new characters

[maltross]

how much time does it take to code a new character for the game?

[Ross Przybylski]

That's an excellent question, maltross.  The time it takes to code a new character will vary greatly upon that character's abilities and whether or not they mesh with existing game rules. 

I've programmed the game such that characters themselves are separate from abilities.  So the character code is basically just a text file that defines the basic attributes (Strength, Defense, Life), which abilities the character possesses, the name of the character, and the names of the character's art and sound files.  Changes to this file can be made in a manner of seconds.

Coding of the abilities is where the development time comes in.  If the ability is one that can be constructed using variations of existing abilities, then it can be constructed quickly.  If the ability introduces a new rule concept - for instance- the Minotaur's charge ability that relies on directional facing - the coding can take significantly longer.

[maltross]

interesting. I'm taking an intro to object oriented programming atm, and think i would like to take the flash programming class as well.

[Ross Przybylski]

That's great - I highly recommend object oriented programming skills for game developers.  This is why my characters are so easy to work with at high level.  Each character class extends a previously created object that defines the base level methods and properties.  For instance, most Hero Mages objects start with the base class of HM_GridObject and move up in complexity to HM_Attacker, HM_Unit, HM_Guardian, etc. until the upper most level of the custom character class itself.

Likewise, actions within the game are built from pre-existing classes, HM_TargetingAction -> HM_Spell -> HM_AttackSpell -> HM_Blizzard

Not only does this make future additions much easier to implement, it also means that if I need to make a global change to all attack spells, I can do so in a single location and have the new traits carried to all the child classes.