Hi I have been writing to Haypo for a few days regarding ideas about Wormux 0.5 regarding code features, and we decided it was best at this point to go to the mailing list to get ideas and opinions from everyone.
The first point was regarding the port to Clanlib 0.7.x, but I think Haypo adressed those points in his last emails. Switching to some Clanlib features will improve the ease of programming some features in the game. One of the most interesting features is the advanced collision system. Of course, there is the possibility to use the Sprite code, and get access to the code speedup. The only constraint that Clanlib put is the use of openGL to have the support for everything. A SDL target exists for older PCs. However, the use of the new features of Clanlib 0.7 are better supported if some code is reorganized. The second point i wanted to talk about was the use of a script language in Wormux. I think that having a script language could allow some nice things like creating events during a campaign, or to create more advanced effect. Clanlib used to have a LUA plugin, but 0.7.x doesn't have it anymore. The second language i was thinking about was Python who has been used in several games. My idea is not to run the game with Python but to interpret python script within the game. The third point concerns weapons. I have been looking at the code and i thought it was quite difficult to add new weapons. I have been thinking that it would be nice to be able to create a new weapon by using an XML file for example. Most conventional weapons can be easily described by categories and by their properties. A grenade can be added the area effect flag, the physic flag, and so on. It can be considered as a projectile. You can create contact weapons, gun weapons and so on. You can add a timer flag. It would be interesting if we could find all the possible flags. So in the end you would have a way to streamline the creation of weapons by just changing parameters. Of course, you can complain that it won't work for more advanced weapons, but it could work by using scripts. If you think of a bomb that would hover over the landscape, you could "easily" program it using a script by providing a proper interface to the script language. That's it. Those are just ideas thrown in the arena. There are not necessarily the way to go, but, those are suggestions to improve Wormux.
