Best way to make an ASCII game?

[drens]

I'm pretty clueless on this one. How do I go about making a game using only ASCII characters? (including filled blocks, etc that are found in other ASCII games)

[Fubarable]

First you must learn the basics of Java. How much do you know so far?

[drens]

I think I know most of what I need as far as what goes on "behind the scenes". I know about methods, classes, arrays, loops, recursion, whatever. Input-and-output-wise, I've gotten input through System.in and output through System.out for mathematical problems without any GUIs, but obviously they won't help. The last 2 days I've taught myself through google how to make a game with full graphics with java.awt. I've just never done anything quite like this, so I don't know what kinds of libraries I need and how to set it up.

[Fubarable]

Maybe I'm the one that's confused. What do you mean precisely by making an "ASCII Game" and "filled blocks"?

[drens]

Sorry if I'm not explaining myself well... I'm never good at that. So I'm going to pull up a picture.

The game Kroz is an old game that uses only ASCII text for graphics, but there are some extra "block" characters, like the filled brown blocks and filled blue blocks to the right side. For now I don't really care about those blocks, or the colours, I'd just like to get the basic text working.

edit: The answer was much simpler than I thought, Graphics.drawString(). I was thinking of Graphics as something that just draws images when I made this thread. I was probably thinking too hard. Thanks anyway, you can ignore this thread.
edit: Well that's STILL not quite the same, but it seems to be the best I can do.

[MarsTeam]

those filled block aren't any extra characters, they can be found on various places at ASCII character map.

[JosAH]

I'm pretty clueless on this one. How do I go about making a game using only ASCII characters? (including filled blocks, etc that are found in other ASCII games)

You don't just want to use the ASCII characters in the range 0x00 - 0x7f but you also want to use characters from a 'code page' (characters in the range 0x80 - 0xff). Unicode doesn't have code pages, those pages are a mess. Unicode does have those 'glyphs' (character shapes) but they have different code points (i.e. not all in the range 0x80 - 0xff).

kind regards,

Jos

[drens]

those filled block aren't any extra characters, they can be found on various places at ASCII character map.

You don't just want to use the ASCII characters in the range 0x00 - 0x7f but you also want to use characters from a 'code page' (characters in the range 0x80 - 0xff). Unicode doesn't have code pages, those pages are a mess. Unicode does have those 'glyphs' (character shapes) but they have different code points (i.e. not all in the range 0x80 - 0xff).

kind regards,

Jos

Thanks for the tip, I didn't realize.

Also, I haven't found a clean way to make the engine - I can only fake it by making a grid and printing the characters spaced evenly with a proper font. Is there no better way to do this?

[JosAH]

Thanks for the tip, I didn't realize.

Also, I haven't found a clean way to make the engine - I can only fake it by making a grid and printing the characters spaced evenly with a proper font. Is there no better way to do this?

As I wrote Unicode doesn't have code pages; they were a mess and don't exist anymore. You have to find a mono spaced font (every character takes up the same width) and that font has to be capable of displaying those funny characters you want. Maybe the Courier New font can do it.

kind regards,

Jos

[drens]

As I wrote Unicode doesn't have code pages; they were a mess and don't exist anymore. You have to find a mono spaced font (every character takes up the same width) and that font has to be capable of displaying those funny characters you want. Maybe the Courier New font can do it.

kind regards,

Jos

I already found one - Perfect DOS VGA. Using an app called fontshower I looked at it and it has the special characters.

[JosAH]

I already found one - Perfect DOS VGA. Using an app called fontshower I looked at it and it has the special characters.

Is that a font you can download?

kind regards,

Jos

[drens]

Is that a font you can download?

kind regards,

Jos

Yes, the download button's on the right.

The only problem is that the characters are spaced 1 pixel farther away from each other than normal... it doesn't matter the way I'm drawing them though.
(Yes, I am a VERY BIG nitpick!)

[JosAH]

Yes, the download button's on the right.

The only problem is that the characters are spaced 1 pixel farther away from each other than normal... it doesn't matter the way I'm drawing them though.
(Yes, I am a VERY BIG nitpick!)

What do you mean by "1 pixel farther away than normal"? It's a monospaced font isn't it? And what is "normal"?

kind regards,

Jos

[drens]

What do you mean by "1 pixel farther away than normal"? It's a monospaced font isn't it? And what is "normal"?

kind regards,

Jos

It is, but each letter has slightly more extra space to the right than in the command prompt. Not a huge deal, I'm just really picky.

[JosAH]

It is, but each letter has slightly more extra space to the right than in the command prompt. Not a huge deal, I'm just really picky.

You could create a little image from each glyph and have its rightmost column removed; you will end up with a lot of small images though ...

kind regards,

Jos

[drens]

You could create a little image from each glyph and have its rightmost column removed; you will end up with a lot of small images though ...

kind regards,

Jos

Nah, it's already fixed, I just made a 2D array of chars and printed them out in 8x16 cells instead of whatever it would be otherwise. (I was planning on doing that anyway, so everything worked out okay.) Hopefully it won't make too many problems crop up later. :)