Messages

16

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Advanced Super Turbo Rogue Plus

« on: July 16, 2016, 03:58:06 PM »

The RRP did release version 5.4.5, sometime in 2008 I think.  I have not changed any version numbers.

I've made some source updates in the last few months.  See this list for details.

17

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: July 15, 2016, 10:42:21 PM »

Congratulations!  At last we have a total winner!

When you came down the stairs next to the Troll, had you identified the wand of slow monster, or were you just zapping desperately?

I noticed once you got to the 20+ levels, you used a wand on almost everything dangerous.  Maybe I conserve charges and items too much.  I'd probably have tackled that Dragon on the way up.  And I'd probably be dead.

I also hate to make anything easier because then you've just cheapened the victory - yours would not match up to previous victors. So any improvements I can think of would likely be gameplay mechanics-related without altering the difficulty level.

I agree with you there.  Especially now that we know it can be done.

18

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Advanced Super Turbo Rogue Plus

« on: July 14, 2016, 12:52:20 AM »

What kind of service do I need to be running in order to host the browser interface?

It runs as its own service.  There's a Makefile that installs everything, and then you can start it with systemctl.  It uses NodeJS, and it also needs a dgamelaunch installation.

What is your provider, how much does it cost? Do you pay extra to have static IP?

I use Linode, currently a $20/month plan, but the $10 package could easily handle it.  IP addresses are static.  Digital Ocean is another similar provider.  Places that charge $5 or less tend to be unreliable.

Tournaments aren't too difficult technically, but getting players to show up can be hard.  Giving everyone the same dungeon is an interesting idea.  It would make the randomness affect everyone fairly and equally.  But if people watched someone else's game, they could know in advance where monsters and treasure are.

By the way, I appreciate your help. Thanks.

Glad to give it.  Happy hacking.

19

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Advanced Super Turbo Rogue Plus

« on: July 13, 2016, 01:32:06 AM »

What dgamelaunch gives you is player accounts and security.  If you don't need permanent accounts, or are fine with handing out shell accounts, you can do without it.

The web console interface is also at the BitBucket link in my previous post.  Be aware it has some problems with colors that I never bothered fixing because Rogue is monochrome.  The server is running Linux.  I've always used Fedora but it should be portable to Debian or similar distros.

20

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Advanced Super Turbo Rogue Plus

« on: July 12, 2016, 01:39:40 AM »

The default colors do depend on the terminal.  You may be able to change the default color pair with init_pair(), but the most reliable thing to do is define some other color pair and use it for everything.  With the white text on white, have you tried making it bold too?  COLOR_WHITE without A_BOLD usually gets drawn light grey.

The rlgallery.org browser interface is JavaScript, source is here.  It uses whatever the browser's default monospace font is.

I will look into getting your version running online.  The speed and delay varies a lot due to the network.  Often the lag will be unnoticeable most of the time and 15 seconds the rest of the time.

21

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Advanced Super Turbo Rogue Plus

« on: July 09, 2016, 04:00:28 PM »

Don't need much help, just info on how to set up virtual off-line server and I should be able to take it from there. If possible I'd like to avoid 'dgamelaunch' for now and start with the simplest possible setup. By the way, I just noticed sourceforge has web hosting with PHP and MySQL, would that be sufficient to run online server, and if not what does it take?

Sourceforge web hosting isn't sufficient.  You need to upload the Rogue binary to the server and have it execute there.  Web hosts won't let you do that, you need a VPS.

Anyway, are you familiar with curses/ssh? I need help with that. Tried it with FreeSSHd server and not all font symbols/colors are what they should be, also mouse input doesn't work. Tried also Bitvise SSH server and while font graphics is much closer to what it should be, except for bold/bright colors, mouse again doesn't work. Don't know whether is it the game code, server/CMD, or PUTTY issue.

What OS is the server running?  To get the mouse working through SSH, you need the client (PuTTY?) to support mouse clicks, and to be configured to use them.  The program running on the server (Rogue) needs to know what kind of codes the client is using for mouse clicks.  That's usually done with the TERM environment variable.  Then Rogue has to be capable of understanding the mouse click codes.  PDCurses might be able to do that, I'll look into it.

I'm curious why different SSH servers result in different symbols or colors.  An SSH server is supposed to be more or less a "dumb pipe" that just moves bytes back and forth.  Maybe you need to configure the way the servers launch Rogue.

This kind of setup is rather fragile and often falls apart when users use programs or settings that you don't expect them to use.  But don't let me discourage you.

22

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: July 08, 2016, 11:50:43 PM »

But my problem is that she confuses me before I even see her most of the time.

One of the victors who wrote a Usenet post would wait in the doorway whenever entering a new room, letting the monsters come to him until he could be sure nothing awake was left there.  I've never had the patience to try this consistently.

I actually just started working the other day on elwin's Rogue 5.4.5 to look and play like Mac version, except for inventory which will work more like Atari ST version. I believe these changes will make the game at least 100x more playable and attractive for new people to try out. -- I have no idea how to make it work through ssh, Elwin let me know if you have time to help make that possible.

