Topics

1

Off-topic (Locked) / Visual studio is now free!

« on: November 13, 2014, 01:59:50 PM »

Good news for small teams developing in Windows

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-makes-visual-studio-free-for-small-teams/
http://www.visualstudio.com/

2

Off-topic (Locked) / Age in hex, makes more sense!

« on: November 07, 2014, 10:56:22 AM »

As I'm approaching a power of two age, it got me thinking that age in hex has an aura of optimism..

at 16, one is a carefree kid really, like (0x)10
at 32, one is a young adult, like (0x)20
at 48, one is a busy adult, doing stuff, like (0x)30
at 64, one is well-experienced in life, becoming a middle-aged person, like (0x)40
at 80, one should start reflecting on life, as the active years are mostly gone, like (0x)50

3

Off-topic (Locked) / Samsung's brilliant support

« on: October 20, 2014, 06:55:37 AM »

Just a bit of a rant.
I have a Samsung laptop with preinstalled windows 8, so I was fed up with it and wanted to at least dual-boot it to Linux Mint. After checking online, I realized that apparently you can brick some Samsung laptops when trying to install Linux, because of a bug in their UEFI firmware (http://www.geek.com/microsoft/not-good-samsung-uefi-laptops-can-brick-when-booting-ubuntu-1537900/). Linux got patched to avoid triggering the bug as Samsung wouldn't recongnise it officially as a bug.

So I thought that they might have fixed this under the hood, and I wanted to be 1000% that I wouldn't trigger it. So, naturally, I tried to find out what all the bios updates I've been installing have been for. Well, guess what, you cannot find the changelogs for BIOS updates for Samsung laptops. And you know what else? A Samsung official, officially told me that they do not keep any change logs for BIOS updates.

Just keep that in mind that level of professionalism (in bullshitting or conduct) next time you buy a Samsung device.

4

Programming / SDL2 getting pixel data from a texture

« on: July 22, 2014, 08:08:49 AM »

Not sure if I'm missing something obvious, but I can't find any API whatsoever to help me with getting the pixels from a static texture, so that I can save them to file.
I can create a render target and copy the texture to the rendertarget, but then again I can't find any way to get the pitch which is needed to read the texture pixels. That's ludicrous! Never mind the fact that people have said that SDL_RenderReadPixels() has been buggy and only gets pixels from the window, even if you set the rendertarget to be a texture..

5

Programming / Graphs on a google sites page

« on: May 29, 2014, 08:23:19 PM »

Only tangentially related to roguelikes, but here we go:

I have some google sites page and I'm trying to document some activated abilities for the actors for my game. Anyway, long story short, ideally I'd like to use a graph in dot language like these: http://www.graphviz.org/Gallery/undirected/fdpclust.svg, (directed graphs, not that it matters).
Once upon a time I was working with a wiki system called Confluence which allowed you to insert some tags and write some code in dot language. Is there anything similar for google sites or in general? I want to write code in the html, not paste an link of an image generated from an application. Embedding the code in a link for a web app is ok, even though it will probably make my eyes squint.

Also, if you're ready to suggest Javascript, I'm ready to say that I'm clueless, but I'd take pointers on how to add dot support on the webpage.

6

Design / How long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike?

« on: April 09, 2014, 10:24:11 AM »

I'm asking this question as I suck at roguelikes due to my lack of patience, but I want to design a game with similar principles and tactical depth. (I know some of you might want to flame badly here, but at least provide some times alongside your rage ). Because it's my game, I'll have the patience for it, but I'd like to know how patient seasoned roguelikers are.

So, how long do you think before taking turns in a roguelike in various situations? lets say in seconds

For example:

trivial encounters: 0
hard encounters: 10
new encounters: 4
explored territory: 0
dangerous territory: 5
new territory: 5

Also, your expertise at the game is also very helpful information alongside the above.

7

Off-topic (Locked) / Dungeonic Art

« on: March 21, 2014, 09:12:15 AM »

Trying out masks for my dungeon generator, thought to do some dungeonic art and share. The map is valid and fully connected except the two islands in R and O.
Any fancy (but still practical) maps to share?

8

Off-topic (Locked) / What platforms would you play roguelikes on?

« on: February 25, 2014, 12:39:58 PM »

I'm curious to know what platform would people around here play roguelikes on. Not just restricted by the availability of existing games, but if, say, a very nice roguelike was released for a platform you own, would you try it there?

9

Programming / AI for dynamic environments

« on: January 26, 2014, 03:13:45 PM »

Hi all,

First post here, thinking and developing roguelike-related things lately. I'm currently trying to tackle the subject of a goal-driven AI that plays "fair" (unexplored bits are unknown, fog of war applies as well). Imagine the below scenario:

I spawn 2 agents (A and B) in a dungeon.
A would prioritize fleeing from B and then find the exit of the level, and B would prioritize chasing A and would explore the dungeon till he finds A.
The AIs explore the level as they go, and they obey fog of war rules : they only have current state of what's in their LoS -- the rest, even if explored in the past, remains in the state that it was in the past. The latter bit describes the "dynamic" aspect in my post subject: the map can change without the agent knowing that, unless it explores the changed area again.

Now, how would one go implement this in a scalable way? The above scenario has 2 agents, but ideally I'd like to have 50 of those or more. My current thoughts (inefficient) are roughly described below:
-------------------
At each turn, each AI scans their LoS.
Every point that's walkable and has unexplored neighbours, is an exploration goal.
Points that represent enemies or the exit, represent goals as well, with negative and positive weights respectively ( avoid/goto)
All these goals are weighted by distance.
I pick the 'best' goal out of these, run A*, and get the first point.
rinse and repeat.
-------------------
I've read a bit about scent maps, djiskstra maps (which are distance fields really), but I'm not sure if these scale for many many agents

So, any ideas?