Step 2 - Monsters & Objects

​The next big item on the to-do list was assigning specific inventory Objects and Monsters to each room. That way, a player would have a way to increase their final score, and the game would have some added complexity. In a nutshell, I again used structs for each monster and object type. Each object and monster I created had a few parameters (name, description, and possibly health/score) that I could easily access using functions similar to those that I had previously used for the rooms and player. I then added an array of pointers to Object types and an array of pointers to Monster types within each room's struct. This allowed me to specifically assign a unique set of Monsters and Objects to each room. From there, in a separate file that initialized at the start of the game, before the player could input any commands, I assigned a hardcoded array of monsters and objects to each room. This ensured that as the player progressed from room to room, they could see and interact with each room's respective Monsters or Objects. From this point, I reworked my initial command input and printing algorithm to allow for different logic paths to be taken. If the player chose to fight a monster, the program would prompt them to select which monster they would like to fight, and a while loop would commence until either the player's health or the monster's health had been depleted. If the player chose to pick up an item, another while loop would initialize and terminate only once the player had decided which item to pick up. Taking a deeper dive into the fighting sequence, it was randomized using the random() function in C. While the random() function typically returns a massive random number without any limitations on its maximum output, using the computer's current time as well as online forums and blogs, I converted the function to output a random number between 0-X, where X was the top of the ouput range. From here, I used the modified random function to give the player a 50/50 shot of their attack landing. If the attack hit and landed on the monster, the monster would lose 10 health. However, if the attack missed, the monster would then attack the player, and the player would lose 10 health. Now, moving to the logic behind the item pickup system. If the player chose to pick up an item within a room, they would be prompted to select the item they would like to pick up. The item would then be placed into their inventory, so long as they had open slots. For both the fighting menu and the item pickup menu, they were adapted using my previously developed menu for player movement between rooms. Finally, the last piece of code that I needed to add was to allow the player to use an item. When building the secondary menus for the player, I added another option, again by typing in a different number, to let the player decide if they would like to use an item in their inventory. Then, if they chose to use an item, the program would open another nested menu, prompting them to select which item they would like to use. Since the only items in my game were stat increasers (health or score boosts) or damage increasers (sword), when a player used an item, I would run corresponding functions to adjust the values within the player's struct. This ensured that their use of an item would have a global effect across the whole game, and not just for that singular instance. After finishing all of the secondary menus and different logic paths for the player to select from, the complexity behind adding monsters and objects to the game was complete.