Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Development => Programming => Topic started by: Endorya on July 16, 2013, 10:28:20 AM
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So as many of may know already, I'm building this not-so-simple roguelike game, which is presently flying over its design phase and being assembled through an editor.
One thing I've changed so far is the way the player explores the world map. Instead of having the player "entering (>)" the portion of land he is, which would normally let him explore it in third person using the cursor, he will have a button that will do the exploration automatically.
This is how it will work: The player presses the button and a progress bar (or something) will monitor the exploration progress. During this time, time itself will elapse faster and every site of interest (caves, settlements, ruins, dungeons, shrines etc.) will be noted down to that portion of land and to a journal. Some skills will affect the speed at which scouting takes place and there will be many things prone to happen during this period of time like being ambushed, finding a magic ring in the road or special encounters like a caravan with particular goods.
I think this will be a good approach to bridge possible boring-explorations of land that could be empty. When I used to play DF in adventure mode, I would most of the time suffer from this boredom, maybe I was simply exploring the wrongs areas but this is something I definitely wish to cast out from my game. If an area is empty the player won't fill like he just waster a great deal of time for nothing (by using my method).
Other things will include the ability to search for a type of animal or plant in the portion of land the player stands in. If the player is in a temperate forest searching for a particular type of plant that he knows it grows there, he will mostly be able to find one or a bag full of them, depending on their rarity.
Anyway, what this thread is really about is how to explore the sites of interest the player finds during and after the exploration process. Initially, I was planning it to be as a traditional roguelike, where the player controls his character in third view with the cursor, turn after turn. But what if this could be done through text while having a map telling the player's party location? Like an adventure text game but with the complexity of a roguelike.
By using this method I could add more atmosphere and sound effects to fully immerse the player on his adventure. Lets take a cave example:
The player decides to explore a cave he found in a mountain portion of land. A cave entrance image is displayed along with the new interface optimized for cave exploration. A WAV file playing the cave sound will be heard with a small stream echoing at the distance.
"The cave exhibits tall, narrow and slightly leaned entrance with straight corridor leading to a dark and tenuous descent. A soft breeze can be felt coming out from it embraced in strange odor [check party total smelling skill] that you are [unable or able] to detect (or detecd as the odor of a specific mushroom)."
Options:
1 - Throw a rock into it and see what happens.
2 - Send one single member ahead to scout it.
3 - Enter the cave while leaving 1 or more members outside.
4 - Enter the cave with the whole party
5 - Tie each other with a rope before entering with the whole party
4 "Your whole party enters the cave descending the long corridor. Soon the dim light perishes at the hands of darkness [Check Item>Torch] [not available] - You are unable to proceed without a light source [Available] - You light a torch. Shortly after, the corridor ends with a bifurcation.
1 - Return to the cave entrance
2 - Throw a rock into the left path
3 - Throw a rock into the right path
4 - Scout ahead the left path
5 - Scout ahead the right path
6 - [If available] - Call the member outside the cave entrance
7 - Split the party in half to explore both paths.
8 - Describe scene (this is one of the many options that is always available in any situation, which will give you full detail of the aread you are in depending on everyone's skills)
Note: The action happens with the main character, so if the main character chooses to split his party and take the left path he won't be able to witness the exploration of those who adventure through the right path.
Please understand, this is just a demo, the real thing would offer more options within a clean interface made to be operated with the mouse.
Well, I think this might give you an idea of the game-play alternative I refer to and I guess most of you will probably dislike it because it bypasses the concept of roguelike game-play but I'm willing to explore other possibilities that might increase the immersion level of the game.
So what do you think of this?
[EDIT]
The actions described are just an example of what could be done in different kinds of scenarios. They will not be listed each time the player takes a further step towards his exploration. These options (like many others) will be available in the interface and it is up to the player to decide when to use them.
[EDIT]
Decision has been made. There will be no text based exploration model.
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To be honest I think it sounds incredibly dull. Text takes a while to read and parse, and gets very repetitive across multiple playthroughs. I don't care how many random encounters you add, if I play your game a lot I will end up repeating several. Plus often the decisions aren't interesting as there's just a checklist of best answers. Often the text is long and boring and having to read so much is a slog, so you skimread looking for key words. Consider FTL, where after a few playthroughs you just read the answers and not the scenarios. All the flavour is lost entirely.
