Messages

61

Programming / Re: Simultaneous turns?

« on: March 02, 2012, 03:42:00 PM »

If you've ever played Vandal Hearts 2 on the original Playstation, they had an interesting take on "simultaneous" turns (and I use the term a little loosely), but it might be worth taking a look. Large part of that game was anticipation of what the enemies would do, and being in the right spot - otherwise there was a lot of attacking empty air.

62

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Apshai clone - Cavequest

« on: February 15, 2012, 03:49:28 PM »

Holy crap! I remember this game. It was completely gone from my memory until I clicked your link and saw the screenshots - played it on my Tandy 1000SX. It was fun, if I recall - gonna DOSBox it here in a few minutes and see if it was actually fun, or 25 years have distorted my memory. Remember any other old games from this time period?

63

Programming / Re: Combat Balancing

« on: January 05, 2012, 02:26:56 PM »

For a turn based game? I wouldn't think so. The absolute maximum number of times per turn this calculation would be called would be equal to the maximum number of creatures you on the map (big O of n?)

64

Classic Roguelikes / Re: ToME 4 - Discuss it here!

« on: January 03, 2012, 05:02:03 PM »

I lose the mouse entirely whenever I go full-screen.


Slick interface, and enjoying it so far. My only complaint is the maps themselves are kind dull; I especially don;t like the dungeon generation for the lower lever dungeons I have encountered, but maybe I am just not far enough in the game to see the good stuff yet.

(Oh, and screw that stupid archmage quest you can accept on making a new archmage.....)

65

Programming / Re: Spells data format

« on: January 02, 2012, 06:52:54 PM »

Just save the data in a csv file. Excel is totally fine with it - it's human readable and editable. No reason a person can't edit a csv with text pad either. It's what I use, though I am debating using some kind of encryption to avoid players making their characters super powerful.

Just save your file as:

spell name, damage type, spell shape, low damage, high damage, description, range
fireball spell, DAMAGE_TYPE_FIRE, SPELL_TYPE_BOLT, 5, 15, "A ball of fire flies from your fingertips.", 6


Or something similar. Have your program discard the header line. Excel is totally kosher with this. Write your parser to simply convert words into whatever constants youve defined. No third party stuff needed if the user wants to edit a text file.

66

Classic Roguelikes / Re: ToME 4 - Discuss it here!

« on: December 19, 2011, 02:28:20 AM »

This game, regardless of whether you like the combat mechanics, looks great. Really slick AI, though I don't like the 'ascii' setting. Is this really a 1-man project?

67

Early Dev / Re: Clarion - The Open-World Graphical Roguelike

« on: December 12, 2011, 04:02:04 PM »

Floating point error - division by zero


I am really curious to see this in action. I bought Gamemaker, too, mainly for how easy it is to do 2d graphics stuff, and GML is easy, but I don't like the fact you can't really make advanced data structures. Having 500 arrays (which you can't dimension) seems a bit clunky. Curious how to implement FOV in GM, too. Are you planning on showing your source code?

Thanks!

68

Early Dev / Re: Kharne Alpha 23 now available.

« on: July 19, 2011, 07:19:10 PM »

Cool game! Suffered a persistant bug upon exit that did not affect game play.

69

Programming / Java rogues that are open source?

« on: July 17, 2011, 04:38:51 PM »

Are there any Java roguelikes out there that are open source? I've been learning Java at school, but they focus on pesky data structures and how to write white papers. I'm specifically interested in how the display elements are implemented. I downloaded Jcurses but it's hard to understand everything just reading the javadoc.

70

Early Dev / Rogue Project 2

« on: July 08, 2011, 01:11:41 AM »

http://lordsofdarkhall.weebly.com/rogue-project-2.html


Another version of my rogue project is up. Work stalled a bit, but has picked up a lot lately. Engine feels pretty solid, and now that I have the skill framework and hotkey system done (just drop the skill code in and its done) it's time to start adding the content and begin balancing.

If you're interested, you can give it a test drive at the link above. You still can't die yet, and pressing \ on the overworld unlocks a few skills to play with. Pressing \ on the submap generates a random, possibly magic item for you to futz around with.

Probably the last 'alpha' code I will generate, at least for a while. Now that the engine is 'done' (with the exception of the town/buy/sell stuff), I am going to actually start adding the 'content' and the town building code. My goal is something like a sort of roguelike Oblivion.

