Farming Game!

[Bloodystars]

Hi,
Would firstly like to add that I'm a Software Engineering graduate therefore I have experience in programming and I have a good ability to understand and adapt so any information/tips will be greatly appreciated.

Okay, I found out about LiveCode last night so I decided to give it a shot and make something or die trying. I came up with an idea of a farming game where you have an allocated space with "x" amount of soil mounds which you can apply soil, plant your seeds, water it etc then a hidden timer will be called in the background etc.."2minutes for pepper plants" in which your plants will of changed in look and will be ready to harvest, providing you with experience & a currency which I have not decided on yet.

Here is an image of my quick paint drawn "design" of the basic structure and rough placement on what I would like for the game, and I was wondering if anybody could give me any advice on how to start it or some tips as I cannot help but to keep typing in java (My main language) and obviously it ain't working.

I'll be available for the next few months to spend on this game and my lovely girlfriend will be doing all the artwork (she's a darling)

Thanks

Kyle N.

[dave_probertGA6e24]

Hi Kyle,

Having gone through the process of writing my own game in Livecode (HexThello - on Apple iTunes store), I feel I an give you a couple of initial pointers.

First of all - excellent that you have someone to do the graphics - I really wish my girlfriend wanted to help

Second - Your game will be a time-based game - so the best thing to do would be to start off with getting your core code for handling a 'time' event - eg. a central controller that is called every x milliseconds (where x is a nice number that works for you). Once you have a central controller then you simply make handlers (functions) that are called during each of your ticks (yes, there is also a Livecode 'tick' thing - you might want to look at it in the dictionary).

I can recommend Andre Garzia's aagPubSubLib (an Event Listener system) as a means of dispatching events to multiple sources - like graphic objects and so forth. You will probably find that useful - I really wish I had seen it before I coded my game!

Another thing would be to get used to groups of graphics, buttons, etc, and 'behaviour' scripts (aka. behavior !) You will find that copying premade groups from a separate card (a resources card) with their behaviours attached will make your life so much easier compared to trying to make the objects on-the-fly.

I'm sure others will be able to give further tips and tricks. Don't forget to look at all the lessons, tutorials and other resources for more ideas too.

Cheers,
Dave