Electric Squirrel

Back to work after a while.

The task list I added previously is helping a lot. I was able to quickly get back to work with only the briefest refresher. I just polished up the generateLocationText function to wrap the text in a font tag to give it a nice format.

Next I’m going to work on the input method for the textworld class that recieves the textEvents from the interface and handles them.

*work work work* Okey dokey, it recieves input and handles it. I’ve got it sending flash traces whenever I click on one of the menu links.

Next I’ve got to make some exit objects and link them to spaces, so that I’ll be able to move my player around the little world I’ve created so far.

I haven’t figured out just how I’ll link a text line with a specific object. I’ve been thinking of using hash tables for each of the item types and including the hash in the text though. Already have a hash table for the spaces so that the exits can find them before making a more solid reference.

Alright, I’ve already got some exits I made before and forgot about.

I’m also considering making it so that in order to create game objects, I have to use methods in the TextWorld object, which will add them to the proper lists when they’re created.

Hmm… It occurs to me that having a single switch statement for all of the possible input just isn’t sensible. I’d have to put in a case for every possible object. I’ll have to use it as a sort of code.

Hmm…

exit51, menuOption, action3

Maybe something like that. For the actions, when you click on an object in the Location text, it’ll put your options for interacting with that object in the action text area. The actions might have to be big compound things, since it needs to include what type of action it is, as well as what the action is happening to.

Well, I’ve made some progress but it looks like it’s starting to rain, and there might be something more serious rolling in. So, I’m going to pack up and head home. I wish I had a better idea where I was headed with this program, I’m usually a lot more clear on how everything will work.

I’ve been working for a while but hadn’t written anything in my open text editor for the blog. Didn’t have anything to say, I guess. Now I do.

I’m not sure how I want to handle the list of a space’s contents. I was going to have it be a list of things, but then I realized that thing children would loose their special properties; it would store them all as things, even mobiles, exits, and other spaces.

There’s two ways I could handle this. The first way would be a list with the Dynamic type, which can have members of any type but isn’t perfect across different platforms in HaXe. Or I could have seperate lists for each of the possible child types. That would mean a list of all the contained things, a list of all the contained mobiles, a list of all the contained spaces and a list of all the contained exits. The downside would be that I would have to handle all the lists seperately. That might be good though too. I think I’ll do it that way.

Alright that’s pretty much it. Not much to say this time, I did a bunch of stuff but I’m so sleepy it’s hard to say what. I will say that I added a couple of text files to the project to help keep things organized. One describes the game’s intended logic, and one is a list of tasks for me to do, so I know what I’m working on and what to do next.

Now it’s time for sleep, probably.

So the essential game loop of my initial TextWorld will be something like this:

Respond to Player Input by performing the task associated with the link that was clicked.

Run down the list of active mobiles, updating each one

Check if the player’s location has changed, and update the Location text accordingly

Check if the player’s status has changed, and update the Status text accordingly

Add action text based on the player’s input and mobile actions, and bring the action area to the bottom of the scrollbar

Wait for Input

I’m bringing back the timing factor. Each action the player takes will take a certain amount of time, potentially zero if the action doesn’t do anything but open up another menu. Or long enough that an active mobile would be able to interrupt them. There’ll be a list of mobiles to see who goes next based on the time it takes to complete their next action. If they interact with the player, the player is given the option of a response. Likewise for mobile to mobile interactions and player to mobile interactions.

Each of the Update stages will require complex coding, especially for getting the text right. That’ll be the hard part.

I think my first task will be to set up the world tree, the list of space objects and their interconnections, and load that.

Then I’ll have to make the player object, and put it into the space.

Third I’ll have to develop the functions that assemble what the player sees, based on the location of the player object.

Fourth I’ll have to deal with the interaction between the player and the text links, to allow the player to move between spaces and perform actions.

After that I can start making mobs, widgets, and actually making the whole thing a game. But first things first; the world tree.

I’ll need to make a function that loads the world tree, to begin with. Eventually I’d like to have it loaded from an XML file, but for now I’ll do it all in code.

Hmm… I forget so soon, I was going to use a list of spaces rather than a tree of linked spaces. Load all of the spaces into an array or a hashtable, then have the exits lead to particular space numbers, since I couldn’t use direct references.

For now I’m going to make the description for the room all myself, but later I want it to be procedurally generated based on the room contents.

Okay it’s almost time for DnD, time to go be nerdy in a different fashion. Glayven.

