Messages

121

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate (now out)

« on: July 28, 2016, 08:55:55 PM »

Will there ever be a mature japanese roguelike?...

Did you ever try Shiren for SNES, though? I'd say that's a pretty accomplished game, although maybe not "mature" in the "everything + the kitchen sink"-sense. John Harris did an inspired piece about it some years ago. For something more humongous, I'd check out Elona (which I haven't given a serious go, but it seems utterly crazy from what I've read).

As always,
Minotauros

122

Programming / Re: DIY programming language

« on: July 23, 2016, 01:15:45 PM »

Making one's own language is bound to be a fun exercise. So if you have the will and time, go for it. I wouldn't expect to come up with anything objectively "better" than already existing tools, although it's of course possible to tailor something to one's own taste and needs. Put differently, I would guess that writing your own language to make a RL would add a lot of development time (even if implementing the game itself would go quicker with something homemade).

As always,
Minotauros

123

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Traiteur: A colorful, detailed ASCII world... with emoticons going to WAR!

« on: July 15, 2016, 02:47:06 PM »

The game name comes from the Cajun French term for a faith healer, though the game is not specifically about that -- we picked it to symbolize the healing after making a game that didn't perform as well as we hoped originally

Interesting. The title first had me thinking of a snackbar/deli ("traiteur" in Continental French)
The gif looks … totally crazy, which is always a Good Thing™, I think. Jere may have some good points to consider, if you want to think strategically about which audience you're appealing to. Or you can just follow your vision and see where it takes you. For sure, if you were using pixel art instead, the gif would look like any old shmup. Anyway, best of luck.

As always,
Minotauros

124

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Found a VERY weird game!

« on: July 13, 2016, 08:10:30 PM »

Spoilers, I say! I remember trying this game a few years back, but the screen on my laptop at the time was too small to play. Looked interesting and amicable, and I loved the manual, but from the little I saw, I couldn't say how/if it could be played?

As always,
Minotauros

125

Design / Re: Corridors considered harmful

« on: June 22, 2016, 12:08:19 AM »

Ugh, I'm not going to split any hairs over your roundabout argument. Although I think my point still stands Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree that corridors have their place in the genre as a cool feature, though I wouldn't mind if more games deviated from tried and true hack'n'back tactics.

As always,
Minotauros

126

Design / Re: Corridors considered harmful

« on: June 21, 2016, 01:15:02 PM »

"Save scumming considered harmful.
Don't allow saving in your roguelikes because this can be abused by save scummers."

That comparison doesn't hold, though. Save scumming is cheating, whilst corridor fighting is a viable (and in fact the optimal) strategy in most RLs. So in a classic rooms+corridors dungeon,  you need to balance the game around the assumption that the player will draw back whenever possible.

Not to say that corridors are bad, or that it's trivial to come up with optional map generation concepts. I still think it's interesting to create a game that focuses more on, say, open spaces with differing sizes and layouts. You can have the occasional classic maze in a game that mainly takes place outdoors or in houses. That might even feel fresh, if fighting is designed around something other than trading melee attacks in a hallway. Then there's the option of wide corridors, which would offset the effect of corridor fighting a bit. One could also put in areas with "soft" walls, eg. that block sight but not movement. Trodden paths lead between points of interest, but the player can still elect to wade through the high grass (or whatever your "walls" represent), and can never be sure that some foe won't just jump out of nowhere (Legerdemain did this with corn fields, and I'm definitely planning something along those lines for Land of Strangers).

As always,
Minotauros

127

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: I'm moving to linux.

« on: June 15, 2016, 10:50:41 PM »

I hate updates. Somehow they always mean replacing something that works with something that doesn't.

I've used Linux for a long time (mostly for work) and from my experience the sheer amount of things that simply change and stop or begin to work each noticeable release just doesn't compare to the mild annoyance of Windows >_<. Choosing and 'freezing' some stable Linux release only works for servers. On desktop everything go out of date pretty quickly and sooner or later you are forced to update because new versions of some essential application is not built for your release anymore. Then you can try to continue to maintain some things by hand but this is a huge step down in user experience.

Sounds like you're making it unnecessarily difficult for yourself... I've had the opposite experience, using nothing but Debian for a decade. Running the stable branch, in particular, I hardly ever ran into a problem. I certainly never had that "some essential application is not built for your release anymore". It really doesn't happen if you install software from the distro's official repository. The trouble often starts when users install binaries they downloaded from the web, instead of how it's supposed to be done in their OS.

As always,
Minotauros

128

Design / Re: Info line idea

« on: June 12, 2016, 08:46:08 PM »

Oh, cool that he's still going strong. I only checked out TToT a little bit some time ago, but really liked what I saw back then.

As always,
Minotauros

129

Design / Re: Info line idea

« on: June 12, 2016, 07:19:51 PM »

Hyperrogue, Sil, Hoplite, URR, Temple of Torment, Shadow of the Wyrm, Cogmind, IVAN and Gearhead seeing development again

I need to be impressed more than that. We need games that take everything that was good in roguelikes and go beyond it.

Yes, well, my point was just that there are a lot of interesting RLs in development, although just a few panning out on a huge scale right now. I think that's just normal, it doesn't seem to me that the scene is less dynamic today than in previous decades.¹ In hindsight, there will always stand out a few canonical games, and I'm sure that will be true of our age, as well.

That said, I'd love to see a game like you describe. Ironically, a pseudo-RL might best fit the bill, scrapping traditional features to do something really new with procedural generation. I've long thought that a RL which randomly creates an immersive/open setting/story, would be something we haven't really seen yet.

