Friday 12 June 2009

A Bit of a Brain Dump


I haven't posted very much lately, partly because I was getting out the next issue of Mythaxis, but I have been thinking about it a lot. I have decided to start the game on a boat - a Chinese Junk. The boat can transport the player to various locations around the island as necessary, and I would use a chart table below decks to direct the boat to the destination.

The boat will also contain a number of useful items - including a fan to transport the player back to the junk, or summon it.

I already have a boat in povray. I just have to elaborate it a bit.

In thinking about this, I realised we must have a rocking effect for the scenery when on deck. I considered using an array of g2d rotated images for this, but I think it'll be easier just to pre-rotate the images in Paint Shop Pro and load them as sprites. I can arrange that they not be the whole size of the applet window by placing static sprites of portholes, sails, deckhouses etc to frame the background which will be a lower priority sprite.

I was briefly worried about fan management, because there are several fan functions, which I solved by having a hot spot on the open fan, and by having a special room for open fans.
  • pick up (closed) fan - double click when fan not carried
  • drop (closed) fan - double click when fan carried
  • open fan - single click when in inventory 'room' only and fan is closed
  • close fan - single click (not on fan hot spot) when in inventory 'room' only and fan is open
  • use fan - click on hot spot on open fan
Sounds complex, I know, but I think it'll be natural. I may remove the restriction on opening the fan only in the inventory. Fan animation is going to be fun!

I have come to the conclusion that I have to fill out the game in povray before I do any more gameplay. I just keep realising that the game isn't rich enough without a good deal more articles in it. The game's going to be small enough without looking impoverished. So the next big push is scenery.

I still haven't bitten the bullet of music in mp3, but I'm not too worried about that.

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