A82: SQRXZ 82 work

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A82: SQRXZ 82 work

I spent two hours tonight on SQRXZ 82.  First time I've gotten in weeks to
do such things.  I completed one major problem that I came across.  It was
a synchronization problem.  I hadn't thought about sync. until I thought
how (as the screen scrolls) I would get the waves on the water to be
synchronized.  I had to add a zillion (okay, 35 :) lines of code to add in
order to integrate this much needed option.  However, putting objects in
sync. takes a lot of extra clock cycles.  I'm going to make as many objects
async. as possible to speed things up (e.g. enemies and most
foreground/background objects).

Why am I telling all of you this?  Simple, I don't want you to think that
I'd slack off or give up on this project.  As you all can tell, I just have
had too much homework lately to do anything else.  If you think I'm going
to give up...you are VERY wrong.  Check out Decsent on my web site, I spent
6 months on making it.  That alone proves my determination.  I just hope I
won't spend nearly as long on SQRXZ as I did that project.

Here is what I have to do yet to finish the game:
1) Get the enemies animated
2) Design all the graphics and A.I. engine info.
3) Make the main character (seperate from rest of engine)
4) Create main pathway (re-draw screen, move animations/enemies, etc.)
5) Test the main part of the game
6) Add main menu
7) Add demo
8) Test game fully
9) Distribute game

1-3 are the hardest to do and will take the longest.  I expect to do #1
tomorrow and part of #2 unless something comes up.  #3 will be fairly easy
to make since I will already have had experience designing the enemies.
However, I still consider it hard to do because of coding it.
#7 will also be difficult to do.  I will need to figure some way of
recording and playing back the demo.

#4 is just the central loop of the game.  Nothing fancy except that it is
the heart of the A.I. engine.  #5 and #8, my friends can do.  #6 is fairly
simple except the requirement that it enters the demo if nobody presses a
key for a while.  #9 is the number you all are waiting impatiently for.
Once I have the main character designed (#3), I will be able to set an
approximate release date.

I felt I needed to update the 82 community on what is going on at my end
because it has been forever since I've updated the Development Kit.  Don't
worry, I'm adding many enhancements to it by the next version (v1.1).  I'm
considering changing the name of it to something else that makes a little
more sense to what exactly it is...a development kit (not just a translator
utility).

Well, that brings you quickly up to date as to what is going on at my end.

                 Thomas J. Hruska -- thruska@tir.com
Shining Light Productions -- "Meeting the needs of fellow programmers"
         http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/8504
                    http://shinelight.home.ml.org