itch.io

So what I’ve done on MDHzine, is keep a totally non-UI database, and then have commands fill a buffer, and eventually the display-function will be more complex or a new basic-pane of its own.

(run-zine) starts the frame, so you don’t have to go hunting for it.

It should be easy to just make more panes, and merge any menus, I suggest each zine has its own menu, plus one for page-switching.

I’m still not clear on some of the errors I was getting, :NAME not defined, etc.

But this design pattern (whoah!), perhaps called Teletype, works.

UNDER STONE 1.1 release!

Complete game with: Help! Saving! Job change! Items! Merchant! Second dungeon!

WOW!

$10 or PWYW.

Yeah, it finished the introductory text, then sat & thought mid-sentence, then would keep spitting out a few chars… & after 5 minutes it was done with that & played slow but tolerably. Maybe sending larger packets would fix it? If I ran it in terminal I wouldn’t get the art, which was pretty zine-like charming.

Sure there’s a car, but where’s the cdr? Nice scenery, think I found all the locations? Someday you can go to Italy.

Technical problems. In Chromium, it drops connection & doesn’t run at all.

In Safari (on a ridiculously fast machine), text speed is very slow; setting it to extreme doesn’t seem to fix that, but then it intermittently locks up until I hit Enter (which autoselects something from the next menu).

I waited about 5 minutes & it finished lagging out, & was able to play through. Good story, & I’d like to replay, but not sure I’m patient enough for the text.

I’m somewhat more used to tower defense games having enemies come along roads, not overland, especially in starting levels. Eventually I got it.

I did finally work around launching!

Started XQuartz (which I would anyway), but it didn’t connect. Tried in XQuartz’s xterm, which worked‽ Turns out it’s incrementing the DISPLAY each time XQuartz runs, DISPLAY=:1, DISPLAY=:2. So, I was holding it wrong.

I was able to put a bunch of stuff in the world, but the DI INFER button only updates the sharks feed humans cells?

I wish I could click to place stuff, then hit INFER!

Challenge: Very high (mostly getting it to run)

I want to play with this more, but the interaction mode is a problem.

Unfortunately on MacOS, I can get ECL to compile; I can get McClim in SBCL; but I can’t get McClim in ECL. Wish this worked in SBCL.

I have a fediverse thread showing my progress. Most of the work has been behind the scenes improving my guiframe library.

Actual gameplay happened today!

Just a bit more & I can draw some more world.

Got my thread started here: appdot.net/@mdhughes/116503175647377789

Started with some easy ones, but some coming up are a lot more complex.

Things like mine would be impossible to deploy that way, it’s all “put this Kawa code here, run this build script, modify these config files”. Code alone gets you maybe 50% to running state. Images, sounds, databases, etc. are non-source.

Most Schemes indistinguishably use .scm and some don’t allow shebang lines, so no “magic”; Chez is .ss and there’s a couple that use .s. Lisp I’ve seen .l, .lsp, and .lisp, and no extension (pre modern filesystems).

Have updated to fix a security problem duplicating users, and reduce the client ping modifying your text. Will have a lot more after the jam!

Have updated to fix a security problem duplicating users, and reduce the client ping modifying your text. Will have a lot more after the jam!

The MUD is running locally. I almost have it working on the server where it needs to be:

Looks up to me? No trailing period of course.

Just putting together the project page now for the Mudhole, more technical detail is on my gopherhole on cyberhole.online

gopher://cyberhole.online/

In short, Kawa Scheme -> Java servlets and my JS Terminal for front end.

Ran fine in Chromium, like all Hoot things it errors in Safari. But after spamming balls (“balls!”) for a while, it lags, then locks up. There’s physics going on, but you need to cheat a bit or put guards in to stop it from breaking the game.

Worked fine on MacOS Big Sur/Intel. I did have some weird lag at the start, but then it worked at normal speed. Didn’t make a lot of money, but zoomed around delivering a while.

I felt uncomfortable with all the doll squares staring at me, so I shot them, but left one to sit with at the edge of the arena. I can’t leave, but I guess I’ll never be alone, unless I misclick.

Didn’t work in Safari, had to load in Chromium.

Looks great, and initially the network layer worked fine, but started lagging very quickly, and soon became completely unresponsive. After a server reboot, losing all data (!!!), we started over.

I planted a giant grid of cabbages. World of cabbages. If you pull a cabbage from a spot where it couldn’t spawn, turns out it becomes an infinite cabbage.

My visions of cabbage world conquest were cut short by lag reaching unusable levels again.

Front end worked fine, if only in one browser, network & server are seriously buggy.

Finally did my pixel art! The most fiendish enemies ever.

Now released!

Enemy swarms work! Art pass tomorrow.

Performance and composition rights are separate. You have to pay a copyright fee through ASCAP, if you want to be 100% safe. In practice, will anyone care if you cover something for a free game?

Vectored motion is easy! Tuning constants to get the Asteroids feel is hard.

As seen in a little movie on fedi

A little video on fedi

After a bit of experimentation, I have working GUI shell in Kawa Scheme (Java) and generate Jar applications.

fedi thread

I’ve been waffling on game design, but I’ll think tomorrow.

I got a (non-car) crash with “749:attempt to concatenate a null value”

Otherwise it’s a little like Milles Bourne. I think it needs more feedback about the results of each action.

I just say “Cavezzz” but yes, it’s a Chez joke, so “cah-vay” would be Frenchest.

1.0 versions for everything I could get to build. Windows is doing something weird with 32-bit/64-bit versions.

As of today there’s treasures & monsters. Should get fighting done tomorrow, then ship!

I’ll upload the entire repo at once when it’s a little further along, but there’s nothing specific to deployment there.

For command-line, I use the build script in my Chez Scheme module example. This produces a working ‘binary’, package with scheme-script & .boot, or petite & .boot if you can, and you can just ship a dir and launching script, no containers needed. Repeat on each platform, since nanopass arch varies.

Since I now have 3 WIP graphical Scheme games, two inspired by game jams I didn’t finish in time, I decided to cut my scope and do something that I can succeed at in a week.

Cavez

I’ve done my bare-minimum cross-platform compiling (testing on Mac & FreeBSD), will spend the last day or two fighting Linux & Windows.

I often post snippets and screenshots on my fediverse, tagged #gamedev

Note on Mac, run XQuartz (/Applications/Utilities) before running sbcl, mcclim won’t retry finding an X11 connection.

One bug (well, also): The Mac binaries aren’t set executable. Did a chmod 777 VeinsOSX/VeinsOSX.app/Contents/MacOS/Veins and then I was able to open the app. Same in Writhe.

I might like to be able to click thru the text?

Perfectly atmospheric environment, very interested in seeing where this goes.

I’m really liking this one, and started using it in a little (Halloween? Maybe.) roguelike!

It would be nice to have monster animations, even just 2-frame bopping, tho. And the Mimic doesn’t look much like the chest, which is kinda weird?

Works, it’s cute, but yeah, nothing but a pile of red cubes. My stairway down was too vertical, so I dug a less-vertical way back up, but it’s still very messy. Fine block digging/placement and an inventory (2 counters for grey & red) would be nice!