Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Knight of Fools]

If ASCII graphics are the most accessible, that's cool.  But if something a little more aesthetic comes up, I won't be complaining. 

Are you taking the Hermit's route of programming and making this all by yourself?  I'd offer to help, but I'm definitely not a professional, or even something like one.  I'm also assuming that there's another code hurdle if you wanted to go beyond ASCII - I don't know much about programming, though.

[Lord Dullard]

Yes, I am working on this alone. I wouldn't mind paying someone for artistic help but because of the flexibility of Python I feel the better solution would be to provide the framework for artistic modification and allow users (who are bound to be much better at anything of the sort than I am) to design and implement their own graphics.

There is a code hurdle to deal with if that's the case, which is that libTCOD contains functions that allow SDL graphics to be drawn over the console, but Pygame uses SDL surfaces which are different than actual SDL surfaces (even though Pygame is Python's equivalent of the SDL library). This means that libTCOD cannot create an SDL surface which is capable of being drawn on by Pygame, because it creates an *actual* SDL surface, whereas Pygame expects its own unique surface type.

That can be dealt with, but it would be a pretty hefty project in and of itself no matter which of several routes I take to implement a fix.

The other alternative is to abandon the libTCOD console completely, possibly using the library only for its terrain generation tools, and switching to Pygame or another graphical library (Pygame would probably be best). Again, this would require a considerable amount of time and effort. It's certainly not impossible, though, and it would probably be better done early than later on. But there is also a lot of functionality lost by giving up libTCOD, and I'm rather fond of ASCII myself, which I feel libTCOD does a very good job of making more acceptable to those who are concerned with visual style.

[Levi]

Might as well keep using Ascii for now, it works well for things like this and you could always switch things up later.  Most projects like this require an infrastructure rewrite at some point anyway. 

[Lord Dullard]

More plodding through creature code has ensued since my last post. I'm working on things as I write this. This game is going to end up including the most insanely complex version of 'mad libs' ever made by the time I'm done with the various description/story generators.

I took a bit of a detour to make some improvements to the World Atlas in preparation for working on nation-related code. There's been a rewrite of the code that creates mini-maps to allow them to be more interactive; the player can now hover over any given nation in a mini-map from the 'Relations' screen to display its name and highlight its borders. Eventually detailed information about relations between the menu-selected nation and the secondary nation being hovered over by the cursor will show up automatically along with this; clicking on a nation will also do stuff, though I haven't decided yet whether it'll just be a direct shortcut to THAT nation's info page, or if it'll pull up a more complex list of interactions between the two countries in the past.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Korbac]

I'd just like to re-iterate how awesome this is, Lord Dullard. You are a man after my own...umm...Sense of creativity. 

[Lord Dullard]

Thanks, Korbac.

Easier to read now:

[Fniff]

Yeah, Reca's a bro.

[quip]

Yeah, Reca's a bro.

So true.

[Fniff]

Yeah, Reca's a bro.

So true.

Yeah, he's so cool. You know Reca? This cop goes up to him and tells him he can't drive anymore. Reca just goes "Fine" and teleports himself to a fantasy game made by a guy, and then becomes a nation.

Reca's a bro.

[Neonivek]

Reca is so cool your adviced only too look upon him with sun glasses or else your eyes will melt from the awsome.

Which isn't so bad because just his presence cures blindness.

[Fniff]

Reca is so cool your adviced only too look upon him with sun glasses or else your eyes will melt from the awsome.

Which isn't so bad because just his presence cures blindness.

Reca's so cool, he went up to Lord Dullard and insulted him.

Oh God I just created the next Chuck Norris. I pray this never catches on.

[quip]

Reca is so cool your adviced only too look upon him with sun glasses or else your eyes will melt from the awsome.

Which isn't so bad because just his presence cures blindness.

Reca's so cool, he went up to Lord Dullard and insulted him.

Oh God I just created the next Chuck Norris. I pray this never catches on.

Reca's so cool he challenged Chuck Norris to a fight... And won.

[nenjin]

Hey.

Don't we have like 14 different threads for this kind of silliness in GD? Don't muck up the man's project thread with it.

[Fniff]

Hey.

Don't we have like 14 different threads for this kind of silliness in GD? Don't muck up the man's project thread with it.

Ah, it keeps the thread alive at least.

[Lord Dullard]

A bit of brainstorming:

Creature Dispersal Code Considerations

Starting areas: 1, 2, 3, or more? There should be an increasingly low chance of (more) starting areas, with the vast majority of creatures only having. However, some species should probably start out in multiple places to represent conglomerate species, i.e. those similar to rats, the peregrine falcon, etc, which can be found virtually everywhere on earth, or to emulate the separation and evolutionary branching of a species due to phenomena such as continental drift or natural disasters.

Habitat availability and 'leaps': Should creatures be able to spread to distant habitats? Not sure about this one. It seems like the likelihood should be very low, except for migratory or otherwise very mobile species. There should probably still be a small chance of this happening, however, since it has certainly occurred in real-life evolutionary history. All but the hardiest and most adaptable of species should be restricted to a single or small set of habitats/niches to represent specialization.

ETA: The bio major girlfriend says this is actually fairly likely over a long period of time if two suitable habitats are in a semi-reasonable proximity to one another even if creatures would normally never migrate between the two, because being forced out of habitat A by natural disaster, predation, our overpopulation can result in a creature ending up in habitat B. Cool.

Competition: Creatures that draw from the same food source(s) should be considered competition and should either slow the spread of species or out-compete them if there is not enough food availability.

Possibility of extincion: Animals should probably be able to go extinct, although I'd like this to be an extremely small chance, since presumably the sentient races of Cult are (mostly) not industrialized enough yet to represent a serious threat to nature. But being out-competed by other, similar, more successful species and/or being hunted into extinction a la the dodo bird are both possibilities to implement.

Some additional thoughts: The result of this code being well-thought out should be a world in which an adventurer can go anywhere and encounter new creatures with their own niches and behavioral considerations. Eventually, hunting guilds, medicinal or magical recipes, and the like should also give players a reason to seek out such rare creatures in inhospitable/difficult to reach environments.