A big problem I had earlier on was that I was being too ambitious and trying to think of everything I wanted to end up doing. This resulted in me not being able to focus on the little parts that I did need to do. I'm sure this will happen in waves but for now I've refocused on some smaller chunks that I can get done without having to think about the big picture.
The current state of the project is pretty good. I have a solid engine created that I can work off of and add to. Everything right now is very simple, but I have player and non-player characters working. The non-player characters that I do have just move around aimlessly, but that is something that I can work on later when I have a better base game worked out.
I've finished a cavern algorithm which is working very nicely. I still want make some tweaks to it because
occasionally I get maps with very small caverns. I might make some variables on the algorithm so I can set a minimum and maximum cavern size. This will give me more flexibility in the future if I want to re-use the algorithm for multiple types of caves.
I'm also working on a simple dungeon algorithm. Work on this one is very preliminary, but it's coming along nice. My plan is to work on many different dungeon generation algorithms so I get a lot of variety in the final game. Since I plan on open-sourcing the engine as well I feel the more different types of algorithms I have the better. The system is set up so that adding new dungeon generation algorithms is a breeze.
I have a short list of things that I want to implement next. They shouldn't be overly difficult but I just have to find time to do them. Everything is listed in the order I want to complete them.
- Collision detection
- Line of sight
- Dungeon Connection
- Dungeon Persistence
There are also a handful of other things that I want to implement as well. For the most part I have been doing whatever comes to mind, but I want to implement enough to have a playable game. Hopefully I find time to work more on the game once the summer is over.
