Need help with game engine

When I was aboout six, I coded up a simple game engine which uses ASCII and ANSI graphics to allow playing of a game which would be coded in an extended version of blitz basic. Recently, I saw my project page on sourceforge, and decided to continue work on it. Does anybody want to help me? I need a little help finishing and polishing the engine, and I need a lot of help making a game for it. Any takers?

I'd consider it, but I'd prefer to see what you have thus far, and more details of what your goal is before I get involved.

Um, yeah, I have no leads to your code and your homepage link leads nowhere as well. Give us more contact info.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure pepole were interested before I wasted my precious time uploading the code to HotLinkFiles.

[url=http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/2244045_uyisj/XYEngine.zip]XYEngine.zip[/url]

My goal is to create a simple yet powerfull framework for game makers who are new to B+. With this as a base, they simply need to code Map.bb and compile.

I compiled, it said I ran into a wall once, then apparently the wall was nonexistent... frankly I'm rather confused as to what its supposed to do.

I think it would be wise to either provide better documentation or a sample game.

I was doing a ASCII adventure game in December, and I believe it's similar to what you are trying to accomplish. If you have any questions I can probably help.

You asked for code, you didn't specify that it had to work. :) This code was originally made for B2D, so there's going to be some problems to get it working in a B+ enviroment. I think I'll have to do something special with ANSI escape codes to get the graphics right. I'll write some docs too. As I said in the OP, I need somebody to help me with the sample game. I have a weekend coming up, so I should be able to work on it some more. A note though, this might not even be possible with the limitations of B+. Not being able to display ANSI characters in graphics mode with Text is a large setback.

Well before your engine can be used to make a sample game, it has to work properly :)

And about the ANSI characters, you should be able to make a game fine with the 200+ ASCII characters. If you really need the ANSI graphics, AFTER you get it working with ASCII you can find a creative method to get those characters. That is only if you decide you absolutely need them.

I'm having some trouble with Types (I've never used them before) but I should have a working engine in a little while. Here's the code that's causing the problem.

;NPCFunction.bb
;Contains the NPC function
;I anticipate that this function will be huge, so I've put it into its own file.

Type NPC
Field x
Field y
Field health
Field friendly
Field icon$
End Type

;The NPC function
;Use in Map.bb to create an NPC that can talk, ask questions, and move around.
Function NPC(CallType=0,name$="",startingX=0,startingY=0,friendly=0,health=0,icon$="")

Select CallType


Case 0
If name Then

DebugLog="Creating NPC named "+name$+" at "+x+","+y+" with health "+health+", icon "+icon$+" , and a freindly value of "+friendly+"."

NPC.name$ = New NPC
NPC\x=startingX
NPC\y=startingY
NPC\health=Health
NPC\friendly=friendly
NPC\icon$=icon$

Else
DebugLog "ERROR: Tried to create an NPC without a name!"
EndIf

Case 1
If Not name="" Then
DebugLog "Moving an NPC "+name$+" to "+x+","+y+"."

npc.name$\x=x
npc.name$\y=y

Else
DebugLog "ERROR: Tried to move an NPC without a name!"
EndIf

End Select

It says it expects an EndIf right before the $ in Name$ in case 0. I can't see why.

EDIT: Oh wait, I see now. Debuglog=? Why did I type that?

Okay, I fixed that, but it didn's solve the problem.

NPC.name$ = New NPC

I think you're going to have issues with this line. You can't make string values (like a name like "Fred" or "Gorgoth") to become variables inside the program.

Yeah, I found that out with a little research. I think I've got it working. I'll scribble up some documentation and let you look at it.

EDIT: Unfortunately, my trial copy of word has expired...

EDIT:
Okay, here it is. You might have to comment out the NPC example in Map.bb, it doesn't seem to like my variables.

http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/2252462_cpdix/XYEngine_061913.zip

Doesn't work at all. Got an error, fixed it, tried again, repeat.

May I suggest doing a total tear down and rebuild? The second time around always produces better results... also, with such a small engine perhaps it would be wise to not use multiple sources. It's more coherent for a smaller project and will be easier for others to understand.

When I get back to my Win98 machine with my engine source on it, I'll comment it and post it up for you to use as a reference. I'll make a sample game too.

Good luck!

I think I'll keep going with my orignal code, the core of it works well.

Also, the multiple source thing is organised like it is for a reason: I have 4 source files, two of engine code, two of game code. The XY.bb file contains the raw essence of the engine, the code I wrote way-back-when. Then, there's Includes.bb, which contains functions and things that shouldn't be hidden in XY.bb. Then, you have Map.bb, which contains map objects, and Draw.bb, which contains graphics objects.

My current problem is, every time I try to write a NPC engine, it fails epicly. It should work this time (it's a good bit less ambitious than the NPC engine I had before) but, when I try to compile with a little talking smiley in the map code, it complains of incompatible variable types.

I should set up an SVN or something.
Here's the code:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ymlmmoukgzy/XY Engine.zip

I can't get it to work.

Does this even run on your machine? I'm getting variable mismatches, non Type errors, among others.