A Newbie needs help: How to create a game similar to 'A Dark Room' with Codea?

General
1

I am new to Codea, and coding in general. I have looked through many lua tutorials, so I know basic and simple things. I was told that creating a ‘text based’ game would be a good place to start, so I tried to make one. Turns out, I got practically nowhere. I don’t know how to make text output onto the screen, and I don’t know how to make the program receive input from the player. I really love the game ‘A Dark Room’ and I would really love to make a similar game to that. Any suggestions on where to start, or any specific tutorials to look at? Thank you so much!

2

@creardon1 I don’t know what the game “A Dark Room” looks like, but here is an example of inputting text and showing it’s output on the screen.


displayMode(FULLSCREEN)

function setup()
    str = ""
    var=""
    bcolor= 0
    x=300
    y=500
    w=400
    h=50
    l=x-w/2    --button left
    r=x+w/2    --right
    b=y-h/2    --bottom
    t=y+h/2    --top
end

function draw()
    background(30,30,0,255)
    strokeWidth(6)
    rectMode(CENTER) 
    textMode(CENTER)   
    fill(255)
    text("Tap input area, enter text then press return",x,550)   
    if bcolor == 0 then
        fill(255, 0, 0, 255)
    else
        fill(128,0,0,255)
    end    
    rect(x,y,w,h)    -- input area        
  
    fill(255)
    if keyboardBuffer() ~= nil then
        text(keyboardBuffer(),x,500)    -- show data as it is keyed
    else
        showKeyboard()
        text(str,x,500)    -- show data in input area  
    end  
    
    -- output area
    rect(x,HEIGHT-100,400,50)
    
    -- input area
    
    fill(255,0,0)
    text(var,x,HEIGHT-100)
end

function touched(t)
    if t.state==BEGAN then
        showKeyboard()
    end
end

function keyboard(key) -- move keyboardBuffer to str when return is pressed
    if key == RETURN then
        str = keyboardBuffer()
        var=str
        str=""
        hideKeyboard()
        bcolor = 0
    end
end
3

@dave1707 thanks a lot, that actually explains a ton. I was wondering if you knew what the print function does in codea? I know it prints text in a normal lua processor, but I found that this wasn’t the case in codea.

4

@creardon1 actually, print does just that – only it prints in the output area, not the graphical screen.

5

@Mark ok thanks.

6

Oh yes, and if you want to check out the game, here it is: http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/