Text Adventure Begun (well nearley)
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| Ok, I have a story i Have drawings on paper of rooms etc I have a list of all the objects in the game, but Ive come across a problem I need a Way of checking on what the Player is carrying and if the Player Can use that object with somthing in a Certain room, Example "small key with small lock in green room" I thought I could use arrays? or maybe true/false statements? Also is it wrong to use a differnt function for each room? Examople Function room1() function room2() etc |
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| Arrays would work but could be clumsy. I would use types. As for the rooms, it is probably overkill to use a different function for each room. Since the rooms will be pretty identical in terms of what the player can do in them, you only need one room function which, among other things, displays the description for the current room. Store descriptions for all the rooms in an array or with types and have the function reference the appropriate description. Then, whenever the player moves, have the room function switch which room it is referencing. |
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| Thanks Maybe I can start getting some coding tonight :), I may try both ways, first with types then with arrays and see which is best. One last thing, when usoing arrays do I have to keep a Restore loop running for when it checks for Inventory and possible routes? |
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Here's how I might set it up:Type Room Field ID%, Name$, Desc$ Field North.Room, South.Room, East.Room, West.Room Field Item[MAX_ITEMS_IN_ROOM] ; Can contain a certain number of items End Type Type Player Field Name%, Strength%, Intelligence% Field Inventory.Item[NUM_ITEMS_IN_GAME] End Type Type Item Field ID% ; To be indexed on Player\Inventory Field Name$, Desc$ Field Location.Room Field UsedWith.Item[3] ; Can be used with a few other items End Type Now to check if a certain item can be used with another, you might do something like this: ItemUsed.Item = Player\Inventory[ItemID] ItemUsedOn.Item = Room\Item[2] If ItemUsed\UsedWith[1] = ItemUsedOn Then Print "Yes, this item can be used with that item." This is just to give you some ideas. It might not be the best way. |
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| I remember from the old speccy days, some Basic-language text-adventures were written using a code sequence for each room. i.e '1A.E71.N5.S2.O50.O31' Where this would be interpreted as LOCATION: 1A EXIT EAST TO: 71 EXIT NORTH TO: 5 EXIT SOUTH TO: 2 OBJECT IN ROOM: 50 and 31 or similar! |
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| Hmmmm Well Im going to *Punch* whoever said that writing a text advnture was a good first easy program, all this stuff keeps me awake at night tying to figure it out, I solve one problem and I am then presented with another :) But the real problem is I refuse to Start a Differnt game its become an obsession Im doomed! But watch this space I may just finish it!. |
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| Relative to other games a text adventure IS easy. The key word is "relative." Writing a text adventure isn't easy relative to, say, programming a loop to count from 1 to 1000, but relative to writing some other game it is easy. That is, writing something else would be even harder. |
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| Hmmmm well my futre in programming doesent look good then :) |
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| Good luck! Persistence and patience is a good quality for a programmer :) ---- Still, by encountering all the problems, and their solutions, its a way of learning, right? |
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| Trust me when I say, "When you are finished programming this game, the next (what should be) harder one will be MUCH easier." |
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| Yeah, that's a very important point. The best advice I got when I first started programming games is to start with the easiest project I can think of (I did Minesweeper) and gradually ramp up the difficulty with each project I undertake. Most people try to write a MMORPG right out of the gate, but the experience and confidence (the latter is definitely overlooked a lot) you gain from starting on easier projects will make things much easier for you on harder projects. Anyone can start a game but only a rare few can finish one, and that finishing ability is only gained from having completed games in the past. And if you've never programmed a game before you are MUCH more likely to complete something easy than something hard. My recommendation if you are finding this project too difficult is make it easier. Cut down the number of items and rooms in your game until it is something you can easily finish. Then finish it, and start a new project which is a bit harder. Above all else, do NOT switch to a new project until this one is done. There are of course legitamite reasons for abandoning a project to work on something else, but when you are just starting out you want to build up the habit of finishing what you start. In fact, a logical small increase in difficulty for your next project would be adding some graphics. Complete this project without graphics, and then do Space Invaders for your next project. |
