21.Jul.2023
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Developer diary: "Settle the World" 07/23
Christian 'TheoTheoderich' Wiegel continus working on his turn-based building and trading game "Settle the World" (amiga-news.de reported). In his latest developer diary entry he reports about changes on the graphics system und of pathfinding. Christian would be happy about users who try out his current development version for a few hours and then report to him where there are problems, ambiguities or crashes.
"In the last few weeks, I was forced to rewrite the entire graphics and unit system of the game from scratch.
Over the course of a year, I have repeatedly added new functionalities and graphics. The original design, however, was not designed for this, as the game was supposed to be playable within six months as an entry for a competition.
So the programme code became more and more chaotic and confusing.
Due to other restrictions, it was also no longer possible to add new buildings or units.
So I was faced with the choice of letting Settle the World "die" or investing a lot of work and completely rewriting the game.
The graphics system is now much simpler. I'm not quite finished yet, there are a few graphic errors, but my development version is at least playable again.
The number of bitmaps needed in the memory could be reduced, so that more valuable Chip RAM is free during the game. This can be used later, for example, for in-game music tracks.
I am also working on the citizen happiness system.
I noticed that it was not understandable for the players why some citizens of a city are unhappy and some are not.
Now, in my development version, you can click on the smiley icon at the bottom right of a city and when you move the mouse cursor over a house, information about what makes the residents happy or what they are missing is displayed on the right side of the screen.
It's not quite finished yet, but it's already very helpful.
In my current development version of Settle the World, pathfinding has been also reworked.
Since I couldn't find any BlitzBasic 2 example code for pathfinding last year, I converted a code example from the PC to the Amiga without understanding exactly what happens there.
Unfortunately, this resulted in units that moved diagonally from bottom left to top right, or from top right to bottom left, only moving "stair-stepped", or taking huge detours.
Now that I have read up on the subject properly, I also understand what happens during pathfinding.
The error has now been corrected and the units now also move diagonally correctly in all directions.
It cost me many hours of time, but it's worth it.
Land units will always try to avoid rough terrain like mountains, swamps and forests.
In doing so, units will always prefer roads, even if it means taking long detours.
This does not matter, however, as the movement of units on roads is three times as fast as on flat terrain." (dr)
[News message: 21. Jul. 2023, 08:52] [Comments: 0]
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