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[Nivim]

 I was wondering if you could try and put the information on the right closer together. Name, health, hunger, and energy could all take one line each, which would leave 13 lines for event text, 19 if you removed the "-=-"s. I guess it adds "flavor", but I'd much prefer an option to compact it.
 Could you make it so it displays what an object is when you walk over it?
 Also, it would be nice to add a little "pop-up" description for [l]ooking at creatures, so we can get an idea of how you wish to paint said creature (generic guard, generic goblin, do the guards wear any insignia? Do the goblins look mind-controlled)...I do wonder what the Tower of Azari is, first time I read it I imagined a "tower" of infinite height that appeared one day; piercing through planets, moons, and suns alike. The tower's entire length being filled with treasure and monsters on "spawn", but many of them being suffocated, imbeded in rock, or incinerated (of course, some treasures and monsters would not care about these conditions they've been conjured in).

 Also, I'm glad you've left so many places open for monsters to fight each other.

[Outcast Orange]

You've inspired me.
I will have to think thoughts like that to make a good game.

[Nivim]

 That is strange.

 Anyway, the game either just froze or the screen is failing to redraw. I was in the (u)se screen and accidentally selected "apple" instead of "W-Minor He/", although I can't tell if just opening that menu or the actual selection froze it.
 Also, on a related note, how do you eat?

Edit: Is Magic Missile supposed to take no time? If you use a bunch of wands the creature doesn't even get time to die until you move.

[Org]

Timmeh, I wish to know how to get a person for a roguelike to run smoothly without having to redraw the map everytime I wish to move. Do you think it is possible to explain how?

[Alexhans]

Also, on a related note, how do you eat?

Use food.

Timmeh, I wish to know how to get a person for a roguelike to run smoothly without having to redraw the map everytime I wish to move. Do you think it is possible to explain how?

Remember the structure you're using.  There's a game loop.   You get input, calculate stuff, output information...  You're saying that you want to skip the last step?  What you can do is optimize your draw function to be efficient but there's no way to leave it out of the process...

The closest thing I can think of is that youy keep an array of bools (of the size of your visible map screen) and determine if the state of a tile has changed... to draw it's new state (person, item, whatever over it) skipping the output if it hasn't changed but I don't know how complicated can it be and how big would the performance gain be.

[Outcast Orange]

He has a basic rogue-like in his hands, but he isn't using Curses, so he has to hit enter every time.
Basically, timmeh is the only one among us that has experience installing Curses in Visual C++.

There really needs to be a tutorial video or something.
(Which now that I think of it, Alexhans will probably provide instantly, or perhaps qwerty)

Good luck Org.

[Alexhans]

Oh... I get it... Letting the default input/ouput is extremely innefficient for a roguelike.  An alternative to pdcurses might be to use the <console.h> but PdCurses has more features, IMHO.

Setting up a library in Vs2005 Express:
http://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/a2-using-libraries-with-visual-studio-2005-express/
(I don't use Express.  I'm afraid it's a little uglier  , sorry)

Setting up PdCurses in VS2003/5/8 Professional.
It's fairly easy:
download the latest pdcurses files from http://pdcurses.sourceforge.net/:
Extract it in an easy location.  I recommend you make now a path for all your libraries e.g: c:\library\Pdcurses34
*You should have a .dll (dynamic lybrary) wich will need to go in your system/win32 directory (so you don't have to link it to a project everytime).  Bear in mind that you need to include this dll in the game release when you give it to someone else.
*int C/C++ Tab go to General and in additional include libraries add your path to the folder containing the curses.h e.g. "C:\Program files\Curses\pdcurs34"
*in linker->general you also have an additional include library path so you can link to pdcurses.lib.  Same process.
Later, when you start a new project you will need to go to Project->Properties->Linker->command line and write "pdcurses.lib" so you can link the library with your project.

you could directly enter your ".lib" file that will have to go in your "...\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\lib" folder.
and your header file ".h" that will go in "...\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include" if you wanted... But it's tidier to have non-default libraries & headers outside of your compilers folders.


brief:
- extract library
- set additional include path
- set additonal library path
- add library file in the command line
- dll to system32 folder.

done.

[timmeh]

Okay, I had to splice several working pieces of old broken cables together, and the result is held together by duct tape, but it works

I didn't get that done until just now though, so I haven't gotten anything besides more planning done today.

Anyways, on to replies...

