Oh my! GUI!

Figured I'd mess with the UI of the main form and so far this is what I got :)

Not too bad for a first draft I'd say, I use those test buttons to, well, test pieces of code and they won't be there with the finished product. The text box will act as a log of what is happening in the game i.e. describing the area, showing damage, items looted, etc. For the rest of the buttons, they will open seperate forms in order to carry out their named function.

What Level am I?

Decided to work on a way to determine what level the player character is based on what is their highest attribute level is (e.g. If agility is the highest then the player's level is equal to the level of agility)

So lets say that we have a strength level of 30, an agility level of 25 and an intelligence level of 20
 
  Select Case Level

Case Level

If Strength > Agility And Strength > Intelligence Then

Level = Strength

If Agility > Strength And Agility > Intelligence Then

Level = Agility

If Intelligence > Strength And Intelligence > Agility Then

Level = Intelligence

                      End If

 End If
 
 End If


End Select

Using this case statement the program would determine that strength is the attribute with the highest value and thus is the level of the character

The Trouble with Buttons

I was having a little trouble in figuring out how to be able to move my little square around whilst having buttons on the form as, by default, VB would set the arrow keys to switch between different buttons rather than moving the square.

After some research I came across this page and it helped me out :) http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/2559319e-a9c4-4181-8a4e-3ed356189f84/disabling-arrow-keys-like-tabstop-with-buttons-answered

Belated Update on Grid Drawing

Quite slow to update with this but I got VB to draw a 10x10 grid though I may end up going down a different route with this

Private Sub FrmMain_Paint(sender As Object, e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Handles Me.Paint

'Declare local variables

Dim Graphicals As Graphics

Dim Rectangles As Rectangle

Dim PenColour As New Pen(Color.Red)

Graphicals = Me.CreateGraphics

For a As Integer = 1 To 9

For b As Integer = 1 To 9

Rectangles = New Rectangle(b * 52, a * 52, 50, 50)

Graphicals.DrawRectangle(Pens.Black, Rectangles)

Graphicals.FillRectangle(Brushes.ForestGreen, Rectangles)

Rectangles = Nothing

Next

Next

Graphicals.Dispose()

Graphicals = Nothing

　

End Sub

Damage and Defence

Took a bit of a detour and decided to work on some of the equations for calculating damage and armour :D

Its still a bit of a prototype and we are just using some placeholder numbers here but the basic idea of these stats is that pure damage of the attacker is first calculated and then a seperate calculation for the armour rating of the person receiving the damage. And then we do damage - armour to get the amount of reduced damage of the armoured target.

Damage Calculation
Private Sub BtnTest_Click(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles BtnTest.Click

Randomize()

Dim Attribute, Strength, Power, Damage As Integer

Attribute = 30
Strength = 30
Power = 350
　


Dim PhyDmgV As Integer = CInt(Int((((Attribute * 1.7) - (Attribute / 2.5)) * Rnd()) + 1))

Damage = Strength * Power * PhyDmgV
MsgBox("Damage equals " & Damage)

End Sub
 Defence Calculation 
PrivateSub BtnTest_Click(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles BtnTest.Click
Randomize()

Dim Attribute, Strength, Armour, Defence As Integer

Attribute = 30

Strength = 30

Armour = 180

Dim PhysDefV As Integer = CInt(Int((((Attribute * 1.5) - (Attribute / 2)) * Rnd()) + 1))

Defence = Attribute * Strength * PhysDefV

MsgBox("Defence value is " & Defence)

End Sub

It begins with a single step

Andddddddd we have movement :D

Using this little section of code

 Private Sub Form1_KeyDown(sender As Object, e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyDown

        Dim Loc As Point

        Select Case e.KeyCode
            Case Keys.Up
                If Not ImgChar.Location.Y - 50 < 0 Then
                    Loc = New Point(ImgChar.Location.X, ImgChar.Location.Y - 50)
                    ImgChar.Location = Loc
                End If

            Case Keys.Down
                If Not ImgChar.Location.Y + 50 > 450 Then
                    Loc = New Point(ImgChar.Location.X, ImgChar.Location.Y + 50)
                    ImgChar.Location = Loc
                End If

            Case Keys.Left
                If Not ImgChar.Location.X - 50 < 0 Then
                    Loc = New Point(ImgChar.Location.X - 50, ImgChar.Location.Y)
                    ImgChar.Location = Loc
                End If

            Case Keys.Right
                If Not ImgChar.Location.X + 50 > 450 Then
                    Loc = New Point(ImgChar.Location.X + 50, ImgChar.Location.Y)
                    ImgChar.Location = Loc
                End If
    End Select

     End Sub

I've made a little blue square move around my form, its a miracle!

Next stop will be to try and get my program to draw an 8x8 grid and fill them with a colour (green probably)