If you're worried about scant maps then make everything denser. If you're worried about immersion then find ways to do that subtlety, instead of bluntly hitting the player over the head with blocks of text every turn. If you want real exploration then don't give a player lists, give them interesting interactions and the space to explore those in. Exploration needs freedom, and list-responses are the utter opposite of that.
There are people who like text adventures, mind, but even they want the exploration of figuring out which commands to use on what. I doubt they'd like to be just given a list of pre-set interactions in each locations.
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To be honest I think it sounds incredibly dull. Text takes a while to read and parse, and gets very repetitive across multiple playthroughs. I don't care how many random encounters you add, if I play your game a lot I will end up repeating several. Plus often the decisions aren't interesting as there's just a checklist of best answers. Often the text is long and boring and having to read so much is a slog, so you skimread looking for key words. Consider FTL, where after a few playthroughs you just read the answers and not the scenarios. All the flavour is lost entirely.
If you're worried about scant maps then make everything denser. If you're worried about immersion then find ways to do that subtlety, instead of bluntly hitting the player over the head with blocks of text every turn. If you want real exploration then don't give a player lists, give them interesting interactions and the space to explore those in. Exploration needs freedom, and list-responses are the utter opposite of that.
There are people who like text adventures, mind, but even they want the exploration of figuring out which commands to use on what. I doubt they'd like to be just given a list of pre-set interactions in each locations.
I see what you mean. Thanks for your feedback. But now imagine having those options simply available on your interface and that you are the one who decides when to use them. In fact this is what I was panning to do, the above example was just a mare demonstration of the options available (kinda). So this means you move from one place into another without interruptions, nonetheless allowing you to perform and explore actions at any given time.
I'll update the opening post
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How about an "autopilot" explore mode that keeps the normal roguelike interface?
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How about an "autopilot" explore mode that keeps the normal roguelike interface?
What do you mean?
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Basically as you said, but instead of a progress bar, you'd watch the PC exploring the area, his moves generated by and "AI" algorithm instead of coming from the keyboard. When he finds something or you stop it manually, you can continue normal play.
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Basically as you said, but instead of a progress bar, you'd watch the PC exploring the area, his moves generated by and "AI" algorithm instead of coming from the keyboard. When he finds something or you stop it manually, you can continue normal play.
I could consider that but that would delay my work for quite a bit, I will save that for last. Anyway, my real problem is not how to explore the world map but on how to explore the sites discovered in it. I think I will just use the traditional method.
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Yeah, although in principle it's interesting to have more flavour using text, I feel Darren Grey is absolutely right. I find myself doing that with FTL, and it does get repetitive eventually.
There's no reason why you cannot attach short descriptions à la Dwarf Fortress to the location you are exploring though. Make up a list of attributes and generate terrain and play sounds based on those attributes. For example, watery or damp caves might have the sound of falling waterdrops, a waterfall or river might play the sound of running water, a big monster might growl, lots of vegetation would rustle, and echoing might be possible to implement.
Also, Dungeon Crawl has the auto-explore option. It's a bliss, even if it's fairly suboptimal, as you walk a lot more, and lack of food might become an issue.
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Sounds like a single player MUD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD). I say MUD rather than text adventure because as I understand it they tend to be closer to rogue-likes in complexity. Interesting text is hard to generate though, harder than interesting maps (and we all know that isn't trivial).
To overcome your original problem of boring exploration, without resorting to all text or auto explore, how about a hybrid approach by having 3 layers to your map...
Overland: Move around and explore etc. like you'd expect.
Region map: Zoom into one region and as you explore more points of interest are revealed, you don't move between them like a roguelike, you just select them from a menu. More like a text adventure.
Dungeon map: Click on a point of interest and select 'delve'. These regions have strict boundaries and you can leave them to return to the sub-region map.
John,
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Thanks for all the suggestions!
