NotHack's Time log

(Actually, since I didn't read the message asking us to keep logs, about half of this is probably being backfilled. It's 6:30 on Saturday right now)

Friday, 9pm Topic announced; I had ideas for some of the others but hadn't even known that Guardian was an option. Throws me for a bit, so I decide to focus on building a basic engine while I think of what I'm going to do with it. I'd already decided on PyGame, mainly because I knew python and wanted to know pygame, so I spent most of the night brainstorming and learning pygame. I've got some SDL background so it's not too painful.

Saturday

Saturday, 7am I wake up and go to work; since I'm trying to gain extra hours, there's no luxurious weekend of coding for me! I do manage to come up with my idea during lunch, however: Every RPG out there always has the hero defeating the Guardian of something at some point in order to get that something. Well, I figure, why not write a game where you /are/ that guardian? Since I'm on a major Nethack kick lately, I figure that's a decent enough setting: You're the guardian at the bottom of the dungeon and it's your job to kick all the advenurer wannabes who try to get the item you're protecting (which I haven't decided upon yet).

Saturday, 2pm Work ends, and I go home and code. I put together some extraordinarily terrible graphics for tiles and create a title screen. It's a snapshot of me playing Nethack, a big X over it, and the title: "Not Hack".

Saturday, 6:30pm Tile engine works. Now I just have to put some sprites on it and have it scroll. Take a break for dinner and to see what all the other screenshots are like. See the announcement about the logs. Start writing this.

Saturday, 6:38pm Done writing this. Getting back to work :)

Saturday, 8:15pm The IRC channel is very distracting. My screenshot in the title is okay, it turns out, so long as I'm not ripping off Nethack /too/ badly. I think I'm okay :) Can scroll the tile engine around now. Just finished an adventurer image; next up is the player himself. This ought to be good.

Saturday, 9:30pm The IRC channel is still very distracting. Adventurer image looks like a dork, but the player image that looked dorky at 1600% actually looks pretty good at 32x32. Tile engine is now centered on the player, and you can't walk through walls anymore.

Saturday, 11:30pm Backend engine work. Characters have stats now, about to put in weaponry and armor and such. Made the wall tiles look far better. Put up a HUD for the player's stats. Came up with names for the dungeon you're in:

The Mazes of Mania, the Caverns of Chaos, the Tunnels of Terror, the Subterranian Sanctum of Sin, the Aerie of Abomination, the Dark Dwellings of Death, the Hellish Hallways of Horror

Saturday, 12:13pm Made a background to blend with the top of the walls. Started implementing weaponry and items in general. Added a message log to the top of the screen that randomly picks from the above names. Went to bed :)

Sunday

Sunday, 11:30am I didn't actually sleep until just now; I woke up a few hours ago but showered and ate and such. Pretty much did all the relaxing I'm likely to do today. Started up coding again.

Sunday, 2:40pm Dropping and picking up of items implemented. Equipping and de-equipping implemented. Inventory management in general implemented. Next up: The Enemies.

Sunday, 4:30pm Implemented A* for the first time ever. The earth moved.

Sunday, 6:01pm Clock ticking down really fast today. Got messages and entrances done; time to hook up some AI

Sunday, 8:30pm Really close to the wire. Combat works, selling works (but poorly). Throwing in a routine to use health potions and then writing a readme and sending it in.

--END OF CONTEST--