So now that I’ve gotten over that bump from earlier, I still need to actually get this thing working. Right now I’ve got a basic interface set up with feeder text, but in order to have it interface with the TextWorld simulation, I’ve got to handle the link TextEvents it sends.

I’m also somewhat worried that I will be unable to make links appear correctly; that they’ll switch to default style and be unchangable by the font tag.

*tests it* Oh that’s a relief! It’s not underlined, and it’s the right colour. I will be able to carry on.

Right. So, I’ll make an event handler for link events next.

*work work work*

Okay I did a lot of stuff there. I set up a whole system of event transfers between the main object and its two children, the interface and the textworld. The main object carries the information across.

I’ve run into a strange bug though. When I set the location text, it appears where the action text should be, and when I try to set the action text, it says it hasn’t been defined. … ahh, here’s the problem; I didn’t change the names when I copied the code for the location and action texts. It’s a wonder I didn’t have this problem earlier.

*tinker tinker* There we go, now it’s working properly. The basic interface is set up, the rest of the work should be getting the TextWorld object to do its thing. That’ll be for next time though; it’s late and I have a family thing tomorrow, and I need to get some sleep.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to do any work on my projects, and not for lack of trying! I’ve either been caught up in the Unitarian site (which is done and up at http://unitarian.sarnia.com/ ) or preoccupied with something else. Games have been distracting; SWTOR and Anno2070 have been big contenders for my attention. I finally had a big area of time to work yesterday but between the difficulties with Mystery Bunnygirl X and a big argument that left me unable to think of anything else, I didn’t get a thing done.

I’m still reeling from some of that today, but hopefully I’ll be able to get something done.

*work work* Hum… nme.Lib isn’t in the API documentation. Oh wait, here it is! It’s just not given its own section. I thought it was a package, but it’s just a class.

*work work work* I was just thinking, why don’t I make the graphical interface, so I can be sure of what I’ll have to work with when the user clicks on something?

And I started doing that. Then I realized that since I switched to HaXe, I’ll have to re-do the scrolling text area thing I did for Flash!

Well, HaXeNME and Flash work together pretty well, so it shouldn’t be difficult to modify the existing code to HaXe. But, well, just wanted to say that.

*work work work*

Now the internet is down and the sun has reached a position where it’s all up in my screen. Plus I have really bad heartburn, so I’m going to head home before continuing.

*work work work work work*

*work work work work work*

Well that was a heck of a lot of work, but I’ve got the scrollbar working in HaXe now. Quite the illustration on what’s different between the languages!

Anyways now that I’ve got that done, it’s getting close to midnight and I’m pretty drained. It was nice to accomplish something tangible for a change.

So I haven’t worked on my TextWorld project for a while, but after a week of doing web development for a local unitarian congregation, I dropped the beat on the A-Life and decided to pick up the Text again.

From what I learned in the A-Life project, NME seems like the ideal target for my Text Game too. I can pump it out for Flash, HTML5, and a bunch of other platforms. Of course, that’s just the front end. First I’ve gotta make the backend.

I brought over the data classes I made before and put them into a new NME project. Now that I’m using NME I don’t have to keep the interface and logic seperate, though I’m wondering if I should.

The plan before was to have the TextWorld object reveal certain properties which would contain the text for the four regions of the game board. Then I started thinking about how to do the context menus. I could probably reveal a list of strings with the context menu htmlformatted triggers inside. Then the interface would format those into floating boxes of links. When the links are pressed, they release a text event, which the interface passes back to the textworld, to find out what to do.

I still haven’t perfected the actions system. I’m thinking I’ll make a class that’s nothing but action functions. If you wanted to get a pie that was sitting on the floor, you’d click on the pie link in the room text, that would tell the textworld you clicked on the pie, and the textworld would generate a context menu for the pie. The links would be tied to either further context menus or actions. If you click the get action, the get function will take the getter and the object as arguments and attempt to move the pie to the player’s inventory.

*work work work* Hang on, what’s this? There’s no function class in HaXe? Hmm… Looks like there is a way to do it, using dynamic functions, but the syntax is different. Hmm… I’m not sure what to do with this. I suppose instead of using a direct function reference, I could call the function from a switch based on input. Kind of a funny way to do it.

Anyways all of this is spiking my anxiety, so I’m going to take a break. I swear, the more I work on this the more I think I should just drop all the pretenses and make a basic TextGame, and build up from that.