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http://pcg.wikidot.com/pcg-algorithm:teleological-vs-ontogenetic
I think you're trying very hard to generate a realistic world and then find a way to make the experience of that world a 'game.' In reality it will just be a simulation and therefore very difficult to control whether it's fun or not.
I've linked to the PCG-wiki's article on Teleological vs ontogenetic because, I think, that the concept will be useful to think about here. Do you want to crutch a player into a simulation so that it feels like a game, or do you just want a game? If the latter, then just make everything interesting and challenging.
Unfortunately, how you generate your world and how you invite a player to experience this world depends HEAVILY on what sort of interactions the player can have with that area. For example-- if you generate a realistic mountain range but then don't have a climbing skill, there is a sharp disconnect between what the player can do and what experience you've generated for them.
To put it in perspective-- Games are interesting for the decisions. A good rogue-likes provide lots of subtle and overt decisions that, despite the game being randomly generated, lays fault for losing entirely on the shoulders of the player. Your auto-explore idea doesn't demand any really interesting decisions. There is no emergent gameplay in this-- it takes the experience out of the hands of the player and rolls dice to determine their fate.
Making a game out of a completely simulated world is... cumbersome. The player doesn't experience all of the work you're putting into the game-- it's just a poor mapping of feature to feedback.
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Beautifully put, requerent :)
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Your auto-explore idea doesn't demand any really interesting decisions. There is no emergent gameplay in this-- it takes the experience out of the hands of the player and rolls dice to determine their fate.
What kind of interesting ideas does the exploration in third person bears as far as the world map is concerned? From my experience from traditional roguelike games, it involves pressing the arrow keys or the numeric pad keys over and over (battles and fleeing scenes included) until luck or death hits you (roughly speaking ok?). I do understand that exploring a site like a cave or a dungeon in third person is the way to go but the world map? Unless I make it small and dense or graphically appealing as in Skyrim, it will be boring (personal opinion). Anyway, rolling the dice is what roguelikes are all about.
The idea of the game is to explore a huge world with tons of sites scattered throwout it (100k places to explore). Some areas will be empty others not. Now imagine being halted while in third person by bandits and wild life, as you try to explore a portion of land, just to realize at the end that that area was empty. Now imagine this happening 3 or 4 times in a row. Sure I could make it more dense but the current density is optimized for the auto-explore feature. This controlled density is made in a way to force the player to move farther and farther into unexplored territory, which can and will eventually become days, weeks and even months of traveling time from his home or from the closest city.
I fully understand condemning such feature because in your POV you think of just pressing a button and all is done. But no, it won't play like this, there is a bunch of things to consider before using auto-explore feature. First, you need to understand what type of land you're about to explore because it can be a dangerous place to go in at a specific time of the day, month, season or with certain weather conditions. You then define the pace at which you will explore it and define what you will be looking for. You will be able to actually define what each member will do during the exploration and if they should spread out to explore it way faster or remain together to increase their survival chances. Each choice shall bear an advantage and a disadvantage which only kin and careful players will sucessfully exploit.
Many events can be triggered during the exploration process like being ambushed or attacked by wild life, depending on the party skills that will tell who spots who first, giving the player the upper hand or a chance to evade an encounter. Other things will include unfortunate and fortunate consequences like falls and stepping on traps but also finding hidden treasure / items or special caravans carrying special cargo at a special price. Some situations will require player input to make important decisions like deciding if the exploration should be halted due to spotting a large enemy force or issuing shelter due to the weather changing, even though the area has been almost fully explored.
I do think that the auto-explore feature does carry interesting decisions to make, in fact I believe its WELL above the options present in traditional roguelike exploration sessions. In ADOM the only options I had when exploring the world map were either [F]ight or [E]vade an encounter, that was it.
But of course, each game is done with a specific game-play purpose in mind. I mean, a third-person world map exploration can be effectively done if using the right size and density or by using other game-play mechanics, entirely dependent (of course) on what the game tries to achieve. I just think it is not fair to condemn the auto-explore feature when so much can be added to it. Because what I see is few people trying the improve the concept while having most of you rejecting it without exploring its possibilities.
Please understand, this post is all about world map exploration, and not about the best method on how to explore a dungeon or a cave, which is what this thread is all about.
