Double Post: Slow Going

This is a double post, as I did not post yesterday. Work is going slowly on the project. Yesterday, virtually no progress at all was made. I have been working on adding a dice roll to the game, and started out attempting to add 3d dice. I'm still working on that, so it may work out in the end, but so far it hasn't worked. I did succeed in implementing a much simpler form of a dice roll though. As you can see in the picture below, there is a large button to roll the dice, and when the button is pressed, there is a sound effect and a crude picture of a dice face is shown with a random value. It's not very pretty, but it's functional. Basically all it is doing in the code is adding an interface image to the screen under render2d. When you click the button it chooses a random picture out of the folder of six pictures of die faces and sets the interface image to point to it.

Another point of progress that has been made today is I have made a decision on the game that I am going to work towards for my final project, which I need to get started on reasonably soon. I will attempt to create a 3d version of a solitaire print-and-play game called Delve: The Dice Game. If you're curious about it, all the information and materials can be found here. If you are unfamiliar with print-and-play games: they are games that have been self-published online. It is not uncommon for board game fans(like myself) to eventually try their hand at designing their own board game. These often get put online, so other people can enjoy their creation. There is an entire subculture of board game geeks who build and play these games in their spare time. One common method of building is to print all the game materials onto label paper and sticking them onto cardboard for cards and game boards. I've seen many people repurpose old scrabble tiles in this way for a tile game with custom tiles. Everyone in the hobby is always on the lookout for a copy of Yahtzee Jr. in thrift store. Not because it's a good game(it isn't), but because the dice it includes are inset and perfect for applying stickers to in creating custom dice. It's a really fascinating hobby.

Delve is one of the best print-and-play games I've played. It's kind of like Yahtzee and Dungeons and Dragons mixed together into a game you can play by yourself. Unusual for a pnp game, there's not many materials needed, so you save on printer ink and the trouble of creating custom materials. For Delve, there is only one disposable game sheet per game that can be printed out and looks just fine coming out of a black-and-white printer. The sheet has a series of encounters on it. The starting adventure that comes with the game has five encounters. In order they are: 3 orcs, 12 kobolds, 1 monstrous spider and its 3 offspring, 1 giant, 6 skeletons, and 1 dragon. There is a treasure chest in the middle that can either help you or harm you. You have four adventurers: a cleric, a wizard, a rogue, and a fighter. Each adventurer has different attacks or abilities that are activated by the six dice that you roll for every turn. For example, a cleric can heal with a straight of 5, a wizard can cast a fireball with a 4 of a kind, and the rogue can deal a crippling strike with a full house. The monsters deal damage and have abilities too. For example, the giant deals 1 point of damage every time he rolls a 4, 5, or 6. The game is a lot of fun, and sometimes very challenging if luck is against you. I've beaten the starting adventure several times, but have yet to beat the second adventure, The Sands of Time. I've come very close a few times, but not quite close enough. If you are interested in trying the game out for yourself, just go to the link I gave earlier and under the files section of the page, download the "rules and two starting adventures" and that should get you started. The game is pretty much infinitely expandable, so it'll give fun for a long time. I think it will be an enjoyable game to try and implement into a computer game interface. Everything is dice determined, so there will be no difficult AI to program. I plan on using a variant of the game that puts each encounter onto a card. All of the cards are shuffled and turned up in a random order, to give variety to each game.