Project update

After trying Visual Studio 2015 with Teemu and Brick Atelier it was a preferable solution to move Kaduria to it. I don't know why but it's somehow satisfying to compile the project with W4 warning level and pick up errors that were not catch by 2010 (or probably just using W3).

One of the warnings is unused parameters in base class functions which may sound like annoying warning, but it's actually useful. You should use base class parameters/function either to inform that base class routine was called (rather than leaving it empty) or improve the class hierarchy. In fact I have a hierarchy problem with containers which are a component part of game object classes while it probably should be a class to inherit from. The solution is either fill base class routines with some kind of detection if they are called or try to create a class hierarchy without pyramid inheritance problem.

It's odd how these technical details seem to be more interesting that trying to create the game itself, but I guess it doesn't matter a lot in this case.

Keyboard command design

I've tried to follow a plan in keyboard command design where keyboard commands have some kind of logic in them. Lower case letters are for commonly used commands and upper case letters for less used, but also some letters have similar kind of action with lower and upper case forms. This is done in some roguelike games, but I think it could be extended as much as possible.

For example I had 'q' to quaff as usual, but previously I also had it search for water sources from the environment first and if they were skipped then drink something from the inventory. However I started to think it was confusing and added a new command to drink from environmental sources with 'Q'. Even that command is often 'quit' in roguelike games it doesn't take a long time to adjust to that. There are also some other keyboard combinations in the same key with lower case for items and upper case for environmental sources. It's a nice, logical arrangement and easy to remember.

It's not particularly useful trying to cut down the amount of keyboard commands, because you still need some kind of way to activate commands. Menus can be ok in some situations, but worse in others. The design of keyboard commands actually takes some consideration that I believe developers of older roguelikes never did. That was the case with many other areas of design as well.