Saturday, March 12, 2011

Progress Report (03/12/2011)

Once again, I missed last week's update.  I assure you, though, that it was for a good reason!  GDC week put me pretty far behind, and I'm still not caught up.  To make matters worse, I'm spending this weekend to take the final exam in the worst class of my entire graduate school career.  I'm mostly done with it, but I won't have it finished in time to work on TLC again this week, so I may as well post this now and hope for better opportunities in the week to come.

There is also some happy/sad news to report.  The Team Laser Combat development team is losing a highly valued member.  The magnificent Kristen Miguel is leaving us to pursue a wonderful opportunity as an intern designing educational games.  So...yay for Kristen!  (And boo for us.)  We should all keep our eyes on the career of this amazing young woman.  She will be missed.

Alas, the show must go on, so here's the latest.

Accomplishments:
  • Fixed the floor detail layer problem mentioned in the last report. 
    • Rebuilt some of the test maps to make sure.
  • Added a display resolution selector to the launcher dialog so users can select a higher, more appropriate resolution for their particular monitor.
    • This may seem like a misplaced priority at this point, but it aids in testing.
  • Tested all screens with the new resolutions.  
    • Found only three that require corrections: team config, character config, and character recruitment.

Known Issues:
  • The team config, character config, and character recruitment screens need to be fixed so they display correctly at resolutions other than the default.
  • Network latency causes character upgrades to not show up right away.  The client needs to wait for the updated character to return from the server before returning to the team screen.
  • The color cycle control on the team creation screen throws an exception when there is only one color remaining to choose from.  This is only an issue when setting up a game with eight human players.
  • Chat messages get lost when a user in multiplayer mode switches between the lobby and the team/character configuration screens.
  • When a player drops off, their team data is orphaned.  The server needs to recognize this and place the orphaned team under AI control.
Next Steps:
High Priority:
  • Correct the team config, character config, and character recruitment display problems.
  • Investigate ways to dynamically color the team uniforms.  Experiment on the placeholders.
    • If this works, add the ability to dynamically color MHFont objects too.
  • Broadcast and handle the "whose turn" message..
    • Create the "whose turn" display to show it.
  • Implement the Move action.  This will involve:
    1. Decoupling the characters from the map structure.
    2. Implementing network messages for the Move command.
    3. Implementing the UI for selecting a destination.
    4. Implementing a pathfinding algorithm. (Done.)
    5. Implementing path following behavior.
Medium Priority:
  • Create the in-game chat component.
    • But first, fix the issue with the lost messages by making the data structure static.
  • Fix the team color selection for the eighth human player.
  • Create the HUD's event log display.
  • Finish voice scripts for narration.
  • Finish asset lists for current set of level designs.
  • Formalize the flowchart for the AI logic.
Low Priority:
  • Create the token factory and displays.
  • Implement the Draw Token action.
  • Implement the Heal action.
  • Implement the Attack action.
  • Finish the team creation screen.
    • Put in the floor image for the captains to stand on.
    • Replace plain gray buttons with captain character images.
  • Finish the level design guide.
  • Make the AI players taunt each other in the lobby chat, just for fun.
  • Design the web site.
  • Get coin display graphics from the art team.
    • Add it to the team configuration screen.the character configuration screen and the recruitment screen.
  • Replace the temporary column header graphic on the character equip screen.

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