DDM Game Progress Update and Sprint Plan Jan 2024 - Dev Blog

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

I mention in the video that the next video will be another DDM update. I will still get that one out in a couple weeks but I forgot that I have a Commodore 64 repair video almost finished as well so that may come out next week before the DDM one.

[@Anangelspath]

I specialize in the “spaghetti “ method

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Lol Scotty, I was trying to remember that word and my brain failed me. Yes my code was vert spaghetti. The re-write on the surface map code ended up MUCH better and will be in the next video.

[@Phaleux]

Just got this as a recommended video, looks like a fun project, I'll sub for more updates!

[@joelexplorestech]

Awesome to see further progress. Look forward to see the first enemy combat!

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

I have a few ideas. I hope you like it when it is done!

[@Roanokekidstech]

Nice. Looking forward to the next video

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Coming soon!

[@rumbledethumps]

The map is real. Cool project.

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Thanks, it is pretty much done so I am now on the "Not so sexy sprint"

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Amazing work and progress! Sorry about the ice storm. I heard it was not good, but I'm glad everyone is ok. Looking forward to your next video. Thanks for sharing

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Thanks Rudy!

[@Mwash2564]

Looking forward to game. Further along than I thought.

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

I wish it was as far along as I expected by this point but the side quest to get back up to speed is helping a lot.

[@CartoonMonkeyStudio]

Go man go! Every one of these updates has me grinning from ear to ear and wanting to learn to code a bit more.

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Go for it! There are a ton of great books on archive.org!

[@shawn284]

Love the update, thank you!

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

No problem! I'm glad you like it. I can't wait to show what was done on our vacation. It was epic!

[@shawn284]

@@RavenWolfRetroTech Following for next video 👍

[@mlmattin]

Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to following your progress on this.

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Thanks for watching!

[@Lbf5677]

Waterfall sounds like a system from the 70's where people had limited computer time

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

It was high school where I was taught waterfall so that would be 78-82

[@Lbf5677]

@@RavenWolfRetroTech That's cool you had those lessons in high school. I got into computers in my early twenties

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

It was a blessing and a curse. My freshman year we had 2 apple IIs and a TRS-80 in a closet. By the time I graduated in 1982 we had a classroom with about a dozen apple II plus' on a shared Winchester drive. Since computer classes were considered math I ended up with very little math in my high school education.

[@Lbf5677]

@@RavenWolfRetroTech interesting,we did math over here in England a lot,but it only got as far as basic algebra.

[@Anangelspath]

Cool game

[@Lbf5677]

I started something similar on the zx spectrum. It took me a while to learn how to dereference a pointer. So I could have pointers to character's stats. I haven't bothered with a map or saving yet

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

well you are ahead of me! I have no idea what dereferencing a pointer is :)

[@Lbf5677]

@@RavenWolfRetroTech I suppose the best example is a character's inventory. You'd have eight slots in bard's tale. In assembly this would be eight memory addresses for each character.because you define what items are in assembly,like a sword,a mace, and a wand. Now you have three addresses,one for the sword one for the mace ,one for the wand. But these are just lists of stats for each item. So a sword would be 6,2,6 in memory for example 6 damage,2 resilience,6 weight So inventory slot 1 would be two bytes, because a memory address is a sixteen bit number. So if character 1 was holding a sword in slot 1. You copy the memory address of the description of the sword to where you have character 1's first inventory slot. So later, when you want to find out the weight of the item in character 1's first item slot you have to follow where the memory address leads that was copied to slot 1. Then get the weight. The memory address that was copied is called a pointer. The act of going to the location in memory is called dereferencing.

[@Lbf5677]

So here's a concrete example: In your assembler you create a label called 'sword description ' Then type in 6,2,6 for the stats. Later when a character picks up a sword you just copy the address of the label to the character's inventory.

[@Lbf5677]

You might already be doing it but calling it something else, because you're able to know which dungeon is at which map location.

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Ah I call that indexing but I think its the same thing.

[@Lbf5677]

The last sprint is usually the longest 😭

[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Yep, but also the most important