The story so far; I’ve settled on Java for language, Android for platform to distribute on (first?), and nested JSON files to store the mapping and object data so it can be parsed into an array of map objects in Java. My internet has crawled along for long enough that the JDK and Android Studio are installed. The SDK Manager is downloading a bunch of files so I can get started.
Getting started it seems logical to begin with building the mapping environment and working forwards from there. If I can’t move around the world, how will my characters ever save it? I’ll be starting from the ground up and I’m a task and target-oriented type of person so I’m going to start by setting myself a progress goal and giving myself a set amount of time to complete it in.
Tonights goal is to set up the basic text entry view of my game with a basic game loop to check user input and game state. I’m breaking this down into a couple of points:
- Black background, white text entry floating above onscreen keyboard.
- User input typed (free input at this stage) with confirm triggered by onscreen keyboard return key or programmable go/return button.
- Input is tested against a set number of cases.
- Specific response where a match is found – output to screen.
- Output should be cumulative and not overwrite itself.
- Screen should scroll to place the most recent text at the base.
- Screen should be scrollable so that the text pushed off the visible screen realestate can be revisited.
- Game loop at this stage will simply check for user input and current game state (running).
Back shortly!
TL;DR Starting small. Get input from user and display relevant output to screen. Is the game still running? Repeat. brb!