Magic of the Living Dungeon / News: Recent posts

New version, now with "near usability!" Normal unix users can get the mold engine running in its current state.

I've *nearly* got AI rolled into the CVS...
it's getting very close.
Unfortunately, I think I need a full rewrite of the Standard constructor (rather, the stardard OO layout)... which may take a few days, but I doubt it will...

Pgunn/Improv has stepped down and provided me, Vaevictus, with the keys to the kingdom.
I've almost got the code to the point where we'll start working on AI

Just checked in medit, a tool to edit monster
lists. It requires the Tk module (sorry). It now
can load and save monster lists, and perform some
basic editing on them. I still need to finish
fleshing out the format for them, but apart from
that, it's almost fully functional. At this point,
it still needs code to add a new monster, sanity
checks for the values of the fields, and the
import code for *band's r_info files. Once I get
this working, I'll probably be more motivated to
work on MoLD, as it'll be fun to start plumbing my
brain for monster ideas, and that'll keep me more
focused on the game itself.

Yet another checkin. With this checkin, I'm beginning to approach the functionality the code
had when I decided the previous version was a
prototype. Check out in particular the test
t_UI_Curses_Grid -- it demonstrates the grid
display code. I did some work on the preferences
code, and this means that you now need a .moldrc
file to play with that test. Read Prefs.pm to
see the format -- currently it just needs to know
where the datadir is, but that will change. Of
course, I'll document it soon. I'm not sure at the
moment if all of my code is aware of the
centralized location for prefs yet, and I will
almost certainly want to include the capability to
have the user override how different terrains
look, but that should be easy. In the next releases, I'll be doing more work on UI_Curses to
find a way to make the grid display
function cleaner/nicer. I might add a test driver
script again like the prototype had, but I really
need to be careful this time not to let too much
required functionality fall into a test driver.
I really want to start building my list of
monsters soon, so I might write some kind of
Perl/Tk based monster editor as well as tools to
convert monster lists from other roguelikes
(namely PernAngband, which I am a developer on).

I don't know if anyone's listening, but I reworked
the CVS tree, the old code being under mold-proto
and the new code under mold. The new code isn't
very exciting, as it currently lacks a test driver
like the old codebase had. However, it does have
considerable work I've done to improve the
objects, and will provide the foundation for
future work.

I've been working on item code. Additionally, I've
been redoing a lot of the objects, as some of them
didn't seem to be working out as cleanly as I had
hoped they would, especially UI_Curses. There's a
lot of new functionality, but I also broke much of
the old functionality, and the main program no
longer works. I'll start making CVS checkins
regularly as soon as I have something that runs
again. If you want to help, drop me an email and
I'll update the CVS tree and tell you what I'm
working on. Admittedly, I've been spending more
time helping Darkgod maintain Pernangband (also a
sourceforge project) then working on MoLD..

Sorry for the delay -- I've been working on
Pernangband mainly, for quite some time. Anyhow,
this release adds the basic framework for traps,
and implements teleport traps. It also has a bit
of progress in work towards getting items working.

I just added, in tonight's snapshot, a program
called cmovie. It implements a simple format I
designed for curses-movies -- simple scripted sets
of things to see with very basic input. There's
a sample cmovie in the new dataset; currently the
format is both undocumented and likely to change
to suit my needs. It's easy to figure out how it
works by looking at cmovie.pl though....
Anyhow, enjoy.

MoLD is yet more advanced. The UI has been
redone significantly since the last announcement,
with the abstractions I chose working well. This
version is the first to support the arrow keys..
Overall, it keeps on getting better and better.
Next up for attention is the code linking maps
together -- currently it's just hardcoded stuff
in test.pl ... I need to make a new object to
manage stuff like this. Anyhow, I now have a
screenshot on the homepage, and it really looks
a lot like a roguelike now. Hooplah! Huzzah!

I recently sync'd MoLD from my laptop to CVS
again, and the code is for the first time in a
semi-usable state. However, to get the code to
this state, I had to cut some corners (already!).
Anyhow, I'm currently working on Terrain.pm, and
should have terrain stuff handled cleanly
shortly. After that, I'm going to be working on
interface stuff. As can be observed, my general
strategy for this has been to get it running first
(with test.pl) and then to make nice abstractions
and cleaning things away into objects. Hopefully,
I'll soon have almost all of the hackishness gone
in test.pl and will be ready for another frontend
to be written. Again, I am ready for some help
on the project, so please mail me if you're
interested.

MoLD is finally on sourceforge, and with that, I'm
ready for some help. In particular, I'll be
putting the CVS tree up within the next few days
(although very little interesting is done, apart
from the EventQueue). Discussion on the architecture
is the order of the day. If people want to comment
and work on the story, or start figuring out the
best way to abstract the FE from the BE, that'd be
nice too.