dungeonmaker-develop — Public list for developers and users of DungeonMaker

[DM-dev] Decorate function, what about it?

[Selena W. <se...@al...>]

Hey Peter,

        I read your DungeonMaker homepage again, and something sticks in my
craw: You write that you had intended to go through the dungeon once more
and decorate it in a separate step, reacting to the local conditions created
by the action of the WallCrawlers. I think that would be a very good plan,
and I find it a bit lame that you announce your intention not to do that
part. I mean, do you write the program or not? And if you do, why stop halfway?

        And if you stick with the decision not to write the Decorate()
function yourself, could you at least give your ideas on it, so that it
would be easier for other people to implement this?

Mighty miffed - :
                   Selena
________________________________________________
The void liberates you from all conceptual views
    ...but if you conceptualize the void...

Re: [DM-dev] Make it more modular

[Selena W. <se...@al...>]

>>... I think the dungeons really shine on very large maps. You
>>should  consider writing a demo aplication that can sensibly be played on
>>450x450 maps or so. 

>What do you think about a game where all you do is run through the maze,
>trying to score a record time?

Could be cool. But scoring should be on more than one map, or you'd get a
high score on a lucky map that you can never beat, except with an even
luckier map. So maybe you have to run through each one of ten types of
dungeons, each randomly created fresh, for the score that really counts? But
what about putting in really simple monsters, Pacman-like? That just run
around stupidly, and that you have to avoid? Or maybe with some wacky AI
that is hard to predict?? Imagine you have to run like hell, keep locally
out of the way of monsters, and look globally for possible paths to the
exit? That could be a neat challenge. 

>>The void liberates you from all conceptual views
>>    ...but if you conceptualize the void...

>Yeah, what then?

Then you may (or may not) be in even deeper doodoo than if you had never
heard about the void.

                   Selena
________________________________________________
The void liberates you from all conceptual views
    ...but if you conceptualize the void...

[DM-dev] Hand-placed columns and scripted Crawlers, anyone?

[Henningsen <pe...@al...>]

The illustrious Selena wrote, in a different thread:

>In your remarks about the X-files you say you can let a Crawler run along a
>wall at a distance of its corridorWidth, and exactly know its entire course.
>You can do that much more generally: If you set changeDirProb to zero, you
>just need two hand-placed wall tiles, one to block its further progress, and
>one to block its turning to one side, and you can let it run through the
>dungeon space in any way you choose. Just a suggestion here: I think it
>would be nicer to have two (and probably more) columns hand-placed to force
>direction changes than to have single wall tiles. So? Do you think you could
>make provisions for hand-placement of columns?

I put this into a new thread because I want some input from the world at
large. If you read this, and have an opinion, let's hear it. My thinking is
that these dungeons are random. If you want to have a dungeon with a
pre-determined layout, there's no need to use the DungeonMaker. If you want
to have part of the dungeon pre-determined, you can already set walls down
by hand, and don't really need to manipulate Crawlers like this...

... on the other hand, there are some interesting design possibilities here
... like setting a Crawler on a predetermined course, but with very low
changeDirProb, like 3 or 5 ... then just when the user has figured out that
rooms-file Y produces the same basic layout in the center, BANG! the Crawler
changes course and all is changed. Or you could have several Crawlers on
predetermined courses, with altogether a 50% chance that one of them will
change course, possibly screwing up the others' pre-arranged paths as well. 

Hmmm... this adds all new depths and possibilities to dungeon design. But do
we really want this?

Peter

Re: [DM-dev] Make it more modular

[Henningsen <pe...@al...>]

>For that purpose they have introduced exceptions to C++. You can throw an
>exception from your constructor, and the user of your code can catch it. 

Oh - hmm - I *knew* that. I just have the sense that game programmers avoid
exceptions, and will probably not catch them. I may be wrong though.

>... I think the dungeons really shine on very large maps. You
>should  consider writing a demo aplication that can sensibly be played on
>450x450 maps or so. 

What do you think about a game where all you do is run through the maze,
trying to score a record time?

>One other thing, your main() function is quite large, what with handling the
>input and all that. How about writing a drastically simplified main function
>that shows just the essentials of how to use the DungeonMaker class? 

Once again, you score big. What an excellent idea... why the hell didn't I
think of this myself? Guess I was just trying to make cool dungeons...

>The void liberates you from all conceptual views
>    ...but if you conceptualize the void...

Yeah, what then?

Peter

Re: [DM-dev] Make it more modular

[Selena W. <se...@al...>]

>>Also, in your interface: In the DungeonMaker
>>constructor, you call several variables that are read in from the
>>rooms-file. Isn't that redundant? Shouldn't the constructor read the
>>rooms-file itself, so you could get rid of the variables in the constructor?
>>Makes it easier to call, and all...

>Yeah, but if the file is missing, the constructor call would fail, and that
>would be a problem, since I cannot return an error code from the
>constructor. So I thought it best to let the user deal with that, writing
>his own error handling.

For that purpose they have introduced exceptions to C++. You can throw an
exception from your constructor, and the user of your code can catch it. 

>Have you tried to design your own dungeons? And where are you anyway?
>Haven't heard from you in a long time.

I'm spending some time in Pokhara, enjoying warm washing water, an abundance
of human company, and internet access. Yes I did play around with dungeon
design some, and I think the dungeons really shine on very large maps. You
should  consider writing a demo aplication that can sensibly be played on
450x450 maps or so. 

In your remarks about the X-files you say you can let a Crawler run along a
wall at a distance of its corridorWidth, and exactly know its entire course.
You can do that much more generally: If you set changeDirProb to zero, you
just need two hand-placed wall tiles, one to block its further progress, and
one to block its turning to one side, and you can let it run through the
dungeon space in any way you choose. Just a suggestion here: I think it
would be nicer to have two (and probably more) columns hand-placed to force
direction changes than to have single wall tiles. So? Do you think you could
make provisions for hand-placement of columns?

One other thing, your main() function is quite large, what with handling the
input and all that. How about writing a drastically simplified main function
that shows just the essentials of how to use the DungeonMaker class? 


                   Selena
________________________________________________
The void liberates you from all conceptual views
    ...but if you conceptualize the void...

Re: [DM-dev] Make it more modular

[Henningsen <pe...@al...>]

>So, since you want suggestions, I suggest that you take the main() function
>out into its own separate file. 

Very sensible. How could I overlook that.

>Also, in your interface: In the DungeonMaker
>constructor, you call several variables that are read in from the
>rooms-file. Isn't that redundant? Shouldn't the constructor read the
>rooms-file itself, so you could get rid of the variables in the constructor?
>Makes it easier to call, and all...

Yeah, but if the file is missing, the constructor call would fail, and that
would be a problem, since I cannot return an error code from the
constructor. So I thought it best to let the user deal with that, writing
his own error handling.

Have you tried to design your own dungeons? And where are you anyway?
Haven't heard from you in a long time.

Peter 

[DM-dev] Make it more modular

[Selena W. <se...@al...>]

Hey Peter,

just got your Dungeonmaker beta release notification. It makes nice dungeons
alright, but your code is all in two files! The main() program is together
with the DungeonMaker code! Do you expect people to rip out the
main()-function by hand before they can use your code?

So, since you want suggestions, I suggest that you take the main() function
out into its own separate file. Also, in your interface: In the DungeonMaker
constructor, you call several variables that are read in from the
rooms-file. Isn't that redundant? Shouldn't the constructor read the
rooms-file itself, so you could get rid of the variables in the constructor?
Makes it easier to call, and all...

Just a thought. Hope all is well with you,

Selena