Multi-line Textbox, Scripting

I just finished adding multiple-line functionality to my TextBox class.  Unfortunately, it's still a pretty simple control.  You can't highlight anything, and you can't hold buttons down to repeat them.  For example, if you want to delete a large section of text, you can't select the whole thing and delete it or even press and hold backspace.  You have to repeatedly press backspace over and over until it's gone.

It can be a bit of a pain, but I think I'll leave it be until I feel I really need it.  If you read my early posts on this blog when I first started Sever, you'll notice that I was easily sidetracked with things like this.  I spent way more time than I should have on the user interface and input code.  Given, they were handy, but they were much more than I needed and the extra time spent on them could have been spent making progress on Sever.  Hence the fact that I never finished it.  The main reason why I'm actually making progress this time around is because I'm not allowing myself to get sidetracked.

Anyway, that's why I'm not going to add on to the multi-line textbox until I decide that I really need to.  I probably will at some point, but at the moment, I want to keep moving.  It does what I need it to do.  It allows me to write scripts directly into the editor, which is extremely convenient.  From here, I'll be able to move much faster.

I want to start adding scripting to more than just hotspots.  One on the list is a script that runs at the beginning of a level.  This will be extremely handy if the level won't be the same every time it is loaded.  Parts of it can be randomized, or it can change based on the player's choices in previous levels, etc.

I also want to add the ability to script the AI.  There will be levels where the AI is not really intelligent.  It will do one specific thing that can be easily scripted.  Also, the scripts could be used merely as a state-machine to switch between AI modes (of course, I'll need to build those modes first).

Anyway, I'm excited to move forward with this.  I feel like everything is finally beginning to come together.  It's really close to the point where I can start building real, playable levels.  Of course, I won't be building an actual campaign for another while.  I'll be experimenting with different level ideas until I have an extensive list of levels that I can compile into a campaign.  And I'm sure I'll be tweaking the gameplay as I go.  But the main thing is that I'll finally be able to move beyond the game engine to the game itself.  I've started over on Sever so many times, and I've never reached this point.  I'm excited.  I only hope that the game is fun in the end.

Thanks for reading, please comment!

clevceo