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World map can technically be boring, but as an immersive tool it works rather well. ADOM is a good example of this - the world map isn't too big, but it gives the impression of depth to the game world.
But if you're set on your idea then I suggest making a prototype and seeing how it plays. Best way to see if an idea works!
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World map can technically be boring, but as an immersive tool it works rather well. ADOM is a good example of this - the world map isn't too big, but it gives the impression of depth to the game world.
ADOM works very well indeed, mostly because it is not about world map exploration but site exploration, like settlements, dungeons, arenas etc. ADOM's world map is explored WHILE in world map view and not in zoomed-in view, which is basically the same concept used by my game but with WAY less options or focus on the exploration side.
But if you're set on your idea then I suggest making a prototype and seeing how it plays. Best way to see if an idea works!
Honestly, I think it has potential. But then again, I've been wrong before... ;D
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I think it's a very interesting idea. I was toying with something similar a while back, since I wanted to make a roguelike-ish game that focused on the secondary mechanics (permadeath, random content, character progression) without using the core mechanics of combat, random dungeon crawling, etc.
Like Darren said, the main problem is the level of content you'll need. In order for the game to stay fresh, each text encounter needs to provide a unique challenge. The brute-force way to accomplish this is to have hundreds of unique text passages and choice branches, so that the player never sees the same one twice - but that's probably impractical.
I wonder if there's a way to semi-randomly generate the text and choices, to keep them interesting? You would need a way to prevent the player from simply memorizing key words and picking the "right" choice for each passage. You would have to make sure the outcomes of your choice were different every time, but at the same time you don't want to randomize them the way FTL does with some of its choices, because then the player's decision is no longer meaningful.
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If you added a ton of items and options that allow you to do anything then you'd end up with something like this:
You see a wounded goblin with a short sword to your immediate right.
Press right a bunch of times to attack it with your +1 mace.
Press left a bunch of times to run away with your boots of fleeing.
Press down to run into a dungeon wall.
Press up twice then 'c' to hide in a nearby room and close the door.
Press 'w' then 'a' to switch to your giant axe.
Press 'q' then 'b' to quaff your blue potion.
Press 't' then 'b' to throw your blue potion.
But then you'd get tired of seeing the same options for each encounter (move, 'w', 'q', etc) so those could always available and not explicitly spelled out unless you ask for it (by pressing '?' or something).
Man, that would be a cool type of game.
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If you added a ton of items and options that allow you to do anything then you'd end up with something like this:
You see a wounded goblin with a short sword to your immediate right.
Press right a bunch of times to attack it with your +1 mace.
Press left a bunch of times to run away with your boots of fleeing.
Press down to run into a dungeon wall.
Press up twice then 'c' to hide in a nearby room and close the door.
Press 'w' then 'a' to switch to your giant axe.
Press 'q' then 'b' to quaff your blue potion.
Press 't' then 'b' to throw your blue potion.
But then you'd get tired of seeing the same options for each encounter (move, 'w', 'q', etc) so those could always available and not explicitly spelled out unless you ask for it (by pressing '?' or something).
Man, that would be a cool type of game.
The first thing to do would be ruling out key presing and adding a mouse. I think it would be a major improvement. :)
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The first thing to do would be ruling out key presing and adding a mouse. I think it would be a major improvement. :)
Using a mouse can be an improvement (see Brogue) but one of the things I like about roguelikes is that everything has different uses at different times. Trying to turn that into a Choose Your Own Adventure system seems like a rather difficult and shallow way to do something that's not as interesting in terms of gameplay and game mechanics. Of course it's possible since the old CYOA books are just a state machine like a computer. You could have much better narrative and a lot of cool descriptive text if you really go with it though.
I don't know; maybe it would be interesting to move around in the overworld map using the Chose Your Own Adventure method (or dialog trees or whatever) and play the individual encounters as a roguelike. Maybe I just feel like being a butt head today. Your other posts about your game ideas have all be interesting. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
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UnAngband creates small text descriptions of rooms that show up when you first walk into them based on their layout and terrain tiles. Maybe something like that could work? Analyze the region and come up with a text description. You can then choose to explore it manually or automatically rest, search for loot, fight until leveled up, etc and have it auto calculate what the result probably be. Sort of like a simplified auto explore on steroids. I don't know if it would be fun, but it's another idea that seems to combine several that have been mentioned here.
