I thought that maybe my train game should look a little better. I changed the timer callback to be fast enough that a 40 car train took 100% of one CPU to position and move. It looks nice and the rubber-banding when dragging the track laying took looks…

First, I want to ignore a mouse button click when my window is in the background. I want the Window to become active and come to the front but I don’t want a mouse message about it. Microsoft does some really odd things. I found is that there…

I was experimenting last week with handling the coupler distance between train cars and found something interesting. In the picture above, you can clearly see the issue related to how a train car sits on a curved piece of track. The issue is that the linear distance between…

User Stories I was reading about SCRUM or Scrum last night. I would love to get a chance to work on a project using Agile development methods. The collaboration aspect is appealing as is the idea of getting usable code working quickly seems like a great idea and…

Taking on a big project alone is tricky. I can spend an hour or two per night working on the train game and it takes me a week to make any real progress. I also have spent a few weekend days working all day but that’s because I’m…

I thought that I’d write a little about a scheme I use to avoid constant path finding work in the train game. First, a status report. Coupling and decoupling are working. I had a problem with decoupling where the orientation of the “train” when a new string of…

What is the best way to detect that I have reached a waypoint and possible passed it? I currently manage the waypoints in a way that works well when the train stops at one. The train constantly adjusts it’s deceleration to make it stop at the right spot…

I managed to change the one global train object into a list. I had two trains running for a moment and it was cool. This led to all kinds of other headaches. The drawing code is crappy and needs to be more modular. There is also no good…

I was working last night on changing the waypoint activities that can be specified by the player. I’ll start saying player instead of user because it sounds more fun. I finished some work on the A.I of the trains. They can now detect when they are sitting on…