Messages

76

Programming / Re: Identify? (y/n)

« on: June 04, 2012, 12:53:55 PM »

I subscribe to the NetHack philosophy.

Again something about personal taste, I think. For me, Nethack is incoherent and bloated, but this is just because I want games with a believable (not realistic) background / theme. The saying "The DevTeam though of everyting" is only true regarding game mechanics and adding stuff, but it unfortunately is not true regarding consistency.

That's why in the past I played Moria a lot. Since I've discovered Sil, I'll switch to that, because this is the most-consistent variant of a classic roguelike I ever encountered.

77

Programming / Re: Identify? (y/n)

« on: June 04, 2012, 12:22:46 PM »

Damn. I just wrote a long text and accidently closed the browser. -.- So here again in short:

The attitude should never be about removing things, but about adding. You start with an @ on a screen and add from there. If item id is not interesting to add then don't add it. And if you do add it you incorporate it seamlessly into the whole design.

In the beginning, you often don't know if a given feature will be interesting or not, because most of us are neither professional developers, nor game designers, but simply people who have fun to get that @ walking on the screen.

So many people simply start to program and add things which seem to be cool in the beginning (or not even seem to be cool, but seem to be a must-have or standard in a given genre), but many months or even years later, they recognize that the feature is indeed not interesting in the context of the given game.

So this dev made a mistake, and this mistake can be corrected either be removing it, or by changing the other parts of the game to turn the mistake into something that looks like intended.

But sometimes this can be against the whole spirit of the rest of the game, and in these cases it's totally okay to remove the feature from the game.


For example, in LambdaRogue I removed identifying except for unique items, because the items are not random-generated, and it's very tedious to need to identify "Water" or "Cola" or "Antidot" over and over again. Having standard items unidentified was a feature I added some years ago, but today consider a mistake.

So I either could have changed the whole item system (random-generated items instead of static, manually developed items), or remove the need for identificaiton. I decided for the latter, because I definitely don't want to have random items or random monsters in MY game.


Edit: Another feature in LambdaRogue that MAY be a mistake (but I'm not sure about this yet) are the profession powers: Each has up to 5 powers, but instead of letting the player invoke the powers individually, the powers are cumulated and invoked all at the same time, so I always have to write "Your character has ONE talent which consists of up to 5 powers." That's complicated.

Like identifying, this was a feature I added because it feels somehow cool and is somehow different from how such things are done in most other games. But if the feeling that it's a mistake gets stronger, I will change it to a more standard (WoW/Diablo-like) way.

78

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 04, 2012, 10:23:04 AM »

A sub forum... how is that different than early development feedback?  Except maybe we add some karma system for people to game/cry about?

The original proposal seemed bolder.

There should be no diffusion of responsibility.  The people in a cabal should feel beholden to each other to test and produce.  This ties into the branding idea - the set of games produced by a cabal are in some ways a product of the cabal as a whole, so each member should want to require those games to be good enough to represent them!  As I said, a sign of success is if games within the cabal are killed/not released as they do not pass muster!  If this doesn't happen, you just have a what Krice rightly fears.

Yes, Jeff, and the proposed subforum(s) for this group(s) would be the place where things you suggest take place. It's easier to start this here on RL than wasting time and motivation by setting up own websites, forums, etc.

But I'm not sure if the goal is clear.

I see the goal as "Individuals develop their games and agree on giving detailed feedback to the other individual's games. They release their games together at a certain point in time, but it is still clear who from the team is responsible for which game."

When reading your post, I get the feeling that you'd like to have it in a way that ultimately breakes down to "1 team, 1 game".


Edit: It's not only "1 team, 1 game" vs. "1 team, several games", but also about "creating NEW games" vs. "also improving existing games".

79

Programming / Re: Ye Olde Roguelike Grimoire

« on: June 03, 2012, 11:14:31 AM »

LambdaRogue's overview map:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6JFyOFnMrLU/TsZQSom2a6I/AAAAAAAACcY/pJ7dqW92fuk/s800/09_map.png

Combine this with a font you like, and sure, it would work. It's just a background, after all.

80

Programming / Re: Identify? (y/n)

« on: June 03, 2012, 08:24:42 AM »

For a long time, I thought identification would be essential to roguelikes, because somehow it's of course a way to add excitement to the game: "Well, okay, I'm low on HP ... there's that unidentified blue potion here ... should I drink it?" But in the last update of LambdaRogue I removed the need for id of the most items, because it's tedious and wastes time and inventory space (for the id potions).

Identify makes imo only sense for very very rare or unique items where one could expect that a detailed examination is believable. For example, discovering a weapon that, on the first glance, only looks old and used, but a deep examination (= identify) reveals what true powers are indeed included in the sword.

So finding a unique item in LambdaRogue still requires identification, but standard & rare equipment, potions, food, etc. are free to use.

