Messages

1

Classic Roguelikes / Re: For a newbie: DCSS or UnNetHack (or Crawl or NetHack?)

« on: December 15, 2012, 10:20:14 AM »

  Good call on PRIME. It's really coming along.

Yes. It looks great. Actually it's the first RL in my ToDo list.

Damn there are so much promising RL's and days only have 24 hours...

2

Other Announcements / Re: This is bugging me pretty bad...

« on: December 14, 2012, 02:32:39 PM »

What are your rules or requisites for a game to be a RL?

-random world generation
-role-playing game
-turn based
-permadeath
-tiles and/or ascii
-complex gameplay with alternative tactical solutions in combat etc.

According to that, Rogue is not a Roguelike because Rogue doesn't have any complexity in combat unless you call complexity "choose among two or three basic tactics".

But a random generated Sokoban game could be a Roguelike because it is random, you could play it as a simple RPG game where you need to place boxes to avoid a Trolls' invasion, it is turn based, if you lose you have to start all over (permadeath), it has tiles and it has a lot of alternatives for solving the same situation.

3

Classic Roguelikes / Re: For a newbie: DCSS or UnNetHack (or Crawl or NetHack?)

« on: December 13, 2012, 11:01:14 AM »

Here the RL's I love:

Rogue, that started it all: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Rogue
Larn: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Larn
Nethack, as you stated. You can also try Nethack Falcon's Eye that is a 3D version of NetHack.

Other ones that may got your attention and I liked them too:

Hydra Slayer: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Hydra_Slayer
Berserk!: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Berserk!
BRogue: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Brogue
Incursion: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Incursion


Other I tried but I didn't like that much but still, they are not bad:

IVAN (Iter Vehemens Ad Necem): http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=IVAN
Lost Labyrinth: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Lost_Labyrinth
Nazghul: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Nazghul
DiabloRL: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=DiabloRL


Other RL's that I never played but they look good and they are in my "ToDo" list:

PRIME: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=PRIME
Silver Quest: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=SilverQuest
UnReal World: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=UnReal_World <- Actually I played this, but only 5 minutes, and it seems incredible complex.
Xenocide: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Xenocide

4

Other Announcements / Re: This is bugging me pretty bad...

« on: December 13, 2012, 10:23:29 AM »

It's a role-playing game. Roguelike has to have random world generation. It's the first rule.

What are your rules or requisites for a game to be a RL?

[...]

Think of the Berlin thing as some general guidelines and let best judgment, spirit, and rational reckoning carry the day.   It should never be some sort of communal bludgeon ala the MPAA for movies here in the states.

[...]

I'm with you.

I quote directly from Basin's Berlin Interpretation page:

"This list can be used to determine how roguelike a game is. Missing some points does not mean the game is not a roguelike. Likewise, possessing some points does not mean the game is a roguelike."

Basically what I understand with that phrase is that a game that shares several points of the Berlin Interpretation has a high chance to be classified as a Pure Roguelike instead of an ASCII-RPG or a less pure rogulike, but it is not necessary to have all and every of those points, and a game that mets them all may not be a Roguelike.

If a game XXXX is not grid-based, it may be still a Roguelike. Actually there are games that are Roguelikes and doesn't used a grid system that the player can see.
Also, there are Roguelikes that are pretty simple, without complexity, and they are still roguelikes, For example any RL in 7DRL are as simple as "scissors, paper, stone" and they are still roguelikes
There are real-time roguelikes instead being turn based, and they are still roguelikes.
Three major Roguelikes are Non-modal, and they are still Roguelikes and even tagged as "major".

So if in Berlin Interpretation all those are high-importance factors I don't know why missing the random map generation should tag a game like "non-roguelike" if all of the other points are met, while missing other requisites do not affect the game classification.

I've not played your game, but it seems weird to me that you would have permadeath without random environments. Is this enjoyable?

That's an option the player has available. It could be as enjoyable as dieing in Dungeon Crawl depth level 20 with pro equipment or dieing in Nethack when you found the Amulet of Yedor and a teleport trap sends you to a room full of monsters.

