Blog Update I
So it’s been more than a month since my last update and in the good blogging fashion I need to get you up to date of what I’ve been doing. Some stuff to let you know this project is still kicking and put you in the context of my life.
Website
Let’s start with something interesting for me which is this website. Shortly after the last post I’ve been tweaking it a little bit (as you may have noticed in the update timestamp which is far in time than the first post) which made the mobile version a priority as all people suggest. Mobile first, first mobile, yada yada. The thing is this is true and almost 80% of my 25 visitors (yay!) were on a mobile device. I’m sure is because I promote the blog in Twitter but if the site is crappy for mobiles those visitors will never return.
The Game
These last weeks have been a refactoring scourge.
Updated the whole map system.
As you may know, the map in a strategy game is something that must be done right on the first try. Yes, IM is a game-as-a-service so it will be always updated but violent changes in the world map can lead to players rioting and quitting as resources may shift from one hand to another. But I want to do my best to ship a map that fills my expectations and that is shown in all the time I’m pouring into it. Been almost a year since re-started the project and all that time has been dedicated to the map generation. Of course the worlds will change as new features are added, but not Earth-shattering events will occur.
The technical side of the map system is that cells and linked via pointers. Previously I used a tool function that looked around the cell and figure out things such its adjacents. But now the adjacents are in the cell’s properties so each cell has a pointer to each of the four main cardinal points.
Why I did this? Because…
Rewrote up all the river generation system.
This was a complete rewrite using the pointer system. Now a river cell (or node) knows if any of it’s neighbors is a river and keep flowing, accessing the data without the need of a function making things a lot faster and memory efficient. These few words describe the system, but boy it was a lot of work and hair tearing.
The rewrite also included fixing odd shapes and final tweaking. For the time being, this code is finished.
Mountain system.
Also tweaked this because sooner or later would have to do it anyways due the new map system. This is where I’m now, working in generating somewhat realistic mountain ranges.
Today
What I did now is keep working on the mountains and also get my hands dirty with the Vue javascript framework (yes, another JS framework) as I want to implement a system where I type the coordinates and the cursor jumps to that cell. Will be handy for the player and also for the development.
What’s next.
I expect to finish the mountain system in a couple of weeks, tweak the biome system because it will need some adjustments and dig into the resource placement system. That should end the world generation code and hopefully will start sharing images of the game.
Me
This year I’m getting married so all preparations are on course. My girlfriend is taking care of 80% of the stuff but this is a couple project so I have to do my part. Looking for a wedding ring prices, taking care of the wine, paying a lot of money in cash because suppliers do not want to issue invoices all the usual stuff in a third world economy.
And work. I’ve been having a rush because a new manager arrived and is asking a lot of reports that hopefully will be well used. I truly think I’m being useful to the company again that’s a great feeling, something that gives purpose on waking up early and showing up on time.
Broke a teeth and because of running I have a sore knee. I wonder if will get to my wedding day alive, LOL.
I tell you this so you have the context of the development of IM. I appreciate a lot if you reached to this point. I’d appreciate even more if you subscribe to the Imperial Newsletter and leave a comment below! Cheers!