Personal Update:

Last week I spent a lot of time on Christmas projects and family time. I finally finished the quarter-round trim for the laminate floor project we started oh so long ago, and it looks great. We can officially start having people over.

In other personal news, I started teaching my 8 year old daughter how to play Necromunda. For those of you who don't know, it's an older Games Workshop game in the 40k universe and is their take on Hive Gang warfare.



It's never too early to educate our young on the importance of cover and clear lines of fire.

Development Update:

So, the Christmas holidays are starting to cut into game development, I don't have too much to report. Sorry, no video this week! :) I started getting my dungeon and encounter system up and running. I will be data driving damn near every part of the game so that people can make their own monsters, quests, dungeons, maps, towns, etc. Here is a sample of the XML I'm making:
[code=xml:0] Spider 1 Spider 3d6 Spider
These are early files, so they are highly subject to change, but you get the idea. Now that my monster stats are driven by XML files, adding new monsters and tweaking the stats will be easy-peasy.

There are still lots of decisions left to make and I'm sure I'll change my mind more than a few times. I'm debating whether or not I should have the base stats for a level 1 version, and level-up profiles for higher versions, or if I should just have specific monster stats. I'm leaning towards leveled stats for monster types so that I can generate level appropriate themed dungeons.

Next week will be similarly low output. And then the rest of December is likely going to be dedicated to being a good daddy and Christmas awesomeness. My productivity should pick back up at the start of the year.

Tip from your Uncle Eck:

Data drive as much of your game as possible. In addition to making development easier, you'll extend the longevity of your game with your players since they'll make their own mods for it.