The point of playing permadeath mode is that the player will have a better chance to get better items and things (drop chance increases a little bit), and the player needs to play more carefully and will have the sensation of danger that you have in Rogue all the time.
There are no situations that the player can't solve with some degree of common sense and strategy. There are no monsters that can one-hit kill you at your same level. And also, you have the option to flee from combat if you think it's too much for you (actually flee success is a chance)
In addition there are many tools to survive many different situations.
Survivability here only depends on how you use your character and tools. The only way to die are monsters and starvation/dehydration. There are no mortal traps or random things that kill you without a true reason.

Whether it ticks boxes or not is irrelevant to your own game design goals. Who cares if it's not a roguelike? Make the game you want to make.

I'm doing the game I like, I'm only asking if it could be classified a RL because it has many things in common with them.

5

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Pixel Dungeon

« on: December 12, 2012, 04:30:42 PM »

I found a bug.

Actually happened several times: when I walk near a monster to attack him, the character moves toward him, but instead of stop in the desired spot and wait for my tapping, the character keeps in "moving" status, it is like moving, but without displacing. The "thinking" icon appears in bottom right, and the enemy keeps attacking me until I die, and tapping the screen does  not responds.

Actually tested under Archos 70IT tabletpc. I don't remember the Droid version number, but it is Froyo-based custom firmware.

Please fix it cuz it's quite annoying!!!!

Without having that into account, the game is nice and kawaii.

Also I would dare to say that "switch to ASCII symbols" mode would make it even a greater game.

Keep up your good work mate!

6

Other Announcements / This is bugging me pretty bad...

« on: December 12, 2012, 03:59:19 PM »

I'm now in a point where I'm not sure if the game I'm currently finishing is really a Roguelike, an ASCII-RPG or a Roguelike-like.

I have been reading this thread:
http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=1403.0

If you are not up to read it all, it's basically a flame discussion abour Legerdemain, is it a RL or not.

Also, it's mentioned the Berlin Interpretation, that is somehow accepted by the @'s community as a standard for knowing if XXXXX game is a RL or not.

So, my game is actually more close to Legerdemain than Rogue, if we talk strictly.
I habe been working on it for around 9 or 10 months, und still need many things to tweak, finish and polish, betatesting, blah blah blah...

According to the Berlin Interp., the game:

1.- Random environment generation
......Maps are PREMADE in human-readable format, i.e. not random generated
......Items absolutely random generated. (using basic patterns a.l.a diablo)
......Monsters absolutely random generated. (using basic patterns a.l.a. diablo)
......Also there is a lot of randomness in the game in many other aspects that don't event the most pure Roguelikes have.

2.- Permadeath
......It's available a 'roguelike' mode with permadeath and an 'adventure' mode without it. (Nethack has this setting available too)
......Even in adventure mode, it is possible only to have ONE character at once, since only one savegame will work.
......Dieing in adventure mode doesn't mean permadeath but the character will have some gold loss, exp loss or something, I have to decide, so dieing is something that should be avoided.

3.- Turn-based
......Yes

4.- Grid-based
......Yes

5.- Non-modal
......Yes and no. Yes because everything is worked out in the 'game' screen, EXCEPT combat, that is final fantasy-ish, more or less.

6.- Complexity
......A lot. Actually, this point is what I am proud of it. The game is absolutely complex, with many factions, currencies for different kingdoms, a lot of quests and sidequests, a lot of places to explore and a lot of player freedom, each player class has his own completely different background story and aims, quests can be dynamically modified by other events or quests... Basically there is a lot of complexity.

7.- Resource management
......Yes. A lot. There is food, there is water. Money is hard to find and use it wisely. Inventory space is very limited. There are a lot of different items, from weapons and armors to books, potions and many artifacts that may not have an obvious or immediate use or that they may look just decorative (and may have an use... or not). It is the player management efficiency which will make the difference.

8.- Hack'n'slash
......Yes and no. Combat is one important part of the game, but not the most important and not the goal of the game.
......There are many fights, but not every 10 seconds, and not one every 30 minutes. I think it's quite balanced.

9.- Exploration and discovery
......A lot. Actually, there are around 50 maps (some unfinished), with a lot of dungeons, caves and places to explore that are absolutely optional. There are sidequests that can lead to interesting discoveries. Many items will require the player to explore and find what such item is used for.
......But since maps are not random generated, playing the same several times with the exact same class and following the exact same steps, will be like playing the exact same game.

and minor points:

10.- Single player character
......Yes

11.- Monsters are similar to players
......Yes. They can cast the same spells as the player could and attack the same way as the player could.
......They no have inventory, but maybe I do it somewhere in the future.

