Messages

1

Development Process & non-technical / Hi! New Developer Here!

« on: June 01, 2014, 01:52:20 AM »

Hello! My name's Kimchi, and I'm an aspiring roguelike developer. I've been browsing the forums for a bit, trying to get myself acquainted with the way things are run around here, et all. In any case, I'm here because I want to hang out with other guys who I can talk techno-babble with. It's pretty rare for me to meet others IRL who know stuff about computer programming.

Don't get me wrong, I live in South Texas, south of San Antonio, and it's not that there's no guys who understand computer programming really well. Rather, most of them live on the North Side of Town. The Southside doesn't have the infrastructure yet to support a lot of really nerdy technical guys, but we're still here, if you know where to look.

I do have a game that I am currently working on, titled ARMcore. As a roguelike, it's actually a bit more conservative with respect to roguelike gameplay. No crazy anatomy or dismemberment systems here. Plus, the A.I. system is relatively primitive. Although, I compensate for this in various ways.

Some features that I do want to incorporate, however, include the following:

• A really nifty "Tileless" dungeon generation scheme.
• The ability to chain item invocations together and use them all at once.
• Autocontext actions!!!
• "Shifting Coordinates" and point-to-point dungeon travel.

In general, I just want to be a part of the community, and get my feet wet, so to speak. I'm still learning, but I want to learn a lot more. Thank you for having me!

2

Design / Re: I added a new monster, any ideas or feedback? (post your new stuff too)

« on: June 01, 2014, 01:18:12 AM »

Also, keep in mind that creatures which replicate rarely can live forever. You could make it so that a fungus needs a certain amount of resources to sustain its growth level. Or hell, you could just set their growth level relative to a death rate, so the little buggers kill themselves off over time.

Wait a minute. What about genetic mutations? i.e. each time a fungus replicates, the offspring has "mutated stats," and then let the little buggers attack anything close by, including each other!!! You could produce a kind of natural selection this way, with the strongest fungi surviving.

3

Programming / Re: I don't understand random seeds.

« on: May 27, 2014, 04:38:59 PM »

Oh, cool Melville! So basically, there *isn't* anything preventing us from seeding the rand() function with an uninitialized pointer, but it's likely to make something go boom, am I right? I think I'll look into that clock_gettime() function, actually. It sounds promising.

4

Programming / Re: Anyone familiar with Lua and DoomRL?

« on: May 27, 2014, 04:32:13 PM »

Eh... don't worry too much about the lameness, Legend. It's actually something like a right of passage. Every programmer has his epic tale of the "semicolon that got away". Or better yet, think about it this way: You are now among the select few on this earth who can joke about the "totally obvious" arcane detail that you missed when the vast majority of humanity can't tell code from crok!

5

Programming / Re: I don't understand random seeds.

« on: May 24, 2014, 01:57:06 AM »

I've got a question about this, actually. What's to stop some mad programmer from seeding a random number generator with a referenced, but uninitialized integer pointer?

For example, what if the programmer wrote something like this:

Code: [Select]

int *uninitialized_ptr;
seed(*uninitialized_ptr);

Since, technically speaking, the seed function only cares about receiving an integer value, and doesn't generaly use that vlue to reference any other memory locations, I don't think it would break the code. Further, even though technically the RNG would still be deterministic, that determinism would be unreproducible because not even the programmer knew the seed, yes?

Or will this cause something to blow up somewhere in the backlands of Ohio?

6

Programming / Re: Testing Mazing algorithms

« on: May 24, 2014, 01:37:15 AM »

I like the first one a lot, actually. I think there's a certain distance you can take false paths, such that it still feels like you're just exploring. If you make them too long, however, then running into those dead ends starts to get annoying, I think.

If you want to make rooms quickly and easily, you could use one of these algorithms first, and then just blank out rectangular regions of the screen to make large spaces. Every room would be accessible this way, too.

7

Programming / Re: How to avoid trashing what you've already written?

« on: May 24, 2014, 01:19:49 AM »

I see. Well, I guess the only thing to do then is to keep putting one foot in front of another. I do like your "clean up a bit each time" approach, though, Trystan. I might try to apply that. Thanks for replying as well, Bts.

8

Programming / How to avoid trashing what you've already written?

« on: May 24, 2014, 12:34:42 AM »

I'm probably putting my foot in my mouth here, but I figured I'd get you guys(es?) opinion on this sort of thing. I've been trying to get a basic bare-bones roguelike going on for almost a month now, and I've learned a great deal about programming by doing this. However, whenever I try to extend something that's i've already coded, I just look at it and think,

"my god, what a load of claptrap."

and then I end up deleting the whole thing to start over with newer, nicer, shinier code. Granted, I usually do end up with newer and nicer code, but I don't actually progress towards making an actual game. I suspect that at some point I'm just going to have to put my foot down and solder on, but I thought I might hear how you guys deal with the "reboot itch," so to speak?

9

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Found a Playable Version of Omega

« on: May 24, 2014, 12:30:39 AM »

Wait... what? Has the bot been removed already? Or is it King Ink? Cause that would be weird. <_<

10

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Atheism in Crawl

« on: May 24, 2014, 12:26:33 AM »

Hello, everyone! Thanks for the advice. I decided to go with the Sil God, (the blue, contemplative god of spellcasting, I believe. Can't quite recall his last name.)

Unfortunately, I was killed shortly after, and on level 8, as well. :\

Well, crawl certainly isn't for the weak, I'll say that much.

11

Classic Roguelikes / Atheism in Crawl

« on: May 23, 2014, 12:10:10 AM »

Hello. I'm wondering if it is possible to win a game of DCSS without choosing a god. I ran into the Ecumenical Temple about several levels ago, and decided to forego choosing a god, in favor of trying for a vanilla play though. As of the current moment, it would be highly impractical to go back to that level and choose one, and I'm not sure if another oppportunity is going to present itself.

Right now, I'm on level 11, about to enter dungeon level 12, and suffering from mild drain damage, but otherwise am somewhat ok. My character is a halfling with absurdly high slings and dodging skill, and moderate skills in fire casting and axes. Also, I am resistant to fire and ice. Thoughts?

One final note: Do we have to complete the key captcha every single time we post, for the duration of our membership? Or is there some cut off limit where the system goes, "OK. This guy's for real." Thank you.

12

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Zero-Player Game (Now at Alpha Build 52)

« on: May 22, 2014, 11:51:42 PM »

Hey, Getter77, the website link is broken. Is this temporary? I'd like to check it out. Thanks.

13

Player's Plaza / Re: Easy diagonals on existing roguelikes! (partial solution)

« on: May 21, 2014, 09:04:25 PM »

Hey, that's a nifty idea, RiC David! I think I might actually like to incorporate that into my own game.