Messages

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Other Announcements / Angband live webserver

« on: June 26, 2017, 07:15:01 PM »

Don't know which forum this is most appropriate to, so I'll try here.

http://angband.live/ is a new site for playing Angband in a browser (like DCSS webtiles but for Angband). Some stuff isn't quite working right (Sil is broken for one thing) but it's still very playable. Updates are posted on the andgband forums (http://angband.oook.cz).

If you needed more excuse than the 4.1.0 release to play Angband, here it is.

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Programming / Re: DIY programming language

« on: August 01, 2016, 02:43:25 PM »

Floating point numbers. You don't even get a full set of rationals unless you write your own classes. If I were to write a language I'd have all the subsets of complex numbers and matrices as their own datatypes.

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Programming / Re: DIY programming language

« on: July 31, 2016, 11:25:30 AM »

Odd. The distinct impression I get from programming languages was that they were created by hacks who only half-understood mathematics - but I love PHP.

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Early Dev / Re: GwaRL

« on: July 19, 2016, 10:11:09 PM »

Autoexplore is in!

Besides that, lots of fixes, new enemies, monsters with equipment, monsters with ranged attacks - but most importantly autoexplore!

With that step most of the planned functions of my engine are in (there are still some important bases to cover). There will be a period of cleaning up and consolidating, and then things are going to get interesting.

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Design / Re: Corridors considered harmful

« on: July 19, 2016, 01:27:07 PM »

Right, but with persistent floors and finite resources it could be. Monsters that guard stairs, treasure vaults, chokepoints etc. Or just having to deal with it every time to earn experience at all.

Not generating corridors would be an easier, more comprehensive and neater solution to the corridor problem and this thread is motivation to get on with generating forest/outdoor maps but not until I've made a traditional dungeon work.

Throw ranged combat in though and the requirements on the AI to decide whether to rush in, hang back or dive for cover become more complex. I'll post again when I have a working implementation.

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Design / Re: Corridors considered harmful

« on: July 17, 2016, 09:29:28 PM »

Is it possible to consider the behaviour of certain pack monsters (notably wolves and spiders) independently of the other idiosyncracies of the game though? I mention it because in other roguelikes I've played enemies tend to just blindly follow you down corridors single file.

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Design / Re: Corridors considered harmful

« on: July 16, 2016, 04:14:50 PM »

I have to refer back to Angband again in that while it's a broken game which only works by piling broken mechanic on top of broken mechanic, it's still pretty difficult to corridors scum wolves and especially spiders.

I will concede the point that corridors are bad design, but their disadvantages can be mitigated.

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Early Dev / Re: GwaRL

« on: July 04, 2016, 11:45:27 PM »

Truthfully I haven't decided. Someone completely new to roguelikes told me they thought there should be a cost to using the rest command - the obvious solution being hunger.

On the other hand, I've spent a great deal of time playing roguelikes which do have a hunger system and I have never found it to add anything much to the game except pressing an extra button every time you get hungry. I'll consider it in more depth later but for now there are lots of other priorities.

New since my last post, monster placement has been reworked, six new monster types are in the game, most monsters are slightly stronger and give less experience, the dungeon is now accessible as far as the 9th floor, and some code changes have made the update cycle smoother.

There's an awful lot still to do but I'm starting to actually have fun playing it. A few weeks longer and I might move out of Early Dev and start posting in announcements   

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Early Dev / Re: GwaRL

« on: July 03, 2016, 12:21:18 PM »

New address again, with better hosting:

http://www.gwarl.xyz/

Magic is in, equipment is in, more artwork is in. Maybe getting close to a beta. Another half dozen monsters will be populating the dungeon soon, as well as loading/saving games and scoreboards.

Here is an ensemble cast of the dungeon's inhabitants:

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Design / Re: Corridors considered harmful

« on: June 18, 2016, 12:07:29 PM »

Well, Angband has corridors, but they're slightly less subject to abuse because the monsters have AI. This is how I plan to solve the corridors problem - have the monsters refuse to fight you single file in a corridor.

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Early Dev / Re: GwaRL

« on: June 17, 2016, 07:27:39 PM »

Thanks for taking a look. I've grown attached to the little dudes I drew but my new artist is fantastic and definitely an improvement, even considering the kitsch value of my own tiles. There should be a completely new tileset in the game by tomorrow I've added/updated/fixed a few things already, and there's definitely more to come.

I have ideas about how to handle identification/descriptions, and character creation won't be until I've added enough spells/types of armour/weapons to justify a distinction between warrior and mage. But when that does happen, there will be a leaderboard

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Early Dev / Re: GwaRL

« on: June 16, 2016, 10:22:43 AM »

A month on and things have come a long way. I have an artist on the project now and things are generally shaping up - equipment is functional (though so far only rings are included) and there are a few animations. There should be plenty of updates in the coming days. Most of the artwork is still my own but monster tiles are already being replaced. I feel like the alpha phase is nearing completion and it's quite exciting.

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Early Dev / Re: GwaRL

« on: May 15, 2016, 09:18:54 PM »

I've been working on this again lately, I now have dungeons 5 floors deep with some placeholder combat/progression mechanics and artwork for 7 different monster types. I recommend using the mouse (you will have to to descend staircases and pick up items). 'climb staircase' wipes your minimap even if you're not over a staircases, but the minimap is a hack right now anyway. Pick up items by clicking the player tile while standing over it. Drink potions by clicking on them in the inventory. "Generate new level" starts a new game.

There's a new address:
http://gwarl.esy.es/

And I'm also hosting a blog about the game on the same site:
http://gwarl.esy.es/blog/

Clearly there's still a long way to go but progress has resumed.

14

Early Dev / GwaRL

« on: January 14, 2016, 04:51:36 PM »

Edit: Current address: http://www.gwarl.xyz/

Once upon a time I decided I should try writing a game as a way to improve my programming. Then I discovered DC:SS and it was the game I'd want to make, so I just played that instead. Eventually I did begin work on my own roguelike, as a native web app. Link:

http://ilmyrn.site88.net/

Probably won't work on mobiles yet.

Obviously it's still in the very early stages such that it barely qualifies as a game or a roguelike, but it's fairly close. Level generation and LOS checks are working well enough and monsters are acting almost as I expect them to. The inventory is functional but not entirely complete, and I haven't settled on a way of defining the different sorts of items. Moving up and down dungeon floors, leveling up, recording high scores etc are things I can imagine how to implement but haven't gotten round to yet, likewise with varying character classes, ranged combat, spells - there's an awful lot to do, besides the fact I have only a minimum of placeholder content to check that my code is working.

It should be pretty trivial to hack the thing at present, please don't.

Well my motivation dwindled a little recently but I feel I should get back to it - I've just been spending my time playing DCSS instead, and indeed, when that already exists, why would you ever play my roguelike?

Honestly I don't like their browser engine. I play offline tiles for the ability to use the mouse and the screen becoming animated during autoexplore - as much as I enjoy roguelikes I'm not a purist. And this is fine, and doesn't seem to be a problem for their many players, but I'm not attempting nor intending to be providing any serious competition to a game of such complexity and depth. I'm developing this as an exercise in self improvement, but I do think the project could have some merits of its own.

If anyone likes the thing so far/the idea of the thing and wants to see it grow into a real roguelike, let me know and I'll be encouraged to keep working on it.