Text adventure game - desgin

[beene]

Hi cboard.

I have been working on a text adventure engine and I coudn't work it so I decided to scrap the whole thing and design a new one. All engines need a base class right?

class CGame_manager
{
    public:
    CGame_manager();
    ~CGame_manager();

    protected:
};

......something like that? Well I obviously need functions etc. But I still need to design which functions to make.

Next thing that came to my mind was a game mode class. We obviously need to distiguish between game modes. I mean, you can't attack when looking in your inventory can you? Mayby a little something like this?

class CGame_mode
{
    public:
    CGame_mode();
    ~CGame_mode();
   
    /*Havn't decided what i need here*/
    protected:
    std::vector<CGame_mode>CGame_states;
};

Then i thought that I need to manage the txt files that contain the storyline etc. How would I go about this?

I recently read a thread containing a Menu class, should I also design a Menu class?

Thats what I need help with, just getting the framework (if you want to call it that) set up so i can design the rest of my engine.

All help is appreciated.

[dwks]

All engines need a base class right?

Not necessarily. But if not, then you still need a function or something that is in charge of the whole program.

A nice way to implement game modes would be to have a separate class for each mode.

You could have a base class which all of these game mode classes derive from. This base class would handle printing stuff to the screen, clearing it, getting user input, etc. This is perhaps what you meant by a Menu class.

Just a thought.

[VirtualAce]

You need to decide what your engine is going to do and how it is going to do it. Then you can create classes to handle those tasks. I'm not sure I understand the concept of game mode as it corresponds to a text adventure engine.

[beene]

So.. something like this for a base class?

#include <fstream>

class CGame_mode
{
    public:
    CGame_mode();
    virtual ~CGame_mode();

    void CLoad_file(filename)
    {
        ifstream fin;
        fin << filename;
    }
    
    void Close_file(filename)
    {
        fstream fin;
        fin.close();
    }

    protected:
    std::string filename;
    fstream fin;
};

....Then i would derive a class. Say......Inventory?

[mike_g]

Why would you want an inventory class to inherit the Game_mode class?

I'd start by setting up a class for the player, and a class for locations. Heres an example for a room on another thread:

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showt...t=93989&page=2

[Shamino]

I just started working on my little text engine from the ground up... I figured, what do I need first? Well I figured that text was the most important thing in a text game so I needed to figure out a way to store and relay messages as well as translate input into actions.

So I made a few classes to do this for me, I actually don't have the code here at work so when I get home I'll post some examples.

[beene]

Thanks, HURRY =P

[xzk]

I'm interested in learning this same game design process, but I see you never came back and posted the information you referred to.

What Classes would you create for a text based game?

Player Class
Weapon Class
Item Class
Location Class
Enemy Class
Money Class

What do you all think?

[medievalelks]

The State Design Pattern is a good way to manage game modes/states.

[VirtualAce]

Last post prior to xzk was nearly 4 months ago.

Closed. Please do not bump old threads.