Messages

1

Design / Re: Considering when to generate random map details, all at once or as needed?

« on: March 17, 2016, 10:27:03 AM »

Brogue generates a floor ahead of the player so that it can know what happens to items and creatures that fall.

Technically the whole dungeon is set in stone because the seed is randomly generated or player inputted at the start, and each further floor uses that number + 1. But the engine still doesn't actually know layout / items / creatures until the player is near.

The time savings can be seen like this: click new game. Bam you're in! Now run a seed scummer and force it to search the whole dungeon... takes several seconds per dungeon which would actually be noticable, though minor, at game start.

2

Design / Re: "Fun" Maps

« on: March 17, 2016, 10:18:42 AM »

one monster (a giant crab-thingie) would chase and kill you upon sight, but whenever two of them met, they would fight it out between them, which was the motor of several puzzles

That monster sounds pretty fantastic! Definitely sounds like appropriate for RLs. Always nice to find ways to break up the bump attacking.

Hm, thinking of non roguelikes... TSW, an MMO, has cars in it. And if you do what MMO players always do as if by some compelling instinct (jump on top of things!) ... the car alarm goes off! And draws monsters. Which actually helps you solve a quest and can be used creatively in future scenarios.

The fantasy medieval equivalent is obviously the alarm trap, but that's less fun because it aggros the whole level. Intentionally grouping up a small handful of KNOWN nearby monsters could be a lot of fun with AoE consumables / weapons.

3

Player's Plaza / Re: Stealth roguelikes?

« on: March 17, 2016, 07:38:39 AM »

but I can't seem to find one that has good stealth so far.Any recommendations?

That is one of my many beefs with exp/levels, at least with the traditional unquestioned exp-for-killing-things bummed from D&D games.

A good stealth player fails to level up.

I really like Sil's concession of half xp for studying monsters without killing them, and xpxp sorta works but I think Brogue's loot-based stat gains are more visceral.

4

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: March 17, 2016, 05:16:41 AM »

Interested in opening a time capsule?

Here are Brian Walker's, the creator and "B" part of of Brogue, thoughts on Rogue circa 2009.

Lessons from the original Rogue
(found on http://brogue.wikia.com/wiki/History_of_Brogue)

This may help the OP with attempts to beat Rogue, or at least give you interesting context for the design decisions that made Brogue so very Rogue-like.

I'd really really like to play an updated UI/controls version of Rogue, basically the Brogue engine running Rogue would be perfect.

This is a really cool idea. Especially if the autoexplore button is part of the plan. Was anyone able to pitch this idea to Lord Brogueish?

5

Design / Re: "Fun" Maps

« on: March 17, 2016, 04:23:53 AM »

This is mildly similar to a frequent RPG question of how to make quest text interesting. The best writing (or best level generator) will still be ignored and invisible to the player... unless it affects gameplay.

So the best terrain, IMO, is terrain that interacts with your game, mechanically. Pools of water that do nothing are background noise, but the player notices water if it sometimes contains eels. Doors are meaningless unless you can use them to surprise or be surprised by mohsters - or lock them in TGGW-style!. Grass is cooler when you can set it on fire. Etc etc.

6

Early Dev / Re: Caves Roguelike (36dev team)

« on: March 17, 2016, 12:07:10 AM »

This looks really cool. I will have to try to get my phone working again! Roguelikes rarely supply much of "interesting things to do outside of combat".

(unrelatedly: do I have to solve a captcha every time I post here, forever? or is that just because I'm new?)