Thursday, March 24, 2005

Game Development Status 3/24/05

Monthly total ~18 hours; yearly total ~68 hours.

Making good progress here. The recent hours have not been many in number, but high in quality nonetheless.

I am currently working on code to order the movement execution of divisions in a Corps Manuever Unit so that the least blocked division moves first.

I recently completed code to restrict the movement of Corps-level units to the line of attack of a subordinate division. This is a start on Corps movement formations.

I fixed a bug that prevented out of command units from regrouping.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Game Development Status 3/15/05

Monthly total ~10.5 hours; Yearly total ~59 hours.

I'm back to working on the AI again. It's been a while, what with the recent major refactorings. I added some code last night to make the AI plot moves for a command even if the command as a whole could not successfully plot to the line of advance. This helps out a lot with the first couple of turns of the Assault on VII Corps, as the VII Corps divisions extricate themselves from the starting position "traffic jams".

I took an hour night before last and went through my To-Do list and my recent blog posts, ordering various tasks to support my goals for the AI better. I now have a list of specific tasks that should allow me to complete the divisional portion of the low-level AI.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Microsoft to Pull the Plug on VB6 Support

I came across a news article that said M$FT was beginning to phase out support for VB6.

I'm not sure quite how I feel about this. On the one hand, I prefer working in (VB and ASP) .Net. On the other hand, I'm somewhat surprised that M$FT is phasing this out so soon (c'mon people, haven't you ever heard of legacy code?). On the gripping hand, I currently spend about 75% of my time supporting a VB6/ASP legacy app.

I signed up for the petition. I think M$FT's policy is intended to force developers and employers to move to .Net. Given the (IIRC) lack of service packs, I'm not too worried about this, but I think it behooves M$FT to better support the developers who write the apps that convince the public/companies to buy the OS. You can't have a Microsoft without a lot of hard cash.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Bits and Pieces

I added a couple of new items to my blog template today. I added links to Technorati, Blogarama, and Bloggernity. As Eylau inches towards its Beta, I'm hoping to raise the game's profile a bit.

I introduced my gaming group to Settlers of Catan over the weekend. We all had a blast!

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Game Development Status 3/1/05

Monthly total about 2 hours; yearly total around 50 hours.

February was something of a disappointment on the game dev front. I only put in about 20 hours. On the other had, I met someone nice, so the month has a whole was very, very good.

My most recent work has been some more refactoring. I finished an Encapsulate Field refactoring last night, taking the document's Map member (an array of Hexes) private. Over 1100 changes to the code from this refactoring. The good thing is I now have a single GetHex() accessor, providing one-stop shopping for all my debugging needs regarding Hexes. This will allow me to resume debugging a few problems with regroup behavior and stacking.

My next few hours will see those problems resolved, then I will fix a problem with AI game loading.

We're coming down to the wire again. I made a commitment to Charlie Spiegel to have the game in Beta before Origins. I figure I need to get the AI in basic shape to play the Assault of VII Corps and the Opening Moves by the end of April. It's doable at this point, but I need to put more time in.
Where Shall We Have Lunch?

Thai Cottage on Bay Area Blvd in Webster, TX is a good choice. Great green chicken curry!