Game Development

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Spent the last few weeks roughing in ship design and planetary specials generation. If I come up with an idea for a video to highlight the work, I’ll post one. Being pre-alpha, there’s not a lot of eye-candy or graphical awesome to really showcase any of it atm.

After some refinement and testing of those pieces, I plan to shift focus to roughing in some research and colonization mechanics over the next two weeks. Hopefully that will go as smoothly as some of the other pieces have so far.

First forays into some idea generation for species art. They’re not to the full extent of concept art but design studies to explore different directions. I have some *vaguely* definite (lol) ideas of direction but sometimes throwing ideas against the wall and engaging other people’s creativity yields more intriguing designs than trying to do that all in one’s head. I’ll post a study or two in a later update.

I have some basics of starship interstellar travel implemented. You can click on a ship (just a small icon currently) and hover over another star system to see if the travel is possible.

I assigned neutron stars to block travel but, ultimately, it will be another type of astronomical object (neutron stars are just for testing).

It is far from done. Here is a little animation...

Started a new game project some months back that is provisionally called Astrum. It's a space strategy game done in the "4x" style (I'm trying to step away from some 4x conventions) with a focus on civilization customization and creation.

The only 4x elements I intend to keep are the exploration, expand, and exploit ideas. I'm stepping away from the 4th element, Exterminate/conquest, and seeking to implement other possibilities. Can we call it 3x? :) But, hey, if you DO want to conquer another civilization in a war, there's nothing stopping you from that!

Currently, it's a one person effort with some help from my fiance with testing. I'm notorious for misjudging project scope for personal projects than I can reasonably finish and so I hope this time I get the scope correct :) ::fingers crossed::

I'm using this blog as the formal blogging HQ of the project.

Screenshots

So, those following the progress of Middlecrest have probably noticed I haven't updated the source recently. Actually, that's an understatement since my last update was... November (had to go back and look).

Most of the reason is due to contract work I picked up. I underestimated the lack of time I have to devote to projects outside of my day job, which technically is also another project I work on :) I get paid at my day job. I don't get paid to develop Middlecrest.

The other part of it is that the Middlecrest source code hit a brick wall.

I haven't been the architect of a large and complicated project before. I'm used to taking code written by others, sussing out how another organization's codebase works to do whatever update I am assigned to do, and getting it done. There is a world of difference between doing that and architecting the codebase yourself.

While the codebase is great at generating locations (caves, landscapes, etc.), it is horrendous at generating areas (provinces, which are groups of locations). The codebase wasn't nearly as extensible as I thought it was. I've devoted time to correcting the deficiencies in my object model and it has forced me to re-vamp the code considerably.

I will have a fix for the province issue soon. However, since the re-engineering was so extensive, the roadmap has changed. I will release the province generation code in a bug release (a stripped down version featuring just the province code) and add the old functionality and features incrementally, in future updates.

Hopefully, that explains a few things. Middlecrest is still in development, even though it is in fits and starts :)

Continuation of an earlier post, detailing the races of Middlecrest in the latest release.


Lytans - Once possessing the largest empire in Mitrayan history, it stretched across the lands of The Levat, Ispanda, and Zakra. It lapped the shores of Nordlund and claimed portions of both modern Brytholm and the Southern Desert. Ingenious tactics and an open mind to technology and learning allowed them to conquer and lay the groundwork for much of Mistrayan civilization. Most Lytans are educated to a basic level and they were the first civilization to urbanize to a massive degree. They delight in public works and oratory. Their houses of debate served as the seed of the modern Ispandan political system. Their civilization is proud, laying to the east of Ispanda. Ongoing skirmishes with the Levatians have caused bad blood between the two peoples for centuries.

The Lytans are a combination of Ancient Rome, Byzantium, and the Qin dynasty. I wanted an imperial civilization, like Rome, that had once controlled the continent and passed down a legacy of cultural innovations. I also have a fascination with ancient empire cultures that are pre-scientific but still technology-centric.

Abilities and Bonuses: They are one of the only widely literate cultures in the continent. They are bureaucratic and imperial and so many of their other affinities are political or weapon/legion based.

( Levatians and Amoricans )

Middlecrest update to version 0.1.87

Additions:
*Rudimentary quest system
*Character disposition
*Basic guild support
*Look command
*Ranged weapon targeting
*Basic talk menu

Bug Fixes:
*Many!

