icemann on 28/12/2018 at 15:11

---

I'm quite notorious for starting and not finishing stuff. I was just super motivated to get this one done.

Still got:

* A 75% done UGC for the SRR. Just needs a final bit to a quest, then 2 more main ones. Then it's done. A couple of months ago I got back to working on this again. It was in dire need of porting over to the "Dragonfall" expansion. Did that, and added in a extra side mission, then got side tracked by CrossTrix.
* SDL update for Fishing Time. Much of this was straight porting of existing code and then adding in extra stuff. 50% done. The bulk of work was completed a year ago just before I started on CrossTrix. Technically I could just ditch the new game modes and and release it as is, as everything's done besides the new game modes. At the very least though, it could use a animated menu screen.
* SDL update of my Space Invaders remake. Yeah I dunno if I'll ever do this one. In theory would take not much time at all, since I only wanted to do a straight port to SDL for this one. 0% done. Not even started.

Anyone else got a whole heap of unfinished projects?

icemann on 28/12/2018 at 15:25

---

A few of the levels/Crosswords could use some fine tuning definitely.

Shadowcat on 28/12/2018 at 21:58

---

Yeah, finishing things is hard. For software in general I've always liked the 90/90 rule -- once you're 90% done, all that's left is the other 90%. It can be a real slog.

icemann on 29/12/2018 at 02:16

---

To give an idea of what the list was like for this game. Here's the contents of the todo list:

Essential Features Needed
-------------------------------

- Art done for both states for each letter + the tiles which aren't used
- Display art for the GUI
- Display art for level tiles
* Gameplay code
- Placement of letter tiles in level editor (Done)
- Placement of letter tiles in game (Done)
- Placement of current players letters
- Reveal next letter
- Ability to re-roll a newly revealed letter
- Show player scores
- Apply score when letters are revealed
- Reveal letters after letter revealed (maybe only highlight them until the player has decided to stick with the letter)
- End turn function which becomes available once all letters are revealed
- Switch to player 2 when ending player 1's turn
- Convert game over to SDL2
- Show particle effect around the yellow score tiles as they appear
- Sounds
- Absorbing opponent letter(s) (versus mode)
- Completed word(s)
- No letters on board matching revealed letter (ba bow)
- Reveal letter
- Re-Roll letter
- Sound for when the yellow score tiles appear
- Win condition sound
* Check for completed words and show this to the GUI on the side
- Check for win condition / Loss
- Basic keyboard controls
- Have a boolean for when a game is in progress. If player goes back to menu screen, show a "Continue Game" button when a game
is in progress to return back to the current game in progress.
- Menu System
- Start game
- Pick game mode
- Options screen
- Select difficulty mode (limit the FSM tactics that the AI opponent uses, based on this)
* Save settings on close of game, and reload settings on next run
- Exit game

