Tables and Chairs

I got the new AI tables all installed over the weekend. Now that it's actually there it's a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The system isn't done yet, but at least the referential nonsense is good to go. I also pestered my animator to give me some test animations, and I have those now and can get to building the rest.

I still need to build:

The Loading Functions that load the tables with data and images. I'm considering building another database. Basically a file tree for the pictures with the top file called "EnemyX" where "X" is the enemy type. In that file, more files that are numbered, but these numbers will correspond to the row in the Animation Table that they go to and then the images themselves numbered as the order in which they are played. Since I'd be dealing with all numbers, I can populate the table using loops, which is faster and less likely to totally suck.

The Display Functions that draw the pictures, but I kind of already have this but commented out. It looks like :

Draw EnemyX,EnemyY,AnimationTable(EnemyAttack, CurrentAttack)

Like I said previously, this bit is a little confusing do to with the naming conventions of the variables. In the Knight engine the same thing will happen, but on a loop for all the different enemies.

The Combat Functions. This is the biggest part, but I should be able to use some of my old combat code. Assuming the rest of the parts are working correctly then this should be pretty easy to implement. I'm not creating data, I'm just using what is already there. If everything goes okay in testing, this part should be good too. I'm trying really hard to avoid adding too many parts all at once. I find that doing so makes it practically impossible to test anything and isolate problems. So I'll get the first 2 things going and let the enemies beat The Thief like, well, a thief, you know, for science.

The rest of the AI routines. Once the combat part is all done, the hardest part of the AI is finished. It just needs the rest, like falling, getting hurt and so on. I have a commented list with the AI code. The rest of them don't interact so much, so I should be able to build them piecemeal without it being a big deal. So I want them to Fall off of things when.

After that's done I can get started on the next parts of the puzzle, mostly the new Thief moves, the Step Up, the Blue Dodge implementation and the Charge Attack. It seems that between now and the end, I'm going to be doing mostly programming work. Well, I'm the only one that can.