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Saving Games in Xconq


I'm currently tinkering with the game saving behavior, primarily for
the Unix/Windows version, but with an eye towards reconciling with the
Mac interface.  There's an issue because there are a couple basic
models for game save/restore, and we need to decide which is
appropriate for Xconq.

In the "document" or "word processor" model, you create your working
game state from a file, modify by playing the game, periodically save,
then save or quit without saving when you're done.

In the "Nethack" model, you create your working state from a file,
modify by playing, then when you save, the game exits immediately.
This is basically cheatproofing - Unix versions of nethack can even
write the inode into the savefile, which makes it very difficult to
create a usable copy of the savefile.  You can only have the one
savefile at any time, and you must finish a game before starting
another.

Xconq saving was originally designed around the Nethack model.
However, Xconq saved games are text and have no sort of cheatproofing,
so there's never been much of an obstacle to repeatedly restoring a
game until you get a result that you like.  I also note that Nethack
now allows you to play from copies of a saved game (although an
ascension doesn't impress anybody if you did this), as do commercial
games.

So that suggests to me that Xconq should switch to the document model,
where you can casually save as many times as you like, and you can
save to different filenames at any time also.  One problem with this
approach is that it renders the scoreboard semi-meaningless - if a
game is not going your way, just save and quit, then throw away the
saved game.  Perhaps I'm the only person concerned about this?

								Stan

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