Artificial Unintelligence

Some time ago I came up with abstracting the control of a tank with an interface called a TankPilot.  Classes that implement TankPilot are able to control a tank, whether by reading real input from a player, or by programmatically making decisions.  Up til recently, I'd only created the HumanTankPilot implementation.

Last night, on a whim, I decided to create BlindComputerPilot.  It's exactly as smart as it sounds: BlindComputerPilot drives in a straight line until he runs into something, then pivots in place for a random amount of time before driving in a straight line again.  At other random intervals, he pivots having not run into anything, and at other intervals he fires a shot.  Really simple stuff, but fun to watch!

In the Arena Designer area of the game, I've started putting together load/save behavior.  Pretty soon I'll have to come up with a UI for choosing an arena. 

Any graphic designers out there want to lend some visual creativity?

Easy Chair

I am now the proud owner of a La-Z-Boy rocker-recliner.  As I've mentioned in at least one earlier post, I find a recliner to be a very comfortable place for laptop-based developing.  And, I've finally set foot back in Let's Get TANKED! developer land.  This past weekend I solved a very basic problem with my arena designer segment, and started work on actually making it functional.  I can now create and position square "buildings" in my arenas.  Next stop is resizing the buildings and the arena itself, followed by choosing textures and their scaling.

Progress!  It feels good.  So does my recliner!