Bedroom coding

[andyr]

COOL! I haven't actually got the CD it appeared on or even that same version.

The one I upped to the zone had the graphics slightly tweaked using Paint Shop Pro 5 (back in '99 - I got my first PC in '98) and had a couple of small bugs taken out.

For those interested, I started off using Amos and D-paint 3 but the final version was Amos Pro 2.0 and D-paint 5. The program, after so many revisions, is basically a mass of spaghetti code. Earlier versions had completely different graphics (one version even had themes you could load up) - Another version had a sort of arkaniod game using a bat and ball to hit letters to make words (which hopefully will re-appear in this next version I'm writing). One version used the music from Cameo's 'word up' as it's intro.

The code for the word searching went through many revisions. I originally wanted to search the whole grid everytime a letter landed but this was much too time consuming for a poor old A500 so it actually just searches the horizontal and vertical axis then for the tile that just landed. If a word is found then it is removed and only then is a full search initiated to see if any other words were made. Originally, you could only make words horizontally but I added the vertical search when I got my A1200. I was then told about 'binary searching' whereby you enter a file in the middle and decide if the word would appear in the first half or second half. Then you jump into the middle of the selected half and make the same decision again, and keep repeating until a found or not found is returned. Much faster than linear searching! Due to the way my dictionary was set up though, I couldn't implement it fully but the half binary, half linear compromise is more than fast enough and is almost instantaneous.

The dictionary is quite small (about 9,000 words). The original dictionary came from an old text-processor which was just miniscule but was a start. I then added words from a dictionary by hand which was no mean feat! Then, I wrote a program to take out words from my Textris dictionary that was impossible to make beacuse they were made up of two smaller words E.G. Bedroom. That was quite slow but made quite a difference to the size of the dictionary. The whole dictionary then took up more-or-less a full disk. I had to drop 9 letter words and 8 letter words so that both dictionary and program would fit on one floppy (the idea being to promote it using a one disk version and make the 3 disk version shareware)

Now, don't talk to me about the Amos compiler. Every incarnation of it just refused point blank to compile the program. I lost many a nights sleep trying this and that to get it to work and finally gave up on it. What you get is un-compiled but optimized to hell regarding dictionary searching.

The loading screen, for some reason mesmerizes people. I've been asked a few times how it's been done so for those not technically inclined, it's just a simple colour scroll. I noticed that any colours scrolling or flashing on screen when a program was loading would continue to do so, so I just took advantage of this. Simple, but (I think) effective! That same effect was used on the logo in the main play screen giving the impression of a lot more colours on screen. Incidently, the options screen is only 4 colours!

I did start a two player version. This meant I had to use a high resolution so restricted me in colours. Then, trying to get Amos to sort of multitask (2 games at once) was just impossible. The word searching seriously impeded the other players game so this was abandoned early on. I considered networking which would probably have worked well but in the end I basically lost interest - until now. Thanks to SabreGolly I'm starting to code Textris 2!

Wow, it's all coming back to me - thanks for letting me bore you all to death!

(BTW, the into screen for Textris 2 has been finished and programmed. It's just a menu but it's a start!). I've gone for a minimalist look this time...

www.andysplace.fsnet.co.uk/t2firstglimpse.jpg