I decided to have a little fun today.

 I took the game engine I created for Simple Dungeon and created a new adventure out of it. This one is based on the TV series LOST. I don’t know if any of you are fans of the show, but I’m a big fan. 

 Anyway, the adventure is set on Lost island. You are Locke and the objective is to kill Ben. You’ll run into many of your favorite Losties here. Maybe even the smoke monster. You’ll finally get to see how that Locke vs. Jack battle turns out.

 Code is 99.7% the same. Mostly what I changed were the two data files. Fixed a couple bugs though while I was at it. It took a couple hours to design the new world and objects and monsters.

Have fun and let me know if you enjoy your adventures on Lost island.

 Game is here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/109829863/KillBen.rar.html

 –Note, updated rar. Forgot one of the files needed to run the game.

I was surprised I was able to finish this game. The level is actually pretty darn big with 10+ rooms to explore and an entire forest as well.  In terms of size, the dungeon is nearly a 100 screens large. There are about 8 or so different monsters. Each one you encounter is a little more difficult than the last.

You have two kinds of points. Offensive points and defensive points. Every time you hit a monster you lose some offensive points. Battles can take a long time if you don’t maximize your offensive points because your hit damange is a percentage of your total offensive points. So heal before battles (every step will heal one point) and search around for special items that may increase your offense points. This is the key to quick effective battles.

 Every time a monster hits you, you lose the corresponding  amount of defensive points. If your defensive points drops to 0 then you die. You heal one point for each move. Potions will heal your defensive points and look for other ways to heal your points as well. Always go into battle well rested with lots of points.

 The game also is completely data driven and you could build your own dungeon with your own set of monsters simply by editing the two files, objects.xml and map.txt. Have fun with it and let me know if you come up with a great dungeon of your own.

 Have fun! If you make it to the princess I will be really impressed!

Been fun and got it done! My final version of Simple Dungeon.

Source is here: http://rapidshare.com/files/109092549/SimpleDungeon_Source.rar.html

Game is here: http://rapidshare.com/files/109092285/SimpleDungeon.rar.html

 I spent probably 12 hours or so on this game. It was a ton of fun. Hope to do it again. Love this contest. Can’t wait to check out other entries.

Use arrows keys to move, attack, pick up items, etc. It is really easy to figure out. Objective is to save the princess in the dungeon. If you die, game will exit, haha. Hope you enjoy!

 You need at least .NET Framework 2.0 to run. If you have problems, try the latest framework 3.5. I haven’t tested this on other machines but should work on all windows machines.

Now got to watch my lakers! bye.

 Note - one last revision -2:19 pst.

Well, I’m definitely going to have trouble finishing this thing in time. I have already thrown out the idea of any graphics or sounds. The fact is though I think the game now fits the theme really well. It looks like that old game hack or rogue you may have played years ago. I’m using characters for graphics. My game is much much simpler and smaller though.

 Getting a rpg done in this amount of time is all about finding shortcuts and simplying things as much as possible. So far I like the direction it’s going. I think it might be a fun game. Whether I have time to finish it or even balance it at all is a another matter.

In any case, I’ll have something for people to try at least.

I forgot to mention I have a name for my RPG too. It’s called Simple Dungeon. It should be extremely minimalist (compared to Final Fantasy anyway).

 And I can’t figure out how to upload my code. It doesn’t seem to like zips or rars. So I’m just going to upload a screenshot of my code since I don’t have any game to show yet.

Ok, so I’ve gotten as far as I’m going to get tonight, and I’m pretty happy with my progress so far.

I’ve got a design and a plan done. I think I’ve actually come up with an rpg idea that is small and simple enough to complete in the time allotted.

I’ve completed the map and I’ve got all the metadata including monsters, items and terrain stored in an xml file.

 And I’ve coded the top level of the app including the loading of the map and metadata into objects. I’ve done an outline in comments showing the code I need to write, at least at the highest level.

 My goal was to complete the design, metadata, and outline of the game tonight (CHECK).

Tomorrow, I hope to code all the logic of the game. It should work completely by the end of day tomorrow.

On sunday, I hope to create the graphics, sounds, music and voice-overs I need and put in any finishing touchs I have time for (probably not many - lakers are playing on Sunday).

 Let’s see how it goes. I’m excited so far, but getting a little tired right now.

Hmm, haven’t done one of these in quite a while. I’m going to give it a go.

I’m going to try to do an rpg I think, a minimal kind of rpg maybe. Still thinking about it.

I’m going to use Visual Studio 2008, .Net Framework 3.5 and the Blitz3d sdk. I’ve never used the sdk before so this might be tricky. Will spend probably 10 hours or so on it only.

Well wish me luck!