Messages

31

Programming / Re: When to use scripting languages?

« on: January 09, 2013, 10:08:42 AM »

My main motivation is I find programming java tedious. Not as tedious as most other C-likes but still painful a lot of the time. However, it's fast, portable, has excellent tooling, and great profilers.

I guess tbh compilation speed is not a huge issue with java, it's pretty good at compiling only part of a project.

Anyway, I tore my hair out trying to embed jruby. The documentation is really shoddy. I'll leave it for now until it comes time for quests and complex AI. Just java and yaml.

You may be interested in Lua Programming Language with LÖVE engine, allowing you to create any kind of 2D or 2.5D game and freely redistribute it, with great API documentation and very active and helpful community.

32

Programming / Re: When to use scripting languages?

« on: January 08, 2013, 11:33:53 AM »

Since your game is being done in Java or Ruby, both are interpreted languages. So I understand them as a bunch of script files. So your game is already a scripted engine without you to have to implement it and without the game player have to recompile everything.

And thus, why mess creating a custom scripting engine if your game is already implemented as an easy-to-modify game?
Why create a custom scripting engine if I can go to source code and modify whatever I need without having to recompile?

33

Programming / Cursed items on item-based RLs?

« on: January 08, 2013, 11:28:16 AM »

I came to a situation where I need some opinions about cursed items.

I was modifying some things in WitchavenRL when I considered the idea of allowing Magic Shards (if you did not player WitchavenRL, they are used to enhance weapons) to be cursed or having negative random effects.

For example, actually the SOL (Shard of Life) changes the base weapons damage and damage modifier by random(-1, 2). This means that the weapon can get more damage or reduce it or just remain unchanged.

Since advancing in WitchavenRL  is heavily based on items found by the player, I'm not sure how negative effects applied by shards are balanced.

In addition, shards have a 20% chance to appear on map and 10% to be found from corpses, which is relatively small chance in either case.
So I concluded that making the shards to decrease weapons damage is not much balanced since they are quite precious and valuable items.

So... what's your opinion?
Should those kind of items be possibly cursed or apply negative effects?

34

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Mobile Dungeons (Android)

« on: January 08, 2013, 09:46:55 AM »

Ok, I tested this little game and...

Well... I wouldn't say it is a roguelike at all. At least for me, it is not a roguelike. It is too simple and there is almost nothing in common with the roguelike genre other than turn-based, tiles and some very simple RPG system.


The game itself is not bad at all. Of course it needs much more work and balance. I reached a point where I couldn't continue because every monster was much more powerful than me and they could basically one-hit kill me.

35

Programming / Re: Generating flags, icons and symbols

« on: January 08, 2013, 09:35:10 AM »

Really interesting idea.

Some of the religions symbols remind me to Star Wars.

Also it would be interesting to have swords, shields, lions and eagles shapes as flag features in addition to geometric shapes.

36

Early Dev / Re: Witchaven the Roguelike (check post #1 for details) Last Ver. .9B4

« on: January 07, 2013, 04:38:45 PM »

No, it's not a new release. Next release will have a HUGE list of additions but I will need some more time to finish and tweak everything.


The point of this post is that I have been receiving some private messages (actuall 3) in this forum and other forum about corpses left by killed enemies.

The README file says that corpses may be looted to obtain various items. Some people have been asking me how to loot them. To do that, you may press the key [,] that is the same key for Pick Up. Basically you pick up the item left in the corpse. Using [a] will not apply the corpse since you can't find a way to apply it, but rather to loot or pick up something from it.

Fire braziers, barrels, enchanting shrines and stairs can be [a]pplied since you need to use them in any way with your own hands without the need to pick up and hold them in your backpack.


Also, arrows and teleporting pentagrams must be picked up, not applied. Some people could think that you may apply the arrow to the bow, but in fact, you just pick up it to place in your quiver. And the teleporting pentagram requres that you pick up it so you can demonstrate that you are worthy of going deeper, but you really no need to apply it in any way.

Other scenery elements like guillotine and impaled corpses are just decorative and you can't interact with them at all, other than 'observing' them.


About Magic Shards, that are briefly explained in the README, they can be picked up and then used into a weapon to increase its proficiency.
Once you pick up a Shard (using [,] key) you must select the weapon you want to enhance. Then pressing the appropiate key binding (^p, ^i or ^e) you will immediately apply the shard to the selected weapon. For example, if you see a Shard of Power, move your character over it and to pick it up. Then select a weapon to enhance and finally press ^p to use the Shard of [^P]ower.
The same applies to the other two shards ( L[^i]fe and [^E]ternity )

Additionally, you can press ^h for keybindings help and ^u for GUI tips.



I hope everything is now clear but if any other doubt, please post it in the forum rather than sending me a private message since anyone else can have the same doubt.

37

Programming / Re: Floofill

« on: January 07, 2013, 10:16:10 AM »

I  can't say if this is offtopic or not, but anyway...

