The Sharpening announcement

[Hellfish]

http://thesharpening.blogspot.com/
Second thread here, this time with a better head for current affairs Magic

(Don't worry, Marek, I will keep comprules.doc as my bible this time,as long as I understand it correctly )

The reason I'm posting is an interest check for help testing out the rules-faithfulness once I get to that fateful Alpha. Any takers?

[Marek14]

Well, I might try.

[juzamjedi]

Getting a rules engine to work correctly is really hard. What is your motivation for starting YAMTGREE vs. contributing to one of the existing projects instead? Are none of the existing implementations close enough to what you envision that you could contribute to them and mold them instead of starting from scratch?

[Hellfish]

My motivation is a three-letter one: fun. I'm the kind of guy that will sit down and program Yet Another Gameboy Emulator(Lost the source to a dead HD, mixed glee/sorrow over starting again) over X weekends because I enjoy doing it more than the alternatives.

And I will keep contributing to Forge, it's just that I can't run eclipse at this comp so my contribution will be limited to things I can spot reading the source over at google code for a while.

[Huggybaby]

Hey Hellfish, please link to your blog from your signature. That will make it easier for folks to find it, and crosslinking is good for your search engine rank.

Now I can read your blog, rares', and the Mox blog, which are all very interesting.

[Hellfish]

Done! Glad you enjoy it.

[Huggybaby]

Great, thanks. Now, everyone click the link in his sig!

BTW, don't forget to link to these forums in your blog too, so we can both benefit from the reciprocal linking action. And if/when you're ready for your own forum here, let me know so I can set you up. I guess that might happen soon after you have a GUI.

[Hellfish]

Thanks, though the forum may be some ways off still As stated, I likely won't make any release until a UI AND a few different types of cards work and alot of things that those goals depend on are still in design flux. But you'll know when.. Oooh, you'll know.

[Marek14]

Here's ten cards you might try on for starters

Artificial Evolution
Bloodbraid Elf
Detritivore
Eldrazi Temple
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Isochron Scepter
Sorin Markov
Swans of Bryn Argoll
Titania's Song
Vesuvan Shapeshifter

[Hellfish]

Haha, just throw the bleeding edge advanced cards at me right away

• Artificial Evolution and all other text-changing cards already have provisions made for them, it's just that every card's code has to consider them (Not hard,just do a function call instead of directly referencing lands,colors or types)
• Bloodbraid Elf and Cascade in general I don't see a problem with in the current structure.Casting without paying can be done fairly easily.
• Detritivore needs counters,which there are none yet, and to listen for some events that the engine currently does not care about.
• Eldrazi Temple needs mana tagging which is ALMOST done.
• Elspeth, Knight-Errant I don't foresee that big problems with, at least once counters are implemented for Loyalty.
• Isochron Scepter I'll need to think about, but unless I'm mistaken it benefits from the same ease of casting-without-paying that cascade does.Then I just have to fix up how cards can target eachother.
• Sorin Markov benefits from the fact that the core doesn't care where input comes from, just that it is in the form of events raised by a UIBridge. So, by swapping the player's UIBridges, events from one player will affect the "core state" of the other player. (The core state is the internal representation of the game. Normally it contains a list of Players and a corresponding list of UIBridges that take output and send input. If I swap the UIBridges around for one turn, one player will effectively take control over his opponents turn. Of course, a lot more must be done first but still)
• Swans of Bryn Argoll also needs some events that the core doesn't currently raise.
• Titania's Song will require some thinking. I have not addressed losing abilities or "becomes" effects in a satisfactory way yet.
• Vesuvan Shapeshifter will require some thought as well, Copy effects have their place ready but not any implementation done.

[Incantus]

Hey Hellfish, good luck! I look forward to seeing what kind of designs you come up with to handle various aspects of the rules (I found that the most difficult was the layer system and override/replacement effects).

[Hellfish]

Thanks, Incantus! Yeah, the layer system is a bit of a pain, but I have other parts I can "take a break" to work on too, so it's not so bad.

As for replacement effects, I think I've got a good (and hopefully correct) system going, so it's not bad at all. The hard part is implementing the system absolutely everywhere it's needed. (And sometimes figuring out where that is ) Once I start prototyping cards I'll have a clearer view of what worked and what needs some extra thought

[Hellfish]

Oh hey, some code escaped onto the blog. Better go read it before I put the hideous monster back in it's cage.