Updates:
*SQLite to v3.7.6.2
*Significant code overhauls and miscellaneous updates.

This will be it for a while. If anyone wants to contribute to keep the ball rolling, feel free to contact me. Information is in-game and in included readmes. As soon as I'm back on my feet, development will continue.

Thanks and enjoy!

Middlecrest update to version 0.1.0

Additions:
*LoS
*Audiere support (no sound yet, just the capability)
*Character name generation

Bug Fixes:
*Bug fix: Fixed the crash that occurred when moving character off the map
*Bug fix: Magic would crash every time a spell was cast

Updates:
*Enhanced help menu
*Updated to-hit/dodge calculation
*Melee weapons now obey character resistances
*Massive internal rewrite and miscellaneous optimizations
and much more!

There is a lot contained within this update, including some prettying of the user interface. I've was trying to release versions as quickly as possible, as soon as I implemented a new feature. I noticed that I was getting less downloads as a result (although I'm sure there were some out there enthused by the development clip). So, I decided to pace the updates so that more features will be available for debugging purposes for each release. Hopefully, this will encourage download and testing! :)

Thanks and enjoy!

I recently discovered the advantages of Lua while doing research and doing some reading regarding ToME development. I've known about Lua in name only, but hadn't taken a long look at it until I noticed how much ToME relies on it.

It's an interesting approach and I'm excited about the capabilities to embed scripting abilities into Middlecrest. I've always envisioned the core of Middlecrest to be a library (or engine, of sorts) and this seems to be able to push the direction of the project more into that realm. I can also imagine that as Middlecrest grows, the sheer amount of source to compile will become an unwieldy time sink.

I've identified modules to begin scripting. Transitioning the code into a model where Lua becomes the logic of Middlecrest and C/C++ becomes the engine/driver of the lua modules will take some time. And I'm not sure I will be masterful enough with Lua to be able to convert everything over and compartmentalize things the way I want. I'm not sure enough bindings and support are available for Lua and the language itself is a little wonky.

Bindings for Lua and SQLite seem to be only partially implemented for version 3 (the best I've found so far is a project at 0.7) and seems to require a dll (trying to stay away from Windows-only setups for easier porting... I've been successful so far!). Lua is really high-level and so I'm not sure I will have such a fine control over the program as I have with C and C++, which limits me and I've been unsuccessful at being able to call C++ functions from Lua (which you should be able to... but, I'm still learning Lua). Tutorials are sparse, although documentation seems fair but spartan. And Lua has some wonky aspects to it that are interfering with the learning curve, like having to call the rng function twice on Windows machines, else no random number generation. Things like the rng issue aren't properly documented and probably only known to Lua gurus (or hours of googling and a lucky hit).

All these things may mean the ideal set-up of C/C++ (driver/engine), Lua (game logic), SQLite (data) may be more hybridized (C/C++ and Lua as the engine/driver and logic, and SQLite for data).

May have to see if there are other embeddable and interpreted languages out there for C++?

Development on Middlecrest has slowed of late. Unfortunately, time is a valuable commodity at the moment and the lack of it has curtailed the momentum of getting a monthly or twice-monthly release out :(

However, work has been done!

Shopkeepers are coming along pretty well. They are somewhat live, spawning in their respective business (and not allowed to travel too far from them) and they have a sort of random/hovering movement programmed into them, as they wait for customers. What hasn't been implemented yet is any interaction.

Also, I took a divergent route for a week and coded in the field of view. It is testable right now (the 'f' command will toggle it on/off). It isn't integrated into the code yet since it needs some work, but is there for people to play with it and hopefully find any bugs.

Much of the work has been going into proofing the code against future bugs and solving current ones. Some testers experienced some crashes at the beginning of the game and inexplicably during the middle of the game. I tracked some of the issues down and hopefully they are history, but testing is ongoing.

The next release will feature some rudimentary interaction between shopkeepers, such as talking and buying/selling. The shopkeepers will be expanded also, so that there will be more of them, and some other work will happen with the code base so the program can actually distinguish between a shop building and other types of buildings. The groundwork for distinguishing between various buildings has already been laid in previous development work -- it just needs to be expanded.

So, here is to hoping I get a release out soon here... within the next two weeks :)