12.- Tactical challenge
......Actually, a lot. Everything in the game requires some kind of tactic, planning and think-before-act. Of course, not for the most common actions.

13.- ASCII display
......Yes. It uses a tileset system. Default tileset is made of some nice 1-bit (black&white) sprites, but anyone can chance the sprites for ASCII chars or 4chan memes or whatever he wants.

14.- Dungeons
......A lot.

15.- Numbers
......A lot of numbers are revealed to the player in the character sheet.


So, is it a roguelike, a roguelike-like or just an ASCII-RPG?

7

Programming / Re: Maths for a good, balanced and interesting semi-roguelike

« on: December 11, 2012, 09:29:03 AM »

If you wanted to look at it mathematically then as a simple first step you could try setting up something like an excel spreadsheet where (for example) each row is an encounter with a monster - you set your variables for the things you mention above and then roughly calculate the most likely outcome of combat based on the average statistics of players, monsters, equipment etc.  Model (roughly) the rate of increase of monster and player stats, health regeneration and so on and iterate for the number of monsters you think the player is likely to face.  From all that, you should end up being able to tell the rough likelihood of the player being able to survive and can tune your input variables and progression formulae until you get the difficulty level you want.

Of course this will only give you a rough idea to use as a starting point - if your game is in any way worth playing you won't be able to accurately simulate it through such simple means.  Some people take this super-seriously and write AI bots to simulate combat more exactly or even to play the entire game as a human would.  From this they can quickly calculate a whole series of simulated runs and use the results to tweak the difficulty.

The spreadsheet sounds great. I think i'm going to use it. Thanks

Ultimately, however, I strongly suspect that these methods are a poor substitute for simply playing through the game yourself many times over and organically tweaking things until you have a system that feels right to you.

I only need to finish coding some little things and some tweaks, the game story background**, polish some game aspects, review the GUI, and betatest/balance everything, create quests and maybe some other minor things

It is a project I have been working for around a year more or less and I think the harsh part is done. I'm not sure how much time I will need to finish everything, but it won't be tomorrow or next week.


** Actually, this is/will be one of the longest parts, not like the programming part, but since the game is a mix between Roguelike and classic RPG game, the background story is really important, and because there are 10 player classes and every class has his own background story, you will understand that this step will take a lot of time.

8

Programming / Maths for a good, balanced and interesting semi-roguelike

« on: December 09, 2012, 03:32:56 PM »

I'm almost finished my semi-RL project, but I'm missing an important part:

the maths behind the game, is what is producing me headaches.

The game is mostly stat-based. Player stats need to be carefully planned. Each lvl the player receives some stat points to distribute.
There are no "different" classes. This is, the player starts with a specific profession like could be warrior, mage or rogue assassin. Depending on the starting class, he will start with different spells/skill and different predefined stats, but he can access to everything in the game if he met the appropriate prerequisites, such as a warrior can cast fireballs if he learns how to do so.

Specifically, classes only define the starting stats, items and skills, and also the game story and starting map.

Experience will be usually won by slaying monsters. Experience to level up increases each level, at lower levels it increases little, but for later levels increases a lot.
It's not a coffeebreak rl. It's needed relatively much time to beat the game.
Minimun level = 1, max level = 30 or 35, maybe 40.

With all that info we can continue.

Actually I got several problems:

1) The Experience system: how should I calculate the experience given to the player? Using monster's health? monster's level? monster's subjective difficulty? totally random? I'm not sure on how to base experience wins, and which formulas would be the best for scaling experience gains in a realistic and interesting way.

2) Monsters' difficulty. How? I need a good way to scale and calculate the monster's difficulty. I am interested in a semi-random monsters' stats and skills generation, but a dragon will be always a true challenge. They can be beatable, but the player needs serious strategy. Also, a Dragon lvl 10 is weaker than a Dragon lvl 50, and even when the player is level 40, I want him to don't want to meet that lvl 10 dragon. Basically, I want some monsters prototypes with an overall power that gets scaled in harder maps, so monsters that are easy to kill, they are always easy to kill, and fearful monsters are always fearful, although low level fearful monsters are less fearful than their high level counterparts.

