I am currently trying to help develop a draft version of the game for a startup studio a friend I met in Japan. Even though I am sorely tempted, I won't write any details and provide screenshots for now - because the main strength of the game is the idea and game-mechanics, and therefore I am afraid someone might steal it.
I wanted to make the draft version for testing game mechanics according to Agile Software Development practices. Yes, Agile applies to game creation as well - read these guys' blog to see where I got the inspiration from. I wanted to make the game mechanics tweakable, so that lead game designer doesn't have to touch the code at all. For that I wanted to use XML documents with game's parameters.
Now the problem was that the draft is supposed to be small, with simple easy-to-read code - so that any programmer taking over me for the serious development knows what I did and how is the logic. Also, I do not like learning to use overly complex tools - if I need to do something, I want to do it in the most effortless way possible. Yes, I am lazy. Also, I am writing code in C++ for speed - so the XML parser would need to be C++ library.
There is a lot of XML processing libraries out there, but they are usually not small (Xerces!), not simple (different SAX parsers), not very well written, not free... It took me a while, but finally I have found what I wanted to have - Kranf C++ XML Parser.
It is light-weight, small, simple, uses wchar, is configurable and I was able to use it after half an hour, with only minor problem being that the included .lib file was made for Microsoft Visual C++ and I use Dev-C++ (mingw compiler), and therefore it wouldn't link. That was solved by importing the DLL library project into Dev-C++ (namely xmlParserDLL.dsp), compiling my own .dll and .lib files and linking against them. After that it's very easy to use the library and the .dll file has a footprint of about 100kb - thus making it exactly what I have been searching for.
Since the author, Dr Frank Vanden Berghen, asks to make a link to parser's page, should the users like his library, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. Thanks, Doctor!
BTW, my new little hobby means that I will be writing more about game development and programming in near future. And sorry for lack of pictures, but honestly I didn't know what to put here that would go well with the topic.
I wanted to make the draft version for testing game mechanics according to Agile Software Development practices. Yes, Agile applies to game creation as well - read these guys' blog to see where I got the inspiration from. I wanted to make the game mechanics tweakable, so that lead game designer doesn't have to touch the code at all. For that I wanted to use XML documents with game's parameters.
Now the problem was that the draft is supposed to be small, with simple easy-to-read code - so that any programmer taking over me for the serious development knows what I did and how is the logic. Also, I do not like learning to use overly complex tools - if I need to do something, I want to do it in the most effortless way possible. Yes, I am lazy. Also, I am writing code in C++ for speed - so the XML parser would need to be C++ library.
There is a lot of XML processing libraries out there, but they are usually not small (Xerces!), not simple (different SAX parsers), not very well written, not free... It took me a while, but finally I have found what I wanted to have - Kranf C++ XML Parser.
It is light-weight, small, simple, uses wchar, is configurable and I was able to use it after half an hour, with only minor problem being that the included .lib file was made for Microsoft Visual C++ and I use Dev-C++ (mingw compiler), and therefore it wouldn't link. That was solved by importing the DLL library project into Dev-C++ (namely xmlParserDLL.dsp), compiling my own .dll and .lib files and linking against them. After that it's very easy to use the library and the .dll file has a footprint of about 100kb - thus making it exactly what I have been searching for.
Since the author, Dr Frank Vanden Berghen, asks to make a link to parser's page, should the users like his library, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. Thanks, Doctor!
BTW, my new little hobby means that I will be writing more about game development and programming in near future. And sorry for lack of pictures, but honestly I didn't know what to put here that would go well with the topic.
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