Defence Station Portable

I’ve neglected the SF.net blog for too long, from now on the official DSP blog will be over on my blog:

http://localhost.geek.nz/category/dsp/

There is even an updated post!

I’ve just changed the blog settings so only logged in users can post. You can freely create users.

Hopefully this will lower the amount of spam posted in comments as sourceforge doesn’t let u run the akismet anti-spam stuff

Sorry this has been a bit delayed, but here we go finally!

Changes since last SVN build:

• Spawn enemies with their given level
• Non-Square towers are placed correctly
• Multiple waves at a time (using WaitTime), see XML comments for description on use

If you wonder why you keep losing in the test level, it is because the path 2 wave (which starts spawning soon after the left one) is tagged as SaveTheHouse, so if any of the enemies get through you lose!

Download Here

I’ve been hacking away at DSP over the weekend, got some good bits done.

Changed since the last SVN build:

• Enemies spawn with correct level
• Place non-square towers correctly
• Make EnemyInstance reference counted (Slightly better memory usage)
• Multiple waves can be ran at a time (using <Wave WaitTime=”…”>)

There have been a couple of regressions which I have yet to fix up.
Expect another SVN build during the next week or so when I’ve tackled some more big parts

Well, finally here is a SVN build of DSP.

go get it here

(Windows only, linux people can build it from source, PSP still needs lots of work)

Things I can think of off the top of my head that don’t work yet:

• Everything in the SF.net Bugs/Feature request tracker
• Poison damage
• Enemy Weaknesses
• Boss waves bonus points
• Enemies always spawn with their first level
• Wave pathfind
• Win/Lose custom screens.
• Multiple waves at the same time (and wave autostart)
• Tower shots with non-default animation settings (I think?)
• Tower: FireSprite, PlacementSound
• Errors don’t stop execution immediately (check stdout.txt for lines starting with lots of !!!!!, these are errors)

It seems to run well enough and all of the files are now .xml, so check the dtd/ folder and the included test level for examples!

The dtd files can also be used to validate your XML, I’ll leave shazz to tell you how to do that

HOW TO : Validate your XML Files before testing

I’ll post this HOWTO on the SF.net website wiki later… let’s say that a beta version for designers like Apfel

1. Requirements

• To write, edit and validate your XML Files I would recommend you (for Windows only, but I guess similar tool exist for Linux) firstobject XML Editor

• You can download it for free here : http://www.firstobject.com/dn_editor.htm

2. Instructions

• First, unzip foxe.exe wherever you want and run it
• Do File->Open and select the XML file you want to edit
• You should see something like this, the left tree is a common way to quickly browse the XML and on the right, with cool colors you should see all the XML tags & attributes (Firefox: Right Click, View image to watch it in fullscreen)

• Then to validate the XML against the DTD (rules), you will need an internet connection as the editor will try to retrieve the DTD as mentionned by the first XML file line :

<!DOCTYPE Level SYSTEM “http://dsp.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/dsp/trunk/dtd/level.dtd”>

• If you don’t have a permanent internet connection, download this DTD file to the same directory as your XML file is and replace in the XML this line by :

<!DOCTYPE Level SYSTEM “level.dtd”>

• Then go to the Tools Menu and select MSXML Validate
• The result of the validation will appear on the bottom of the window and in case of error like in the following screenshot :

Hope that helps, I was happy to use it to port the StarCraft map…

Doesn’t it look cool ?

Well, there has been lots of progress since my last post.

The new XML-based loaders currently support (As far as I remember) everything that the previous flatfile ones did. As well as a couple of the new features.

I’ll upload a SVN build this weekend if all goes well (intended for level developers). I need to write up a list of features that don’t work yet and try get some more changes done first :).

Changes since last post (see svn logs for more details):

• More complete level.xml loader (Totally playable, only new features to go)
• Multiple paths support
• Waypoint radius (Points in a path have a radius, enemies choose a random position in there to walk to. Can make them look more natural)
• Enemies with frames != 4 supported
• TurretSprite positioning (lets you place the turret somewhere other than the center of the tower)
• Points calculations work again

I have added into the SF svn a preview of the C++ Particles Engine.

I have reused some old code from the Shoot(r) SF project as it looks exactly what we need :

• Well written
• Portable : C++/OpenGL/SDL
• Different trails can be added

So currently, it only builds on Windows (using VS2005) and it is not integrated into DSP (yet) but there is a demo application to show some effects easily done using the engine.

So, check out the svn project, run Particles.exe then press :

• e : explosions
• f : fireworks
• s : stop smoke
• esc : exit

enjoy it !

– Shazz

I’ve just checked in an initial level.xml parser.

It loads just enough to get into the level without crashing, needless to say lots of work to do their still

I don’t feel very motivated this evening, so thats it for today.

Edit, Next Day: Another slow evening, did a bit more on <Level> / <Wave> Parsing, still not playable.

The enemy.xml loader is complete for now, except for LeaveSound/Weaknesses.

The tower.xml loader has also had a bit of work done on it, the basic loader is done, it loads just enough to make towers usable.

Plenty of things aren’t used yet, but I’ll start on that once all the new file loaders are done.

Edit: tower.xml loader now loads requirements, it is about as feature complete as the old loader! Plenty of TODO’s around