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| "Infantry_Nutter" - your original question is easy to do. All objects will have a location value (of where they are held). Suppose your game has 500 or so locations. Set up the player's inventory to be 600 (for example) and all non-player characters to have successesive numbers. When legally taking a object, change it's location value to 600 (or whatever). When you do a inventory check - you search through the entire list of objects and display all those where the object location is equal to 600 (or whatever) - when dropping an object change the object location to the location number. Also, you can make other objects have inventories in the same way - such as a backpacks or chests - whatever you like. Backpack 1 could have location number 700 - the sky is the limit. Actually, what you are doing is fairly easy - it's just you haven't yet made the connections - you will. Note: You don't need to use restore for this. I wouldn't store location descriptions in arrays - keep that stuff as data. |
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Heres a few of my types for my mud project:Type player Field stream Field status Field Id Field name$ Field password$ Field curr_room Field curr_area Field title$ Field desc$[50] Field pclass Field prace Field sex Field comm Field comm1$ Field comm2$ Field comm3$ Field comm4$ Field msg$ Field experience# Field exptnl# Field stance Field postion Field vision Field pinv.inv[100] Field EqWorn[21] Field paff.affects[100] Field Enc Field Curr_Str Field Curr_Dex Field Curr_Int Field Curr_Wis Field Curr_Con Field Base_Str Field Base_Dex Field Base_Int Field Base_Wis Field Base_Con Field Pcolor Field gold Field silver Field bank Field pskills.pskills[100] Field pspells.pspells[100] End Type Type Inventory Field InvType Field InvId Field ItemName$ Field ItemNumber Field Weight Field desc1$ Field desc2$ Field Alighnment Field IAcValue Field Imres Field ItemLevel Field ItemCost Field Damage Field itd.DamageNoun[3] Field Material End Type Type Race Field racename$ Field RaceNumber Field Base_Str Field Base_Dex Field Base_Con Field Base_Int Field Base_Wis Field rskills.rskills[100] field rspells.rspells[100] Field Rvision Field ExpMult End Type Type Area Field Areaname$ Field AreaNumber Field ar.room[100] Field weather End Type Type Room Field Roomname$ Field RoomNumber Field ralso.Alsohere[100] Field rlying.Lyinghere[100] Field Light Field MvCost Field RoomType End Type Type Class Field Classname$ Field ClassNumber Field cskills.cskills Field cspells.cspells field plus_Str Field Plus_Dex Field Plus_Con Field Plus_Int Field Plus_Wis Field Vision Field ExpCost Field MaxArmor Field Cweapons End Type The room/area/class/race number, and player Id is because I'm doing arrays in types. I'm dimming player by 1,000 for now, and then reorganizing them when someone quits, eventually i may change it so that there can be unlimited players but it'll have to store each player in a temporary field, besides you can set dim p.player(1000000) if you have the memory, etc. I also have to clean it up and make it look better, and comm,comm1$,etc is going to be changed to pc.command_buffer(cbuff for short) so that it'll store up to ten commands, but anyways, thats my list. Good luck, and lemme know if you want some code. |
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| jhocking Excellent advice there. That's all exactly what I wish I had known earlier. I've been trying to write games for years and only in the last few have I buckled down and gotten serious. Bubble Bomb was a good first step and a pretty simple game. SETH's Puzzle Boxes is a level above that and the next game will go higher still. Start off crawling and slowly build to a run. That's the way to ensure success... |
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| Somewhat ironic to hear you say that since you work for Epic, but then I suppose your work there is always about contributing a small part to a large project, not finishing a project of your own. It just goes to show, skill at programming and being able to finish a project are very different things, and having a lot of the former does not automatically translate into the latter. |
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| Precisely. I don't have the shoulder the projects at Epic, only my portion of them. It's a world of difference from writing an entire game by yourself... |
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