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The Finishing Touches |
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Getting Started: Plateau is the name of the completed program. The only changes from the previous version are the inclusion of splash and ending screens, and a couple of bug fixes. If you just want the compiled game for use on any capable machine, Download Plateau.zip (2.57 MB) You should unzip this into its own folder and then just run Plateau.exe.
To load the source and related data files:
Download Plat5.zip (1.48 MB)
Unzip this file into its own folder and have a look at the ReadMe.txt file for an explanation of what is in the included files. 1. Run Plateau from Dark EDIT. Play and beat the level. By doing this, you see the code action and that will make it much easier to understand. 2. Nearly all the new stuff is in SplashAndEnd.dba. A few lines in Plateau.dba are changed from the Plateau4.dba version of the previous section, but these are mostly trivial --- a couple of lines of code to call the SpashScreen and EndScreen functions, and a few more that fix a bug in handling the slides. 3. I really like the splash screen, even if I do say so myself. Essentially it is a rework of a screen effect called DarkRipples that I found at the DarkForge site. This site contains a largish collection of DarkBASIC snippets and effects that are fun to run and play around with. The splash screen in Plateau only looks vaguely like DarkRipples, but in fact I only changed a couple of lines of code to get the new effect. 4. The ending screen uses a briefer version of my DarkRipples hack, but also adds a rework of the Vertical Credits Scroller found on the DarkForge site. I have not taken the time to completely understand the DarkForge code I have lifted. It is enough that it works after a couple of hours of fiddling. Thank you DarkForge!
5. So, the game was done, and I proudly let my students loose on it. Al promptly used the gates in an order that had never happened to me during testing, and the program crashed. Ok, ok, no worries. I see the problem. There it's fixed. Then Jussy comes in and takes his turn at playing Plateau. He doesn't immediately understand that you can't run up the slides, and promptly manages to get away with it. Wow! I was flabbergasted. That one took a couple of hours to figure out and fix. What I am saying here is that when your game is done, your game is not done. Not until inexperienced hands have played it can the game be said to be complete. Not until it has survived outright attempts to make it fail can you call the project a wrap and start designing your game box. And, this is true of any program you will ever write. 6. Plateau was now running solidly in the DarkBASIC environment, and it was time to make the compiled version. What I wanted was a single executable file that contained the entire program and all related data. My little test programs of a month ago seemed to indicate that this would be no problem - hah! I had to move all of the media files from the /Objects subfolder up to the main folder before the DarkBASIC compiler would fold them into the exe. Then came the bitter realization that I could not include text files in the compiled exe unless I converted them to DATA statement within the program. Even when I had done all that, I found the single file would not work on some machines, and so had to give up my little dream and content myself with a multi-file compiled version. As the very last step, I used IcoChanger to change the icon of the exe and the project was complete and ready to ship. * * * * * I had an amazing amount of fun doing this, my first DarkBASIC project, and recommend DarkBASIC to anyone who is interested in creating computer games.
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