http://developer.elfball.net/index.php http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090225-002730
Next steps are to clean up player selection code and to perform error checking on where a player can be placed (i.e. a home team player cannot be placed on the away team's side of the field).]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090224-005942
* Added support for Home and Away team sprites
* Added support for sprites with different sizes (so they won't overlap each other in the bench/infirmary)
* Changed the way the Bench/Infirmary work. Now instead of tracking players they get told which players to draw. Faster and easier to manage.
* Player health state added. This is what controls the state of the player, be it healthy, down, dazed, hurt, etc...
* A few other small changes

Setup rules (and other needed code for putting players on the pitch) is next.

Also, since MrC was kind enough to send me a Timberline Elf team in XML format I have a screenshot up with tonight's progress, including his Timberline team, the Backwood Dodgers, in the Away bench. The Gnome team is in the home bench.]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090221-032607 A screenshot of the six man gnome team standing on their primitive bench is available if you're curious.

So tonight saw:

*Improvements to player support
*Player and team loading from file
*Dialog box requesting game options before pitch is available
*Players being drawn to screen.]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090220-001228
An menu bar has been added across the top of the client, allowing users to set up game rules, change settings, etc. Once the game is underway most menu items will be disabled to prevent the rules from being changed.

Additionally, the GameRules object was created. This object stores all of the rules for the game. The first optional rules supported is the Conditional = 2 success rule, which is working quite well.

More tomorrow!]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090219-001758
You can test this right now. It is very basic at the moment and it doesn't draw them entirely correctly, but I thought that those of you following the progress of the client would get a kick out of it.

Just download the updated client and click on the wood texture box in the upper left corner. Click as often as you like, it will roll three dice each time, adding new dice if a conditional is rolled.

Any feedback is appreciated, bearing in mind that I'm aware of issues with dice ending up being drawn off the screen if you get 3 or more conditional results when the dice are rolled AND that the conditional texture needs to be resized and have a white border added.

Stay tuned!]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090217-222359 new pitch build available for testing. New commands are:

Press "a" to remove all overlays
Use the mousewheel to zoom in and out.

The pane containing the GUI elements has been overlaid with a wood texture temporarily as a test. Feel free to resize the window, zoom in and out, pan around, etc. Please provide feedback as before.]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090217-014623
Progress made today:

* Implemented Mouse Wheel Zoom
* Created configurable buffer
* Code fixes all over to tie zoom, pan, overlays, and hex click detection together.

The PlayerAction object has been created. This object will be used to pass player actions from the player to the server.

The DiceManager has been implemented. This server-side object rolls the dice and sends the DiceResult object back to the client inside of the associated ActionResult object.

The ActionResult object has been implemented. This object contains a DiceResult object and also contains the result of every die rolled for a given action (Flop, Fail, Number of Successes, Momentum Count after action completed).

So, that leaves us with defining all of the actions possible for the player to take on the field, or in response to the results of the dice (i.e. use Momentum).

The special case is going to be the Intercept action. We'll see how that goes.]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090216-010503 Pitch Test Build now and provide feedback on how quickly the client draws the screen, start up issues, or other things that I'd like to nip in the bud as soon as possible.

You must have an up-to-date java runtime environment to use the client. Otherwise, unzip the Flop.zip file somewhere you can get to it, open the Flop folder, and then double-click on the FlopClient.jar file.

Currently enabled keyboard commands are as follow:

Press "p" to toggle the display of hexes that the ball can be thrown in
Press "l" to toggle the display of hexes that are in-bounds and not the goal
Press "e" to toggle the display of replacement entry hexes
Press "s" to toggle the display of setup hexes
Press the arrows keys to pan the pitch around
Press "r" to reset the pan.

Known issues:
Sorry, I wanted to fix this... but for the time being do not resize the window. It will cause re-sizing issues. Something about the JFrame and the canvas interaction. I'm working it.

Also, I didn't add the zoom. For some reason, detection of mousewheel events is really spotty and the zoom is/was tied to that.

Let me know how it works for you. Be sure to let me know what kind of processor, ram, and video card you have, as well as your operating system (XP, Vista, Linux) and version of Java.]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090213-094900
* Support for mouse events (move, clicking buttons, etc)
* Helper Functions to work with hexagons on the pitch (needed later when players are introduced)
* Support of keyboard keystrokes

Using all of the above we're just about ready for creating teams/players. At that point I'll release a copy for people to toy with and let me know what problems they find. It won't be a game by any stretch, but it will at least get feedback started.]]> http://developer.elfball.net/index.php?entry=entry090212-151604
Elfball.net is the container for three separate software products:

* Flop - The Elfball.net Java client
o This is the client for both playing and observing games
o Receives events from Momentum
o Sends player events to Momentum
o Not trusted (i.e. no calculations are handled locally)
o Handles all GUI displays
* Momentum - The Elfball.net Java server
o A stand-alone server that allows players and observers to participate in a game
o Registers with Grit to allow for matches to be made
o Publishes statistics and and match results to Grit
o Trusted; handles all game calculations
o Handles loss-of-sync and disconnect of players as well as other network problems.
o Run at the command line, loads all settings from an ini file.
o Saves in-progress games
o Logs all in-game events
* Grit - The Elfball.net website
o Handles matchmaking
o Collects statistics and game results from the Momentum server
o Provides user forums and other community resources]]>