Homework 4: For the Want of a Boot, Beam Me Up Scotty

Short Description:

This assignment is worth 50 points.

Goals

• Have worked with blueprint classes.
• Have created blueprint classes that interact with each other.
• Have stored information in a structured manner in the game instance.
• Have loaded data from a configuration file.

Formal Description

NPC 1 wants item 1 to allow the player to win.
NPC 2 has item 1 but wants item 2 in exchange.
...
NPC n has item n-1 but wants item n in exchange.
NPC n+1 has item n and will give it to the player.

The world should be broken into a number of levels. The player moves between levels via a Transporter. The transporter initially holds no destinations. Destinations can be added by finding a set of directions in the current level. There can be multiple sets of directions in each level, but again, there should be a path available to all levels.

For this game you must

• Load the data for the transporter system from a configuration file and store this in the game instance in an array of structures.
  • At a minimum the file should contain
    • the Level Name (or name of the game asset, ie FirstLevelMap)
    • The Destination name ( ie "The Swamp", "The Supply Sargent's Tent", ...)
    • I would also add a key (A,B, ...) so a destination giver can be configured with this key to lookup the name of the destination they will give.
  • Build a transporter based on our work in class.
    • This transporter should unite the components of the transporter and the and selector into a single construct.
    • When the player enters the "platform" there should be a message visible showing the current destination name, or a message indicating no destination is available if that is the case.
    • Pressing the A key should cycle through the available destinations.
    • Pressing the T key should transport the player to the current destination.
    • The data for this transporter should be stored in an array of structures in the game instance.
  • Build a direction giver based on our in class discussions
    • The giver should be connected to a transporter.
    • If the transporter has not been set, an error message should be printed.
    • The giver should display the name of the destination that it can give, or a message indicating that it does not have a new destination.
    • The giver should be configurable with a Level name (or key)
  • This system should not reset as the player moves between levels.
• In addition you should design a class or set of classes to implement the chain
  • The information for the chain should be stored in a configuration file.
  • Each link should clearly display what they have and what they want.
  • Each link should retrieve this information from an array of structures stored in the game instance instance.
  • When the player is close enough, and has the item a link wants, they can transfer items by pressing the T key.

Documentation

• An overall description of the game and how it was implemented.
  • In this case, it is probably a recap of the information above.
• Pseudo code for all elements.
  • See this example
• Screen shots for the major algorithms of all elements.
  • See most of the notes.

Additional Requirements/Comments

• I expect you to build your code based on my examples.
• Please don't build excessively large levels or particularly tricky paths.
  • Keep the size of the files small.
  • I am not good a jumping. Don't make me a level I won't be able to get through.
  • IE: don't build this, or if you do build an alternative path around.
• Build a world that pleases you, but the code is far more important than the art work.
• You need at least four levels
• You need at least four links in the chain.
• Your documentation should be in a word file, please include this in the top level of your game directory.

Extras

Submission