I added the locations (planets, moons, space stations, etc.) to the screen, and I’m about half done with the radar. The max velocity has been cut from 20 to 10 px per frame. It’s a bit easier to control.
I’m freekin’ thrilled about the radar. I’ve been thinking about how that’s done in video games forever. What I’m doing is scaling down the game world by a factor of 75…and that’s adjustable, of course. I’ll have zoom in/out buttons on there pretty soon. I stayed up a bit late to get the radar working, and it paid off. It was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream when I pointed the ship toward a distant planet on the radar and saw it come into view on the main screen.
I need to learn how to use clipping in Silverlight to hide the radar blips that are outside the intended visible area. I could turn them off manually, but that’s one more if statement to slow things down. The way I’m doing the radar probably isn’t the most efficient anyway, but I’ll refactor it later.
The locations are stored in an XML file that has their coordinates, name of the corresponding image, and a brief description. The same file contains the commodities I’ll use later in the game.
The consensus with amongst my work buds is that the steer-by-mouse needs to go, in favor of key controls. I’m inclined to agree.
Next steps:
– come up with a name
– make some graphics
– get the radar clipping done
– add some enemies to dispatch
AJH-1138 