemies and an area boss and creating some assets. The player will be able to level up in this testing area so we can tweak the leveling process.
The leveling process was written by me haphazardly. I found some formulas online for experience gain and experience needed for the next level, and I adjusted one of them to output much less experience. Basically, I cut it in half.
More next week after we get the testing level set up and ready to go.
This past week Matt and I finalized the level editor for our game. It was a major triumph seeing the output from the editor in the correct format, after coding the save function once. The only change I had to make to that function was making it output the actual number, not the data stored in memory at that location. Minor flaw, but nonetheless it was practically a one shot success. In programming, nothing feels better than getting something right the first time.
I ended up rewriting the whole battle system, which included moving the damage calculations out of the battle state and putting them into the player and monster base classes. This gives direct access to the stats of each entity, instead of having to access them in long strings of function calls in the battle state. I also had to rewrite some other functions inside the player and monster classes, which meant moving some of them into the base Entity class, of which monster and player are extended. Simple ones that every class needed to have, so the move was inevitable and I am glad I did it now.
For next week, Matt and I are going to finalize the text parser we have for reading in data, creating an area for the QA testing portion of the class that will include enemies and an area boss and creating some assets. The player will be able to level up in this testing area so we can tweak the leveling process.
The leveling process was written by me haphazardly. I found some formulas online for experience gain and experience needed for the next level, and I adjusted one of them to output much less experience. Basically, I cut it in half.
More next week after we get the testing level set up and ready to go.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Dev Blog #1
Wednesday May 15, 2013
Matt and I are off to a great start. Over the spring break Matt began working on a level editor that we can use to quickly and accurately create maps that have the correct data we need for the game to run. It is almost done, he just needs to implement the export function that will write the data to a text file and will allow us to read in that text file into game data.
I worked this week on adding in functionality to the player and monster classes that allow for leveling up and experience gaining. This is really not as hard as it sounds. It was merely adding in a few variables in both classes, their respective setters and getters and some other functions that are either for debug purposes or that give us added features that may or may not stay in the final build. I have to focus next on re-writing the entire battle system to move the damage calculations into the monster and player classes. This will allow us direct access to the stats of each entity without needing multiple functions calls if we keep it in the battle state. I also need to implement the experience gaining system for when the player defeats an enemy. Matt is going to work on getting items to randomly drop from defeated enemies. A message box will pop up saying something like "Entity dropped an item! Would you like to take it with you?" and the player will be able to select yes or no. That statement is generic and will contain specific elements like the enemy's name and the name of the item that was dropped. We figured that this way was much easier to accomplish than actually having an item drop on the ground and be visible to the player. It is less coding and a lot of games do it this way.
Matt and I are off to a great start. Over the spring break Matt began working on a level editor that we can use to quickly and accurately create maps that have the correct data we need for the game to run. It is almost done, he just needs to implement the export function that will write the data to a text file and will allow us to read in that text file into game data.
I worked this week on adding in functionality to the player and monster classes that allow for leveling up and experience gaining. This is really not as hard as it sounds. It was merely adding in a few variables in both classes, their respective setters and getters and some other functions that are either for debug purposes or that give us added features that may or may not stay in the final build. I have to focus next on re-writing the entire battle system to move the damage calculations into the monster and player classes. This will allow us direct access to the stats of each entity without needing multiple functions calls if we keep it in the battle state. I also need to implement the experience gaining system for when the player defeats an enemy. Matt is going to work on getting items to randomly drop from defeated enemies. A message box will pop up saying something like "Entity dropped an item! Would you like to take it with you?" and the player will be able to select yes or no. That statement is generic and will contain specific elements like the enemy's name and the name of the item that was dropped. We figured that this way was much easier to accomplish than actually having an item drop on the ground and be visible to the player. It is less coding and a lot of games do it this way.
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