Still here..

Haven't been active with the game for a while now. Mostly because I've started working again after the vacation, and haven't had as much time and energy on the evenings and weekends.
Hopefully that will change, because I really want to continue with the game!

Battle

Started working on the thing I've dreaded the most.. Battles! Made quite a bit, but I have no idea if all the parameters are working as expected. Also it probably needs a lot of tweaking to get the balance right. As I start I just wanted the battle loop to work and it seems to do that.
What I'm doing is to have all troops get a random initiative based on their speed. The higher the number the better. Then I loop through all and randomize a defender of the attacker. Then randomize values based on attack and defense. If attack is higher the defender is wounded.
Still have to add modifies for morale and battle orders.

Heroes

Started a bit on heroes. There's three different classes of heroes:

• Warrior
• Archer
• Magician

Heroes will have a rank which shows how good they are. Ranks varies from Unblooded to Legend.
When a hero gains experience they will raise in ranks and also gain new skills. Heroes can lead armies or perform quests.
It should be possible to gain heroes that are not just humans, but other mythical races too.

Cruelty

Been thinking some about the cruelty of the game. The viking age was a cruel place to live in, so the game should reflect that. Slaves were common in the viking countries and their masters could do anything to them without repercussions. They didn't hesitate to kill defenseless people or women and children either when needed. Of course some were more cruel than others. One way to put this into the game might be that the player can decide how cruel his armies are.
A cruel army affects the moral of opponents, but also makes trading more difficult.
Also, when brining in the fantasy element, a cruel army might be more approached by the giants and evil creatures, while a not so cruel army gets approached by good creatures.

Rethink

I had to rethink some parts today. It wasn't good to have buy armed parties directly when you click on Manage Army. I moved the whole thing to a sub section under Manage Army called Manage Armed Parties. This makes more sense, since buying armed parties is just one of the many things that can be done with an army.

Started working on orders. Added the different orders I've written about before and made it possible to select an order when moving an army. Depending on if the region is your own or not the orders varies. Only when the order is to conquer, will the region be taken.

Inspiration

Here are som movies that gives me inspiration for this game:

• Erik the Viking - Comedy, but has lots of great stuff in it!
  
• Pathfinder - Might not have the best plot, but the vikings are so cool looking even though they are not historically correct.
• Outlander - Except the space theme... or maybe that could be an idea too.. could be an event that could happen. Have to think about that.
• The 13th Warrior - Lots of cool vikings and has a supernatural feel.
• Beowulf - Animated, and got the fantasy theme that I like.
• Beowulf & Grendel - Same basic story as above.
  
• The Vikings - Old classic viking movie.
  
• Hrafninn flýgur, Í skugga hrafnsins, Hvíti víkingurinn - Great Icelandic movies. Long since I saw them, but have some memory of how they were.
• Ofelas - Norweigan movie (which Pathfinder is based on). Long since I saw this too.
• The Norseman - Can just remember this one a tiny bit.

These are just some of the inspiration that I got. Also got from lots of book, role-playing games and other sources.

Improvements

Have been a bit busy lately since I'm rebuilding the kitchen, and also been playing some on my new laptop.
Have done some new things in the game though. Mostly fix so that Manage Region and Manage Army works better. Added a lot of code to check which improvements and armies that the user is allowed to build. Some regions can't build certain improvements and some improvements/armies requires other improvements to be built first.
The other day I was at Toys'R'Us and found some toys that gave me some ideas. It was a kind of action figures that mixed vikings and fantasy. It was the kind of look that I had in my head already but was cool to see it like that. There were sea monsters, mammoth riders, polar bears and so on.
Also got some other new ideas. I'm thinking of introducing two more resources: Treasure Items and Slaves. Mostly these can only be acquired by trading and fighting. The wont follow the normal rules for resources so maybe have to introduce a new type. Treasure Items can be used to raise moral. Either in the region or for an army. If the player can't afford to give the army enough resources they will grow angry. If they do, the player can bribe them with treasures (and maybe slaves) to keep them happy. Treasures and slaves can also be used for sacrifices to the gods.

Graphics

Not so much done today. Did a bit of work on the graphics today. Redid the buttons and added functionality for hovering and dimming. Here's some new screenshots at least.

Move armies

Did quite a bit today. Now it's possible to move armies around. You can move armies to specified regions by land or by sea depending on the region the army is in.
At the moment you don't need boats to travel by sea, but that could be added quite easily.
Also when you move an army into an enemy region you automatically conquer it.
Third thing is that you can move an army multiple steps in one round.

Also thought about one thing. There should be a possibility to sneak through an enemy region with a small army. Or just walk through with a big one without trying to conquer. Same on the sea. A fleet should be able to sail past enemy regions.

Refactor

Refactor is a word that's been used a lot. Mostly because I play around as I go and don't really have a plan. For a real project that would not be so good, but it's working quite fine so far. Plus, I get to do a lot of functions that I then take a away, so I'm learning more than I would have if I had done it right from the start.
Today I've worked a bit on the layout of the screens as well as managin armies. That page still looks like a mess though.
Here's a couple of new screenshots:

More ideas about armies

No idea why, but my creativity always go into overdrive when I shower :p Today I got lots more ideas about how to handle armies.

One thing is that you should be able to set the armies tactics. An army could have these tactics:

• Defend
• Raid and retreat
• Raid and hide
• Conquer
• Search for raiders
• Patrol
• Explore
• Trade
• Diplomacy
  

Some of them are done in your own regions, while others can be performed in enemies. Maybe the last three requires a hero in the army.

Second thing I was thinking of was tradelanes. You should be able to open up tradelanes with other regions. The better friend you are with that region's faction the better trade you'll get. You can disrupt enemies tradelanes.