If you have the time, I would love some criticism/feedback, especially on performance of things like auto-explore on your system. I have manually coded the load/save dialog boxes because of the common 'comdlg32.ocx missing' people kept getting when I used what was supposed to be part of every Windows install.

Thank you for your time; hope everyone is having a nice summer (or winter for those of you down south)!

Brigand

71

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Maria Cuffaro, Maria Rosaria De Medici and other tv hot chicks

« on: October 26, 2009, 02:54:59 PM »

.

72

Programming / Re: Damage displays

« on: October 22, 2009, 12:22:07 PM »

Hitpoints are an abstraction of health anyways. If you allow players to see exact hp and exact damage, they can 'game' the system (meaning really power game and control their resources very tightly). I guess there's no reason you can't put those numbers in. Just ask yourself what kind of playstyle you are aiming for? Really, the reason for showing or not showing hitpoints/damage has more to do with player resource management than anything else.

a) The magic missile does 7 pts of damage. The goblin has 2 health left.  You have 10 health "Oh, I can finish him off with my weakest, cheap spell and save some mana for the next encounter! Theres no way he can kill me in 1 hit."

or


b) Your sword slices through the goblins armor. The goblin is injured.   "Crap, what do I do? Use a small spell, and save some resources, but potentially allow him to live, and maybe kill me with its next swing?? Or use a fireball spell?? Costs me more, but gives me a bigger safety margin."



(As a side note, I am kind of choosing a middle ground for my next project. In the past, I used health bars, which allows almost as much knowledge as getting the numbers (which the player also gets, if they choose to read it). I have switched over to a 'health bubble' - the color of the bubble gives a generalization of the health of the enemy, but only a vague one. Green = uninjured, yellow = somewhat hurt, red = about to die. After all, the player would be able to 'see' if the goblin was bleeding from 10 wounds, but he wouldn't know the exact physical extent of the damage. Just my $0.02)

73

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn-based) / Re: Lords of Darkhall

« on: October 21, 2009, 02:53:59 PM »

I've included it in the download. Just drop it in your /system32/ folder and it should work.

74

Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Good Books

« on: October 16, 2009, 12:32:03 PM »

I second Perdurabo suggestion....Martin's series is superb...Though I will say the man seems to be stuck in a rut; after the first 4 books came out like clockwork, the most recent is 3 or 4 years late now, with no publish date in site.


My personal suggestion, if you care for historical fiction at all, is to read Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories or Warlord Chronicles. The first is set during the height of the Viking invasions of 'England' when Alfred the Great has come to power, and (ultimately) begins to push back the Danes. The second series is a realistic treament of the Arthurian legend, set right after the Roman withdrawal from Briton, when the Saxons seem unstoppable, and the native Briton tribes can't seem to get along. No (real) magic in either book (Merlin is a Druid, and his magic tends to be circumstance and deception), and both are set against real characters and events. (The Arthurian books are a little more tenuous just because there is so little written information about that period, but the main characters, such as the protagonists Aelle and Cerdic, are believed to have lived.) Really, really good reads.


As far as your specific request for medieval fantasy... been a while, but the Elric stories (Michael Moorcock) are interesting, at least the first books before the Eternal Warrior starts appearing in other times and places - these books are definitely not 'bland', or 'more of the same'. In fact, they get to be pretty damn trippy in parts.

 It's a bit low-brow, more for teenagers, but I enjoyed reading the Raymond Feist books when I was a kid. Nothing particularly mind blowing there, but the books he wrote with Janny Wurts from the perspective of the antagonists in the first few books stand out as really good.

Just my $0.02. But I have to say Perdurabo stole my thunder. The Ice and Fire books are the best fantasy books I have read in a long time, and I have long since quit reading this genre. Too much of the same old, same old. Martin's book are dark, gritty, and violent. I'll just warn you - Martin has no qualms about killing off your favorite, central to the story character at any point. There's none of this 'it's just a flesh wound - I'll be back' crap in these books.

75

Other Announcements / Re: Slashie.net next xRL

« on: October 15, 2009, 12:38:18 PM »

System Shock 2 would be pretty awesome. Been dying to play that game a while, but Vista (ugh) doesn't like it.