This program uses a binary tree for storing and searching, making it faster. Expressing in terms of big-O notion, a simple array search would take O(n), this only take O(n log n).

Morse Code Translator was written by Devin Watson.

I set up Devin Watson to help me prep programs for the site. That was all. He was going to automate the process so I’d have more time for the book and programming. But then ASCIIpOrtal gets slashdotted, things blow up, I’m at work and can’t do anything about it, and he swoops in and gets the site back on its feet installing a caching tool that should have been there in the first place and fixing issues that popped up due to the increased load.

So if you’re reading this, Devin, one of the first contributors to the site, the man behind Star Merchant, is to thank. All hail the mighty Watson! The saviour, just in time.

Star Merchant is a futuristic trading simulation. As you travel to star systems pay attention to the percentage column (%). This shows what percentage of the market rate the price is set at for that particular item at that starport at that instance, 100% being the going market rate for that particular cargo as set by the Interstellar Trade Commission. The 100% rate for each cargo is defined in cargo.h. Using this can help you buy low and sell high, which is the name of the game.

When you travel be sure to keep some money in your account for expenses like docking fees, fuel, and your crew salary. If you can’t afford your expenses upon your arrival your inability to afford the docking fees will cause your ship to be confiscated, your crew to be let go, and your cargo sold to cover the exorbitant cost of your legal fees and you will spend the rest of your life stuck on the starport flipping soy patties. At the end of 2 years the lease on your ship comes due. If you don’t have 2 million in the bank by then they’ll repossess your starship, too.

Star Merchant has multiple source files that will all need to be included, so be sure to pay attention to the file names as you’re typing.

When the original game was published there were described a number of features that were not implemented in the final game. This version stays true to the original game, but it does leave a number of possibilities for expansion. For instance:

• At random space pirates will warp directly into your cargo holds and steal 10% of your cargo.
• The mass that you’re carrying should affect the time to destination, thus affecting the cost of traveling.
• Expand the upgrade system to be more piecemeal so you can upgrade the engines but downgrade your cargo holds (preferable later in the game).
• As it currently stands there is no winning condition. The game should be modified so that win you reach a certain amount of money ($1,000,000,000 perhaps) you buy your own fleet of ships and retire a wealthy mogul or if you choose not to renew your lease and ending is displayed depending on how rich you become.

There are no end of other modifications that can be made to this game with just a little imagination.

Star Merchant was written by Devin Watson, inspired by a BASIC game by the same name by Lloyd Johnson as found in Big Computer Games edited by David H. Ahl ? 1984.

…there was a game called Wizard’s Lair that used the vanilla curses library for both UNIX and DOS ports. It was a fairly involved but fun RPG with basic ASCII graphics, but also had a party system with combat and your elementary D&D stats….

It was a lot of fun to play, especially since you could speed up the battles to be almost automated and run super fast.

Just a suggestion, don’t have to do anything with it. Might be fun to try and do a whole series on something with a little more meat to it than a 4-pager in code.

On Sunday August 3rd Devin Watson PMed me on the RR forums with the above. I responded that I was definitely interested in beefier programs in Cymon’s Games. I thought he was suggesting I convert the program, for which I was gearing up to warn him that it may be a long while before I do and I was going to suggest he try his hand at it. Before I could butter him enough for that he wrote me:

I do code, but it’s been awhile since I did some C. Last thing I wrote in C was a tutorial on how to write daemons for Linux.

I’ve downloaded Code::Blocks and followed your instructions for setting up pdcurses. I might take a swing at some of the smaller parts of a game like this and see if it would be more worthwhile to tackle each specific subsection of it as a mini-game. Then each of those parts then becomes the bigger game. Something like working on random dungeon creation, party/maps, etc.

…

If you don’t mind that each part comes at a somewhat slower pace due to my own daily responsibilities, then we can form up an attack plan on it.

Well now this is shows promise. Next thing I know he’s loaded up the old game and started trying to reproduce it himself. Code snippets were followed by screen shots and then main.c files started showing up in my inbox. All the while I’m providing code snippets, examples from programs on Cymon’s Games, and a lot of cheering on.

Yesterday, what amounts do Day 3 of coding, Devin made the following statement:

I’ve decided to streamline this “First Edition” so to speak by taking out load/saves and just concentrate on the gameplay itself.? There’s more than enough different topics covered by that for a beginner.

As a roadmap, could do it like this:

1.0 – Basic gameplay, nothing fancy
1.5 – Load/save, magic
2.0 – Items, inventory, more weapons, more goals
2.5 – Larger maps, loadable from disk (?)

Moving into more advanced features like loadable maps would of course require a separate data file.? But I hope by that point you’d be willing to go with it.? This is of course assuming some positive feedback from your readership.

Positive feedback indeed. This is not the first of Cymon’s Games success stories, and certianly will not be the last, but this is a story in progress that I wanted to share. Watch the comments on the side bar as I will be updating this thread with news as it develops.

For your enjoyment:

Menu Screen

ENCOUNTER!

Victory!

Dead.

First main.c

Second main.c – Now with added user-selectable stat rolls for character creation.