Unofficial Sil rewrite

[Nick]

Tolkien's birthday update

Given that Sil releases have historically been on this day, it's kind of a pity that (twelve months into my six month project) I'm not done yet.

I am now into the phase of going back and fixing things that I had left for the end, so I feel like it's not too far off, but I'm hesitant to put a number on that. I guess I'm hoping to be starting to try compiling in earnest this month (there have been a couple of laughable attempts), and hoping to get something actually out for criticism next month. But take all that with a big grain of salt.

[Bill Peterson]

Any post by you on this thread is welcome, and I don't think you should be concerned about delay on your part. We're not expecting any new features, just an improved codebase. I'm hoping that the new code might entice someone to maintain and improve the game. Personally, I'm going to use it to take one more dive into trying to understand *band programming.

Are you going to generate the same save file as the baseline Sil 1.3? It occurred to me that testing might be made easier by swapping save files between the two versions.

Am I wrong in assuming that building the new Sil will be the same as the current Vanilla system? Last I heard you were building Windows Vanilla executables on Linux using a cross compiler.

[Nick]

Are you going to generate the same save file as the baseline Sil 1.3? It occurred to me that testing might be made easier by swapping save files between the two versions.

I was planning to use the latest savefile code, but you make a good point. I'll think about that.

Am I wrong in assuming that building the new Sil will be the same as the current Vanilla system? Last I heard you were building Windows Vanilla executables on Linux using a cross compiler.

Yes, one of the things I'm aiming for is being able to autobuild on Github. And yes, that does use cross-compiling on Linux - peopledo build on Windows, though.

[Nick]

I guess I'm hoping to be starting to try compiling in earnest this month (there have been a couple of laughable attempts), and hoping to get something actually out for criticism next month.

Surprisingly, I may have made a correct prediction.

The game (I feel I can call it that now) now compiles cleanly, parses all the data files without errors, and can get through the birth process (although this is still a bit buggy). It then fails to generate a dungeon level and crashes.

My intention is to:

1. Iron out the bugs in the birth process;
2. Get dungeon generation working (probably fully, or at least far enough that there are some rooms, objects and monsters and the player gets placed);
3. Check that all the information commands ('~" knowledge, character screen, smithing screen (gulp), etc) work;
4. Play a character long enough to die, and check the death process.

When all that seems to be basically functional, I'll actually push the source code to Github. I'm still hopeful that that's this month.

[MITZE]

Go Nick go.

Was a bit worried when nobody had seen any activity from you on a.l, but I guess all your time has been going into Sil-N.

[Nick]

Was a bit worried when nobody had seen any activity from you on a.l, but I guess all your time has been going into Sil-N.

Yes, it has been a big task; so big that I really had to focus all my energy on it or see the time blow out completely. Hopefully it wasn't a complete waste of time

[HugoVirtuoso]

Yes, it has been a big task; so big that I really had to focus all my energy on it or see the time blow out completely. Hopefully it wasn't a complete waste of time

I guarantee you 100% it won't be when I check this out!

[Infinitum]

That's exciting news! Looking forward to checking it out.

[Nick]

Current status:

• Iron out the bugs in the birth process;

Done.

• Get dungeon generation working (probably fully, or at least far enough that there are some rooms, objects and monsters and the player gets placed);

Done.

• Check that all the information commands ('~" knowledge, character screen, smithing screen (gulp), etc) work;

Mostly done, unsurprisingly smithing is the difficult bit. I think it's getting close - maybe a week?

• Play a character long enough to die, and check the death process.

Done.

There are some features not implemented yet:

• Tutorial
• Menu on opening the game (it launches like Angband)
• Potions of Self Knowledge (seriously, 1200 lines of code for one potion??)

and there known bugs (some occasional weirdness with movement asking for a direction, "Slow" status constantly appearing and disappearing, sidebar unfinished) and I'm sure many unknown bugs, but once smithing seems done I'm pushing it to Github.

[MITZE]

Looking forward to it!

[Nick]

There is now code at the github repo. I have not set it to auto-build yet, but if you have the ability to download and compile, that should work.

It is incomplete and buggy, but it is arguably a game.

[HugoVirtuoso]

There is now code at the github repo. I have not set it to auto-build yet, but if you have the ability to download and compile, that should work.

It is incomplete and buggy, but it is arguably a game.

How about posting this on the angband.live webserver?

[Nick]

How about posting this on the angband.live webserver?

That's up to Gwarl. If he's prepared to wear the extreme bugginess derailing the chat completely ... actually, I guess it would be derailed at least onto something *band related, so never mind

[Nick]

Autobuild is now functional, so there are windows and mac builds (and source bundles) on the release page.

[Bill Peterson]

Has anyone, maybe Mac or Linux based, gotten past character creation? Windows build crashes with message "can't find terrain feature General Store"