Delver Progress Log

Sat Oct 19 19:00:20 1996: Created progress log
Wed Oct 23 23:11:36 1996: Made last major architectual change to engine to support new file format. Trying to decide if I REALLY want to support multi-story buildings, and what approach to take.
Thu Oct 24 19:44:51 1996: Daily backups are good, I discover as I try restoring my development harddrive. "PEOF" errors are bad (ever see the finder say "Error -127" when trying to make a copy of a file?) I think I'll work on bitmaps for a while, once I get everything running again...
Tue Oct 29 23:14:58 1996: Played with new lighting techniques (better ways of providing shadows), which has some great potential - might even be able to use to remove "color cycling" and all its associated nightmares.
Tue Nov 5 13:50:23 1996: Besides voting, got "conditional schedules" working - this allows me to have someone say "Meet me at the graveyard at midnight" and then, and only then, will that person be at the graveyard at midnight. Basically, entire populations can behave differently based on external state. I'm also amazed at the number of people reading this, since not even altavista knows about it...
Tue Nov 5 19:34:17 1996: Got 68k version running (but crashes hard when quitting). Still WAY too slow, but haven't even begun to address that
Sat Nov 9 12:51:15 1996: I got to experience the fun of a broken water pipe in my basement (but I now own a torch!) In the mess I was at least able to find my copy of the Odyssey. Perhaps I'll actually be able to get back to work today...
Thu Nov 14 14:22:24 1996: Got a resizable main view working (as big as 448x448 to as small as 128x128) as well as some major performance improvements on the 68K version (though you might need to turn off music and/or sound to get good performance on some machines, as well as making the window smaller). The 68K performance isn't as good as I'd like, but it is probably acceptable (user testing will show)
Fri Nov 15 13:12:55 1996: Got it to run on an old LC (complete with smaller screen) Had to make the window a bit smaller, and there are other tweaks that need to be done, but it played at a slow, but acceptable speed. So, yes, delver will support 68K Macs - though some of the nicer extras might need to be turned off (or not available at all, such as the nicer lighting/color cycling routines). Since an LC is pretty much the bottom end of color Macs, it should work on just about any color Mac
Thu Dec 5 12:01:15 1996: Slow but steady progress is still being made. I've been placing between 150,000 and 200,000 tiles as well as countless objects (think 6 digits here), not to mention all the character schedules and conversations...
Wed Dec 11 15:13:13 1996: FINALLY got a very nasty (as in crash the mac and maybe corrupt your disk for spite) bug fixed when selecting a character portrait
Sun Dec 15 17:23:53 1996: Found and fixed a NASTY little bug in the scripting system that parsed '<' as '>'. Combat (driven entirely from the scenario) now works much better, and the 'Finger Of Death' spell works like it is suppose to (spells are also done in the scripting system, and thus spells are scenario based instead of engine based)
Wed Dec 18 14:48:04 1996: Found another nasty bug in the scripting compiler - if a "for" loop was used twice in the same file but in different routines with different number of local variables, it would overwrite one of those variable or hose the loop. I can now throw attack something from a distance and it correctly knows to throw my spear at it...
Wed Jan 22 10:29:07 1997: The background music is coming in now, and sounds just great - if you haven't upgraded to QuickTime 2.5 you'll want to.
Wed Jan 29 20:14:21 1997: Bought fish from a fisherman in Odemia (there's a lot more to do in Odemia, but this one doesn't give away any of the plot). Hope to a "real" logo soon too...
Mon Feb 10 10:10:06 1997: New lighting routines are really cool (even on 68K) - a nice smooth pool of light with a much finer resolution than the old "entire tile" effect.
Tues Mar 25 12:15:06 1997: Discovered that after updating the webserver, my "add comments" form doesn't work anymore (and hasn't for over a month), causing this list to not get updated. However, getting the game done is more important, so I don't know when this will be fixed...
Tue Apr 22 10:02:49 1997: Test to see if we fixed the progress log...
Tue Apr 22 10:08:03 1997: Progress log working again - Lots of work on the scenario being done. Been implementing spells, characters, etc... About half of the main plot is implemented, as well as a number of sub-plots.
Sun May 4 10:55:50 1997: Only a couple more major sub-plot need to be done before the main plot is complete. Got enough sub-plots done so you can actually get a job and earn money (just send a dollar to each of the five names on this list....)
Fri May 9 20:13:24 1997: The main plot is now about 80% implemented - I'm finishing up the design of the last 10% of the main plot. Once it is designed, it'll probably take three-four days to finish implenting the main plot (though I'm off to Apple World Wide Developer Conference next week). This boils down to probably one more round of alpha testing before beta begins.
Fri May 23 14:32:31 1997: Preliminary walkthrough is ready - it is currently about nine pages long (and will grow as more subplots get implemented). The last details in the main plot have been worked out, so off to implementing them - and so far there is only one combat that you must fight (though there are other places you are attacked...)
Tue May 27 10:08:46 1997: The main plot line is completely implemented - you can now play from start to one of three endings. Not to say that I won't be expanding the plot, but all the basic framework from start to finish is up and running.
Sat Jun 14 11:29:47 1997: The "complete basic plotline" is off to alpha testers, who have found some bugs, but (strangely enough) not as many as I had hoped (yet). In the mean time, I'm continueing to flesh out the world, with major and minor optional side adventures. Once that and all the artwork come in, we'll should be ready for beta testing.
Mon Jul 14 14:48:57 1997: Still making our way to beta, finishing the creation of world and polishing up rough edges in the story (as well as fixing the small handful of bugs that remain).
Thu Jul 17 22:58:43 1997: Never call SetWTitle() inside BeginUpdate()/EndUpdate(). Just don't - trust me, I spend all afternoon and part of the evening find that one...
Sat Aug 2 11:48:31 1997: After suffering a severe system failure, I've installed OS8 (three times, actually - it appears that some init/extension I was running caused problems - so far no problems with the third time). For those wondering, Cythera will work fine under OS8, and I highly recommend it.
Wed Nov 12 15:45:31 1997: Yes, we're still making progress on Cythera - right now I mostly focusing on bug fixes and polishing rough edges (everything is pretty much implemented and working) No, it isn't ready for beta yet. No, I don't actually wear an eye-patch.
Sat Dec 6 15:49:08 1997: delver.com has be upgraded to a different OS, and I've finally got most of the website working again, but there are still some glitches to work out...