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I wonder if there's a way to semi-randomly generate the text and choices, to keep them interesting? You would need a way to prevent the player from simply memorizing key words and picking the "right" choice for each passage. You would have to make sure the outcomes of your choice were different every time, but at the same time you don't want to randomize them the way FTL does with some of its choices, because then the player's decision is no longer meaningful.
It could work, but I would be cumbersome. I acknowledge it being hard because I tried to simulate it and creating a function to interpret a cave object to recreate creating all text possibilities and actions for all chucks of the cave exploration. It would be incredible cumbersome to do if you really wish to offer dynamism. I would not venture myself to do it alone.
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I think you misunderstood me a little bit.
I do understand that exploring a site like a cave or a dungeon in third person is the way to go but the world map?
I'm not contending text-based adventuring nor am I suggesting that third-person is better, but that your methodology, from the mechanics you've described, is insufficient.
It feels like you're generating a simulated world. Simulation games can be interesting, but in this case there would be a LOT of mundane activities, so you're looking for ways to short-cut those so that boring portions of the game are skipped and interesting ones receive focus. Games tend to do this to develop a narrative.
So- what narrative are you looking to develop? What narrative does playing your game facilitate? It's not a free-roam exploration game, because you have special exploration mechanics that narrate the exploration in a particular way. So- are these narratives connected in some way? Or is it just a continuous stream of novelties?
Each one of these experiences may be independently interesting, but how do you plan on making them meaningful in a broader sense? How is the 'world map' a necessary part of building the narrative? Your game will offer a lot of breadth with 100k sites, but they may all feel meaningless without some depth connecting them.
Anyway, rolling the dice is what roguelikes are all about.
No. Probability is a 'feature' in a roguelike. What roguelikes are all about are making decisions, without clear certainty as to how they will effect us, in such a manner that increases our chances to survive. I recommend playing Brogue (https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/) for some inspiration. The failure to survive rests entirely on the fault of the player, not the dice rolls. The dice rolling creates variation, not determination, in how events resolve. In many games, the dice-rolling is arbitrary- because if a player encounters a situation where dice-rolling is important, she's already failed. Permadeath requires that a player always caters to the worst possible outcome. This means that dice rolls represent an opportunity for a boon rather than a penalty.
Your mini-exploration game doesn't provide the player an opportunity to avoid dice-rolls. What you really have here is a system of Random Encounters. The player can't foresee what will happen when exploring before making the decision to explore, so she is typically obligated to always explore- otherwise she will be missing content and the reason to actually play the game. So- you have to play a mini-game to get to points where you can play the game... in effect, you actually have two different games connected by a database. This can be interesting, but you will likely get a better game if your development time is spent devoted to making one of those experiences superb.
In games like Final Fantasy, random encounters exist as a means to pace the narrative of the story, manage flow, and develop ambiance. You wouldn't play the game for the REs because they are irritating and boring as hell-- the only motivation to continue playing is the narrative and interesting boss fights (and power-gaming if you're into that). The issue with text-adventuring is that the game is telling me what my narrative is. If it doesn't do more than connect a stream of novelties, it isn't giving me a story. Instead of being able to min-max my survival chances directly, it's obfuscated by a wall of text and some dice-rolling. Since the narrative isn't hand-crafted, what are our motivations to continue playing?
Have you ever played Seventh Sense? Check it out. http://www.projectaon.org/staff/david/
he idea of the game is to explore a huge world with tons of sites scattered throwout it (100k places to explore). Some areas will be empty others not.
This is another point of concern. What role does the player's character play in this world? Is she an already established hero or are we going to get a bildungsroman? If this game is primarily about fun simulated mechanics, it seems odd to emulate the simulated mechanics.
Now imagine being halted while in third person by bandits and wild life, as you try to explore a portion of land, just to realize at the end that that area was empty.