In WitchavenRL I used a simple method for map generation that is basically to create random rooms, then create a door in each room and finally join each door with corridors using a pathfinding algorithm were walls are the walkable cells. This way I know every room is connected to each other because all doors are connected.

So, basically, using a pathfinding algorithn for each room against all other rooms could be a good method, and pretty fast IMO if you dont have thousand rooms.

38

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Mobile Dungeons (Android)

« on: January 07, 2013, 10:04:39 AM »

I have just downloaded it and I will give you some feedback later on.

39

Early Dev / Re: Witchaven the Roguelike (check post #1 for details) Last Ver. .9B4

« on: January 06, 2013, 12:13:25 PM »

[...]

 I also harassed/suggested/begged at the time for it to merge in Hexen stuff as well, since I'm of the same preference.

I'm not talking about any specific FPS game, but I think that the final boss in your next RL should be named Korax.
Also three character classes, warrior, mage and cleric, would fit well.

40

Temple of the Roguelike / Re: Send your banners!

« on: January 05, 2013, 05:31:47 PM »

My banner:



that should lead to:

http://asciirealm.blogspot.com.es


where I already included a linked image to the temple.

41

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Mercury (Now at Beta 1.3)

« on: January 05, 2013, 03:30:11 PM »

Sorry for this necroposting but I think this RL is great and we shouldn't let it to drown in the depths of the forum.

I was goooooogling for Hexen Roguelike when I found this screenshot in googles images:



I never heard about it but now I am already dloading it!!!!

I think there should be more feedback on this since the game overall looking is really elaborated.
I can't say about game playability an such.

Also I can't understand why there is no entry in roguebasin for this game.

42

Early Dev / Re: Witchaven the Roguelike (check post #1 for details) Last Ver. .9B4

« on: January 05, 2013, 09:11:28 AM »

I think it just comes down to obscurity----even I would've thought something like this would only wind up happening over on Chaosforge, but it is great to see new life being fashioned out of something that could've gone differently had the commercial and dev realities of back then played out rather differently.   Part of me would love to see a grand multi-verse mishmash Roguelike of pretty well all the classic and underground FPS games from back in the day as there was quite a bit beyond Doom, Duke, and Hexen that slipped through the cracks.

ROFLOLMAO


So basically, summarizing all that text in 12 words plus an exclamation mark?


And since you named it, I think I never saw a HexenRL or HereticRL before. I love those games, more Hexen than Heretic, and it would be nice to have someone to develop such Roguelike.

43

Early Dev / Re: Witchaven the Roguelike (check post #1 for details) Last Ver. .9B4

« on: January 04, 2013, 02:17:05 PM »

Why would you make a roguelike out of Witchaven of all games?

Could you please re-elaborate your question? I think it is hard to really understand it well.

44

Programming / Re: When restart shoot target?

« on: January 01, 2013, 04:56:36 PM »

It's also nice to have a key that skips the targeting overhead and just attacks the last thing you attacked.  I.E. in Epilogue the spacebar attacks the last monster you hit, or the nearest if the last one if not available.  Less key presses.

What if there are 2 enemies that are exactly 3 cells away from the player?

I think the best way is to have a single key binding, lets say ^T (throw). If there is no previous target, then the crosshair appears in the player position.

If the player was shooting to an empty cell, i.e. without monsters, then save those coords for the next shoot.
But if there is a monster, then save the monsterID and the next time the player press ^T then move the crosshair to the saved monster ID.

When the player move the corsshair, restart the saved crosshair possition to zero and the monster id to null.

45

Early Dev / Re: Witchaven the Roguelike (check post #1 for details)

« on: December 31, 2012, 04:21:26 PM »

Merry Christmas!!!

and...

NEW VERSION RELEASED (0.9BETA 4)

just the last day of the year!!!!

See first post for links and stuff


Full changelog dump for 0.9BETA4:

Code: [Select]

[Changes]
- Changed/Rebalanced Arrows, Fireball and Magic Arrow spells.
- Changed/Rebalanced ranged enemies damage
- Broken weapons can be wielded, although the player will fight bare handed. This gives the option to repair them with
  Fire Braziers or Jewels of Eternity.

[Additions]
- Added throwing Pike Axes
- Added Enchanting Shrines
- Added Nuke Spell
- Added random ambience quotes
- Added more info to the README file
- Added Magic Jewels

[Bugfixes]
- Fixed bug with weapons durability falling below zero when walking on boulderfall traps
- Fixed serious bug with player projectiles (arrows and spells) do not hitting enemies
  in certain situations.
- Fixed bug with GUI showing incorrect number of pike axes left
- Fixed serious bug preventing game to be won
- Fixed bug with Color mode message, showing an incorrect name for the selected color mode
- Fixed bug with H key not moving the character to the left (Thanks to Saegor at LÖVE forums for bug report)
- Removed some obsolete info from in-game help screen