Back.

It's been a while (again) since my last post so this is kind of a catch up of what happend to the game that badly needs to be finished soon.

First let me tell you how much I hate tilebased games.

The current game is my first "real" tilebased game, so this might change after I've finished this one, but for now ... I hate them.

• Here's a little description of the game.
• Action and timebased puzzlegame
• collect keys and items to open doors and avoid obstacles
• avoid monsters running around

As the game has a built in editor my first (and wrong) idea was to built the map based on the requirements of the editor, which needed to add some additional things:

• 2 layers, one floor and on "on top" so you could place things below other things
• connections between certain buttons and their "endpoint"
• ability to alter the monster order (because monsters can trigger buttons, for instance)

Basically to build the editor was easy (taking into account that it must be easy to use and still allow to edit all aspects of a level), after I did a complete layout in Photoshop I used that as roadmap for coding.

(Did I mention that this is my first AS3 project?), first week

As always the first quite easy project turned into something that's tested my endurance, the switch to AS3 was not as hard as I feared and I found my way around the mass of classes faster than I thought (I think it's because I'm used to .NET which works like this for a lot longer now).

The first few days I spent with converting my toolset to AS3 and setting up (and redefining) my working environment. So it was alot of coding without having something to play with. Then there was a good deal of time "wasted" reading ...

So where is my timeline, week two (or so)

I'm using CS3 and FlashDevelop instead of flex/eclipse, mainly because I can't stand eclipse's behavior and FD looks and feels a lot like Visual Studio, so I feel more at home there.

My first idea was to go with a 1 frame sollution, but this also would mean no pretty preloader, so I got my head around that started with a preloading/main class.
Hunting for a replacement for "this.getBytesLoaded()" I finally came up with this:

        public function Preloader() {
            
            stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
            stage.showDefaultContextMenu = false;

            [...]

            this.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, this.onEnterFrame);
            
            this.loaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.INIT, this.initDisplay);
            this.loaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, this.initApplication);
            this.loaderInfo.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, showProgress);

            this.stop();
            
        }
        

        public function showProgress(eProgress:ProgressEvent):void {

            var fPercent:Number = Math.round((eProgress.bytesLoaded / eProgress.bytesTotal )*100 );
            var mcProgressbar:MovieClip = MovieClip(this.getChildByName("mcProgressBar"));
            
            with (mcProgressbar) {
                mcBar_00.width = fPercent * 2;
                
                [...]
                
            }
            
            if (this._iState == STATE_NOP) {
                this._iState = STATE_LOADBG;
            }
            
        }

You may notice my excessive use of "this", I know it's not needed, but I kinda like it, as it helps me to see at a first glance what is coded on class level and what is defined in the current method (and it also triggers autocomplete :) ).

One of the very first problems I encounter was the missing support for Movieclips in AS3, not that it is gone but it's not as straight forwards as it could have been.

"Oh you don't need MCs anymore", week two, Wednesday

Of course I do. Damn.
Sure I could code a complex UI and create and place every button, textbox, bitmap by code, but to be honest: WHY? (when you finally see the UI you understand why, I just say more than 150 elements ...).
Though I learned how to get along with it.

"Yes, that looks good", week three

After the main screen was done, it's time to start with the editor.
The layout was done so I could just dive into coding the UI for it, but yet again the next few days were a pain, because theres was just nothing to see.

The game needed a map structure (internally and for saving and reading xml), so I decided to code a map class that not only was able to hold the level's data, but also a methods for handling serializing xml and the map editing methods.

Also I coded a tile engine, which later was converted into the main game engine class. Why? Well, I decided that I don't want to switch to "real" game mode when testing the currently build map (also game and editor are using different tile sizes). So the tile engine is there (because I need it in the editor) and writting an extra game class would have meant to either create a new instance from withing the game or link it in using a reference.

Now I just switch the state of the tile engine and it runs as game and inside the editor.

To run it as "real" game I now just have to pass over the new tilesheet and the game can be run in a different environment. wow.

Fast forward some weeks now, week ... I stoped counting

A lot of code, more code, even more code without being able to play with the result. To be honest I got utterly pissed and depressed.

While coding this game a lot of different flash projects and some dynamic websites needed to be done too, like this: http://akademie.gira.de/ a database driven web based training site, multi language enabled, but in German only right now, so there was a lot of flash and 3D to do, too.

I now can edit a map, but I still can't play it. Time to wander away from flash and write something to save the map ... and wrote this: FileSave.

It's alive, IT'S ALIVE!, this week

Finally at the game is playble in parts (at least in the editor), "in parts" means: the first level can be played, still there are some features missing that need to be added, but I'll add them when I add the original game's first 150 maps (I mentioned it's an official licensed remake, didn't I?)

To get there I needed to convert the nice thought out editor map format into something that can be used to play the game, yes I could have thought about that earlier but hey, it's my first tile based game (Wintertales and Logimotion seem to be Tilebased, but I used it only for the "background, while all movement is done by math).

Yesterday it finally all fell into place and WORKED, the player is moving, can collect keys, open doors ... and the first level can be solved.

After I moved away from frame based and went over to time based movement (read a great tutorial from Jeff of 8bitrocket here).

Hopefully I'll don't forget to return posting about the progress from now on.

Anyway I planed to post a basic overview of the classes and structure used later. (and to be honest I need get to coding :) )

nGFX