Well it's been a couple days since the last update and I've made some major progress.

Work had been extremely slow the last couple of days because it has been so hot and I've mostly just been going to the mall to keep myself cool. that was, until last night. as I mentioned last update, I was working on the algorithm for line of sight and targeting and all of that. I didn't really know how I was going to do it (I had a basic way of doing it but it was pretty slow for something that should be more elegant). so I flipped through some of my game programming books looking for info on this sort of thing. it turns out that an IBM employee named Bresenham in the 1960's wrote a paper detailing how to draw lines between two points using integer math, and thus resulting in a faster way of plotting the solution. I implemented it last night and it works like a charm (after I tweaked it of course). right now I can finally plot a path between two points which will determine if a creature has line of sight to a set of coordinates, if it can walk straight there, and if it can shoot or throw to the designated coordinates.

This is a major breakthrough because it finally allows me to start the finishing touches on the zombie and human AI! I needed this line of sight/targeting algorithm so zombies can more properly chase the humans and the humans can actually fight back. I'll probably be working on their AI for the rest of tonight so I can get the simulations running as they should in the final version.

I also managed to get all the documentation and design finished for all the firearms in the game. The final game should have around 62 unique guns, and a whole lot of melee weapons (which I haven't ironed out the numbers for, but there will be quite a few). all I need to do now that I have their stats laid out, I just need to actually plug them into the game and work out any bugs that pop up. this will likely but a time-consuming but ultimately easy process.

so while the weather has been hot and I've been having trouble working in my room where it can get above 100 degrees (I don't have AC and the sun hits my walls from about 11 am to sunset), I've still been able to work on the game and even reach a pretty major milestone. it's cooling down right now and from now until the end of the weekend it's supposed to be much cooler, so I'll be making more progress and thus you'll be seeing more updates from me.

so I'll get back to coding now. with a bit of hard work and some luck (in the form of good weather), I could have the zombie and civilian AI done before the end of the week. stay tuned for that.

In somewhat related news, I purchased the Zombies!!! boardgame and I tried playing it with my friend. I'll post a full review when I find the time, but it's really fun and it captures the feeling of a zombie movie pretty well. it could do with some more complexity or depth, but it's still very solid. it's the kind of game where I can see myself house-ruling a lot of new things into it to make it more fun. also I only played with myself and my friend, so I'm sure it gets way more awesome when there are multiple people.

If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or just general thoughts, please post them in the comments section! I'm always interested in what people have to say!