Turambar Day 2

Things are looking much better today for Turambar. I got some monsters up in there. They do not move too smart. They get blocked when more than one wants to come get you. But they move. You can try to hit them. However you don't really do much damage for now. You essentially die in battle all the time.

I started putting in the structure for items such as weapons. But I still need some user interaction for wieldiing the weapons. I got stuck a bit there because I want some easy to user keyboard entries to pick from lists. Did some research on that today. Will hopefully finish that up tomorrow. Then you should be able to find and wield good weapons to attack monsters with.

To be complete, I should also attend to the monster movement AI. They just try to make a straight line toward the player. If another monster is in the way, they are trapped. If the dungeon maze prohibits a direct path to the player, they get stuck. Some of these monsters should be start enough to walk around walls to get to the player. Just how to I implement that though? It is a nice problem to solve I bet.

The Power of Java

This week I finish up a college class on the Java programming language. That is going to do two things: (1) give me some more free time for programming, and (2) provide me with the the basic skills to code some wicked rogue-like features in a game.

Earlier this year I wrote Dungeon Level 1 (dL1), a seven day rogue-like creation. It was pretty weak compared to polished Rogue-like games. However I coded it up in seven days. And I was a real newbie Java programmer.

Now I plan to release a new version that improve playability. I also want to use the game and my new programming knowledge to experiment with some common rogue operations. You know? I want to put some speed in the game. And I want to add cool weapons. But I will start with baby steps. I need to put more than one dungeon level in the game. I wonder whether I will still call it Dungeon Level 1.