Third was that I have to set up how to move armies. Two ways of moving should be by land and by sea. The XML needs to list which region has which regions you can move to in both way. To move by sea you must have an army with ships.

Buy army

Worked a bit on buying armies and now that is possible to do.
Refactored a bit of the code so the checks if the player can afford to buy something is only in one spot.
Next step will probably be to give armies orders and move them around.
Also need to work some on the graphics and texts.

Army

Next step is to build an army. Started a little on creating the different army types. Just threw in a couple.
They are:

• Peasant
• Lightly-armored Vikings
• Heavily-armored Vikings
• Berserkers
• Mounted Vikings
• Viking Archers

They are divided into melee, mounted and ranged and got attack, defense, hits and cost properties.
So far nothing about the game has had any fantasy over it. I'm thinking of adding monsters and creatures into armies too. Some might wield magic and have special skills. Also thinking that it would be cool if you can upgrade any army with special skills. For example, extra attack or defense, or an army specialised in raiding or using special weapons and so on. It's easy to have too many ideas at once. Have to finish the basic and then build on that.

Save/Load

The past days I've worked a bit on saving and loading. Had to add serialization to some of the classes, but when I got that working, it was easy to save and load the game. I've just made a very simple feature at the moment, where it's only possible to have one saved game at the time. It's not graphical at all yet either.

Why Silver Island Media?

Why did I name the blog Silver Island Media?
Well, firstly I needed a name brand name for the namespace in the code. Secondly, if I do more games, it's good to have a name that brands them together.

But why Silver Island Media?
I started programming when I got my first computer (a Commodore 64). I was 13 at the time and computers weren't that common. I just knew a couple of people that had one. We all played games together, but I also wanted to learn how the games where made. This was before the Internet became known around the world. I played around writing textbased games, but quickly learned the limits of the computer and my own skills.
Over the years I tried to learn more and more and did lots of half finished projects in different languages.
But then by the end of the century, I finally finished a game! It was called Silver Island and was a simple roleplaying game. I published it online just for fun and was shocked by the reception. It was free and everyone could download it and it was downloaded by some 40000 people and got quite good rating for such a simple game.
I started on a second game (called Twilight of Eternity) after that which was much more advanced (based on my skills and not the market!), but never got around to finish it.
Many years went pass and I felt like doing some game programming again. Then I needed a brand name and in memory of my first game I called it Silver Island Media. So that's why :)

Woohoo!

It's now an actual game! Sure, it's a real bad and boring one still, but it's a game nonetheless.
It's now possible to buy improvements for the regions and the resources are added each turn.
There's still lots of checks to be done before that part is complete though.
It's time for some new screenshots I think. The screenshots are showing how it's possible to select a region and then buy improvements on it. The graphics needs to be improved and everything is just thrown together to make it work.

Buying

Couldn't resist doing a bit more work on it. Now it's possible to buy things. Only added a couple of region improvements yet, but it's a start at least. Resource is reduced (no bottom limit yet) and improvements are added as they should.
Just fix a couple more things and then it's a playable game!

ListBox

Not done much programming again. I'm quite bored with World of Warcraft at the moment and downloaded a trial of "Age of Conan". 24-mb downloading is so nice! Love it :) The game is quite fun and since I've just got a 7-day trial, I've focused on that.
Today I took some time to program again though. I worked on a listbox that can be used in many different parts of the game. No controls like that are included so need to do them all from scratch! Got one working though with up and down buttons and a way to select a value. That value is then available from other parts of the screen. It looks terrible at the moment, but the functionality is there at least!
Next step is to make it possible to buy improvements. That shouldn't be that much work now I hope. The tough part was the listbox.

Dynamic code

Been a bit lazy the past week and not done much coding at home.
Today I refactored some parts to make the code more dynamic. This was done while adding code for resources and improvements in the regions. Now those things are handled with XMLs too.

Good day

Went a lot better than expected today. Finished a basic game loop and also started on managing regions. Just started on it, so much left to do.

Clickable Map and new ideas

The map is now clickable and regions is assigned to most of the home countries of the vikings.
Some factions has also been created. They are Svear, Goter, Gutar and Danes. Now it's time to start on the game loop logic.

Today I got some new ideas on the region management. The original idea was that each region had a settlement where you build buildings. Instead I thought it would be fun if you could instead "research" regions. For example you can improve the mining capability or the farms of the region. The better the region is at something the more resources you get from it. But of course each region are different. Mountainous Svealand can improve mining more than Denmark, while Denmark can improve farms more than Götaland and so on. That makes trade important. And trade is also different between regions. Gotland has better chance of improving trade than Svealand has.

Another idea was that you can improve the capability by improving the existing mines/farms/woodsheds or you can send out scouts to find new ones. Scouts are more risky but yields a higher result if successful.

Third idea was that in the viking age it was impossible to know much about the neighbors, so the player shouldn't see much about regions they don't control. That way scouts, spies or diplomats can be used.

Fourth idea continues on the third one. It should be possible to send in small raiding parties into neighboring regions. The bigger the raid party the bigger the chance of being seen, so a small party can take the enemy by surprise. Parties can be led by heroes and they can either stay in the region and keep raiding or raid and then hurry back home. The owner of the region can then send search parties to locate the raiding party.

Lots of ideas and much to do!

Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to have as a kind of documentation of the progress of my work.

At the moment I've just started on a game which I call Halls of Midgard. It's planned to be a kind of strategy/rpg during the age of the vikings. It wont be realistic though, but more how it would be if the viking mythology were true. The gods are real and so are all the creatures and monsters the vikings believed in.

I'm doing this entirely on my sparetime and I have on idea when or even if I will ever finish, since I'm just doing it for fun.

Here's a first screenshot of the worldmap: