game navigation: some advice

[Brent Anderson]

Hello.

Although the Revolution mailing list is a fantastic resource for  
Revolution questions, I would recommend you look elsewhere for  
anything related to Game development or Game theory. I am a member of  
the Garage Games community (www.garagegames.com) and although the  
forums there are about the Torque game engine, you can find tons of  
articles on how certain problems are solved when developing a game  
(Like your networking question or how to draw on a map). A Google  
search should link you to plenty of game development communities that  
can better address your problem.

Thanks,
Brent Anderson
The Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center
On Feb 9, 2007, at 2:51 PM, Henk van der Velden wrote:

> Good day all,
>
> we have started development of a small game in which players move  
> through a historical map of a city (the Dutch city of Delft,  
> actually). The player has to be able to 'walk' through the streets  
> as they are drawn on the map. The map is drawn in a projective  
> view, much alike this map of Blaeu:
> http://essentialvermeer.20m.com/maps/delft/blaeu_xl.htm
>
> Does anyone have any general advice on how to move a character  
> around this map?
>
> One question has to do with how the roads are represented.
> Should I use some kind of collision detection? For example, I have  
> drawn a couple of polygons to represent the areas between the  
> streets, and whenever a character moves I detect whether it  
> collides with one of these polygons. If that happens, the movement  
> is stopped.
> I've also tried a different approach with paths, where every  
> segment of a road - that is every part of it between two  
> crosspoints - consists of a path. The character moves along the  
> points of that path. On a crosspoint a player has to choose a  
> direction, a new road that one wants to enter.
>
> Are there any other options to consider? Is there perhaps a proven  
> approach that one should take?
>
> The other question - of course related to the previous one - is to  
> how the movement of the character is to be controlled. Should one  
> use keys? I have tried to use two keys for forward / backward  
> movement, and two other keys for left / right rotation of the  
> direction of movement. This approach can be used in combination  
> with collision detection the way I described before. But it turns  
> out that the player needs a lot of attention to choose the right  
> direction, otherwise one bumps into areas outside the street and  
> the movement is stopped.
> Another option, in combination with the aforementioned paths, is to  
> use simple start / stop keys, and whenever one is on a crosspoint  
> of paths, one can use the arrow keys to choose a direction.
>
> Again my question: which approach would people suggest? Should I  
> consider using the mouse for navigation?
>
> Any insights welcome!
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Henk
> --------------------------
> Henk v.d. Velden
> iGlow Media
> Magda Janssenslaan 36
> 3584 GR  UTRECHT
> Netherlands
>
> 0031 (0)6 16 024 337
> www.iglow-media.nl
>
>
>
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