For your first question, I would go for the comma-delimited text to be parsed separately.  You can easily use some sort of “explode” function (I’ll show mine in the next installment, though it’s no better than others you can find out there) or you can use the C strtok(), which does the same thing iteratively.

For the second question, you have to use TiXmlElement::FirstAttribute()(gives you a const TiXmlAttribute*) and loop over TiXmlAttribute::Next().  This lets you go through each attribute without knowing its name.  I’ll put some of that in the next installment too, for completeness.

In the meanwhile I have a question:

I am trying to create an XML file structure for a specific application, and most of my data types can be handled by using text blocks, or by using a few attributes in a tag. However, I also have a huge array which I have to include within a tag. Let’s assume the original data looks like this:

array[i]=(1,2,3,4,5,6,…,100,101,…,999,1000)

1. What would be the best way to contain such data within an XML file?

a) A huge comma seperated string block to be parsed out of TinyXML (I would still try to read the block by TinyXML) ?
1, 2, 3, 1000

b) Again a huge block with zillions of attributes one after another?

c) Probably a much better way?

2. Assuming I have the first part covered using option b, how can you loop and read through sequential attributes and write the values to an array using TinyXML and C++? Is there something like a NextAttribute() method?

I’d be very glad if you can give some pointer (no pun intended) when you have time.

Thanks!

I tried doing something like
xmlFile.LoadF(OpenXML->FileName);

OpenXML being the file dialog…but it doesn’t seem to be working

I think finding a limit between too easy and too hard has been a common problem in every game, there are many ways to do so: increase the number or the strength of the enemies , make them “cleverer”, but at the end if you get the feeling you can’t win, then the game will loose all the interest..

Can we still play (and have fun) with a game very hard? Yes! but we want to be ready to play the harder levels: Start with easier levels, make the player get used with the controls, then start to make the hill higher, at the end they will climb the Everest! and the best of all , they will feel they are heroes after doing it!

Games like the ancient “Prince of Persia” were the perfect example (although it is not a shooter), with an increasing difficulty every level… At the other side there are games like “Raptor” or “Tyrian” that were so easy they were boring, or games like “Xenon” so hard that many players will quit before ever reaching level 2…

Puting not-shooter ideas into a shooter will definitively make it much better, people will thing it is “not just shooting”, and will add some necessary spaces between fights into the game, small things make games bigger…

Good bye and Good Job Jon!

I’ve been down many roads thinking about these problems.  There’s a fundamental issue that comes up when you make a system with parts which are themselves customizable or truly blendable.  That issue is balance, and that is what the last question gets at.  If, as a player, you find what works, then you naturally just jump to that as soon as you can.

Playing video games is a process of optimization.  Designing good video games involves properly guiding the path of optimization.  It’s not easy!