// I know that a lot of this isn't directly relevant, or overly detailed explanation of basic concepts, especially in the {programming bits}, there's a reason I'm adding it anyway: I really enjoy it … I don't know why, but it's fun explaining it. I think I might need help.

Describing Our World

Finally, what I consider 'the fun stuff' … I'm a long way from coding any of this, as I want to be able to effectively test it in the environment I'm designing to present it. But it's better that I lay out my design intentions before hand, let people have a chance to look at it, and to have a place outside my skull to have this stuff as I design and code with the intention of being able to implement it.

// Eh, I didn't get to the stuff that I find...
[ Continued ... ]

The Big Picture

Right, when I start a new game, what do I create it with, when a save a game, where is it really stored? Three fundamental overarching objects are meant for this task.

Element

I wanted to avoid making my fundamental building block something like 'GameObject' … considering how the word Object is used in programming, I wanted to avoid it here, an element encompasses a live 'something' in a running game or a saved game waiting to be run. If you can see it on screen while playing, there's a GameElement behind it.

Element Type

{ Objects are constructs that are meant to save work, processing power and memory by encompassing all the common data about a set of variables. You always know...
[ Continued ... ]

// Okay, okay … I'm finding myself digging into some of the programming concepts behind some of these things, for those who find it interesting. For those of you who want to skip past that crap and get to the meat, I'll wrap up my programming exposition in curly braces. { }

Comments, denoted by double slashes '//' or blocks contained in slash asterisk tags /* */ are side notes more than actual discussion of the topic.

// Also, everything I'm writing here will be going in my main design document … and I may adjust this if I'm presented with something that I think would fit.


WorldForge

Fundamental Concepts – Prologue

I'm a long way of coding this stuff, but if I have it laid out now, I'm the better...
[ Continued ... ]

Right ... I knew this wouldn't be all fun and games. Where am I in my project? Let's put it this way. I've written a basic handler to put characters up on the screen in a way I like and with the color I want. I want to write a set of objects that allow for more dynamic manipulation of those characters ... the basic framework of a primitive UI. But before I get there ... text, lots of text and playing with string characters. Why text? What's so important about text? My project is largely driven by text ... for what I'm planning. A very large volume of it. I'm writing a set of string handling classes to implement things such as word masking ( " %Player1% threw the %BallName% to %Player2%% ) and word wrapping that does not chop up individual words (look at this post, I haven't hit...
[ Continued ... ]

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u165/c4cypher/WorldForge_MainDraft.png

Right, not only is this a very good picture as of what I want the objects that contain the actual app to look like, but it paints a much, MUCH better picture as to the abstraction of the UI. All the game really needs to know about the UI is whatever each Gamestate needs to know about it's visual representation. So every time I write a screen for my text UI, I write an interface that only hooks in those method calls that the Gamestate classes will be making.

Right, I've got to start somewhere. I've already starting to poke my head into the code a little bit before I even started posting about this project ... bad practice, especially considering I had no design aside from what was rattling around in my skull. Simple stuff, such as defining container classes for the integer based vectors, integer based rectangles that will serve as the framework that I plan to hang both my text UI and my game logic on. But little stuff like that isn't going to get this project really off the ground in a meaningful manner, so I've seriously started thinking, sketching all over sheets of notebook paper and UMLet.

My first goal here is to make it easy for someone else to come in and slap a completely different user interface on top of the game logic...
[ Continued ... ]

This isn't going to be too fancy, but I need to get this out somewhere if I'm going to have a prayer of doing this the right way, as in design the thing before I try to code it.

Put simply, the target goal for the WorldForge class library project is to present a working game engine that bears certain large similarities to a Rogue-like. The difference is that, aside from the 'map', the game is very text driven, everything that happens to the player happens through text descriptions, how the player's character feels, what is happening around him/her. Furthermore, rather than having to memorize idiotic key combination to do anything, as in a rogue-like, or having to guess the proper arrangement of words that a text parser will interpret properly, as in a text adventure, I want...
[ Continued ... ]

This place, Eka's, and the community it serves is ... interesting. I've been lurking here (and in Yum chat) for the better part of the decade. However, aside from a few Roleplay partners, I've largely participated from the shadows. Eka's is a place where people not only come to share our unique interests, but our talents as well. Some of the amazing artwork, stories and other works here are presented for our perusal without any fee, given freely to the enjoyment of all. I'd like to thank you, all of you who may have contributed to my enjoyment of this community. I'd name specific people, but that would just devolve into the kind of drooly internet worship that I'd rather avoid.

So ... why am I posting now? After years and years of avoiding direct participation in the...
[ Continued ... ]