Messages

76

Other Announcements / Re: Greetings and Inquiries!

« on: January 22, 2011, 10:10:48 PM »

Everyone loves variants, especially Angband. That's probably a good one to start with. Its codebase is a little cleaner than some other games.

Have fun creating!

77

Programming / Re: Trouble installing ncurses in Ruby...

« on: December 21, 2010, 05:05:55 PM »

It looks like the build can't find your ncurses installation.  I think the gem doesn't actually contain ncurses, which is a C library, but just allows you to use the library from Ruby code.  So you need to have the library and the ncurses.h header already installed, and the gem installer needs to be able to find them.

I'm not really sure how to do that on Windows, but this article might help.

78

Programming / Re: Tracking targets

« on: December 13, 2010, 11:09:13 PM »

I'd have it look around every turn for items worth picking up.

I don't know how it would be possible to travel to a specific target without storing some information about it, because making that evaluation in every turn would make the monster chase between two items, never reaching either one of them.

Always move toward the closest one.

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Programming / Re: Tracking targets

« on: December 13, 2010, 06:46:26 PM »

I actually wouldn't have the NPC store any reference to the item it's tracking at all.  I'd have it look around every turn for items worth picking up.

My reason is that if monster A wants to pick up object B, indicating this by storing an id or pointer to B in A's data structure is duplicating information.  The level map contains the locations of A and B and implies that A can see B.  It implicitly stores the fact that A wants to pick up B.  Creating an explicit reference from A to B is storing the same information in two places.  If you do that, either they will fall into disagreement, or you will have to come up with a complicated method of making sure you always change them both at the same time.

Suppose, instead of getting destroyed, the item gets picked up by some other monster, or the player.  Or it gets teleported, or polymorphed into an item the monster isn't interested in.  Or the monster gets teleported out of sight, or polymorphed into something that can't pick up items.  There are just too many sections of code that have to work together.

80

Programming / Re: Windows GUI or Custom GUI?

« on: December 11, 2010, 09:48:58 PM »

I would recommend not trying to come up with a fix for each different version.  Someone is sure to come along with a custom theme or a weird combination of settings that ruins all your carefully devised adjustments.

81

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue Password?

« on: December 11, 2010, 09:37:31 PM »

"cute,huh" may or may not work, depending on your version.  The password itself isn't in the source, only its encrypted value is.  The encryption method may have been changed, which would stop the password from working.

But if you can get the password to work, you will be able to:

• Create any object, including the Amulet of Yendor
• Identify all items
• Teleport and level teleport yourself
• Do magic mapping
• Do monster detection
• Advance several levels and gain a two-handed sword and +8 plate mail
• Get called "as smart as Ken Arnold."

82

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Most gold ever in Rouge ?

« on: November 24, 2010, 04:55:29 PM »

I've gotten 5000 a few times.

I have to disagree about the imbalance.  The complete impossibility is what makes Rogue fun.  When there's no reasonable expectation of winning, losing a good game is an accomplishment instead of an annoyance.  You focus on how far you got instead of your failure.

83

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Apparently I'm a Linux User Now

« on: November 24, 2010, 04:42:27 PM »

Welcome to the Dark Side.

I've found that Linux is good for staying on the bleeding edge of DCSS.  The downside of that is that the releases already feel out of date when they come out.

Though there aren't many Linux-specific roguelikes, playing and developing them just feels more natural on Unix.  You can have full-screen consoles with smooth clear fonts.  The manpages have detailed descriptions of all the curses functions.  And so on...

84

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Crossfire v1.50.0 released

« on: June 15, 2010, 12:09:13 PM »

Oh no! Now I have to waste several days checking it out.

85

Classic Roguelikes / Re: ToTRL Competitions: Recover the Amulet of Yendor!

« on: June 10, 2010, 04:23:22 PM »

I thought I had a chance.  I had a two-handed sword.  I drank 3 potions of gain strength.  I had +3 plate mail (that's AC 0.)  I had 9 food rations and two rings of slow digestion.

I got caught between a troll and a centaur only 16 levels down.  Not even 3000 points.

My strategy needs some alterations.

ttyrec

86

Other Announcements / Re: Do you listen to music when playing Roguelikes?

« on: June 09, 2010, 03:05:24 PM »

"Certain Death" and other songs by Brad Sucks.  The atmosphere of slightly humorous despair is a good fit for the Roguelike genre.

Also a recording of H. P. Lovecraft's "Fungi from Yuggoth".  A background of vague dread punctuated by moments of panic is also fitting for playing roguelikes.

87

Programming / Re: Console and size

« on: March 08, 2010, 09:55:13 PM »

It's probably better to make it fit in 80x24.  Programs that refuse to run until the user changes something are generally a bad idea.  And some people might not know how to resize their console.

88

Other Announcements / Re: How I found Roguelikes

« on: March 01, 2010, 05:16:37 PM »

I'd recommend starting off with Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, good graphics and plenty of difficulty.

For real-time action instead of turn-based play, there's Crossfire, which is basically an MMO, though the graphics are a little old.

I've heard good things about POWDER as well.

Also, ASCII graphics often grow on you.  Or maybe they mind-control you.  I hated them at first too.

89

Classic Roguelikes / Re: Rogue Newbie

« on: February 22, 2010, 03:09:04 PM »

Welcome to the Rogue world!

I recently set up a server where you can play Rogue online via ssh, and watch other people play.  It's at rlgallery.org.  There are several players who are rather good, so there are definitely people with an interest in it.

Rogue 3.6 is indeed the oldest version that can be downloaded and played.  The Rogue 1.0's on Dungeondweller are later ports to other platforms; the version numbers started over.

For tips/hints/etc., you should start by reading the "Vade-Mecum" on rogue.rogueforge.net.  For an overview of the genre, read through the @play column on GameSetWatch.

Have fun with roguelike history!

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Public Rogue server

« on: February 16, 2010, 12:45:20 AM »

The watching bug has been fixed.  It just took a few simple nonl()'s, but in the process I learned far more about terminals than any sane person should know.

ttyrecs from before the fix will work if you view them with IPBT instead of ttyplay.

Source and ttyrecs are downloadable as promised, time to work on RogueV5 and the website.