Messages

1

Early Dev / Re: Prospector public Beta-Beta

« on: September 10, 2010, 09:14:34 PM »

Played a bit more, another 10 dead exploring parties.

-Tried the pirate start, got shot to pieces by some elite pirates on their planet base. Guess I messed with the wrong guys  

-Had a few spacefights; oddities: I lose ship HP without getting a message about being hit (then I wondered why my pirate cruiser went from 20 to 6 in a battle that seemed to go well for me) The looting afterwards was odd as you have to "buy" the wares (at no cost, hahah)

-Nitpick: When repairing a ship you have to enter the sum in credits you want to spend on repairing. The text should thus ask you : Spend how many credits on repairs (1 point per 100cr)     At the moment it gives no indication that you should type in the credit amount (so typing in 5 [for 5 points of hull] doesn't work)

-Bug?: I did some exploring on a planet with constant asteroid bombardment in a game that went quite well so far. But then, oh god, not again a giant snake like thing chasing me around the planet, oxygen running low and I'm on the wrong side of the planet! Already thought about a new ship name when : KABOOM! An asteroid hit the snake and obliberated it into tiny bits. Now comes the odd thing. I get a message going something like this: "You bore a tunnel (2x)" O.o Seems to happen when you are near the impact of an asteroid and it hits a tunnelable tile. (In both instances an npc was killed by it too)


-I dig the many different equipment choices you have, like laser drills and jetpacks to traverse terrain, or the crew augmentation hehehe. In this run I'm doing pretty well, 1200 per exploration trip. Avoiding most wildlife which seems to be one of the worst dangers around (especially since half of them are invisible)

-Awesome/Spoiler:
Found a planet full of valuable minerals that is in the process of falling into a sun Pretty awesome, tons of asteroid impacts and the planet basically breaking apart under your feet. Quote of my science officer: "We shouldn't stay here much longer." On another occassion I got struck down by Apollo, you dear sir, are insane. But I really dig the individual death screens. Mind you, Apollo was invisible and I wasn't even able to find my ship, he must have vanished it too! http://dl.dropbox.com/u/534848/IarApollo.png

- Also just found out the beauty that is a navigational computer

- And a bug: On a corporate station (without a map to walk) when you try to refuel/rearm while having a full tank/ammo stores it says "You don't have any money" which was not the case. And then it prints that you are already full.

2

Early Dev / Re: Prospector public Beta-Beta

« on: September 10, 2010, 07:33:17 PM »

The crash with that error happened directly after ship generation.

I started the game again and made another game, I noticed that the name I picked this first time still was "taken" (thats when I saw the mentioned misalignment) So yes I made another game.

I don't think it managed to make a savegame after the crash (there is an "empty.sav" in the savegame folder though)

I have a german keyboard, yes.

I'll try some space combat then.

Good that its fixed, I have another one, in case this is not related:
Tried landing on planet in a relatively new game (I landed on planets in this game before) it crashed with:
0.1.14 Error #6 in  7660:ADAPTMAP D:/Prospector/src/Googlecode/planet.bas

In this case there is a savegame In case it is needed: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/534848/savegames.rar

3

Early Dev / Re: Prospector public Beta-Beta

« on: September 10, 2010, 06:28:01 PM »

Activated graphical tilesets, ran it and made a scout ship, got an error. Error log contained this:
0.1.14 Error #1 in  2179:DISPLAYSTAR D:/Prospector/src/Googlecode/ProsIO.bas

After trying again it works like a charm (11 tries so far)

Small things:
Also noticed that the input field for when you try to register a shipname already taken is misaligned when it prompts you again.

Sometimes I (with graphical tileset) don't see animals one x or y away from my team. No idea if they are supposed to be invisible but it happened with some aggressive arachnidae and some amphibians. In game terms they are there. The arachnidae had flying capability though. I think it was also nighttime, I think you should atleast see as far as 1 square in every direction to avoid confusion and weird enemy-popping up.

Had a bit of confusion with firing ranges, maybe display the firing range if you press f --> red * in the fiels you can target.