Don't generate meaningless areas? It's meaningful if the experience augments the narrative. Just make every path tie into some overarching theme. Or find ways to incorporate these seemingly nonsensical elements into a theme. For example- if you slay some goblin nobody but he turns out to be the goblin tribes successor king, they may start hunting you down to the point that they ally with some opposing nation that seeks to conquer that lands that you're involved with and... yada yada yada. You can make it so that the scope of an adventure is predictable or influences future events in some way.
First, you need to understand what type of land you're about to explore because it can be a dangerous place to go in at a specific time of the day, month, season or with certain weather conditions. You then define the pace at which you will explore it and define what you will be looking for. You will be able to actually define what each member will do during the exploration and if they should spread out to explore it way faster or remain together to increase their survival chances. Each choice shall bear an advantage and a disadvantage which only kin and careful players will sucessfully exploit.
I hope there are some options that will automatically do all of that for me. Will it tell me the danger level or do I need to discover and remember these things myself? It seems like another example of a poor mapping of feature to feedback. The player likely doesn't care about all of those things, just whether or not it's dangerous and how likely the area has something they are looking for.
Many events can be triggered during the exploration process like being ambushed or attacked by wild life, depending on the party skills that will tell who spots who first, giving the player the upper hand or a chance to evade an encounter.
The usage of skills, here, doesn't seem interesting in itself. The opportunity cost of skill development and the relative risk of choosing to go into an area could be interesting, but just having a skill floating there to modify random encounters can be disappointing. We want to get to POIs that are interesting- will these skills be useful in said POIs? It seems like we end up playing two different games. One is a dice game that determines what situations we end up in, and the other is a roguelike. They are connected only in that they share the same database. Sorry if I'm getting repetitive. Mini-games are fine, but, as this seems to be a game of exploration in many ways, your mini-game will be the main game and the roguelike will be the mini-game.
Other things will include unfortunate and fortunate consequences like falls and stepping on traps but also finding hidden treasure / items or special caravans carrying special cargo at a special price. Some situations will require player input to make important decisions like deciding if the exploration should be halted due to spotting a large enemy force or issuing shelter due to the weather changing, even though the area has been almost fully explored.
In a simulated world, locals become aware of POIs as a result of POIs likely being connected to civilization in some way (that is oftentimes why a POI is a POI). What are we exploring for in this game? The POIs could be unlocked via books or some other mechanisms that involve interacting with locals-- is there a 'need' for a world map? What incentive does the player have to explore apart from finding the fun of the game in POIs? If it's for special crafting opportunities (like in pokemon or something), why is the player motivated to do that? Is the player punished for not doing it?
I do think that the auto-explore feature does carry interesting decisions to make, in fact I believe its WELL above the options present in traditional roguelike exploration sessions. In ADOM the only options I had when exploring the world map were either [F]ight or [E]vade an encounter, that was it.
Okay- instead of paper-rock-scissors, it's now paper-rock-vulcan-lizard-scissors. It still isn't a mechanic that the player uses in a meaningful way. At the point in which it is, it's now the main game and the roguelike is the mini-game. Again- sorry for being repetitive.
Please understand, this post is all about world map exploration, and not about the best method on how to explore a dungeon or a cave, which is what this thread is all about.
I hope it's clearer now-- I'm not contending with your method of world map exploration, but rather the overall approach to developing the scope of your game.
I think that we need to know more about that to be able to rationalize whether your method of exploration is going to be interesting. The gameplay could be awesome, but I'm having issues understanding why that gameplay will be good. It seems like you're just trying to figure out a short-cut to manage a game that is too big-- this suggests, to me anyways, that the game is... well, too big.
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"The cave exhibits tall, narrow and slightly leaned entrance with straight corridor leading to a dark and tenuous descent. A soft breeze can be felt coming out from it embraced in strange odor [check party total smelling skill] that you are [unable or able] to detect (or detecd as the odor of a specific mushroom)."
Options:
1 - Throw a rock into it and see what happens.
2 - Send one single member ahead to scout it.
3 - Enter the cave while leaving 1 or more members outside.