@ Outcast Orange - I know I had to turn the computer off for a while, but I didn't realize I had died... woah, major revelation   I actually haven't really tried VS yet, I set it up in Code::Blocks, and there is a tutorial for that... if I can find it again I'll put the link up.

@ Nivm - Thanks for the GUI advice!  I'll defiantly squish some of the stuff together, maybe take out all but one like between the short log, or just stick "- " in front of each one, so you can tell where one starts and the last ends.... I'll look into the bugs though, thanks for the heads up.

@ Org - Well, if you're using PDCurses, you could redraw the tile the player is standing on over them, then draw them in a new position.  That way you don't have to redraw the whole map or anything.  That being said, that's going to be hard to keep up with if you start using a field of view or something.  You'll definitely want a single function that draws a tile with whatever is on it if you try this.  I think there's also a variation on the refresh() function in PDCurses that only refreshed parts of the screen that have changed, so you may want to see if you can find any info on that.

@ Alexhans - Thanks for posting that!  I'm going to start a google code page for ToA after I get the rewrite done, and when I do that I may stick that in the wiki, and maybe write one for Code::Blocks, to help people who want to try compiling it themselves...


Thanks for all the input guys, I'm really looking forward to resuming work on this either tomorrow or the day after, depending on how much time I have tomorrow with work and my school's dance...

[Outcast Orange]

If I can get only slightly further, I will have all the knowledge I need to completely bring my game up-to-date.
I envy you currently, for having a game in a state where things can be added.

I can't wait to be back at that place, eating that food.

[timmeh]

Heh, I was at that place right up until I finished adding spells.  I currently have two or three different effect systems running, as well as many other things that are being performed in various, incompatible ways, by many different objects... thus the need for a rewrite   It's mostly just a restructure I need, I've spent the last couple days sketching out which classes will hold what information, what classes I need, functions that would make using the classes easier, etc.  Hopefully, once I've got the classes in, the rest will be mostly copy-paste from the old one, with a few optimizations, and some commenting.


[EDIT]: Damn, the computer is overheating now.  I can use it a few minutes at a time to check Bay12 and e-mail, but that's about it for the moment... I'll probably send it in for repairs over the next week, since I've got a break from school.  Should be back soon, and I'll keep you updated, from another computer if necessary.

[timmeh]

Computer is going in for repairs tomorrow morning.  If the fan just needs to be cleaned I'll have it back that afternoon, if it needs to be replaced I'm likely to have to wait until the end of the week.  Either way, could be worse.  In the mean time, I've started doing as much planning and research as I can using physical resources (books and scrap paper), and I may see if I can get at a friend, sibling or library computer long enough to update you guys.  I'm considering making it almost as much of a rogue-like engine as a game, given how easy it would be to do that from where it currently stands.  Also, I'm thinking I may change the format of the item and enemy files to be like the spell one, any opinions?  (it may or may not be a while before I get to read this again, but it's not abandoned!!!)

[Outcast Orange]

Yay! Timmeh lives! I knew there was a Santa Claus!

[Jack_Bread]

Tower of Azari took more than an hour of my time yesterday. :O
The only two turn offs was how easy it is to get the strongest equipment and HOW SOME SCREENS WILL STOP DOING ANYTHING AND FREEZE AFTER YOU'VE GOTTEN FAR FAR INTO THE DUNGEON.

Can't wait for this update.
Good luck with your computer.

[timmeh]

Okay.  I'm writing this from the rediculously slow and laggy browser built into my PS3.  The laptop is in for repairs, and I've been doing a lot of planning in the mean time.  I've actually hand-written about three pages (front and back) of a strange combination of real and psuedo code to use once I do get it back, as well as pre-planning all the classes and structures I'll need.

In the mean time, I'm going to see about borrowing someone elses computer to get Linux on my PS3 tomorrow.  I've been meaning to for quite some time, and I might just be able to get developement started early if I can get CodeBlocks (or any other IDE) working in the PS3 version of Kubuntu...

The computer should be returned to me by the beginning of next week, so hopefully I'll be able to resume work soon.

And before I forget, bugs that exist in the current version are likely to be gone in the next, as I'll be rewriting most of it from scratch.

[Outcast Orange]

Sounds good. I have a whole pad of graph paper filled with pseudo-code and ideas.
Whenever I'm not near my PC, I write in it obsessively.
The internet will still be waiting for you when you get back.
Don't worry.
I can't wait for your input either.