Eigth Day: Optimization and Classic Word Game menu.

Today, as usual I have only been able to work a few hours. So, before my code get's to messy I've been trying to tidy it in both games (Play to Learn and Classic Word Games).
So bascially I've tried to incorporate similar variables from the different mini-games into one and commenting on my code.

Also, I've worked a little bit on the Classic Word Games game, I now have a screen where the user can select whether they want to play hangman, the memory card game or the soon to be developed third game, and also the difficulty. The next step for Classic Word Games is to create the third word game and add a 'subject select screen' where the user can choose which subject of vocabulary that they want to learn.

Seventh Day - Bitmap fonts and planning

Today, I've spent the morning working on using bitmap fonts to draw in game text. This is because apparently BlitzMax is slower or uses more memory to load and draw font's from font files than to load text from an image (such as the image shown below this text). This has been an interesting experience because I've never done this before or dealt with ascii codes, but after a lot of attempts and errors, the final code is quite simple.



Also, I've created two lists that will help me, the first lists all the tasks that need to be completed, there priority, the section of the game (such as graphics, sound, game engine) and an estimate of time it will take to do.

The second list is the same, but it's for fixes or improvements that I see and need to address in the future, which could be anything from improving the memory usage to how games work.

I think these will help me a lot in the development of the game, because I can clearly see and pick a task that will take a short time or long time depending on the amount of free time I have available on that certain day

Vocabulary

I've spent today thinking about the many different vocabulary subjects for the 'Classic Word Games' game. I've also made a start on the big task of entering the thousands of words.

Basically, I've decided to store the words in seperate files depending on the subject
such as there is a file called 'colours.wrd' for the colour vocabulary and 'pets.wrd' for pets vocabulary.
Each file basically looks like this:

EASY
cat
dog
INTERMEDIATE
goldfish
ADVANCED
gerbil
cockatoo
ENDOFFILE

This makes it easy to edit and easy to read into the programme quickly.

If anyone wants to help add vocabulary, you are more than welcome!

Fifth Day (hangman)

Today, (well at 12am on Friday night) I started work on one more of the mini-games, which will be hangman

As said before I'm also considering releasing a separate computer game consisting of a few classic word games, that includes thousands of words of vocabulary categorised into subjects and English levels (Beginner,Intermediate,Advanced). One of these games will be a computerised version of hangman, so today I have been 'killing two birds with one stone'.

The Play To Learn game just loads the correct vocabulary depending on the planet the student is currently on. While the separate version loads the vocabulary depending on (As said before) the English level and subject.

I'm quite pleased with it even though it doesn't look great due to the fact that there are no graphics at the moment.

Just thoughts (again...)

Today I've been thinking about releasing two or three games at the same time, and how I will do this. I've come to the following conclusion of what I will release:

1. Play To Learn: The computer game that I'm working on, which is for very young learners of English to introduce them to new vocabulary.

2. A Collection of Word Games: This will include games such as hangman and 'the memory game'. I hope to include thousands of words of vocabulary sorted into subjects and English Levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced).