[rykin666]

Hi. I don't know if its even possible, or to what extremes i may have to go to to make this a possibility, but i am willing to take that plunge.

Hopefully its as easy as just typing in a command word.

Anyways, im basically writing a text based adventure game, and would love to have the ability to save the game, so i can pick up where i left off.

Any help would be much appreciated.

~L

[Martyr2]

Saving is all about recording the current state of the game. Then when you want to pick up where you left off, you load that data back in and set the game up to those specifications.

For instance, to track where your player is on the screen, you would save the x,y coordinates to a file. When you reload the game, you read back in that x,y coordinate and put the player at that position.

So what you need to save depends on the game. You may need to save things like...

1) Player's location on screen
2) Location of enemies, houses, items etc
3) What the background looks like
4) Items in inventory, spells in spell list, money, resources etc

Just follow the idea that you record everything about the current point in the game and then you are able to load everything exactly as it was when they want to load the game again.

[NotarySojac]

Is this game open source? I have a co worker who would be nostalgia blasted if I wrote him a text adventure series.

For your specific case, your script engine is what's going to allow you to save the game. Your program must be following some predefined script (otherwise, how does the game know what to print to the screen next). If I had source access, that's where I'd be looking in order to figure out how to save that status of the game.

This post has been edited by NotarySojac: 31 May 2011 - 04:36 PM

[rykin666]

so creating a save option is quite intensive.
so far all ive really got is this:

#######################################################################


puts ' '
puts '+--//Empire Rising\\\--+'
puts 'Press enter to advance'
gets
puts 'Welcome. Unfortunately at this time there is no save option, so if you have played before you will have to create a new character. Sorry for the inconvenience.'
gets
puts 'To start, you will need to tell me what you are.'
gets
puts 'To make your selection, type in the number corrosponding to the class and press enter to confirm your selection. Eg. You wish to play a Human. Which is "1. Human." Type in "1" and press Enter'
gets

#######################################################################

def yesno
	puts '1. Yes'
	puts '2. No'
end

######################################################################

def gender_selection
puts 'Please tell me if you are Male or Female.'
puts '1. Male'
puts '2. Female'
a1 = gets.chomp
	if a1 == '1'
		return 'Male'
	else
		if a1 == '2'
			return 'Female'
		else
			puts 'Please type in "1" if you are Male.'
			puts 'Or "2" if you are Female.'
			puts 'Then press enter.'
			puts ' '
			return gender_selection
		end
	end
end

##################################################################

@gender = gender_selection
puts 'So you are '+@gender+'. Cool.'
gets

##################################################################

def race_selection
puts 'Please choose what race you are. Racial descriptions are given upon selection.'
puts '1. Human'
puts '2. Elf'
puts '3. Dwarf'
a1 = gets.chomp
	if a1 == '1'
		puts 'Humans are very versatile. They learn quick, but have a hard time mastering anything.'
		puts 'It is easy to pick up a sword for the first time and get the hang of it within a couple of hours, but will never surpass the skill of an Elf.'
		puts '--Humans gain +2 to Charisma and Intelligence, and gain an additional skill point at level 1. But take a -1 to Wisdom as they are a young race--'
		b1 = 'Human'
	else
		if a1 == '2'
			puts 'Elves are very graceful, but earthy at the same time. Most inhabit forests and other wild territory, and defend it with their lives.'
			puts 'Surviving out in the wild has given them great perception as well as the skill to stay silent and stalk a target for miles.'
			puts 'Other Elves have been raised in cities as slaves. These Elves have endured beatings and been forced to work long hours. They have lost the perception their woodland relatives have, but still retain grace in their movement, provided to them by their bone structure.'
			puts '--Elves gain +2 to Dexterity and Wisdom. +1 to Intelligence. But -1 to Constitution due to their finer stature--'
			b1 = 'Elf'
		else
			if a1 == '3'
				puts 'Dwarves are sturdy, strongwilled defenders and stonecrafters. They have unbelievable endurance and strength.'
				puts 'Most live in mountain keeps, deep underground, similar to cities called "A Ineth" ("A" pronounced "Ah").'
				puts '--Dwarves recieve +2 to Constitution and Strength. +1 to Wisdom. But -1 to Dexterity due to their bulky bodies--'
				b1 = 'Dwarf'
			else
				puts 'Invalid choice. Please try again'
				puts ' '
				return race_selection
			end
		end
	end
puts ' '
puts 'Is this your race?'
yesno
c1 = gets.chomp
	if c1 == '1' or c1 == ''
		return b1
	else
		if c1 == '2'
			return race_selection
		else
			puts 'I assume you meant "No" so I\'ll take you back to race selection.'
			gets
			return race_selection
		end
	end
end

###################################################

@playerrace = race_selection
puts 'Alright, so you are a '+@gender+' '+@playerrace+'.'
if @playerrace == 'Human'
	@strength = 10
	@dexterity = 10
	@constitution = 10
	@intelligence = 12
	@wisdom = 9
	@charisma = 12
	@gold = 200
	#+1 to skills
else
	if @playerrace == 'Elf'
		@strength = 10
		@dexterity = 12
		@constitution = 9
		@intelligence = 11
		@wisdom = 12
		@charisma = 10
		@gold = 200
	else
		if @playerrace == 'Dwarf'
			@strength = 12
			@dexterity = 9
			@constitution = 12
			@intelligence = 10
			@wisdom = 11
			@charisma = 10
			@gold = 200
		end
	end
end
gets

################################################



def bad_answer
	puts 'Sorry but the choice you made is invalid.'
	gets
end

def stat_page
	puts 'Strength ======== ['+@strength.to_s+']'
	puts 'Dexterity ======= ['+@dexterity.to_s+']'
	puts 'Constitution ==== ['+@constitution.to_s+']'
	puts 'Intelligence ==== ['+@intelligence.to_s+']'
	puts 'Wisdom ========== ['+@wisdom.to_s+']'
	puts 'Charisma ======== ['+@charisma.to_s+']'
	puts '======================='
	puts 'Gold ============ ['+@gold.to_s+'g]'
	gets
	main_menu
end

def inventory_page
	puts 'This is the inventory page'
	gets
	main_menu
end

def shop_page
	puts 'This is the inventory page'
	gets
	main_menu
end

def arena_page
	puts 'This is the arena page'
	gets
	main_menu
end


def main_menu	
	puts '=Main Menu='
	puts '1. Stats'
	puts '2. Inventory'
	puts '3. Shop'
	puts '4. Arena'
a1 = gets.chomp
	if a1 == '1'
		stat_page
	else
		if a1 == '2'
			inventory_page
		else
			if a1 == '3'
				shop_page
			else
				if a1 =='4'
					arena_page
				else
					bad_answer
					main_menu
				end
			end
		end
	end
end

main_menu

i have a different version with story line involved, but its really only about 20 seconds of gameplay. lol.
im using this version to build a combat script, and building menus.

so, after each decision they make, i would need to put in what they chose. for example, if they chose to play an elf, somewhere after that confirmation i would need to have a "save selection" command.

if what im assuming is right, what sort of coding would i need to put in, and would i just save it to a text document? then how would the player load the game up?

[NotarySojac]

Hopefully what I say is new to you, otherwise I'll have completely wasted the 10-20 minutes I spent typing it.


Imagine that instead of your program only being able to play 1 game, it is able to play 1 script.txt file. That would me that you could change the script.txt file, and run your ruby application, and possibly see a whole new game! That's awesome, plus, this method allows you to easily impliment a save game feature.

Interested? Ok, here's the run down (I SUCK at ruby, btw, so I can't actually impliment any of my advice here, lol, but I hope you can, and I'll throw links to places that can teach the required stuff you gotta know).

Overview:
1) plan the script.txt file to contain all the important things you need.
1.1) Instead of script.txt, call it script.xml (xml is a simple markup language, almost exactly like HTML that allows you to store data easier)
2) Get your ruby program to load the XML script and run it.
3) work out the saving state

Simple, just thee steps (two really). Let's start with the first part, planing.

1) Plan your script files

- Each script should have a loading screen/ message.
- Each script should be able to prompt for input, and store the response in variables (this part is tricky)
- Each script should be able to have a menu of some sort
- All variables should be serializable into save.xml files

So, off the top of my head, the script.xml file would need to look like this:

<Game>
  
  <loadScreen>
    <msg>+--//Empire Rising\\\--+</msg>   <!-- we could have just called this tag "puts" instead of "msg" -->
    <msg>Press enter to advance</msg>
    <gets/>
    <msg>Welcome. Unfortunately at this time there is no save option, so if you have played before you will have to create a new character. Sorry for the inconvenience.</msg>
    <gets/>
    
    <msg>To start, you will need to tell me what you are.</msg>
    
  </loadScreen>


  <prompt name='gender' type='numbers'>
    <msg>Please tell me if you are Male or Female.</msg>
    <option>Male</option>
    <option>Male</option>
  </prompt>
  
</Game>

This XML format is kind of a pain to write in, but it's very easy to read, and very easy to get your ruby code to work with it. At a proprietary place like Atari, they'd come up with something easier on the scriptors I'd bet.

I decided to script out the save.xml file next, since I got into the XML mood.

<saves>
  
  <Save name='What Name You Saved as' time='2011-6-1-20:11' index='0'>
    <items>
      <item id='001'>A Big Sword</item>
      <item id='002'>A Dagger</item>
    </items>
    
    <gold>3000</gold>
    
    <baseStats>
      <str>21</str>
    </baseStats>
    
    <currentHP></currentHP>
    <location id="001">Town</location>
    
    <bossesDefeated>   <!-- here's the interesting part, to track a games progress, you need to decide on milestones, such as dungeons defeated, bosses defeated, unique items collected, -->
      <boss id='000'/>
      <boss id='001'/>  <!-- in this save, our hero has defeated the first two bosses/ arenas -->
    </bossesDefeated>
    
  </Save>
  
</Saves>

2) Impliment a script reading engine in your ruby code

I can only draw up the algo, I can't show any ruby code for this atm.

1. Read script.xml
2. Open up '<Game>'
3. Read first item which must be '<loadScreen>' (if not, have your prog quit with an error msg)
3.1 Riffle through '<loadScreen>' and when you hit a '<msg>' tag, puts it's contents to the screen. When you hit a '<gets/>' tag, do a gets before proceeding.


These first three steps are a complication in themselves. You should start with them in an isolated testing environment.

(testing_xml.rb)

puts "this will read c:/script.xml"
puts

file_path = 'c:\\script.xml'


#
#####  Ignore this section for now, you'll get it at the very bottom (I miss c#)
#
#
def new_game
  puts "If you can call this using a text string, then you're getting pretty good."
end
def load_game
end
def settings_menu
end
#/


#
#####   How to load an XML file, and operate on it from a very high level
#
#

require 'rexml/document'

xml_data = File.read(file_path) # simply read a file on the computer

#puts xml  # you'll see the contents of the xml file here, it's just a string at this point

doc = REXML::document.new(xml_data)     # this makes it into an REXML document, 
                                        # which lets you do awesome stuff with it, you'll see below
load_screen = doc.elements['Game/loadScreen']  # this creates an xmlDoc 
                                     # with just <loadscreen> as the elements...
#puts load_screen
#/

#
##### How to Read an XML, node by node
#
#

load_screen.elements.each do |thingy|       # this will rifled down all elements in loadScreen, one by one
  case thingy.name
    when 'msg'
      puts thingy.text
    when 'gets'
      gets
  end
end
#/


#
####  How to get an elements attributes
#
#

doc.elements['Game/titleMenu'].elements.each do |element|
  puts "    The option's command was: " + element.attributes['cmd']

  send(element.attributes['cmd']) # this calls a method BY NAME!  As in, from a string!
end
#/

That code above should prove to be a handy illustration of how to read xml with ruby.



From that, you should probably be able to figure out how to impliment
(script.xml)

  <prompt name='gender' type='numbers'>
    <msg>Please tell me if you are Male or Female.</msg>
    <option>Male</option>
    <option>Male</option>
  </prompt>

After that type of character selection stuff is over with, you'll want to have a clean way to tell your story in XML. Most people think of their games as having story Lines, and are separated into chapters. For Zelda: A Link to the Past, the chapters were each boss/dungeon, and you could approach multiple 'chapters' at the same time. This type of non-linear game design can also be described using the 'chapters' paradigm by thinking of the game in 4 parts,

Chapter 1 - Introduction (linear, beat the first dungeon)
Chapter 2 - Defeat all three dungeons holding sages (appear non-linear because you can start on any of the three dungeons)
Chapter 3 - Defeat all of the 7 underworld dungeons (appears non-linear)

Progressing from chapter 1 into chapter 2 is a matter of grading the characters accomplishments. The criteria to be in chapter two might be that bosses_defeated[0] == true , that would be the trigger. And when that trigger is met, the character's location can be moved, and the world map can be changed entirely if desired.

Understanding that is pretty easy, and relates closely to how saving works. When you save someone who has progressed to chapter 3, the save file needs to define:
-Where the player is at that time (optional)
-What inventory the player owns
-What equipment is being worn
-What characters are in the group (optional)
-What 'Progress' has been made

The last step, 'progress' is an array of boolean values. It usually includes which bosses have been killed, what items have been taken, what special places have been visited, what special conversations have taken place.

It's complicated to explain, but it looks pretty in XML so I'll show you the storyline node to illustrate how a player gets from chapter 1 to chapter 2.

  <storyLine>
  
    <getVariable name='gender'>
      <msg>Please tell me if you are Male or Female.</msg>
      <msg>1. Male</msg>
      <msg>2. Male</msg>
      <gets name='gender'> </gets>
    </getVariable>
    
    
    <Chapter id="1" name="Escape Into The Fire Swamp">
      <!-- BEGIN setting up game variables -->
      <location id='0' name='The Fire Swamp'></location>  <!-- ruby will place the location in a variable -->
      <characters>                                        <!-- ruby will set the characters in the party as it rolls over this --> 
        <char id=0 name='Westly'>                         <!-- but in ruby, you can change characters thereafter -->
          <equiped>                                       <!-- and later set them again in the xml, as it gets read -->
            <head>
              <item id=20>
                <enchant id=0 name="Obsidian" def=1/>  <!-- there's lots of ways to handle enchantments, decide before your start coding too much for them -->
              </item>
            </head>
          </equiped>
        <char id=1 name='Buttercup'>
      </characters>
      <inventory>
        <item id=1/>
      </inventory>
      
      <!-- END setting up game variables -->
      
      
      <!-- cutscene/ dialog -->
      <line speaker='Westley (or ID)'>  Ha! Your pig fiance is too late. A few more steps and
            we'll be safe in the fire swamp.</line>
            
      <battle>
        <mobs>
          <mob id=0>
        </mobs>
      </battle>
      
      <!-- after the battle is fought and won, it should return you to main menue, with your location set to "id='0' name='The Fire Swamp'"  as specified above-->
      
      
      <chapterCompletionTriggers>    <!-- after all of the criteria is met, it will jump you into the next chapter, showing cutscenes/Lines if needed -->        
        <bossKilled>
        
        <location id='0' houseID='0'/>   <!-- must go back to hometown, and into your house (not sure if you plan on doing houses in your game) -->
      </chapterCompletionTriggers>
      
    </Chapter>
    
    
  
  
  
  </storyLine>

I'm running out of time, so I gotta skidattle, but if you pursue this, definably post your script engine progress, I'm thinking of building something like this into a web app.



XML+Ruby References that seem good to me:
http://developer.yah...y/ruby-xml.html

http://www.germane-s...ML/Element.html

[NotarySojac]

Oh, here's the whole script.xml if you want to copy the whole thing into an XML read (Try notepad2.exe if you don't have something for that already).

<Game>   <!-- your ruby code should be set up to just riffle down this file, displaying messages as it rolls over them -->
  
  <loadScreen>
    <msg>+--//Empire Rising\\\--+</msg>   <!-- we could have just called this tag "puts" instead of "msg" -->
    <msg>Press enter to advance</msg>
    <gets/>
    <msg>Welcome. Unfortunately at this time there is no save option, so if you have played before you will have to create a new character. Sorry for the inconvenience.</msg>
    <gets/>
    
    <msg>To start, you will need to tell me what you are.</msg>

  </loadScreen>

  <titleMenu>
    <option cmd='new_game'>New Game</option>  <!-- Your ruby code should automatically present these options on the screen with automatic numbering -->
    <option cmd='load_game'>Load Game</option> <!-- and do a 'gets' collecting the number, and converting it into the string, say, "New Game" -->
    <option cmd='settings_menu'>Settings</option>  <!-- Your code will then invoke the 'cmd' specified for that number (complicated, look into reflection) -->
  </titleMenu>

  <worldMenu>
    <msg>=Main Menu=</msg>
    <msg>1. Stats</msg>
    <msg>2. Inventory</msg>
    <msg>3. Shop</msg>
    <msg>4. Arena</msg>
  </worldMenu>
  
  <gameOverScreen>
  </gameOverScreen>
  
  <victoryScreen>
  </victoryScreen>
  
  <characterCreation>
    <getVariable name='gender'>
      <msg>Please tell me if you are Male or Female.</msg>
      <msg>1. Male</msg>
      <msg>2. Male</msg>
      <gets name='gender'> </gets>
    </getVariable>
    
  </characterCreation>

  <storyLine>
  

    
    <chapter id="1" name="Escape Into The Fire Swamp">
      <!-- BEGIN setting up game variables -->
      <location id='0' name='The Fire Swamp'></location>  <!-- ruby will place the location in a variable -->
      <characters>                                        <!-- ruby will set the characters in the party as it rolls over this --> 
        <char id=0 name='Westly'>                         <!-- but in ruby, you can change characters thereafter -->
          <equiped>                                       <!-- and later set them again in the xml, as it gets read -->
            <head>
              <item id=20>
                <enchant id=0 name="Obsidian" def=1/>  <!-- there's lots of ways to handle enchantments, decide before your start coding too much for them -->
              </item>
            </head>
          </equiped>
        <char id=1 name='Buttercup'>
      </characters>
      <inventory>
        <item id=1/>
      </inventory>
      
      <!-- END setting up game variables -->
      
      
      <!-- cutscene/ dialog -->
      <line speaker='Westley (or ID)'>  Ha! Your pig fiance is too late. A few more steps and
            we'll be safe in the fire swamp.</line>
            
      <battle>
        <mobs>
          <mob id=0>
        </mobs>
      </battle>
      
      <!-- after the battle is fought and won, it should return you to main menue, with your location set to "id='0' name='The Fire Swamp'"  as specified above-->
      
      
      <chapterCompletionTriggers>    <!-- after all of the criteria is met, it will jump you into the next chapter, showing cutscenes/Lines if needed -->        
        <bossKilled>
        
        <location id='0' houseID='0'/>   <!-- must go back to hometown, and into your house (not sure if you plan on doing houses in your game) -->
      </chapterCompletionTriggers>
      
    </chapter>
    
    
  
  
  
  </storyLine>



<characters>
  <character name='Westly' id=0 str=20 vit=20 int=20 dex=20 spi=10/>
</characters>

<races>

</races>
  
<items>
  <item id=0>
  <item id=20 name='Black Bandana' def=3/>
</items>

<mobs>                                                          <!-- you gotta deal with this very mathematically or it will be a pain to maintain.  It's all based on 't' or TTK as I sometime write "Time Till Kill", and also, dmg dealt to your heros -->
  <mob id=0 name='Fire Flem' class='Level3_flem'>
    <statmods fireResist='80' attack='fire' />
      