4 - Enter the cave with the whole party
5 - Tie each other with a rope before entering with the whole party
There's an old game called Darklands that does something like this. It's a thoroughly excellent DOS RPG, and you get it from GOG.com. If you want to take this approach, I urge you to give it a try. Incidentally, it has by far the best medieval european setting of any video game ever made, so that's a plus as well.
As for the autoexplore thing, games are defined by their interactivity, and I think it would be a mistake to automate a potentially interesting mechanic. If exploration is taking too long or is too uneventful, the obvious solution is to speed it up (eg shrink your map size or increase the area covered by one move) and more eventful (eg add interesting random encounters or increase the density of dungeons and such).
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I actually think the OP's idea is very good, but I would just have it less verbose. Instead of a text description, make it look like a data readout. You could build a mini-map of the cavern as they click the buttons to "go left" or "go right" or "split up". Use little green dots to indicate where party members are, and place numbers or status bars next to each green dot indicating how many torches that person has left, and how much free inventory for collecting mushrooms etc. Red question marks could indicate where suspicious noises or smells seem to be coming from. If you want, program it so that each person separated from the party leader operates on their own, by AI, so the party leader has to infer where they are (perhaps by making them trail a string) and try to bring the party back together once the goal is accomplished. It makes it almost like a little puzzle game within your RL game.
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I'm not contending text-based adventuring nor am I suggesting that third-person is better, but that your methodology, from the mechanics you've described, is insufficient.
I'm not sure if you are referring to the cave exploration example of the world map exploration. Either way, I've abandoned the text-mode cave exploration example.
So- what narrative are you looking to develop? What narrative does playing your game facilitate? It's not a free-roam exploration game, because you have special exploration mechanics that narrate the exploration in a particular way. So- are these narratives connected in some way? Or is it just a continuous stream of novelties?
It is a free-roam map exploration game without the third-person view of it, however it does go with the mundane third-person exploration model when exploring sites of interests, with the exception of settlements which will bring its own interface model that basically consist on listing all persons, buildings and services available on that settlement, so you don't loose time searching for people or specific buildings, mainly if we are talking about a huge city.
Your mini-exploration game doesn't provide the player an opportunity to avoid dice-rolls. What you really have here is a system of Random Encounters. The player can't foresee what will happen when exploring before making the decision to explore, so she is typically obligated to always explore- otherwise she will be missing content and the reason to actually play the game.
The type of land tells already what is expected to find if you read the right books (which will add this information on the tile general info). It's not "just" a system of random encounters, many things will be taken into account, as weather, season, time of day as well as specific creatures or resources might be only found in that particular piece of land. You will actually have WAY better view of what to expect to find than traditional roguelike games when exploring a dungeon, in which you have no clue whatsoever of what lingers about there, like in ADOM and CRAWL.
A type of cave, dungeon, or settlement will also provide important information on what is expect to find there. This way you build strategies and prepare your men accordingly before entering such places. This means it is not simply a matter of relying on luck, hopping that the Desert Dragon won't be found in the Small forest Cave
This is another point of concern. What role does the player's character play in this world? Is she an already established hero or are we going to get a bildungsroman? If this game is primarily about fun simulated mechanics, it seems odd to emulate the simulated mechanics.
That's something I really hate about roguelikes. I mean, having to choose a role at the beginning of the adventure having no clue whatsoever of the impact such choice will have during its journey (this is my personal opinion). In my game you don't get to choose roles before your mom enters in labor. You develop the skills want as you grow up, there is no skill restriction whatsoever, though you won't be able to excel in every category, obviously.
You will not born as hero. You will be a common being. Your decisions and actions will be the one thing to dictate how much loved or hated you are among different civilizations. You can die as a criminal or a common mortal or die as a noble hero with a proper ceremony, having your own statue at the hall of the famous.
Don't generate meaningless areas?
If I don't generate meaningless areas there is no point adventuring yourself into far territory because everything around you will be too rewarding already. Of course this is all dependent on what you are trying to achieve. If meaningless areas do not take too much of your RL time I don't think this will be a problem, at least it won't for me.
I will skip now most of your sayings because it would take a great deal of time to explain them all, word by word.
