Legend redux

After tinkering and doing a few tests I've come to the conclusion that I have hit the classic blunder.

I have optimized my code before getting it to work.

Trying to add to the system is a struggle that requires far more testing than it should and far more planing. I've learned a lot about trying to get this system to work and got what I thought were nice things to put in but I'm left frustrated trying to add new events and functions without breaking nearly all functions before it. Adding new features often breaks old ones in unexpected ways and that's a way of life but I shouldn't be looking into how to rewrite all the old systems everytime I add a new thing as they were too clunky due to optimization attempts.

So I'm going to look around and look at other developments of roguelikes and reread some articles. I hate to lose a lot of the progress I've done but at least I have some functions I can transplant as they were not reliant on the system. Though I need to stop making this harder than it is, for giggles when I visited a friend I got a very basic roguelike set up using some older code I made in the past in about 5 hours. I can't even add in pits in legend in 5 hours which is what the problem seems to be. It doesn't follow my development style and is killing the project more than I am being lazy.

So rewrite three here we go. Least I'll have a few more corpses of experience on this one.

Work load and updates

Alright been a while so I figure some sort of update is in order. This month has been pretty hectic but between last post and this one I have gotten some things done in Legend. I've found a glitch with switches that has been fixed along with arrow not properly destroying themselves on impact with switches. So the old classic shoot the target to open the door is now possible. I have gotten the shooting mechanic linked to a basic variable that pretty much says "you have arrows proceed to shoot" which isn't something I like but it'll have to do for now. Next step is going to be figuring out how to place switches that require an arrow to be shot at them to open up the door without blocking off rooms. There are some cheap solutions like predefined rooms I'd like to avoid but I'm not proud enough to avoid using them just yet. Right now it looks like the quickest way to do this is to put the switch in a corner and make pit tiles around it, simple, doesn't' block doors, and gets the job done. Later I can expand it.

That said times are looking a bit tough in getting to the keyboard to program things. Extra hours at work and just general things getting done has eaten into this. Break time is not long enough for the debugging process right now and I need a better system set up to just add items to the game. Not giving up on it though.