81

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 03, 2012, 07:42:34 AM »

It will not be forgotten!  I brought it up at IRDC and there was a lot of positive thought about it.  We just need to pester Slash or getter to set up the forum and get started.

Sounds great! Hope you all have a good time at IRDC.

82

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 02, 2012, 07:33:56 PM »

So, what does twpage think about this?

And should we do this and initiate this, or will this thread and idea be forgotten?

83

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 01, 2012, 03:47:06 PM »

That's good. (Oh, IRDC ... I wish I could take part. I try each year, but don't have the money to travel. Perhaps next IRDC should be in Germany again *g* )

84

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 01, 2012, 02:33:48 PM »

Yes, this is useful, too.

Maybe someone (getter77? slashie?) can create that subforum and write an announcement for the roguetemple news (Michal?).

85

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 01, 2012, 01:43:35 PM »

I second the subforum idea, it is much easier, and maybe someone who is able to create such a forum can do this.) I also agree to the spreadsheet idea. Simple and easy.

I think the first post of a game's thread should have a clear structure, so everybody looking in this thread can see the current state. Thus, each author has to take care of keeping the first post up to date. More detailed progress information and replies to criticisms should of course be in the resp. places in the threads.

For example for LambdaRogue, I would start my post in a way like this:

Title: LambdaRogue - The Book of Stars (LR:TBS)
First release: 2006
Updated: May 27th 2012
Version: 1.6.3

Available for: Windows, Linux, MacOS Lion
Download: (link)

Short description: (max. 3 short sentences describing background and goal for the player)

Developer's goals: (some points the dev want to achieve, in my case: create a roguelike with detailed story and in-game quests; combine traditional roguelike UI with MMORPG-inspired UI; game mechanics focused on quick fights and item collection)


Somehow like this.

Postings with criticism should be stated very free, as each player has another style of expression. But the postings should clearly state which version was tested, and maybe also some technical things (such as OS).

86

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: June 01, 2012, 08:56:56 AM »

Maybe there could be 2 (or more?) categories for this incubator-cabal-whatever-thing, based on (1) goal and (2) development status.

(1) The goal should be set by the author: Either by choosing a fixed category (7DRL, more comprehensive RL, roguelike-like), or even by defining certain goals to reach, in terms of estimated playing time, size, unique game mechanics to implement etc. So for each project it would be clear what the author wants to achieve, and also players could then judge the resulting games based on these goals -- and not on maybe wrong expectations.

(2) The development status should also be set, and could be simply "planning", "alpha", "beta" and "stable (but receiving updates)". Maybe (just an idea) we could include a voting system, where players or testers can vote if they believe if a game has reached a new step in this line: Sometime authors tend to say "my game is beta", but actually for players it feels like an alpha, or authors consider a game finished, although it still has massive bugs (at least I had this problem: I thought LambdaRogue was finished in version 1.0, but well, I still find bugs).

I also have something in mind like the structure used by the current SourceForge website. It has become very userfriendly for both users and project admins, and maybe such type of platform could be a technical basis.

Bigger and more established games like LambdaRogue need attention too, especially with it's new straight dungeon crawler mode (coffeebreak mode is a poor term for it I think).

By the way, thanks Darren for the hint regarding the term "coffeebreak mode" -- I use it as some kind of working term, because in standard difficulty setting, it should be winnable in about 3 hours (by an experienced player), as all the quests are not shown, and also only 20 out of 27 dungeon levels are part of this mode. But maybe this term could mislead people to think that the game also lacks complexity, and this is not the case anymore since several versions. So maybe I really call it "dungeon crawler mode", or something similar.

87

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: May 30, 2012, 09:30:45 AM »

Not some coffee break android ipad crap.

Nethack is available for iPad. So Nethack = ipad crap?

88

Early Dev / Re: Roguelike Incubator

« on: May 30, 2012, 08:53:05 AM »

It's a nice idea. Would you accept LambdaRogue as one of the included games? (But, it's not brand-new, as you say).

89

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaRogue 1.6.3 released

« on: May 28, 2012, 02:38:42 PM »

Ah, thank you, dear Brian -- you just gave me a motivation boost

90

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaRogue 1.6.3 released

« on: May 28, 2012, 12:22:55 PM »

only seek out the utmost core Roguelike elements, which it has

Well, that's the question: Does it really have?

Okay: It has random dungeons, is turn-based, has an ASCII mode, tactical gameplay.

But it is less complex, lacks permadeath (in hospitals, you can pay money to save), doesn't have random items, and it annoys the player with the need to solve quests / follow the story to win. I think the last one is the most important "problem": You NEED to follow the story to win, you can't ignore the quests and simply play.

I like it this way, very much indeed, but I know that this combination is for many people a turnoff.