Comments on: Weekly Report 8 http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/ >>me.become!(:ruby_developer) Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:04:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Mithro http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/comment-page-1/#comment-50 Mithro Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:39:08 +0000 http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/#comment-50 PS You are also likely to find more people to play against if you are on IRC more often :) PS You are also likely to find more people to play against if you are on IRC more often :)

]]> By: Mithro http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/comment-page-1/#comment-49 Mithro Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:11:22 +0000 http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/#comment-49 Another thing you might want to look into is adding "BattleXML" support. This allows you to describe to a player exactly how the battle went and have some cool animated output too. The document on the format is pretty sparse and it is really only supported by the Python server at the moment, but it would be a cool thing to do. Your combat is fairly simple so would be well suited to the current format. Check out the documentation in the "battleviewer" repository. Another thing you might want to look into is adding “BattleXML” support. This allows you to describe to a player exactly how the battle went and have some cool animated output too.

The document on the format is pretty sparse and it is really only supported by the Python server at the moment, but it would be a cool thing to do. Your combat is fairly simple so would be well suited to the current format.

Check out the documentation in the “battleviewer” repository.

]]> By: Mithro http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/comment-page-1/#comment-48 Mithro Sun, 06 Jul 2008 05:59:36 +0000 http://www.hammerofcode.com/2008/07/weekly-report-8/#comment-48 It is pretty normally to hate testing! I myself find it boring and very hard to do. You might want to look into things like unit tests which are "write once, run all the time", but with tpserver-cpp not already having a good framework it might be hard to do. It is great to see that you are playing it with other people, I definitely want to have a game against you! I'm working on trying to solve the "no line display" but there are multiple things which need to be done first. I still think an AI is a good thing to try an attempt (even if it is quite stupid). It will make it much easier for players to actually get into the game as they will have someone to play against when they are still starting out. I think you could probably throw together one in a week using something like tpsai-py as a basis (or maybe you could collaborate with one of the other students to use their work - which would be *really cool*). Another thing, I think you should use an already existing XML format, weather is be Inkscape SVG, GraphViz or something else. Tools already exist for graphically displaying and editing these formats so that it will be much easier for people to create new maps. A "randomise" option for maps might be fun too. I would recommend something like <a href="http://code.google.com/p/ticpp/" rel="nofollow">TinyXML++ for XML parsing</a>. It is small, lightweight and very easy to use (TinyXML++ looks more like standard C++ then standard TinyXML). It would be very cool if you could do a screencast of "How to play Risk". It would be a good way to showcase both tpclient-pywx and the risk ruleset. If you are feeling adventurous, you could even try it with the <a href="http://devhobby.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">3d client that jmtan is working on</a>. Keep up the good work! It is pretty normally to hate testing! I myself find it boring and very hard to do. You might want to look into things like unit tests which are “write once, run all the time”, but with tpserver-cpp not already having a good framework it might be hard to do. It is great to see that you are playing it with other people, I definitely want to have a game against you! I’m working on trying to solve the “no line display” but there are multiple things which need to be done first.

I still think an AI is a good thing to try an attempt (even if it is quite stupid). It will make it much easier for players to actually get into the game as they will have someone to play against when they are still starting out. I think you could probably throw together one in a week using something like tpsai-py as a basis (or maybe you could collaborate with one of the other students to use their work - which would be *really cool*).

Another thing, I think you should use an already existing XML format, weather is be Inkscape SVG, GraphViz or something else. Tools already exist for graphically displaying and editing these formats so that it will be much easier for people to create new maps. A “randomise” option for maps might be fun too. I would recommend something like TinyXML++ for XML parsing. It is small, lightweight and very easy to use (TinyXML++ looks more like standard C++ then standard TinyXML).

It would be very cool if you could do a screencast of “How to play Risk”. It would be a good way to showcase both tpclient-pywx and the risk ruleset. If you are feeling adventurous, you could even try it with the 3d client that jmtan is working on.

Keep up the good work!

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