3) I got another question but I have just forgot it...


Well, thanks in advance, cya.


[EDIT]

I remember now the other question:

3) This is, i think, the most complex thing. The critical and dodge chances. Actually they are based on agility stat. When the player assigns points to agi, crit and dodge increases. So far, this is ok. But I need a system where crit% and dodge% is affected by player level. I mean, if the player never puts points into agi, the crit and dodge will decrease. So, player that never put points into agi will see their dodge and crit being decreased each level. But players that want a crit ro dedge based character, need to really invest into agility, so they compensate the level loss. Briefly, crit% and dodge decreases each level. Because crit and dodge could be a very powerful thing, I want that players investing into it can get a really nice crit%, maybe 35% or 40%, but they need to focus heavily into such stat.
But in the other hand, there are players that are not interested in crit or dodge, and they will get pretty low on them. BUT I don't want to reach zero on it.

Basically, crit% decreasing each level is cumulative. Each level, the player needs to invest more into AGI to compensate the crit% loss, so getting high crit% requires equipment with AGI. So, +1 AGI gives +1% crit, for example, but at level 2, crit% is reduces by 0.1, at lvl 3 by 0.2 and at level 20 reduced by 1.5%, for example.

But additionally, the crit% never gets lower than a certain value. It's like the crit% has both limits, one superior and one inferior, and reaching any of them is harder when you are closer.
I'm not sure if using logarithms here would give good results, or there is already an easy way to do this with a simple formula.

9

Programming / Re: Random Roguelike Town

« on: December 09, 2012, 03:09:52 PM »

I am working on randomly generated town.
Of course, it would have wide selection of shops:
weaponsmith, armoursmith, bower, bookseller, Leatherworker, Tailor, general store, jeweler, healer, magic shop, Carpenter.
Of course, civilian houses.
But, I am a bit frustrated, what to to add?
 

So subject: what do you really want to see in random roguelike town?

I don't know your town's size, and the next one could be out of place, but anyway...

- Scribe a.k.a. NPC that sells magic scrolls and books and different non-magical codex and papers with ancient tales and stories. Some of then could have quests. and other just for game story.
- Witch/Shaman's hut, (away from the village center). Can remove curses from items/player/.... They can give quests. They can know some info about the magic/mystic/underworld/infernal/... world.
- King's Tax Collector's office. Also King's messenger, offers hard and long quests, probably non side quests, but main quests
- Different profession guilds: Woodworkers Guild, Hunters Guild, fishermen guild, farmers guild, etc A lot of things you can do with them
- Spiritual Guide home, a.k.a. Priest/Monk/Divine guy/.... Heals. Teaches divine/holy/white magic/purification/... magic spells. Restores player faith. Cures black magic curses. Accepts donations for a possible (small) God favor. Sells books about religion/s topics. He doesn't like much the Witch/Shaman in the village.
- Auction House. The player can sell/buy anything here, but prices may randomly vary in time
- Physician, a.k.a. item identifier a.k.a town sage a.k.a. Cain in Diablo games.
- Ye' Bards' Goldin Harp. Here, musicians met and player can buy musical instruments and learn how to interpret music, lyrics and drama. It's up to your imagination what this is useful for.
- Thifer's Emporium. A place where random items are sold, but a semi-hidden dark and closed back door leads to a cellar where questionable persons do some business and talk about something that the "police" wouldn't approve. Some people says that Thifer's sounds somehow like "thieves". Is it just a coincidence?
- Forum. Yes, a forum (Latin word), where ancient Romans used to discuss random things but also non random things, and women gossip about the last rumor and about how XXXXX woman is cheating his man. It's actually one of the most transited streets and with a lot of street vendors, minstrels and singers, Joe the Fool and etc...
- School. Place where kids go when parents don't want them wandering around.

10

Programming / Re: Need more monster names

« on: December 21, 2011, 05:02:45 PM »

That's a point.

I will have to think about it.
But the problem is to have many, many, many different monsters could be way long to write specs for each of them.

