Assignment 1 - Text Adventure

I just thought that now we've got an actual assignment on hand, that I can resume blogging. I've had no real reason to do so up to now, partly out of desire not to clog the blog up with irrelevant topics.

(And also, I don't actually have a copy of the assignment. I only honestly recall that it has to be able to restart without exiting the program, and involve a combination of if/else and do/while statements.)

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And so it begins. Or rather, it began on Tuesday but I didn't touch the coding until I had a clearer idea of what I was intending to create. It was a relatively simple choice between doing something more easily achievable and complete, or trying to use the knowledge I've acquired in class over the last 4 weeks to build something more complicated.

"Bill Dup Adventure"

Simply been an expansion on a task we did in class a week ago, with the tale of my sketchbook alter ego Bill Dup in his attempt to find out exactly why he can't open the door to his flat. This idea would have largely followed what I call a Frankensian logic with some surrealist/black humour... and that is more or less all I can really say.

"Mass Effect - Untitled Side Adventure"

A more complicated text based adventure set in Bioware's Mass Effect Universe, with segments of exploring, talking, and combat. Players can choose a default character or create their own to affect their path through a shorter adventure, and even gain a team mate or two as they break out of a prison under siege. Because I didn't want to use established characters, the player character will be a mercenary or similar such things that won't involve the System Alliance Navy or N7.

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And I sided with complicated. Which I just know is going to come back and bite me on my pleasantly plump posterior somewhere down the road, but the idea excited me more, and I still feel that it will be a real challenge and thus also a learning experience.

The theory of how it will work remains rather sound, at least in my head. I will have to prepare for plenty of cut and paste depending on choices.

But so far, I've made a title screen (With coloured background and font no less) and I'm in the process of creating the character customization page which will consist of

• Name
• Gender
• Pre Service History
• Psychological Profile
• Class

As far as how these are going to work is concerned... as in the real Mass Effect games, History and Profile are mostly for bestowing early points to a player's Paragon/Renegade stats which I am presently using ints for. I have created further ints for each of the selected profiles and histories which I will randomly use for conversation or exploration options... and the Paragon/Renegade stats will allow for further conversation actions. Player Class will affect combat sections of the game, from what sort of weapon a player uses to any further actions I can come up with.

Unlike the title screen, I've not yet finished this section, and I'm going to be trying to niggle out the finer details further in. I think I want to make this section back trackable as well in case a player wants to change any details they've put in place. Using the Default character will set stats and name to a standard loadout.

Soon as I feel I have enough work to warrant it, I will be uploading some screen grabs.

For now, peace out!