Messages

The message system of Kaduria is using a ID for each message that points to proper message buffer with versions for situations like blindness and also for other than player's messages. The message can be something like "%100The # is burnt out." where # is replaced by noun, in this case "torch" for example. This kind of system is quite nice, because it removes checks for blindess etc. in the routines that are calling messages.

It's not difficult to track messages IDs even it feels like a dumb idea to call Message(100); to display that message. The real problem with this approach is that the message list becomes large and more importantly the message data is detached from the "data type" classes. In this example I have I_Light_Item class just for items that emit light, like torches, lamps etc. This class has information about light items such as can it be re-filled with lamp oil. But it would be really useful to have also message data included in the class.

The problem at least for now is that message routines become "dumb", they need external data to determine if the message was triggered by the player and also information about blindness etc. This could be solved by some kind of generic routine that handles raw data, possibly even similar type of data to what the main message routine has.

Whatever the solution is I find messages one of the annoying parts of roguelike programming, as if there weren't plenty of them already.