Topics

1

Programming / Order of Execution In Turn Based Roguelikes

« on: August 07, 2020, 12:09:24 PM »

This discussion came up on a Discord I am on and the responses I received made it clear that many people don't consider this important - when in fact it is the difference between life and death in a turn based game.

Consider the Compass option. If a monster always looks at north first and east last when pathfinding then the player has an advantage when approaching from the east. Depending on the type of roguelike you are making, the order in which you look at adjacent tiles determines the outcome of all situations where a player's life hangs in the balance.

In a current project I'm using Clock - this mitigates some of the problems with Compass, whilst encouraging kiting from enemies. Though it's a little less predictable and less puzzle-like.

I'm posting this poll in the hopes to find out how people generally approach this problem and to raise awareness of what I think is a core piece of roguelike design. It affects the A.I. of all your enemies and the nature of all your effects.

2

7DRLs / GOB! [7DRL 2017]

« on: March 05, 2017, 11:32:43 PM »

Plan: You are are Gob, a big happy mouth. You shoot things. Shooting things costs health. There's spells. Spells augment shots, costing more health.

Had various plans for 7DRL. But since Unity is the only IDE I could comfortably get working on my new PC, I ended up taking several broken Unity engines I've made over the years and tried to glue bits of them together to finally make something work.

I got a roguelike engine going with no Chuckle Brothers turns (to me, to you). Everyone decides (correcting as we go), then everyone acts at the same time. Mmm, smooth. The bullets then test for collision during the animation. This makes it much easier to track than my previous attempts at bullets which required the player to guess if the bullets check for collision at the beginning of their turn or at the end. It's a mesh of realtime and turn based.

Normally everyone just goes for instant attacks on ranged weapons. This is more sort of bullet-time stuff with bullets colliding as well. I felt that I haven't seen that yet so let's have a gander.

Progress Gifs:
https://twitter.com/st33d/status/838053198300606464
https://twitter.com/st33d/status/838155687670779905
https://twitter.com/st33d/status/838200152728940544
https://twitter.com/st33d/status/838522546819588097

3

Programming / Ending: Adventure mode

« on: April 30, 2013, 10:53:12 PM »

My game here is just about finished:

http://robotacid.com/flash/ending/

3 modes: puzzle, adventure, editor.

The adventure mode is pretty much a hard 1hp roguelike. It's harder than the puzzles. I struggle to beat it, scoring 349 moves on my last run.

I'd like to know how roguelike players fare in the game's hard-mode.

4

Programming / Non-random roguelike

« on: September 30, 2012, 01:52:45 PM »

So I've made a DRODlike recently: http://www.nitrome.com/games/turnament/

Due to the puzzle design, there is literally no call to a random number generator in the game code. Even when the AI is stuck it considers nodes anti-clockwise starting from the next step round each turn. There is a perfect solution to every battle and level.

This got thinking about making a roguelike that was completely non-random as well. It would appear random - however, it would be the player's movement that would change what the next room was or what was in it. It would somewhat be like exploring a fractal landscape.

It's a coffee-break idea so I think it deserves a single hit point model. The starting position is the most interesting bit of the game, so you should see it a lot and play with it.

-

So has anyone done stuff like this before? I know Ulf at the roguelike conference did a presentation on sequential combat and that has parallels with this idea of mine.

5

Programming / Experience Points

« on: July 04, 2012, 06:49:55 PM »

So what is the standard formula for doling these out? I ask because I was reading this:

http://userpages.monmouth.com/~colonel/rvm.html#exp

I based my own system on the V4 table. The formula for the table looks to me like (I might be wrong, late in the day):

10 * 2 ^ level

But the experience points table for the monsters with the hit dice thing is bizarrely arbitrary looking. Yet it's supposed to work.

I simply gave up, split 1.5 * XP needed to level up once across the monsters in the level.

But somehow it seems to have worked. You level up steadily with each dungeon level, seeming to think you're ahead of the curve - but you never get past it because the requirement doubles. I added bonus experience based on the total XP, still no effect to progression. I levelled up with the grind stone to level 6. Went into the dungeon and hit trouble at level 7.

So how are other people doing it?

