[Prizm 2011 Contest Entry] PrizmCity

[Ashbad]

Well, I got a preliminary HUD working, reduced the size of viewable playing field at a time (from 11x24 to 20x10 to make tons of room for the HUD), got a map cursor working, fixed a *very* fatal flaw in map generation, and a few other things I completely rewrote the map generation to fix the errors and I achieved 500 lines in one hour O.o

EDIT: even added those little quirky messages usually seen in SimCity games when setting up a new city like "Seeding Trees" or "Parsing Mountains" :3

[ztrumpet]

This looks awesome, Ashbad.  I really like how you're generating the maps.  It's pretty cool.
Good luck!

[Ashbad]

Thank you so far I've put about 10 hours of coding at least into map generation, when I should be working on other things.  To tell the truth, everything else is insignificant IMHO, because I've done city-type stuff before, but never map generation.  Once map generation is immaculate (it's getting really really close, just a few problems with low density and high altitude), I'll move on.  Right now, I'm writing yet another pass to the generator that adds more bodies of smooth water and grassy plains, and maybe a 4th pass:

1st pass -- simply using a bunch of mixed and pipelined algorithms, gets a general landscape setup with quite a few error spots
2nd pass -- cleans up error spots and smooths out terrain
3rd pass -- planned to add extra stuff like preset lakes
4th pass -- probably checking for impossible building situations

I'm also working on making the HUD even more functional, also by creating a custom set of text() and print() routines and a custom character set, and then finally "big buttons" seen in SimCity 3/4

[Wellen]

Woaw, it looks really awesome !

Good luck !

* Wellen is drooling

[Ashbad]

Thanks right now I'm getting rather annoyed because each time I try to debug a different setting of map generation, it takes a minute to generate.  It's getting more time consuming to test than to write!

[Ashbad]

Well, finished all work concerning Map Generation.  Things I did:

- reduced to a 2 pass system
- since generating lakes and islands and such didn't work well, it uses preset seeds in pass 2 to make them
- got rid of all junk generation

EDIT: on a side note...  just noticed this:

http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/evil code.PNG

[Ashbad]

well after basking in the evilness above I have almost finished the HUD and...  what do you think of the icons? 

[JosJuice]

Those icons look pretty nice! You might want to add some shadow in the second one if you want to match Casio's icons, though.

[Ashbad]

Well, my friend. Since we last talked I've added many dozens of KB into the size of the final binary (after compilation, of course), and I finally know where I'll stand with term of completion for the contest.  I sadly can't get everything done in time, but I can promise:

- Beautiful Map generation (done)
- Wonderful graphics (done)
- A very simple yet chock-filled HUD (done)
- Simple zoning and utilities (almost done)
- Neural road system creation and detection (WIP)
- Approval ratings and very simple statistics (will likely be the last thing to get done in time)

Everything else will be updated while the polls take place.  There will be constant update uploads and source code releases during the voting period, so if you'd rather wait until a more complete version is done to vote, just wait for about a week into voting.  It should be very complete by then, and I would appreciate people waiting to try the extra features out before casting their thoughts into the system.

With that being said, the only known competitor of mine is z80man, who hasn't said much about his entry.  He said he still is working on it, but like me, is unsure if he'll get it nearly done by the end.  He didn't really announce what it was, but hinted publicly towards a Plants v. Zombies port.  Good luck to z80man, shall our debut of skills provide a great learning experience for both of us be sure to consider voting for him too even though he didn't hype his up as much.  I'm sure his entry will be very very good.

And in last thoughts, I won't be chatting much for the next three days.  I'm literally coding my life away.  I'm using my 30 minute long study-hall period, my 30 minute long lunch period, most of my comp. sci. Class time, and at least 5 hours when I get home each day just for this.  If nothing else I want to do at least moderately well in this contest, to prove to myself I do know C much better than I think I do.  And through this whole process of proving it, I've learned a lot about the Prizm's internal workings (which will help in later projects), and C in general.  So this has helped

[DJ Omnimaga]

You said you're coding your life away but spent all this time writing a long post?

* DJ_O votes we tempban both Ashbad and z80man until the deadline

jk

[Ashbad]

Hehe, you probably need to so I don't get distracted x_X

[DJ Omnimaga]

Or rate down any post made between Sept 13th 10:11 PM and Sept 16th 1:55 AM GMT-5 then rate them back up once the entry is submitted. J/k but Don't make the game way too big, though. Make sure you got a demo at least ready then add extra stuff if you have time.

[Ashbad]

Well, hopefully today ill get the preliminary zoning engine done, so no worries then ill submit it to the contest application.

[Ashbad]

The entire source for the primary source file is available now! http://pastebin.com/6xMU2i2i

Full-length animated screeny coming soon

[shmibs]

ash, how does this go about rendering its maps? it seemed to take a while for the PRIZM's fancy pants hardware, so i thought you must be doing something fancypants yourself and wanted to ask before looking at the source.