Zafehouse Infection V1.00 - Fan edition - Progress Log

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Edit - 17/12/09 :

Latest version can be downloaded here :
http://www.flap.fr/grenier/Zinfection_1-00.zip
http://www.flap.fr/grenier/Zi_Source_1-00.zip

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Ok, I open this thread to publish the progress on my own cooking on Zafehouse.
Just for info : I have 2 weeks, during which I can give 3 hours per day. Lets see if I can add anything interresting to safe house in that time.

I have spent my first 2 days to read the original source, learn a bit of Visual Basic and correctly install the IDE. After a bit of time : Wouhou ! it compiles, and I somewhat understand how the software works.

3d day : I fully used my 3 hours to implement something very simple : An "autoload" tick box for the weapon. Every turn, the survivors with that option selected will automaticaly reload after the fight. Very simple in theory, but well that's definitelly a bit of work to enter in someone's else code ! But the conclusion is : Yes, I understand weel enough the software to bring some changes !

For tomorrow, I might have time to add that nastier infection system, and maybe publish that early new version, just to show that somthing is going on.

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Included V1.82 changes
Added bonus and flavor text for having family members in a group (Character with same last name). I still have to deal with the loss of one of them...

No infection yet ! But more exploration into the code. Also, doing some game saving now, might be a good way to make testing easier... I don't know how many hours I would need for that, and it might be too early as I might change some data structure.

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Okay, some more progress today !

I have finally done a bit of work on the infection. That was funny.
The infection evolves. at a given level, there is a risk of contaminating the other survivors, or even to become slightly agressive. I haven't added the possibility to fully turn into a zombie yet... It implied some deeper work, and I'll work on it.

Tomorrow, I will need to do some testing and polish a bit the changes that I have added. (If you don't pay attention, things quickly becomes messy !)

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Ok, I have published the version 1.00 :

http://www.flap.fr/grenier/Zinfection_1-00.zip
http://www.flap.fr/grenier/Zi_Source_1-00.zip

- Infection is now contagious, but there is a small chance to heal it.
- Weapons can be loaded automatically, and when giving a range weapon to someone, is it automatically loaded with one box.
- Barricade higher than heavy block survivors mouvement
- It is possible to weaken barricades to recover some supplies
- Survivors fighting with people of their familly get an attack and defense bonus
- A survivor can only be cured once per hour.

I have not played a full game of that version yet. So I don't know how much I have broken the equilibrium...

Later possible additions :
- Sleep requirement
- A bit more work on infection
- Some changes to fights, so there can be zombies and survivors fighting inside and outside the house
- Possibility to have a fight for a house lasting more than one hour, resulting in a siege.
- Corpse of survivors and zombies remaining on site. Fresh corpse (from survivor) will attrack more zombies, rotten corpse (from zombies) have a slight chance to come back to life. It is possible to burning them (it will use some supplies).

I see other things of course. But if can do the above in the coming week, that'll be good. Other important additions would be :
- Saved games
- Sortable and clickable list of all survivors

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I badly need saved games for testing purpose. So this morning, I have learned a bit of XML. It seems that Visual Basic makes its very easy to use it. Damned, coming from the arid world of C programming, eveything seems so simple !

We'll see how it goes.

[LoganB]

If you need a quick and dirty way of saving data, you can always use serialisation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7ay27kt9(VS.71).aspx

It's not as efficient as cherry-picking data and writing it out to XML (or another format), but it gets the job done.

Also, glad to see you're making progress. :D

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That's what I am doing for now... It is probably good enough.

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Aargh. Chrismass is coming, with all the familly... I afraid that my plan of 3 hours programming per day is gona fail... We will see how it goes !

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Yep, as I thought Christmas and new Eve were too hectic ! Unfortunately, I am leaving now for 3 month. I'll go back to Zafehouse then !
But however, Happy new year everybody !