11

Programming / Re: Need more monster names

« on: December 18, 2011, 10:57:41 AM »

Among monstrous lists on the net, I think this is my favourite so far:
http://forums.syfy.com/index.php?s=0e07357e40b0104a98501ba27190385f&showtopic=2302044&pid=4943518&st=0&

It contains many names from a wide variety of cultures. One can always look up those one doesn't know.

As always,
Minotauros

That's a small list ;-)
Thanks, I will take some monster from them.

I have to say having classically named monsters with completely random stats and abilities sounds pretty horrible. What would be the point labeling them if it has no correspondence to anything.

If your set on having random monsters why don't you make them mutants or something, you could compile a list of mutations and base there skills and descriptions on those.

Atmosphere is really important in games, but its better to base your theme on your gameplay mechanic.

The randomization is accordingly to the player overall power. The monster skills power too. You will not find overpowered kobolds in comparison with your power. The point is that the monsters stats are generated randomly having into account not only your character level, but also your health, damage, mana, defense, etc... Once gathered all this data, the monster will be either easy to beat, or a bit hard. And trust it or not, thisis the most realistic way, since a kobold could be using a epic weapon he found abandoned in a cave, or a troll casting a fireball because someone teach him how to do so, and this variation is expected in the real life.


About the mutations, I though about that. I have compiled a large list of adjectives or mutations, as you call them, but for now they are just adjectives. Of course, there are some of them that will grant the monster extra powers, for example, "Giant kobold" could be a kobold with 50% more health, and "Red Skeleton" could drain health from you back to him. As I wrote, some adjectives grants certain powers also random in a defined range: +50% ~ +60% health. About this aspect, it's something that I didn't defined much, but it's not much important now, at least not much as the inventory and equipment system and the items' powers system, which i'm doing now.

12

Programming / Re: Talents/Feats/"Special skills"

« on: December 17, 2011, 03:08:37 PM »

I would make a mix between "read book" and "level up to get talent point":

to learn a new skill/talent you have to find a book or NPC. After you learn it, you will get talent or skill points to enhance the known talents or skills. This way the game is immersive but also rewarding. I would never play a game where i need to search a lot just to get a simple skill. Without game rewarding, the game will be doomed because it will not be funny. And being sincere, this is one of the strongest point in Stone Soup.

13

Programming / Re: Need more monster names

« on: December 17, 2011, 03:00:03 PM »

And WoW is one of the most popular games evar.

It's a social media game so it doesn't matter how good the game design is.

It's not a social game because it's purpose is not to socialize as many other "social" games.
It's a game that entertains million players. As Jo wrote, there are basically three or four types of monsters but still it's not boring at all and not a bad game. And million players can't be wrong ;-)


But now, on-topic, the game i'm designing generates random monsters with random stats and random skills: there will not be two Orcs with same stats and/or skills. You can find a skeleton throwing fireballs and the next skeleton you find casts healing instead.
Of course I will set some monsters that will be always the same, something like bosses or epic monster, whatever you want to call them, but for normal monster, everything will be random, the same as weapons, armors and items.

I know it's not like a classical RL game where kobolds are stupid mobs wielding primitive weapons. But I never told this is a classical RL game ;-) Even I call this "roguelike" because it has various aspects in common with a RL.

14

Programming / Re: Need more monster names

« on: December 15, 2011, 09:06:30 AM »

Huge list of monsters wont make your game good. Just a tip.

Oh wait... Nethack with only one monster type is as good as Nethack with 9999999 monster types. 

15

Programming / Re: Need more monster names

« on: December 14, 2011, 07:28:07 PM »

Thanks for those links, Jo. I will take a look.
But if you think the list I post there is somehow long, you have to see my list of monsters adjectives: it has around 400 different adjectives ^^

I will add Human and those you wrote, eclectocrat.

Also I have remember some that are not in the list:
Bishop
Monk
Serpentman
Leviathan
Medusa
Lizzardman
Hound
Archon
Cerberus
Nymph
Barbarian
Druid
Angel
Archangel

Ah, please put them in alphabetical order and I'll come up with some!

I can't. I did that list without any apparent order so the monsters are chosen more randomly, because the monsters are chosen by name, and stats are modified or adjusted to match the player overall power (yes, a kobold in level 100  is stronger than a dragon in level 1 xD ) LoL