That sounds intriguing.  I don't have much time to help, but if you put your code online, send me a link.  Can you explain more about what you're trying to do?  It sounds like your main goal is adding a graphics layer.

Graphics don't work too well over SSH.  The easiest course these days would probably be to write a graphical program that communicates with the server over the Web.  I've always intended to make it possible for people to write their own clients or interfaces for the Gallery.

23

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: July 07, 2016, 11:16:25 PM »

I wasn't exactly serious about the social media idea, but I'll give it a try.  Sometime this month, I'll write a blog post about the things Rogue does better than its successors.  Then we can post links to it on social media.

Someone just grabbed the #3 spot in Super-Rogue.

24

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: July 02, 2016, 02:31:22 PM »

Sorry there's not more community discussion. Rogue is a niche game with a very small niche. Maybe we need somebody to promote it on social media. 

I don't find that a single trapdoor fall has much effect. It's unlikely that the unexplored part of the level actually had anything good in it. Missing a food ration can hurt. But even falling through more than one trapdoor is often survivable.

What worries me is those rust traps.

25

Programming / Re: Anyone successful build Angband with Codeblocks or Visual Studio 2016

« on: May 03, 2016, 12:45:01 AM »

I'm no Visual Studio expert, but Microsoft tends to be good with backward compatibility.  You may need to turn off some warnings or set them not to cause errors.  I haven't used 2016, but those options should be somewhere in the project settings.

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Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: May 03, 2016, 12:31:04 AM »

I have some very bad news for anyone hoping to beat Rogue.  I fixed venus Flytraps (aka violet Fungi).

They were designed to have their damage increase a point with every hit.  And you are hurt every turn you are stuck to one, whether it hits or misses you that turn.  You may have wondered why there was a monster that did zero or one damage on every hit, but sometimes a lot more when it missed.  That was a bug.  It is now squashed.  Flytraps are no longer annoyances worth 100 XP.  They are once again a menace that can destroy almost any character in eight to twelve turns.

I almost regret finding this bug.

Also I now believe that it is possible for some enemies to drop TWO items.

That is definitely possible.  A monster can only be generated with one item, but there's no limit to what it can pick up.

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Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: April 23, 2016, 05:20:26 PM »

Sorry about the Web app downtime.  I'm going to have to fix it again, properly this time.

I found your ttyrec.  There was a room in the lower right corner, six spaces wide and five spaces high.  You kept going down the right-hand side, across the bottom, up the left-hand wall, and back across the top.  Going across the top and bottom of a room five spaces high will miss the middle row.  When you went along the right wall, you saw the right two spaces of that row.  Sometimes you walked down the column next to the wall, and saw the right three spaces.  When you went up the left wall, you saw the left two spaces.  But you never explored the third space from the left in that middle row.  You walked around it four or five times, but you never saw it.  Without a savefile, I can't be certain, but I suspect that's where the stairs were.

28

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: April 22, 2016, 01:16:34 PM »

I never knew putting on and taking off rings doesn't use a turn.  I have used the ring of searching a few times.

I agree that some items are almost useless.  I think their purpose is to make it risky to use unidentified items in tense situations.

Throwing potions at monsters has no effect in V5.  That feature was added to PC Rogue.

One strategy I use is avoiding reading unidentified scrolls if they might be scrolls of identify for a category I don't have.  I hate wasting them that way.

Also for the first time had to commit suicide.  Found a floor with no stairs.

That's a bug that needs investigation.  Which game was it?

29

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: April 17, 2016, 01:13:45 PM »

I missed your demise (I was busy getting killed by Quaggas, despite my two-handed sword.)  Looked at the ttyrec... that was painful.  There's not much you can do if you find a treasure room before finding the stairs.

About deep-level monsters, I did some math.  Here is a table of their average damage per hit:

Griffin: 17
Jabberwock: 18
Medusa: 21
Troll: 16
Unicorn: 20

(This assumes you have no armor.  Any armor will give some protection from Trolls, but you need +3 plate mail to have any effect on Jabberwocks.)

The important difference is that Griffins and Jabberwocks have over twice as many hit points as Trolls.  Still, 7 hits with a two-handed sword should demolish the average Jabberwock, and 6 should suffice for the average Griffin.

Getting in that many hits before getting killed requires you to start with over 100 hit points.  So a direct attack is likely to fail.

30

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue - let's beat it

« on: April 16, 2016, 02:29:12 PM »

I agree, a great and disappointing run.  The game looked winnable, up until that time you leveled up and only got 1 HP increase.  That changed it from manageably low to disastrous.  On level 14 and 15, you were killing everything, but with the Wraith and the Vampire, the balance shifted faster than usual.

I am beginning to think max HP is a much bigger factor than weapons or armor.

Toward the end, you started using up charges rapidly.  I don't have much experience with Griffins, but did you need to zap all of them?  One more charge might have gotten you a little farther.