Load and save game

Most of the classes know how to save and load, but the main routines are still under development. It's looking quite good actually and only some things need to be tweaked to make sure that there are empty versions of instances for loading saved data. Load/save can be difficult to program, but I'm now much more prepared for that task than I was before.

Debug routines... ready?

Yes. It appears so. I've finished debug routine module, it's as ready as it can be. Of course there could be some new routines needed, but it's only when I can figure out what they are.

It took only 15 years. And this is not a joke, it's a real number.

Hero coder

People keep calling me a hero coder (literal translation from finnish language). I guess it's some kind of joke, because sometimes I write comments about social media games like Minecraft and Angry Birds. Even writers of popular Pelit-magazine (biggest gaming magazine in Finland) make regular references to me. It's cute and flattering, but I don't care about that kind of thing a lot. You know, being a celebrity.

I think there has been misunderstandigs about my comments on social media games. I don't hate them or lucky developers who get zillions by taking advantage of the social media. They are game developers just like myself. Except that they own ridiculous amount of money and some of them wear a hat which attracts women.

The biggest misconception is that people think in their own terms like being jealous about money and girls. I don't get that. Game development is my hobby and I'm pretty devoted to it. It means I'm interested in game development itself, not money or girls. Being a roguelike developer means you are in the forefront of game developers. We don't just make games as products but in the next generation roguelike genre we make something new. It's a way no one has explored earlier. And that exactly is the reason I'm making games.

Some people measure success in money (or amout of girls) which means Minecraft is a great game. But if you were a game developer and look at Minecraft from developer's point of view, then it would not be that interesting. Still, as I stated before, I'm happy about the unexpected success of social media games or more like products. They just don't have a lot to do with hardcore game development which is a small sector of game genres living and surviving under the pressure of this commercial world.

Basics

Sometimes I feel really dumb, because I realize I'm programming some basics that should have been there way back. I'm still working on container code which is moving items from objects like barrel to inventory or somewhere else. It's a kind of feature you would suppose to be implemented in early stage, but somehow isn't.

I guess this is the case with some other features as well. Maybe there is no proper order to complete features. Then again I have spent a lot of time creating this simple turn-based RPG with random content and I'm still wondering how hard this could be? What is the problem with roguelikes anyway?

Secret idea

I got my ass kicked by the first temple's boss in Zelda Skyward Sword. And I had one revitalizing potion (restores four hearts). So they finally decided to make Zelda harder. Well, one of the strange things is that I don't know how to use the shield. Would it help in that battle anyway? Maybe I'm going to cry for two days and then look for Youtube videos about how to beat that son of a bitch.

While playing Zelda I got an idea. It must remain a secret however, because it's going to change one of the main areas of a roguelike. And what is a better project to use that idea than next gen roguelike.

Bug hunting

Today I fixed a special bug that made the program crash in Long Corridor level theme. It was a special one because there are no other known bugs that crash the program. The bug was relatively easy to find. In fact I was using VC debugger to find it. Usually I don't even need a debugger to find the bug, but in this case it was needed.

The number of open bugs is 12 which isn't that bad. I try to limit it under 10 to keep the game playable and as solid as possible. Some bugs are caused by parts of the code that are going to be refactored and usually the bug will be fixed at the same time. The current speed of development is quite fast and I believe it will produce an increasing number of bugs, but it's obvious that the release version will have zero known bugs.

Theme randomness

I'm having trouble trying to determine the stuff that will be generated in level themes. With lots of stuff it becomes more difficult to figure out how to select that stuff. There is a list of stuff to create for each level theme, but I know it's too restricted and predictable. Creating a list is easy, because you don't have to program a logic that "thinks" what could belong to that particular level theme. And that is exactly what I have to do next.

It's not an easy task. There must be a new type of classification of objects just for level creation. Then the level theme could ask an object from different kind of classes to generate in specific terrain area or climate condition or whatever the reason will be.