Thursday 28 April 2016

Iron Sphere Mapping Tool

Here is a screen shot of the mapping tool I wrote in C#. It converted the data file from the Z80 version of the game. Now it saves the data as a json file which is easily read in by the Python code.

Iron Sphere for the PC ?

Here is my first blog post of 2016. I had planned to spend the year playing games rather than writing them. Of course that was never going to happen but for a change it's not a ZX Spectrum game. Well it's not written in Z80. As I decided to learn Python, what better way than by writing a game using it? But what to write? It didn't take long for me to decide to rewrite one of my early games, Iron Sphere. Where as the original was a flip screen game, my PC version would be a fully scrolling game. I extracted the original game data and converted it in to a json file. This is loaded in to the game along with other data files that describe the graphics and their functionality. This makes the game very data driven and should allow modifications to be made without the need for code changes. When this is finished, I may well rewrite it again using Unity (the game engine not the dependency injection framework). Here is a screenshot of the game. I'll upload a short video at some point to show the movement.