Slow but sure progress and the baby (2004-03-24)
Time flies, doesn't it. The project makes slow progress, but I'm getting there. Order entry turned out to be more work than I thought at first, mostly because you want it to look and work in an intuitive and consistent manner. So, trying out different ways of representing possible orders, while showing clearly the choices you've already made, while keeping it all nice and pretty on the map, is a challenge. On top of that, my little baby boy demands quality time with his dad, consisting mainly of me carrying him around while his mother gets some well deserved rest.

Forums added (2004-02-24)
We now have the forums up and running. A place to meet and exchange thoughts on Magic Realm the boardgame as well as the Realms of Magic project.

Go there and say hi. :)

Onwards and including MR font (2004-02-23)
Anyway, I'm trudging on all by my lonesome for the moment. One of my team members has disappeared without a trace and another has told me he needs to take care of family and work, which leaves me doing this by myself for the moment.

I'm not complaining, mind you. I enjoy doing this project and don't mind the work, but I wanted you to know how things are with the project.

Anyway, the good news is that Robin Warren has been kind enough to contribute his Magic Realm Font to the project, letting us use it for the images on the chits. Thanks Robin, this really helps and save me the hours needed to scan and process all those graphics.

Test cases for orders are done, and I'm now fiddling with the look and presentation of the move orders.

Yours,

Tomas.

Baby is born, I'm working on the project again (2004-02-03)
I'm back!

We got a beautiful, perfect, little boy, named Luke (Lukas in Swedish).

Things have finally settled down at home, and I can now resume work on 0.6.0. Still shooting for the first playable release.

Cheers,
Tomas.

About coding and babies (2004-01-23)
Just wanted you to know that Realms of Magic will not be released this weekend, the reason being that my wife just went into labor. So I guess I have other things to do this weekend. :)

Work will commence as soon as family allows, i.e. in a couple of days.

Cheers,

Tomas
Team Realms of Magic

Birdsong (2004-01-18)
The Birdsong phase, order entry, is now being implemented.

The latest screenshot shows Lisa and Tom playing, with Lisa plotting her first Move activity. The current day and phase is now shown in the lower right corner.

The screenshots doesn't really do justice to the in-game view, since we have to reduce the quality a lot in order to get decent load times of the images, but they will give you a good idea of where we are headed.

Characters on map (2004-01-14)
Setup is now complete and the characters are placed at their starting location.

There was some fiddling with the operations to get chits and their corresponding image to behave well when stacked with other chit, but it seems to be ok now.

Birdsong is next, and I expect to get the order entry functionality done in the next day or so.

Progress on 0.6.0 (2004-01-11)
The release didn't make the weekend, but it's coming along.

Right now the setup is complete, the dwellings and the ghosts (actually only one ghost for the moment) are all there. The player can now connect to other players, select a scenario, pick a character and enter the game.

What remains is:
1) Character chits on the map.
2) Order entry at Birdsong. Player may select clearings to move to, as well as the search or hide orders.
3) Daylight, order execution. Each connected player performs his orders. Players may block each other.

This will require a day or so before it's finished, and I will carry on tomorrow. (And as I said before, the baby can come anytime, so ... ). But I just wanted to let you all know where we stand.

I will keep you all posted.

Cheers,

Tomas.