The main problem here is that any option we are discussing can in fact work, it is not about having or not having meaningless areas, having or not having random encounters, having or not having third person exploration models, having or not having skills setting up what kinds of encounters the player is able to find (which actually won't work this way), having or not having to choose roles at the beginning of the adventure. Anything can function with the right parameters and balance. You are viewing these options based your own perspective while I'm viewing them with my own set of parameters in mind.
Then you have personal preferences. I prefer quick map exploration while others may not. I prefer not having cities being explored in third-person while others may. Some may prefer more text and less graphics and others may prefer more graphics to text. Some may prefer intense hack&slash while others might prefer exploration and survival. It is not about what is best but what do you prefer. I can't really state that a certain feature best fits the interest of all. It is not what I'm trying to do here. No matter how good features can be, some people will just hate it.
Some people love CRAWL while I personally can't stand it. It think of it as an INCREDIBLE repetitive and dull experience presenting no choices whatsoever besides either exploring the dungeon or leaving it; its combat is all about either you attack or you flee (mainly with mana-based roles). But you know why I mainly don't like it? Because I'm not into hack&slash anymore. So if I was to improve Crawl game, I would have a huge list of things to both remove and add. But I can't do this because the game has the purpose of being the hack&slash type.
What I'm really trying to do with my game is offering the player many choices and options and a game featuring a detailed, complex system, focused mainly in exploration and survival. You will be able to mine, skin, do pottery, build a music instrument, hunt and catch animals, learn how to build a house, build a ship, build your own tools, exploring the world, dig a tunnel, mine ore, mine gems, learn alchemy, do jewelry, create an armor from dozens of types of metals, create metal alloys, enchant your items, practice magic, explore caves, interact with NPCs, making new NPC friends, do quests, slay evil creatures, slay good creatures, put your items at sale, search for treasure, do bounty hunts, participate in a huge battle with thousands of troops, make love or murderer some one, visit a brothel, marry a NPC, purchase or create your own furniture, take a bath, recruit new members and gain their trust so you can become friends, butcher a corpse and have its internal organs used as trophies and ingredients, get a cold from cold weather, catch a disease, die from dehydration, perish from starvation, kill and eat your own party member, kidnap someone, The list goes on... and on... and then some...
And now you ask, why would I want to do pottery? Well, why not? If you have goods skills you can actually sell your pots for a good price. Why taking a bath? Well lets say your looks will have impact on NPCs. It really doesn't matter if I have a good explanation for all these options if you are just into hack&slash or if you prefer to play flight simulators. You may consider taking a bath something tedious and unimportant, which I fully understand but luckily, this option will be only checked during specific social events like going into a ball or into brothel, so it won't bother you during your regular expeditions and trading sessions. All comes down on how you do implement this features. Some features can actually be set to perform automatically so you don't loose focus or get consumed by tasks you may consider boring.
All I want is to provide the player with choices and new experience opportunities, something present in Skyrim (to some level) and something that most roguelikes lack (with the exception of DF and some other roguelikes). But implementing all this stuff in Skyrim would be very demanding as far resources are concerned, though "easy" (while being a slow task) to implement in a roguelike game because it does not focus on eye candy.
Only through a demo the project would be fully explained. And to make a demo showing what it can do, it means having most of its features implemented.
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I'm keeping a close eye in every single feature being implemented having the potential of becoming tedious or boring. I do hate tedious tasks! But I guess you know that by now ;)
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I actually think the OP's idea is very good, but I would just have it less verbose. Instead of a text description, make it look like a data readout. You could build a mini-map of the cavern as they click the buttons to "go left" or "go right" or "split up". Use little green dots to indicate where party members are, and place numbers or status bars next to each green dot indicating how many torches that person has left, and how much free inventory for collecting mushrooms etc. Red question marks could indicate where suspicious noises or smells seem to be coming from. If you want, program it so that each person separated from the party leader operates on their own, by AI, so the party leader has to infer where they are (perhaps by making them trail a string) and try to bring the party back together once the goal is accomplished. It makes it almost like a little puzzle game within your RL game.
Thanks. But I've abandoned the text-feature. I would only venture doing it with the help of someone.