Progress Report (09/18/2010)

Again, work and school (plus a family reunion) crushed my hopes of making great progress this week.  And again, a few small things were accomplished anyway.  The Force is with us!

See those green leafy tiles?  Those are JPEGs that have been transformed dynamically by MHFramework!

Accomplishments:

• Added support for JPG and PNG file extensions for game world asset images.  Each tile to be loaded causes a call to a function that constructs the expected base file name, and then looks for all three extensions until it finds a match and loads it, or doesn't find a match and assumes that all tiles have been loaded for the current layer.
• Started this development blog and posted the old progress reports to it.
• Created issue tracking spreadsheet.  Not sure where, how, or whether to post it online.
• Began to gather and organize notes for the level design guide.  In the process, I started considering a new structure for the game world.  Questioning my sanity now, and wondering if I'm brilliant or just sleep deprived.  Maybe both -- time will tell.

Issues:

• Images from MHFramework don't load when running as a standalone executable. 
• Player modes need to be tested.
• Standalone server app does not properly register a player  name.  
• Standalone server app does not display the appropriate UI at some points.
• Status bar says, "Connected to null" instead of displaying server IP address.
• Tech design issue:  When we automate the creation of isometric walls, how does the numbering system work when turning one image into three?

Next Steps:

High Priority:

• Add buttons to lobby screen
• Create isometric wall tile converter
• Define TLC screen base class
• Enhance client list display
• Redo team creation screen with custom components.
• Test and fix standalone server app.

Medium Priority:

• Analyze and re-evaluate client architecture.
• Begin building the game state.
• Create command line interface for server app so it can be launched and configured remotely.
• Create custom TLC input dialog screen
• Create team configuration screen
• Replace boring buttons with image buttons.
• Fix MHFramework image loading bug.

Low Priority:

• Add sound capability to MHGUIButton class.
• Change layout of main menu.  Put in placeholder for skyline backdrop.
• Lay out the HUD
• Consider designs for an effective test level.
• Write a level design guide.