Monday, April 5, 2010

Schedule Set!

Just laid-out and prioritized a list of all the fixes and new features. After that I made cursory estimates for time needed to complete each task. Then, setting aside 10 hours a week, put tasks to a schedule. link

As with any coding project there is always too many features and too little time. I've heard many times that the rule of thumb is to make time estimates, and then double it. That being said I believe my schedule is more towards the under-estimated side. Worst case scenario I see the all features upto the undo functionality being complete. Best case scenario I finish the schedule on time.

I look forward to attacking the tasks. When I wrote the level editor last semester I made sure to comment the code well and design it in a very modular fashion. And of course it's always easier to update one's own code than someone else's. The messiest part I see is in reorganizing the level editor's layer modes. Currently it's a fragile tangle of boolean flags, and now it's time implement it with a legitimate code. Creating new GUI components will be easy, since I have a sanely structured hierarchy of GUI object classes. The GUI hierarchy resembles that of Java Swing (which I had just recently worked with in OOSE).

Best of all this will be fun! We have a working game with great features. The only thing it lacks is a complete set of levels. And with a polished level editor it will prevent Planet Zolton from becoming forgotten-ware.

Issues and solutions

Just added a detailed list of issues with the current layout/functionality and proposed a list of solutions. link

Layout pictures

Added images of the current level editor layout and the propsed layout. link. A detailed list of the layout to come soon.

Introduction

Added an introduction page to the blog. It included an overview of the independent study and a background of the video game. link

Just created blog!

Just created the blog.