When I started work on my LD21 entry, I have some vague notion that I was going to have to create maps, AI, and easy-to-use controls… but I really underestimated how much time all of these would take. It looks like I’ll be able to finish something, but I’ve already had to cut about 90% of the feature I originally planned

Map Editor (4 hours): Rather than manipulating large arrays of numbers in my code, I decided to make a simple map editor. In the end, I”m sure this will pay off because editing the arrays by hand is very tedious (and error-prone as you get tired).

Screenshot:

Collision detection/resolution (3 hours): This was actually the first time I’d written collision detection for axis-aligned boxes and walls. Fixing all the issues where you could get “hung up” on walls was a little tricky, but now I”m happy with how responsive the controls are.

Enemy AI (2 hours): This is still a work in progress. My original plan was to have enemies move about randomly. It took about 10 seconds of gameplay to realize that this would not work. To fix this, I had to add scripted paths (and update the map editor to handle this).

Line of Sight (2 hours): Late last night, I realized that I needed honest-to-goodness line-of-sight testing to make the gameplay fun. I wasn’t totally sure how to go about implementing this and I was pretty tired, so I was little worried. Fortunately, I was able to come up with a very simple algorithm and implement it, even in a half-awake, half-asleep level of consciousness

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WkDGD1BSZw

Screenshot:

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2011 at 7:33 am and is filed under LD #21. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.