As for gameplay experience:
Died a lot while exploring strange things (was a bit careless though)
Skill 1 pilots are dipshits ;P

Managed to turn a profit on one trip so far, planet with fairly weak wildlife and a few resources. Mapped it completely, huzzah!
I like the exploration and prospecting aspect a lot. Still have to learn when to run and when to fight it seems, as I get killed by single lifeforms on some planets. (I suppose there is no colourcoding for tilesets or I'm not seing how it works yet)

There is a key to reveal the current planet map (to help testing?) I hit it by accident.

Good first impression, will probably try it again or do some testing if there is something in particular to be tested.

4

Other Announcements / Re: What is good in roguelike gameplay?

« on: August 30, 2010, 02:22:11 PM »

My point is in the bottom paragraph.

Let's get past the technology for a moment and focus on game design.  What makes good roguelike gameplay?  These are all matters of opinion, so I expect that no consensus will emerge; but I want to have the discussion and see the opinions.

In my opinion conventional Roguelikes, I'm speaking Rogue-Nethack-etc are in a dead end. It doesn't get much better than Stone Soup with tiles or <insert your own favorite here>. I even managed to make a few "oh god no roguelikes!" people play it and they enjoyed it for about 20 deaths. From a technical and conventional standpoint, the dungeon-creating algorithms are refined and at times give truly remarkable results. Even useability is at a level that is "as good as it will probably get".

In some games items are relatively simple.  Most items do what you expect they will and that's all they do.  In other games, items are relatively complex.  Their effects can usually be strengthened or weakened, and sometimes changed altogether, eg, by blessing, cursing, overcharging, corrupting, or reversing them.  Many items can have interesting effects on the dungeon itself (eg, by breaking rocks, digging holes, freezing moats, triggering drawbridges, etc).  Are simple items or complicated items better for gameplay?

Items that do simple things, like killing stuff, should be simple and do what the player expect them to do. I'm not a big fan of improving a +3 sword/blaster/whatchacallit to a +4 blaster. It's just supposed to kill stuff and "stuff" should never take a bajillions hits to die unless your weapon is completely defunct. Now changing the way you wield your sword (technique) or changing the energy settings on your blaster --> Good, immersive, believeable. Items that do complex things, like tools to change the enviroment or something to create other items or even creatures should have complex mechanisms and upgradeability behind it. In summary: Basic stuff --> simple ; Complex gameplay elements --> complex; duh.

In some games enemies are very predictable and have several highly exploitable behaviors like lining up in corridors, predictable chase paths, predictable behavior in chasing you around pillars, etc.  They have known (or at least knowable) capabilities and are dangerous in known (or at least knowable) ways.  Their speed is usually fixed in some very simple ratio to yours, so it's "countable" and you know exactly when they'll move.  In other games, enemies are complicated and often unpredictable.  Their capabilities can vary tremendously, and unpredictably, due to individual variation or just because they can pick up and use magic items from the dungeon floor.  Different types of enemies exhibit different kinds of intelligence and, frequently, different motivations.  A hungry panther who wants to eat you will behave in a very different way from a hostile wizard who wants to steal your amulet.  And enemies can be peaceful or tame or hostile, and there are (sometimes) things you can do to pacify, tame, or enrage them.  Some creatures can be beneficial to the player under some circumstances, usually involving some risk (such as foocubi and nurses in nethack, quest masters, and so on).  Is it better for gameplay to have simple creatures, or complicated ones?

Predictable (beatable, masterable) enemies are good. They may be repetitious, but most people prefer it that way. A game is fun if you can "get behind the mechanics" understand it, and exploit it to full reward. However, a slight mix of the two is nice, like an odd, proceduraly generated variant of an enemy ever so often. This does not mean that there should be just enemy npcs. Neutral and sometimes friendly NPCs are a great benefit to atmosphere and believeability of any game.

Some games have a simple interface.  It may be as few as a dozen or so commands.  There may be a single "use" key (assuming the items are also simple and have exactly one use).  Other games have complex interfaces and allow most objects to be used for many different things. Such games may have literally hundreds of commands, organized in a hierarchy of menus where you go to an "inventory screen" for acess to "extended inventory commands" that didn't fit into the main menu.  Most objects can be used as at least improvised weapons.  The first way is easy to learn and the second way is more flexible.  Which way is better for gameplay?  Would the availability of really good in-game help change your opinion one way or the other?  Would playing the game day-in, day-out, until you have the complicated command set committed to muscle memory make that game a "better" game than a simple game you'd played the same amount?

Learning how to play a game is fun up to a certain point of hurt. Menus and commands have to be context sensitive. On the other hand you should never compromise depths of a game to simplify the control scheme. It is the wrong place for such considerations in these days. An good ingame-help eases things up tremendously, especially for your target audience, smart people with varying degrees of attention span and time. Interactivity and the ability to "improvise" solutions to problems the player is facing is key to good gameplay. Enable the player to tackle a particular problem in unique and freeform ways and the player has fun because "his" solution did work or resulted in so called "epic fail" (FUN) Now using objects as improvised weapons is only a tiny, tiny portion of the true potential that lies here.

Some games have a very long equipment upgrade path.  You will probably replace your entire kit at least a dozen times during the game.  Other games have a short upgrade path where you can find good gear fairly early (less than 5 replacements) and then stick with it.  Which way is better?  Does it depend on the length of the game?

How often you switch your equipment depends on the length of the game and the amount of equipment you get. In that regard I personally dislike "equipment spam" which results in me weeding through oodles of useless crap and probably missing a few gems because I lack insider knowledge to spot them. Identification of objects is only fun if there is truly something to discover! What the hell do I care about the fifth +1 ring of whatever. What I want is something of a skill check to unlock varying degrees of usefulness out of a strange artifact. A good roll and maybe you figure out a game changing use for it --> You have something to TALK about with your friends who also play the game: "Hey guys I found this truly remarkable, rare thing that..." BAM, you as a game maker caught the attention of a player and his peers, who might continue to talk about how epic the game is and make a Let's Play... and so on. That said, equipment you find should have some uses and it should be very rewarding to experiment with it. Equipment can be very powerful/rare if there is a logical explanation for it.

Some games have a short character power curve, where a "winning" character is likely to have less than 15 times the hitpoints/damage dealing capabilities of a starting character.  Low-level characters have a chance, if they are sneaky cowards, of surviving surprisingly deep.  Other games have a  long character power curve, where a "winning" character is usually at least 100 and sometimes 1000 times as tough as a starting character.  Low-level characters, regardless of sneakiness or cowardice, get killed fast if they get out of their depth.  Which way is better?  Does it depend on length of game?  Does it depend on the length of the equipment upgrade path?

I dislike becoming a shoeless god of war completely overpowering earlier foes. Progression in a game should mean that I unlock new/clever/hilarious/efficient ways of solving problems instead of (just) getting a +1 to damage/whatever. Why can't I kill a horde of undead space miners from ceti V by overloading a power conduit in a minigame. Why do I have to repetitively fire ma blaster +5 until they are all dead or my arbitrary hitpoint number is depleted? Why can't I improve my reputation with the "Stereotypically tough mercenary company" so I can call them in as reinforcements to wipe out the alien infestation on an untouched planet full of mineable goodies? So they help me further my overarching goals of galaxy domination?

Yes you read right, overarching goals in a halfway believable world. What you save on art and graphic you have to give back somewhere. I'm sorry to say, but Dwarf Fortress certainly is not as popular as it is because of its classic roguelike part! And it still is in its infancy, barely exploring the possibilities "modern" games can never hope to explore. Now I don't think the excess of DF's procedural generation is truly needed for a good/popular neo-roguelike. There is a lot to be done by just creating a game that reacts and gives clear, concise feedback on the players actions in a set-up world with limited procedurally generated content. Like different factions each game or proceduraly generated worlds (lets step away from "dungeons"?) Elements of building up what is yours, from the humble beginnings to your own "bases/castles/starships/whatever" make for a truly interest-catching experience. An experience where the player "can't get enough".