Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Eracia's First Screenshot and Plan B

   Here is my concept ideas of what Eracia's UI will sort of look like:




   I used Java's JPanels, JLabels, and JTextArea's for this look.  However these things in Java are very limited on text coloring, size and backgound.  Sadly you cannot have multiple colors on a JLabel or JTextAreas.  So I am jumping to plan B.
   
    In Plan B I will be creating my own JPanel through inheritance where I will override its paintComponent method.  This way I can change the color of each character if I wish.  The map display has this already, the stats panel and bottom panel which holds the events log and entity window will now support this idea.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Long Journey Begins Today

Today I begin my programming of Eracia.  I hope to have a couple of UI Screenshots soon.

My Plans for Eracia

These are some of my many ideas I wish to add to Eracia.  Some have already been added into a rogue-like before:

  1. The tools to create all the content files will be made in Java.  Mainly because creating these tools will be quicker than using C++.
  2. The game will be written in Java also.  This is so it can be supported in Windows, Unix and Macs.  I will also be porting it as an applet for internet browsers.  Lastly I do plan in writing the game in C# and the XNA framework to port it to the XBOX360.
  3. The Java versions of Eracia will be purely text-based graphics.  The 360 version will be displayed in tiles.
  4. I will be adding most if not all of everything written in http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/.
  5. Many different classes and races
  6. Skills and talents
  7. Light sources
  8. Special floor tiles such as on fire, ice, pit.
  9. Rivers, and lakes
  10. Monsters who will pick-up items and use them against the player.
  11. Tamable animals that you may use to fight with you.
  12. Many different types of items.  Items when created will then have a chance of having a prefix and a suffix.
   These ideas are just a small brainstorm, there will be many more ideas I will add to the list.  I also want to say that some of these ideas could be out of my programming experience where I may not be able to accomplish some of them.  I will try to add as much content as I can.

The Reason this Blog Exists

   I am creating this blog for a few reasons.  The most important reason is for educational purpose.  I will be documenting everything I made, perhaps even the code.  I also will be documenting my many mistakes and the ways I fixed them.  I will be using this as my first project that I will documenting into my portfolio for college, and perhaps even a job in the game industry.

   My second reason is for anyone who is interested in making a rogue-like.  If I am successful in this project it could be used as a good tutorial into making rogue-likes.

   My final reason is for myself, if I ever hit similar problems in my future projects I will have some documentation to refresh my memory.

   I hope everyone who follows this blog will learn something new and have fun.

What is a Rogue-like

This web page describes rogue-likes very well:
http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/