The final evaluation round for GSoC 2019 has ended, and I would like to this moment to summarize the work that I have done for the past 3 months. In case you just want to look at the code, here is the PR link.
Hyperspace Delivery Boy
My project revolved around building a game engine for the Monkeystone game Hyperspace Delivery Boy. The project description for the same can be found here.
My early work on the project feels so long ago that is quite difficult to remember the exact steps I took, and the problems I faced through them. Thankfully, some of the more difficult ones are mentioned in this blog. To summarize, my work included building core systems such as AI, LuaScript, Map, Sound and much more that mimicked the interface and functionality of the original HDB source code.
Once the core functionalities were added, I used them to link the Lua scripts to the engine and define the in-game logic that was present in the engine. This included things such as enemy movement, hit detection, dialog rendering, map-loading, the save system and much more.
I took a STUB-oriented way towards the project, upon Eugene’s suggestion. Whenever I needed some functionality that didn’t exist yet, I would create a warning for it and come back to it later. It made the process of navigating and translating a large codebase much more linear, and simple to understand.
Changes Since Last Time
In my last update, I mentioned that a few bugs remained in the PPC version, which made it unplayable. Those problems have been rooted out, and the game can be completed with the PPC data files as well. In fact, from the playtesting that I have conducted so far, I can say that the game should be completable for all available platforms – Windows, Linux and PocketPC.
What’s next?
For now, I would like to work towards getting the project properly merged into the main ScummVM repo. There is also a scaling bug in the PPC version that still exists. It is far from game-breaking (in fact, some might say it makes the game easier) but I would like to rectify it in order to stay true to the original.
Once again, I would like to thank Eugene(sev) and Arnaud(strangerke) for their help and support throughout this project. I wouldn’t have made it even half the way here without their help.