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[eigenbom]

Do you mean the dependencies/call graphs between modules? The is possible in Doxygen I think.

Or do you mean a uml sequence diagram taken from a snapshot of the running system? Or maybe a flowchart/activity diagram for a function/class? These I'm not sure, but I don't think that those tools (if they exist) would be useful, friendly, or free, but I understand the appeal o.

[happymonster]

More like a UML diagram I guess..

[Box99]

Could you please update your OP with more content so I don't have to read through 50 pages to see how awesome your game is? I think we should all practice this when our threads get huge.

[happymonster]

It has awesome potential..

When some of this awesomeness is actually realized, I will indeed add an awesome amount of awesomeness to the first post. 

[happymonster]

Slightly early, but... Merry Christmas everyone!!

[eigenbom]

mwahaha merry xmas mate

[happymonster]

Cheers, looking forward to seeing more Moonman in 2013..

[Franklin's Ghost]

Merry Christmas guys. Looking forward to playing SpaceHero Command next Christmas and the game recognising the date and letting me play with my guys dressed as Santas 

[happymonster]

There are loads of things I'd like to add in if I ever get the time, and one of those is different looks for each hero, i.e. skin colour, hair colour & style, etc..

[happymonster]

I'm adding in text descriptions of command icons when you move your mouse over them. Just a little thing, but helps make it more user friendly:

[happymonster]

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and got a lot of presents!

I've toned down the brightness of the colours in the icons above and done a lot more refactoring. It's finally starting to feel much better to work with the codebase, even though it takes me a long time to do..

I want to include a Chrysallid / Alien style enemy that only has close combat attacks. This will be the easier form of AI and give some gameplay for a demo. However I don't want a design like the Alien one, something that fits in with this game. Any ideas for how it should look?

[happymonster]

Work continues behind the scenes on the game.. I've fully encapsulated the map data from the rest of the code. This means that it's easier to add new layers (ground, shadow, object, etc..) or levels (second floor) if needed. It also makes the code less likely to break something by accident as everything is routed through functions to return an object from the map. Finally it means I can change the map format without breaking everything.

I started to do the same with the object code, but it's just too many variables used in two many places.. I'd either have dozens of generic get/setter functions, or have to have all the object related code in a single source code file. So in the end, I'm using the map functions and a few other ideas to add some level of protection.

The code is almost fully redesigned, a few things to work on and fix yet, but it's much improved.

After some trialing of styles I'm also changing how I deal with function calls slightly. Function calls with only a few variables are on one line (otherwise it gets too much to put every variable on a different line). Function calls with many variables are still multi-line with comments, but grouped together where possible rather than each variable being on a separate line:

Code:

void Draw_mouse( bool final_draw_call_this_frame )
{
	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	// The mouse cursor is drawn twice every frame. 
	//
	// We want the mouse cursor to go underneath the compass cursors UI if over the map area so that we can see the compass
        // arrows clearly. But we also want those arrows to go under the gamepanel, AND the mouse cursor to be drawn over the top
	//
	// So, we have to draw the mouse cursor twice to get this effect:
	// 1. First draw in the view area
	// 2. Later in the frame draw again with the drawing clipped to the gamepanel area only
	// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	// If this is the last draw call this frame, then clip the drawing to the gamepanel area
	if ( final_draw_call_this_frame )   Clip_drawing_to_gamepanel_area( );

        /* .. DRAW THE MOUSE CURSOR */	    Draw_object_from_list(
        /* int set,  object	    */	    GUI_SET,    mouse.object, 
	/* int x		    */	    Mouse_x_position( ) - Tixel_amount_in_pixels( HALF_TILE_HEIGHT_IN_TIXELS ),
	/* int y		    */	    Mouse_y_position( ) - Tixel_amount_in_pixels( HALF_TILE_HEIGHT_IN_TIXELS ),  
	/* Rgba col, alpha_t *alpha */	    mouse.col,  Get_alpha_current( &mouse.alpha ) );

	// If this is the last draw call this frame, then clip the drawing to the full view area
	if ( final_draw_call_this_frame )   Clip_drawing_to_view_area( );
}

[happymonster]

I've also been looking to improve the user interface. This is very important as if it's not easy to use or obvious what the GUI is showing them, then it's not going to work or be very playable.

I've now refined the directional facing arrows to make it clearer which direction the unit will face at the end of a move. As you can see from the screenshot.. they are larger, a different arrow shape, and a brighter colour. I hope this makes it clear enough compared to how it was displayed previously which wasn't very obvious at all.

[Gregg Williams]

I think the facing arrow is quite clear, though the two smaller ones being red kinda puzzle me a bit, but then I don't remember all the details of the system.

Your function calls are crazy though, I had to look over that sample a few times to even realize it was a function call at first, though I suppose syntax highlighting would of helped a great deal in that aspect. =)

[happymonster]

Yeah, it doesn't look good in the code box. Here's how it looks for me (albeit slightly zoomed out to fit on the forums):

[Gregg Williams]

Yeah the syntax highlighting helps a lot, the multi-line isn't bad imo, though I dislike the comments. Also what is up with statements beside the if statement and not under them?!? ARGHHHH =)

Ah well to each their own, I married auto complete and visual studio is great at it, xcode isn't to bad either now adays. =)

[Franklin's Ghost]

I'm a horrible coder so can't really remark upon that aspect but the new larger directional arrow I think is a great idea. Should definitely help make it clear to the player now what's going on.

[happymonster]

Improved..

[DustyDrake]

Also what is up with statements beside the if statement and not under them?!? ARGHHHH =)

Syntactically correct and it takes up less space.
Only works with one line statements though, but they can still be handy.

[eigenbom]

Improved..

I think those colours are too full on, there's just too much complexity in the image. Convert it to grey scale to it and see if the important things still stand out, if not, then rethink some of the values.

Also you have four different arrows in that picture, and as had been mentioned, you have different sizes, colours, and styles of arrow in that facing direction widget, which I think is overly complex.

Gogogogogogo!