  </mob>
  
  <class name='Level3_flem' class='Level3'>
    <statmods def='40' magResist='-40' />
  </class>
  
  <class name='Level3'>                             
    <statmods def='3' magResist='3' str='3' hp='30'/> 
  </class>
  
   
</mobs>
  
  
</Game>

Here's what a better script engine started to look like for me:

puts "this will read c:/script.xml"
puts "It's how I'd start the script engine"
puts

file_path = 'c:\\script.xml'


#
#####  Ignore this section for now, you'll get it at the very bottom (I miss c#)
#
#
def new_game
  puts "Begining New Game"
  puts "please wait while I think of how to do this..."
  puts
  puts "Run Character Creation Code"
  #character_creation @story_line.elements['storyLine/characterCreation']

  puts "Load Chapter 1 from the @story_line"
  
  

end
def load_game
end
def settings_menu
end

# XML Data
@title_menu
@load_screen

@story_line


# Game Variables
# Characters[] >> Race, stats, equipment
# 


def display_screen(xml)

  20.times {puts}

  bool_do_gets = false
  choice_i = 0
  xml.elements.each do |thingy|       # this will rifled down all elements in loadScreen, one by one
    case thingy.name
      when 'msg'
        puts thingy.text
        # impliment gets here too?
      when 'gets'
        gets
      when 'option'
        choice_i += 1
        puts choice_i.to_s + ". " + thingy.text
        bool_do_gets = true
    end
  end

  if bool_do_gets      #all things that have <option> tag will do a gets, and make the function return their choice
    choice = gets.chomp
    return choice
  end

end



def character_creation(xml)
  #puts xml
  # To impliment this, finish filling out the script.xml to include everythin relevant to your characterCreation at startup
=begin
Currently, it's just:

<characterCreation>
      <getVariable name='gender'>
        <msg>Please tell me if you are Male or Female.</msg>
        <msg>1. Male</msg>
        <msg>2. Male</msg>
        <gets name='gender'> </gets>
      </getVariable>

    </characterCreation>

=end
  #
  # then load them all into the variable, I laid them out already
  # But you might want to think about converting your game data into objects first
  # I started creating the character object, but I gotta move on
  

end


def begin_chapter(xml)
    xml.elements.each do |node|
      case node.name
      when 'getVariable'   # you should move this to a different section, like <characterCreater> and run that first thing that happens when they choose newgame
        #DO NOT IMPLIMENT HERE, I MADE A MISTAKE
      when 'chapter'
        # Do chapter cut scene for chapter's ID
        
      
        
      end

    end
  

end


#/


#
#####   How to load an XML file, and operate on it from a very high level
#
#

require 'rexml/document'

xml_data = File.read(file_path) # simply read a file on the computer

#puts xml  # you'll see the contents of the xml file here, it's just a string at this point

doc = REXML::document.new(xml_data)     # this makes it into an REXML document,
                                        # which lets you do awesome stuff with it, you'll see below
Game = doc.elements['Game']  # this creates an xmlDoc
                                     # with just <loadscreen> as the elements...



# read the whole script.xml file here into discrete node variables to be used later
Game.elements.each do |node|
  #puts node.name

  case node.name
  when 'loadScreen'
    @load_screen = node
  when 'titleMenu'
    @title_menu = node
  when 'storyLine'
    @story_line = node
  end

end


# setup the chapters here




display_screen(@load_screen)

their_choice = display_screen(@title_menu)

puts "they chose option number: " + their_choice

send(@title_menu.elements[their_choice.to_i].attributes['cmd'])


Process.exit

Notice that I made a change to the StoryLine, adding characterCreation. I forgot you wanted to implement that.

[rykin666]

wow....
this is definitely all new to me.
i think im gonna need a few days to digest all this before i can reply with anything intelligent.

thankyou so much for taking the time to type all this up. if you ever need a favor, feel free to message me up.

in the mean time, cheers
~L

[NotarySojac]

Yeah, don't mention it, just keep me appraised, and if you have any questions about the XML, feel free to ask.