Non Essential But Be Nice To Have
----------------------------------

- Computer opponent
- Reveal next letter ability
- Know when to re-roll - Possibly some wonky behavior on a second game.
- Know when to end turn
- Computer opponent for strat mode
- Computer opponent for versus mode
AI Priority line checking:
- Place randomly for 3 turns
- Check for completion of a word
- Check for absorb move
- Place randomly, if no spots free and re-rolls are remaining then re-roll
Otherwise skip turn.
- Gameplay modes:
- Score attack mode
- Strat mode
- Versus mode - 2 players play off the 1 crossword. Each takes turns to reveal letters but can only pick 3 spots on the board
per letter to place. If they happen to place to the left and right of placed letters by the other player then
they absorb those letters into their own. Whoever ends on the highest score wins.
- Have player 1 and player 2 letters scored on the same map
- Only allow placement of letters where the other player doesn't already have scored letters.
- Absorb pieces.
- Switch of player after placing letter(s) / skipping turn
- Win condition
- Level mockups
- Levels - 50 levels - Done
- Music
- Make or get someone else to make 4-6 long music tracks. Done
- Create random play list to play music tracks.
- Sound effects
- Mouse controls
- Extra graphical effects
- Have a theater type curtain covering each letter to be revealed. On revealing have the curtain go up to reveal the letter.
- Have the temporary letter alpha changing of score attack mode, in the other 2 modes. This should be do-able via converting
versus and strategy modes to use the same display code as score attack. Wait till alpha reaches 255, then switch to displaying
the buttons. Also only allow use of buttons when this has come to pass.
- Show all score related text with zeros at the front. Done this way it will ensure that the score always takes up a set width.
To do this, just set the score as a string with the required amount of zeros added to the front.
- Change mouse cursor color to match the current player. Maybe change player name text to match this also.
- Flash completed words twice
- Rather than having the "ready player" popup. Have a "Ready Player 1" come across the screen. Have it wait 3 seconds then disapear
and switch to the next player etc.
- For the versus mode, count down 3,2,1 then end turn if there is no possible moves, to speed up gameplay. Need to display
count down.
- Use the much better looking sliding transparent look for final score display for player 1 on ending turn.
Need updated screens for:
- Player turn completion where score is displayed
- Game finishing
- Add some extra graphical stuff to the main menu to improve the look of it.
* Online matches - Don't know how in the hell to even code this. But after version 1.0 of the game, be interesting to try and implement
this. Or even just local area network multiplayer.
- Joystick support - Should be easy enough to add in, considering I've had this in past games.

Needs Fixing / Implementing
---------------------------

* Currently the only way to get the scored letter textures to work right is to keep loading them on the fly which is not ideal.
Need to change the vectors over to using pointers. Will need to make changes to the image loading stuff to rectify this.
- Need to change horizontal and vertical completed word checks to make sure that there is atleast 1 scored (non completed) tile
in a word before classing it as a temporary completed word tile.
- Need to test the following modes after the recent end turn changes:
- 2 player versus
- 1 player versus
- 2 player strat mode
- 1 player strat mode
- 2 player score attack
- 1 player score attack
- Switching from fullscreen to windowed mode, very often causes crashes. Root out the cause of this and fix it. Or only do full screen
switching from the menu screen once that's implemented.
- Need to clear score tiles on starting a new game. Otherwise they stay on screen for the first turn.
- On recording gameplay video, in versus mode when player 1 finished their turn, the end total screen popped up twice. Need to locate the
source and fix this. endTurnCountDown = false; // Stop count down for ending turn


* Not done / Unfinished
- Implemented / Fixed

As you see, the majority got done. Some I didn't attempt as would have taken too long to implement (eg the online matches stuff). Showing of the amount of completed words got ditched as there'd have been nowhere on screen to put it, without majorly cluttering everything up.

henke on 5/1/2019 at 15:17

---

Alrighty, I bought and played it.

I'd agree with you that Versus mode is where the real fun is. Although I'd say Versus mode is where the only fun is. Score Attack and Strategy modes pretty much just play themselves as you watch and hope the RNG comes down in your favor. I'm not sure why these modes are included, much less listed before the Versus mode? I can imagine several players trying those first, then giving up and refunding the game before even getting to Versus.

Versus mode then, has some potential, but is at the moment it's way too slow-paced and success relies too much on luck. The non-playable segments ("Player X turn" notices and the CPU's turn) all take too long, and the actual choices you have to make each turn are mostly minimal unless you land on a vowel. In a good puzzle game the player should be confronted by an interesting choice every turn, but here that rarely happens as you seldom have the opportunity to place more than 3 letters. Could you try to find words that use less vowels and more consonants? And why even include words like "Abracadabra"? Given that the player can place at most 3 A's it seems unlikely anyone could ever complete this one. Yes, I know you can take over opponents letters by surrounding them, but even so the chances of completing a word like that seem miniscule.

Additional notes:
-how about letting us hold down a button (eg. space) to speed up the non-playable segments?
-there's no way to Esc out while the computer is playing, this is particularly egregious during the CPU's Score/Strategy mode turns when your computer is essentially locked down for minutes at a time (aside from Alt+F4-ing out).
-alt-tabbing out locks the cursor in the upper left corner.