[projectx] Possible scripting alternative

[Ben C. <cro...@ne...>]

Comrades,

While doing some looking around tonight, I ran into another scripting
engine called SeeR.  Considering that I found it on the Allegro website, I
think we can safely assume that it in fact coexists nicely with Allegro.
That's a good thing. ;)  I don't yet know if it's easier -- I haven't
played around with it yet, since I've been working on the tile engine.
Matt, this would fall under your area, so have at it. :)  The URL is at
the bottom of this message.

Everyone needs to either download Allegro at home and install it or else
start playing around with it at school.  The URL is at the bottom -- if
you need help with installation, just ask me.  Play around with it, get a
feel for it, write a few test programs and see what you can do.  While
everyone doesn't necessarily have to be familiar with Allegro, it will
make life easier for all of us.

Okay, assignments.  Here are the ones I came up with in class -- if you
have serious objections to what you have, tell me quietly (private
message) and I'll work with you.  Drum roll... :)

Scripting (SeeR vs. Lua) : Matt Davis
Artificial intelligence : Nate Newell
Sound and music : Brian Buss
Character movement : Tom Ouyang
Networking : Don Jordan
Graphics (sprites, tiles, etc.) : Brandon Love
Game logic : Annie Yu
Libraries (encryption) : Harley Liston
Flash (transitions, menu screens, etc.) : Cristian Moreno

Here are quick summaries of what each assignment entails.  If you have
questions, e-mail me.

Scripting: Finding out the pros and cons of both SeeR and Lua, writing
  test programs and scripts, seeing how much we can do with each, getting
  a basic grasp on both languages and deciding which would work better
  (i.e. most flexible and easiest to learn).
Artificial intelligence: Since this primarily depends upon the script
  language, at the moment this just means looking for ideas on how to do
  various AI.  Finite state machines, pseudocode scripts for enemy
  movement, and a general grasp on the topic.
Sound and music: Finding out how to play WAV samples in Allegro, and how
  to play MOD modules (the music) -- probably needs an add-on library,
  which you can get at the Allegro website.  Not only playing WAV samples,
  but doing cool things like panning and (if possible) mixing multiple
  samples and such.
Character movement: Finding the best way to move players around.  A test
  program is all that's really required, where you can move the player
  around with the keyboard.  Getting input from multiple devices (mouse
  and joystick in addition to keyboard) could fall under this.  What we're
  looking for is a method that feels best and looks best.
Networking: I've already written 80% of a client/server program, and this
  would just entail finishing that, learning libnet, and writing a wrapper
  class (for libnet).  What we need is some kind of messaging architecture
  that doesn't care about how we do it (high-level, not low-level).
Graphics: Basically drawing stuff -- this can be either hand-drawn art or
  photo-manipulated stuff (like a Photoshop pattern).  We need sprites and
  tiles.  If we can find public domain art to use as placeholders until we
  get real art done, we'll use those -- so this assignment would entail
  looking for such repositories.
Game logic: This is the game-specific information; what each player has as
  attributes (i.e. strength, weapons, etc.), how and when weapons and
  power-ups appear, how often and where computer AI characters show up,
  how the winning/losing will work, etc.  This is the most theory-centered
  assignment, and so it's basically just a list of ideas.  We'll implement
  most of them later on in scripts.
Flash: These are screen transitions (fades, dissolves, etc.), menus, and
  so on.  If we can get functions that do the transitions from one bitmap
  to another, that's best.  This one will need a knowledge of Allegro.
Libraries/encryption: Since we don't want all of our finished scripts to
  be accessible by the average dumb user (who wants to tweak things so he
  can cheat), we'll put them into libraries and encrypt them.  I believe
  Allegro has facilities for this (datafiles and packing), so that's a
  possible option.

The first deadline for basic research in these areas is Wednesday, the
23rd.  Get as much done as you can by then and we'll work from there.

More ideas -- I'm thinking of storing the maps and tilesets on the server,
which would make life easier on one hand (you don't have to worry about
multiple copies of the map, about clients changing their copies, and you
can do cool stuff from the server), but harder on the other (getting the
map and tileset to the clients).  I've been looking at a possible solution
which would work fairly nicely, but it's still kind of vague.  Basically
it's this: the maps are subdivided into "chunks" of smaller areas, and the
server sends only nearby chunks to the player (I'll explain this better
later on).  Just something to think about.

Remember, we need feedback.  Look through everything we have so far and
give us your input.  

Here are the addresses:

SeeR:
  http://home.elka.pw.edu.pl/~ppodsiad/seer/index.html
Allegro:
  http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/

Later,
Ben

-- 
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort 
and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." 
  -- Martin Luther King, Jr.