URR is a strange case. I think it's going to be more like strategy game rather than a RPG.

URR seems to be on its own right path, wherever it may lead. It may end up as something more or less RL/playable/good/interesting, but in any case, it sure is a fascinating project.

As always,
Minotauros

¹ Compared to rgrd archives, the temple even has its own assorted crazypersons (including the original Krice ). I remember that guy who left the forum in anger after aborting a discussion about rape in games by saying he had just been pulling our legs I wonder whatever became of his game – it seemed to be headed in a truly grandiose direction.

130

Design / Re: Info line idea

« on: June 12, 2016, 10:03:16 AM »

Caves of Qud seem to be doing their whole revival in a much better way than ADOM, and one could mention other projects as well that belong to an interesting, contemporary wave of RLs … Hyperrogue, Sil, Hoplite, URR, Temple of Torment, Shadow of the Wyrm, Cogmind, IVAN and Gearhead seeing development again … The list goes on, and some of the fringe/action R-lites seem interesting in their own right. I'd say the genre is doing pretty well, although feel free to dismiss everything except Nethack and your own game

As always,
Minotauros

131

Design / Re: Info line idea

« on: June 10, 2016, 09:05:45 PM »

How nice that this thread can continue to live on and shine its light

I just wanted to mention that when I wrote:

ppl quitting the forums after arguing with […]

I wasn't making a general observation to blame Krice for scarce traffic here, but rather had in mind one or two isolated instances of people explicitly claiming this as their reason before leaving. And I'm sure that wasn't the only reason, and sure someone who quits over a flame might grow a thicker skin, but why flame in the first hand, and all that.

To more recent comments: Roguelikes have always been a niche genre. The main difference today seems to be that a we see a lot of games called "Roguelikes" that are mostly borrowing traits from traditional/actual RLs. Yet I don't think that is hurting the genre per se. There are still developers working on "proper" RLs, and new players coming in, slowly as ever. Nothing new in complaints about the younger generations; and yet, each period produces a lot of intelligent and disciplined people who bring refined ideas and works. The fact that RLs continue to exist – this silly thing resembling at first glance just a lot of letters moving across the screen – and continue as a subculture, is making possible those impossibly huge and wacky projects, some of which come to fruition, even. From Dwarf Fortress to Cult to URR to Kaduria … God knows if Kaduria ever will see a release. I know for certain that I would be one of many who'd be very curious to try it if that day comes …

If I could think of a possible pitfall in working on such a long-term project, it would be that you risk becoming outdated before your actual release. I came to think of Danish Per Højholt's novel Auricula, which he wrote over several decades (whilst publishing other books on the side). When it finally arrived in the 00's, it became an instant classic, being a genuinely great book, but it felt as if it was published 20 years too late. I'm not aiming this comment on anyone in particular, btw But looking back at Squirm, my own game discontinued 5 years ago, I think it had some good systems and content, but there is a lot of design decisions I'd have done differently today, because of how the genre has evolved. We'll see how my current cowboy-RL pans out, but I'm glad to have low stakes in it, just working slowly and seeing what comes. After several years of passive development, it's still a very unkempt beast, that can be taken in almost any direction.

Excuse the rant, as always,
Minotauros

132

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: I'm moving to linux.

« on: June 10, 2016, 11:25:18 AM »

Open source means that many people across the world scrutinize the code, so the chance of someone sneaking through spyware is practically zero if you stay away from proprietary software. Different distributions are really just different packagings of the same software, so it's not as if Firefox will be compromised in one particular distro – if the packager makes any changes to the code, those changes will lie open for the community to examine. The short version of the story is that Linux, even if not the better choice for everyone, beats the proprietary OSes hands down when it comes to safety and privacy.

Running Linux from within Windows (or dual booting) is certainly possible, but sounds like a hassle. It's a question of taste and habit which GUI one likes more. Personally, I'm used to Linux, and find Windows awful to work with. My tip to you, Aleksanderus, would be to check out different solutions (Gnome, KDE, xfce …) and find the one you like. Good luck, and have fun.

As always,
Minotauros

133

Design / Re: Info line idea

« on: June 08, 2016, 07:28:19 AM »

Making a troll non-argument is not only ancient, it's a way to downplay another human being, to say that his opinions don't matter at all.

That would be in contrast to, say, accusing forum members of being bots, or downright telling them to fuck off?

As always,
Minotauros

134

Design / Re: Info line idea

« on: June 06, 2016, 03:54:47 PM »

How do english-speakers call trolls which are so well-fed (or lazy) they stop being subtle? […] The russian one is more or less language-specific with 'толстый' ('fat') being the simple antonym to 'тонкий' ('thin') which is 'subtle' in russian.

I've never heard a specific word for this in English, but I guess "blatant trolling" fits the bill. Maybe there exists an official trollological term. With regards to our own flame-bot, though, I sometimes suspect he's simply being "thick"

As always,
Minotauros

135

Incubator / Re: practicerl - A Practice Roguelike for me practice with!

« on: June 05, 2016, 06:20:15 PM »

Is it possible you tried to install Pygame for Python 2.7 on top of a Python 3 installation? There is a separate archive for compatability with Python 3. Also, if you're on Linux, shouldn't you be able to do something like "apt-get install python-pygame"?

On a lighter note, if you haven't already stumbled upon it, I always found this little article to be inspirational (but not to be taken literally, of course).

As always,
Minotauros