A new challenger approaches!

[SuperBuzzed]

Hello everyone! Not sure if this is the correct place to post after the official 7DRL challenge is over, or if it's even appropriate for me to be attempting one post-de facto. I unfortunately could not get the time off of work or put personal obligations on hold during the time of the official contest, but have been wanting to try a 7DRL for a very long time. And now, my chance has come!

Seven Day Scratch is about a Roguelike developer struggling to get his game up and running. Grab your "Sword of Scripting", don your "Boots of Blinding Compiling", and don't forget your "Helm of Bad Stuff Doesn't Happen To Me" as you do battle against Balance Bugs, Off-By-One Errors, and more of the most dreaded denizens of the development process. 7 levels. 168 hours. Can you conserve your vigor and make it to the end, where "The Game of Pure Awesome" awaits?

If I can finish it, maybe we can all find out.

I'll be posting my development process at the end of every day, with coding starting July 3rd when I wake up in the morning, and hopefully wrapping up in time to catch some sleep the night of July 9th. At its heart, Seven Day Scratch is just an attempt to make my way into game development. It's gonna be quirky, but I don't expect amazing. Its my first real game, and I'm not bringing any outside code or other resources to the table. It is a game 100% from scratch, and I'm focusing more on completing a game than any other aspect. Then again, who knows? Maybe it will rock.

Anyway, wish me luck! Everyone will hear from me tomorrow!

[mounta1nman]

Good luck, man.

[Bear]

Here's some good advice.... 

If you want to get coding done, budget the time you spend on here to less than 30 minutes a day!

[Samildanach]

Good luck!

[WindGodGau]

Best of luck! I'll be starting mine later this fall, same thing though - 7DRL separate from the usual competition. I wish I could have participated in the competition, but it just couldn't happen this year. Life intervened.

[SuperBuzzed]

Day One

Thanks for the well-wishes everyone! It does a lot to keep me motivated!

Thing are progressing pretty well. Spent a little longer than I wanted this morning refreshing myself on SDL, so overall I'm a little behind schedule, but today has still been quite productive. Got the baseline for drawing tilemaps to the screen, and have the procedural generation code about halfway done. Probably finish that before I allow myself to go to bed tonight. Also made a handful of tiles and got the rest of my preplanning out of the way.

Tomorrow I'm going to focus on character movement and some of the base mechanics, such as a system for the inventory. Debating on whether to implement saving or just save the time to code other aspects. It's likely going to be a shorter game, so I'm on the fence. Also going to try to get some basic combat mechanics down. Hopefully have some screenshots for everyone tomorrow. Celebrated fourth of July tonight, so I've got from dawn til dusk tomorrow. Maybe I can get stuff done.

Anyway, thank you again for your well wishes! And in case I don't get a chance to support you the same, WindGodGau, good luck with your game as well!

Until tomorrow everyone!

[SuperBuzzed]

Day Two

Another day done and passed. Finished the code for procedurally generating a dungeon, though I'm still having some trouble with dead ends. Also have a lot of the code laid out for commands, such as movement and opening the inventory, though most of them don't do anything yet. Lost a good chunk of time trying to get tiles working with it all, and am having to walk away defeated for tonight, but hopefully tomorrow I can begin to show off some of the work I have done. All in all, I'm a little bit behind schedule, but still covering good ground, I feel. Have a couple screenshots to share, though nothing impressive yet.

Tomorrow is going to be nailing down a lot of the mechanics I wanted to work on today. After I get tiles working, of course.

As promised...
The outline for the UI


And some of the art

[SuperBuzzed]

Day Three and Four

Totally forgot to post last night, was up late dealing with some misallocated data, and went straight to bed in frustration. Fixed now, though the last two days have been a crawl..

Yesterday got my dungeon generation working with the tiles. Learned a lot about how not to code tiles in the process. Also got movement nailed, though that took longer than I thought. I kept scrolling diagonally, and while that would be interesting for a game, maybe, it's not what I was looking for... Eventually got it sorted out. Spent the rest of the day spriting because I was starting to dream in code. Spooky stuff.

Today, had to take some time off for life. Didn't get a whole lot further, just laying down a ton of skeleton code, hopefully make things go a good bit faster, as well as a few minor bugs I caught while sorting things out. Now that my time with this competition is more than half gone, I'm beginning to worry a little bit. But, I do work better under pressure, so maybe a little hustle won't hurt.

[SuperBuzzed]

Day Five

Hello everyone! Had a much more productive day today. Spent the day tweaking my dungeon drawing algorithm, sorting out the code, and getting started on the process of implementing all the enemies. Got about half of them in. Also have movement and all the player statistics it, and got a good start into combat. Finding as the larger my code gets, the more and more bugs I have to sort out, but I am enjoying the challenge. Getting into the last two days. Quite exciting.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish the UI, implement the rest of the enemies, and hopefully get items at least mostly in. Going to try to post screenshots throughout the day tomorrow on how everything's coming together. I still don't know if I will make it, as I'm probably behind where I should be, but it's finally starting to look like a game.

[SuperBuzzed]

Just wanted to post up some art, while I'm taking a break.
From Left to right, we have The Balance Bug, Crash Bug, Trivial Bug, Sound Bug, and Game-Breaking Bug.
Not Pictured: Hidden Bug. He's shy.

Hope you brought your RAID.

[Samildanach]

Art looks good. 

[SuperBuzzed]

Day 6 and Day 7

Been coding like mad, but I'm afraid I have to declare a failure. I bit off a little more than I should have with this project, but I got a decent amount done, and plan to continue it on into a fully fledged game. Manages to get the UI 95% done, and all the monster and combat are in. Items have to be places on the back burner while I figure out LOS, which has blocked my progress nearly all day. That and monster AI. A good bit tougher than I anticipated...

But anyway, tipping my hats to those who have manages to peel out a fully fledged game in a week, you have talent I can only dream of. And another hat off to those who posted encouragement, I really appreciate it. Going to keep posting updates here, or elsewhere if the thread needs moved, not sure. Also, is it wrong to start an article on Roguebasin to document progress, or should that wait until I have a finished product?

Well, it's been fun everyone. Here's a screenshot for you!



The guy in the white shirt is me. Around me are a Computer Worm, a Rootkit, and an Obligatory Octopus(Because every game is better with octopi!) Across the trees is a Glitch Witch, and in the corner is a Syntax Error trying to sneak in.

I'm officially calling this version 0.5. Keep on the lookout for more. Once again, thank you for the support everyone!

[Bear]

Just for the record, the word "Congratulations" is spelled the way I spelled it in this sentence, not the way it's spelled in the screencap above. 

Congratulations on making progress! 

[Slash]

Congradulations, and keep on pushing for the next 7drl!

[Samildanach]

Shame you didn't make it in 7 days but I'm keen to see the finished product. And this gives you the advantage of more experience if you attempt 7DRL next year!