Tutorial-Driven Development

I've come up with a new approach to development. Previously I would just choose the next feature I though HTP needed to slowly drive it towards gameplay completion, and tackle that. It was working, but it was slow and haphazard, also it resulted in a lot of the little details that make a game complete getting missed out.

My new approach is something I'm called "tutorial-driven development", I suppose it's a bit like test-driven development for games in a way. I started by planning out the entire tutorial sequence a new player will be presented with on the start of a new game. A sequence that when completed will give a new player a basic handle on the gameplay. It was a little intimidating to realize how much work was still left to do before I could call HTP a 'game' of any description. But it also gave me an excellent to-do list of large and small features I needed for that to happen. I've just been slowly chewing my through those features.

The first step was to create a mission chain system, since the tutorial would be made up as a series of missions, which might share common source users and target devices. For those interested, a mission chain template looks a bit like this:

{
"Contacts":
[
{
"Name": "A Friend",
"Type": "Hacker",
"IsMale": "false"
}
],
"Targets":
[
{
"Name": "NeighbouringComputer",
"DeviceTypes": ["Computer"],
"Vicinity": "HomeNetwork"
},
{
"Name": "NeighbouringNetworkRouter",
"DeviceTypes": ["Router"],
"Vicinity": "NeighbouringNetwork",
"Origin": "HomeNetwork"
}
],
"Chain":
[
{
"Description": "Welcome to the grid {ACCEPTINGUSERNAME},\n\nYou don't know me, but you can trust me. I was once like you, back when I was just getting started.\n\nI guess I feel for you.. I know how hard it can be, at the beginning. I'm going to help you, cause a long time ago, someone helped me, so it feels like the right thing to do. Besides, I could use a little good karma right about now.\n\nReply to this message and we can get started.\n\n - {SOURCEUSERNAME}",
"ShortDescription": "Welcome",
"ResponseMessage": "Let's get started.\n\n - {ACCEPTINGUSERNAME}",

"Goal":
{
"Type": "Respond",
},
"Source": "A Friend",

"DelayUntilNextMission": 2
},

...

I won't get into too much detail explaining this, as I'm trying to keep this update more gameplay-oriented, but I'm sure the coders out there can see where I'm going with this. Unfortunately these mission chain templates, unlike many of the other templates, are getting quite clunky to edit by hand, so at some point I think I'm going to have to pull my thumb out and write an editor for all these templates. I'm mainly putting it off cause it's boring as hell.

I've completed the first 9 tutorial missions so far, and in the process have been forced to code lots of little tiny features and polish existing ones, it's been a great exercise.

Another thing I've been working on has been revamping the connections between nodes. Until recently they were just simple 1 pixel wide lines that flashed with network activity, I always wanted them to be more then that, so to that end I've replaced them with true cylindrical meshes. Now now have real dimensions, and will be able to contain things like neat traffic effects, or even the player, acting as kinds of highways.

Obviously a lot is still to be done with their visuals, but I've proven the performance hit of having thousands of true 3D connections instead of simple lines is negligible.

Well that's all for now, just a quick update. The next thing I will be working on is letting web servers has a role defined, which governs what kind of web content they will serve. Starting with a vulnerability database needed for the next tutorial mission.

Hack the Planet!

Inspiring Bugs

Sometimes graphics bugs can inspire :]