6

Programming / Google Analytics

« on: July 01, 2012, 11:10:18 AM »

I've just set this up on Red Rogue and have now added tracking events to see how people are behaving in the game (I have to wait a day to see if the new event pings work though).

Does anyone know if there's an API to fetch the event and tracking data with Google Analytics?

I ask because I think it would be very interesting to be able to steer some of the procedural generation based on the data I'm getting.

Messages or content that is based on the player hive mind strikes me as a novel direction to take generator in.

7

Programming / Dead link to Field of View research paper

« on: January 08, 2012, 05:38:11 PM »

There was a field of view research paper pdf that did a comprehensive comparison, including speed tests of all the major FOV algorithms. It encouraged me to port the python code on Rogue Basin for shadow casting to AS3 for my game.

It used to be here:

http://roguecentral.org/libtcod/fov/fov.pdf

I've tried contacting the site, but to no avail. Does anyone have a spare copy of the pdf or the ear of the guy who wrote it at all?

8

The Roguebasin / Editing Rogue Basin for Dummies

« on: January 03, 2012, 09:09:26 AM »

To be blunt, I don't know how to edit wiki pages or how to create new ones. So I'm pretty much in the dark about how to create a page for my game or how to add to the announcements list.

Are there any links that would help get me started? Or are they there on RogueBasin and I'm just being blind?

9

Temple of the Roguelike / Thread move request

« on: December 20, 2011, 02:13:42 PM »

Could I get my Red Rogue thread moved to the "Early development" subforum where it belongs please?

http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=1765.0

I didn't see the other subforum when I joined and it's like I've put a feedback thread in the technical forum.

10

Temple of the Roguelike / Tab posting

« on: December 05, 2011, 10:03:19 PM »

An odd effect here that I haven't noticed on other forums is that I can't enter a reply and then press tab and I can press Enter to post (because the post button is the next html element).

I'm suffering the irony of posting on a forum about games with often a purely keyboard interface and I can't operate the forum in the same manner.

Chrome OSX if that helps.

11

Programming / Damage Reflection: Melee or Missile

« on: November 18, 2011, 12:21:20 PM »

I've put a damage reflection mechanic in my game and I'm unsure how to roll with it. I've got "bees" armour and "flying knives" armour that reflect a percent of damage taken. I've also got a "thorns" spell that does pretty much the same when used to enchant armour (boosting or adding a thorns stat).

Originally I set it up as melee only. Then changed my mind and felt that it should offer some help against missile attacks. Then a play-tester piped up and found it odd that he was receiving damage reflection when using ranged weapons on a thorned monster.

Of course I could separate the armour effect and the magic effect - but aside from it being more work, it's also confusing for the player and inconsistent. The game is based around simplicity first and depth later, so this personally is my least favourite option.

Please vote and share your own opinion.

12

Early Dev / Red Rogue

« on: September 04, 2011, 12:25:25 PM »

I've a dev-log for this over at TIGSource but I thought I'd let rogue-likers know about this as well.

Red Rogue is an attempt at a platformer-roguelike. It's written in Flash/Flex and it's open source.

This is a link to the latest in-progress build

This is a link to the source code on GitHub

Please bear in mind that this is a work in progress and I'm currently doing a massive overhaul of the physics engine and will be dropping the crush-insta-kill mechanic in favour of a knockback-stomp. I'm also working on the AI, which is why the monsters are funny colours (to communicate their AI state).

How to Play

Use cursor keys to move and space to open the menu. There is no jump.

Use cursor keys to control the menu.

You and your skeletal minion kill things by walking into them (just like Rogue). Press up to collect items. Using stairways is accessed via Actions in the menu.

Equipment: Manage your weapons and armour from Inventory in the menu.

Spell casting: Runes can be eaten, thrown or used to enchant armour or weapons. Each use does a different thing, but enchanting items always confers a permanent effect.


Hope you have fun with what's in there so far. I'm currently slaving away at lot of improvements like a new renderer, a new - seedable random number generator (share dungeons!) and more stable physics. Not to mention that I want 20 monsters, 20 weapons, 20 armour and 20 spells over 20 levels in the final game and there's only 6 levels of content so far.