Olympus, my new and hopefully longer-lived project

[Therem Harth]

In the wake of my giving up on TFork (again ) I've decided to start my own roguelike project. The working name is Olympus. Right now it's very much in the planning stages; my main goal for now is to learn something about programming from the project, though I do intend to try to make it fun.

Currently I am planning out the way the game will actually work. Actual programming won't start until I have a reasonable idea of what I want. If anyone has suggestions, I'm listening.

Meanwhile, I can say that it will have:

- No town, no stores, only one way to go (up) until the end of the game
- 4 stats, which can be raised with skill points (STR, WIL, AGL, and SPD)
- 3 classes (Warrior, Archer, and Thief)
- Mostly defensive/augmentative magic for the player
- Powerful offensive magic for monsters
- Skills for various types of usable items

As for the programming language I haven't yet decided. There are two main contendors.

Python with a Tk interface. Good because I like it better; bad because interpreted probably means more runtime errors.

Java with a Swing interface. Good because I know it better; bad because the JVM is total overkill for a text-based game.

I'm pretty ambivalent on the language right now; Python is quite enticing and IMO easier to code in, but Java might make my debugging work a lot easier, so I'm undecided.

I don't expect this thing to reach a playable state for a while, so don't hold your breath... And again, if anyone has suggestions I'd be glad to hear them.

[Sirridan]

If doing either python or java, try to make it so that you can have a display interface so that you aren't locked into Tk, or Swing.

For anyone who doesn't know what I mean, the interface has a set of methods to display text, clear the screen, and do all that other display related stuff. This way the game itself doesn't have to know *HOW* everything is displayed, and can use any display that implements those interface methods.

As for language, it's really up to you. I've done work on both sides, both are good.

[Therem Harth]

Ah okay. I should be able to write an interface in Java for that, given the time. Not sure about Python, I'm not really familiar enough with it I think.

(And it looks like interfaces in Python are really different. So different that I'm not quite sure what they really are. Hmm.)

I'm starting to think I'll probably stick with Java. I prefer the way Python "feels", but it looks like working with what I know could save me a lot of trouble...

Edit: On the other hand, if I want to learn something new, I might as well use Python. Hmm.

[Derakon]

Python 2 doesn't really have the concept of interfaces, but you can accomplish something similar using inheritance:

class FooInterface:
    def bar(self):
        raise NotImplementedError("Function bar has not been implemented")

class FooImplementor(FooInterface):
    def bar(self):
        print "This class implements function bar"

Also, in my experience, Python code is easier to read than equivalent Java code -- Java tends to be needlessly verbose. Just my opinion though.

[Therem Harth]

Thanks. And IMO you're very much right about Java being needlessly verbose.

Anyway I've decided to write some basic code in Java, mostly to help me clear up my ideas of what I'm doing. I'll see where it goes I guess.

(Though I've generally heard that, the sooner you sit down and start writing code, the longer the project will take...)

[AnonymousHero]

I'd recommend trying Scala.

It's as concise as Python, it runs on the JVM and is 100% compatible with Java classes, so you can use all of your favourite libraries. It's also strongly statically typed.

In particular you can use Swing without trouble. There a PDF with lots of examples here.

EDIT: Changed link.

[konijn_]

Originally Posted by Therem Harth

<snip>

As for the programming language I haven't yet decided. There are two main contendors.

Python with a Tk interface. Good because I like it better; bad because interpreted probably means more runtime errors.

Java with a Swing interface. Good because I know it better; bad because the JVM is total overkill for a text-based game.

Good luck and more importantly have fun. Note that Apple has recently deprecated their Java implementation for Mac..

T.

[Atarlost]

Originally Posted by konijn_

Note that Apple has recently deprecated their Java implementation for Mac..

They what? Are they in some stupid tiff with Sun? Because that does not do anything good to the value of their operating system.

[Derakon]

At a guess, Apple had their own implementation because they didn't think Sun would be willing to bother maintaining one themselves (thus the choices were either no Java on OSX or Apple-supplied Java on OSX). Now Apple thinks they're big enough that they can get Sun to have to do that work instead. If they're right, that's actually a good thing for Java on OSX since IIRC Apple's been pretty laggardly about keeping the JVM up to date. If they're wrong, though...

In any event, it's not like the current OSX JVM goes away as soon as Apple says they're deprecating it. They just won't supply updates any more.

[Therem Harth]

Ooh I hadn't thought of that. Maybe part of the problem is that it's Oracle now though, not Sun any more?