Let's make an ASCII Rogue-like Part 1!
I wanted to make this Rogue-like to practice my C/C++ whenever I get a little overwhelmed by Handmade Hero. It's a good way to reinforce skills I've learned while providing a guidepost for my own game development. This project is based on the awesome YouTube channel of Making Games With Ben. You should check it out!Step 1: Read in a map and print the map
We're going to read in our maps for this Rogue-like from a text file. So let's get organized.
- We should set up our entry point for Windows (aka your main.cpp)
- We should have an entity that controls the game flow and logic.
- Let's call the class GameSystem.
- And finally, we should have a class that assembles our map from the file and prints it out.
- Let's call this class Level.
Step 2: Setting up main.cpp
- We're going to come at this problem top down as a means to connect concepts together, so bear with me!
- As described about, GameSystem will handle the game logic and flow, so we'll need to include it (I know, it's not created yet)
- Create a GameSystem type and we'll send the constructor the name of our file.
- Our GameSystem class will, at least for now, handle our main game loop called playGame()
- And finally, return a 0, to let the compiler now everything executed fine.
- From here, let's make that GameSystem class!
Step 3: Setting up GameSystem.cpp & GameSystem.h
- GameSystem is going to act as the nexus for our game.
- So let's include "Level.h" (which hasn't been created yet!) in our header file.
- Just like we declared in our main.cpp, the GameSystem constructor will make the level with the text file named in the ().
- Let's make void playGame(), like we had promised in main.cpp.
- And finally, we need to make a reference to our Level class.
- Remember, Level will do everything level related.
- GameSystem is simply the conductor calling on all the pieces.
- And now, we get to implement the header file!
- For now, the constructor will load our textfile & then print it.
- The system pause is a Visual Studio thing, nothing to worry about.
- And finally, implement playGame(). Nothing need to be there just yet!
Step 4: Setting up Level.cpp & Level.h
- We need to forward declare all the Level function we promised in GameSystem.
- public will hold the print() and the load(string fileName).
- Under private, we'll make our string vector that will hold the data we get from our files.
- In our load function, we need to use the fstream library to bring files in.
- Create the file, open the file, and declare a local string variable to hold the line.
- Set up a while loop that will continue to read lines as long as they exist.
- Use vector's pushback function to add them to our vector.
- And close the file.
- Don't forget to use perror for useful debug messages.
- And finally, the print function will just loop though levelData to print our level to our screen.
