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[MechPlasma]

Version 8 is out! (47kb, Google Docs)

• AI
• AI
• AI

Yup, pretty much nothing but trying to improve AI. This is nearly as smooth as it's gonna get - but I think there's a bug somewhere that's slowing it down just a little sometimes.

Anyway, next week - which obviously isn't going to be much - will be just bugfixing. It needs it. Badly.


Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas!

[MechPlasma]

Haha remember that part about me thinking I'd get work done this week? Yeah, that didn't happen.

Well actually I got about half of the bugs fixed - particularly the ones to do with pathfinding ignoring areas - but there's still a lag spike somewhere in the AI code that I can't figure out.

[MechPlasma]

Version 9! (Google Docs, 48kb)

• Bugfixes
• Food, and (automated) farms.

Because I am still so very bad at drawing, food is representend by.... classic meat-on-a-bone sprites! I guess that makes the farm a meatfarm. (The farms themselves are just brown squares too)

No, you don't plant anything on farms (things grow automatically), and you can't build a farm yet either. The mechanics are there, but I need to extend the interface again to do that, and that's later on in my ToDo list.



Next time: fighting!

[Shaoni]

This project turns me on sexually.

Will there be wild animals and civilizations and such? I can imagine a full remake of DF in 3D would distort the space around a PC, so I don't expect it to have all the features, but will it at least have those two?

[MechPlasma]

Will there be wild animals and civilizations and such? I can imagine a full remake of DF in 3D would distort the space around a PC, so I don't expect it to have all the features, but will it at least have those two?

Wild animals, yes. Civilizations... well, there will be, but only about as much as they were in DF - which is to say, they'll really only trade and attack, but won't have their own stats or records or anything like that. I don't think they'll even persist between saves.

[MechPlasma]

HAHAHA WHOOPS I really should've tested that version out properly instead of rushing it! Because of one little oversight, it now has... several different game-crashing bugs!

[MechPlasma]

Version 10 now out! (51kb)

• Enemy NPCs added.
• Fighting and deaths added.
• NPCs now spawnable with U and I buttons
• All lag problems fixed - game should now run smoothly in normal conditions

Well I got a good bit done this time! Now that University has started up again, its a lot easier to get focused on work, and since I now have two days off a week (aka: 3 days of uni), I have a lot more time than last semester!

Oh, and because I no longer have university on Friday, and I can't access the server from home (hence the loads of Google Docs uploads in the last few weeks), I'll now be uploading every Wednesday instead!

Anyway, plan for now is to try wrap stuff up, with a proper menu and such, so that it can really start being called 'a game'. After that... well, either multiplayer (because now I decided I want an early start on that) or AI, because I want it to be more complex than 'know where everything is' now.

[ansontan2000]

Watching to post.

[Rgamer]

This looks to be a great project, sir! I will test it for you in my Web Design 2.... excuse me, Interface Design class. I usually do all the work in the opening 50 minutes of class, and spend the rest messing around on games.

[Ghills]

Bug Report: After extracting the Version 10 folder, I get a "Program has stopped working" error message.  Running as administrator didn't help.  Sorry I can't be more helpful, that's the only message I get.

[Väinämöinen]

Bug Report: After extracting the Version 10 folder, I get a "Program has stopped working" error message.  Running as administrator didn't help.  Sorry I can't be more helpful, that's the only message I get.

You need Microsoft XNA redistributable 4.0 package to get this working:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=20914

[Ghills]

OK, I've got the game running. Is there an official name for the little green dudes?  If not, I'm going to call them imps.

Anyway, the imps are happily running to the farms and standing on the fields, but they're ignoring my build orders.  I should be able to place a build order by clicking on the right-hand option and then placing it by left-clicking where I want it, right?

[MechPlasma]

Anyway, the imps are happily running to the farms and standing on the fields, but they're ignoring my build orders.  I should be able to place a build order by clicking on the right-hand option and then placing it by left-clicking where I want it, right?

Yeah, pretty much. As long as you've dug out enough rocks first to build with.


I guess I didn't really give much thought to how easy it is to know what to do. Because of the time restraints, it was something I just thought wasn't worth adding a tutorial for. I should probably put in a help screen or two soon.

[Ghills]

Bug report: When I try to build a slope underneath solid ground the game crashes. Example:

X X X <- Ground
O O X <- O is open

When I try to turn the bottom X into a slope the game crashes.  You probably want to handle the error gracefully.

[MechPlasma]

Oh.... whoops! I guess I forgot to post last week's version here! I thought I did.
...well, you didn't miss much.

Version 12! (56kb)

• Workshop partly added (the one in it converts rock to food. Yeah, that's how unfinished they are).
• NPCs, functionable blocks (farms and workshops) and item piles are now selectable!
• Selected functionable items can create job orders.
• Selected NPCs now display inventory.
• Selected item piles display contents.

Now, making assorted types of workshops will be easy!

...

Also, good news and bad news:

Bad news is that there's now only 8 weeks left of the project, and with applying for a PhD too it looks like I'll be really pressed for time! From this point on, I'm going to pay less attention to it being a good game, and more attention to making it a good... err, proof of concept, I guess. As in, have as much of the functions it'd be impressive to have.

The good news is that I've decided to make the source code public when that 8 weeks are done! I doubt anyone will actually take a proper go at it, but it shouldn't be hard to add more... stuff to it, from the way I coded it. I hope.

...

Next week? Well, I'm working on that Main Menu (finally), and I still have to give NPCs the ability to properly fight back, but after that I really want to get on with Trading. Shouldn't be too hard to do (Famous last words)

Bug report: When I try to build a slope underneath solid ground the game crashes. Example:

X X X <- Ground
O O X <- O is open

When I try to turn the bottom X into a slope the game crashes.  You probably want to handle the error gracefully.

I... thought I had fixed that in this version! But just as I was typing this message up, I realised that I had only half-solved it.
Next version though, it'll be fixed properly! Thanks for telling me, by the way.