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Messages - Pueo

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16
Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Enemy names and types
« on: August 21, 2012, 11:33:37 PM »
Ok, thanks for the more in-depth information.  Since it's not "Earth," you can basically do whatever you want.  Dinosaurs are out, though. Any fantasy element is still possible, however.  I know you want to steer clear of fantasy elements, but those are easily recognizable.  A unicorn will almost always be seen as "good" and a troll will almost always be seen as "bad."

Honestly, I'm not very interested in just enemy races....

[So much imagination]

...I could go on and on, but I think this is enough for now. To think up a fantasy race is to imagine the world it was born in, what influenced them, why they are the way they are. A lot more fun than just "Yeah, wooden elves, whatevers." The plot writes itself as you pull ideas out of your head and build the world of your dreams. You'll still have to do the thinking, but it's so much fun.
You sir, have an awesome imagination.  This gave me some great ideas on how to think up my own creatures/races.    

17
Classic Roguelikes / Re: Major, Open-World Roguelikes
« on: August 21, 2012, 10:32:09 PM »
  There is a survivor style game I played once that was about managing 3-4 resources. Food, Water, Clothing and something else, health? You were on a boat and had to stop on islands to refill your supplies.

  It had bars showing how much food, water, etc...so you don't need to actually press a button to eat. You can just make 'food' a slowly decreasing resource bar that refills a bit when you find more. Automate the process.
    That seems like a good idea.  I was also thinking about maybe removing limiters on time and introducing limiters on levels able to be gained.  Because I want the game to be about exploration, maybe have there be a limit to how much defense, life, etc you can gain.

18
Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Enemy names and types
« on: August 21, 2012, 08:00:43 PM »
    Sounds like a cool idea.  Since you're trying to reach the center of the earth, try underground creatures.  Giant moles, salamanders that live in lava, creatures that look like rocks but jump at you when you walk by, those kinds of things.  If you want, you can pretend that dinosaurs have lived underground all these years and include those kinds of things.  Carnivorous/aggressive flora could be an interesting twist. 

    The nature of the mystical temple could also produce creatures.  Who built the temple? Who guards the temple?  What is in the temple that needs guarding?  Is the temple "Good" and you "Bad" (you might have to fight angels), or is it the other way around?

19
I like how he continues to hold his source code hostage. I like how it's "the highest stretch goal". Classy.
I agree.  I'm one for open source code (unless your code is horrible-looking, then hide it on your hard drive :P).  Of course, people need to eat, but he's obviously been doing fine all these years.

20
Off-topic (Locked) / Re: Enemy names and types
« on: August 21, 2012, 06:34:17 PM »
It all depends on what your setting is. 
Underwater roguelike: merman, shark, barracuda, whale, etc.
Traditional Fantasy roguelike: Elves, orcs, goblins, water nymphs, unicorns, etc.
Post-Apocalyptic roguelike: Depends on the method of apocalypse, but in general: zombies, mutated creatures, bandits, etc.

What kind of setting are you thinking about?

21
Classic Roguelikes / Re: Major, Open-World Roguelikes
« on: August 21, 2012, 05:21:39 PM »
I think someone needs to do one. ADOM 2 seems to be quite close, it has some kind of big overworld map, although if food consumption is as fast as in ADOM it's not that kind of open world.
   I'm trying to do one, where you're in a post-apocalyptic USA and you're trying to reach a supposed safe haven (Book of Eli-esque, without the Bible), but I did come across the whole food thing.  Food is supposed to be a limiting system on how long you can stay in an area; in order to prevent grinding, but I guess there needs to be some kind of other limiter, since food in an open world quickly gets unrealistic.  Traveling between towns would maybe take 10 turns (real-time), but a couple weeks (game-time), meaning you have to eat some 15-20 times in an extremely short span, if you're going for realism (which I am).

22
Programming / Re: Importance of persistence
« on: August 21, 2012, 04:57:27 PM »
I'm not sure how much space 26 8-bit variables translates to, but could you just store only the level you're on and then when they get to the next level, get rid of the last one?  I don't think persistence is a required part of RLs, the original Rogue only had one level at a time (each time you entered the level, it got rid of the last one).

23
Classic Roguelikes / Major, Open-World Roguelikes
« on: August 20, 2012, 09:02:29 PM »
I'm looking for examples of roguelikes where you can either do whatever it is you want or proceed towards the end goal.  I think ADOM is a little like this, but are there any others?

24
Programming / Re: Using Seeds to Generate Levels
« on: August 19, 2012, 07:31:03 AM »
In other words, if you gen each level only when the character gets there, but you also use the rng to generate damage and hitting, the number of attacks will lead to different levels later on.  If you split things into a level rng and a battle rng though then you can be sure the entire dungeon will be the same.
   Thanks, I never noticed that with mine (probably because I generated the whole dungeon in the beginning), but that'll be good to know in the future.

25
Programming / Re: Using Seeds to Generate Levels
« on: August 19, 2012, 03:41:18 AM »
    Well, in C, you use the 'rand' function to generate random numbers (which is usually how you do everything random in a roguelike).  However, unless you use the 'srand' function, your results will always be the same, because the rand function needs to be "seeded" (I think that's what it's called).  

    This is were seeds come in.   The rand function plugs that seed into a pseudo-random number generating algorithm.  The srand function gives the rand function a seed to work with.  The most common use is "srand( time(NULL) )", which plugs the current time in as a seed (this ensures that the seed is always different).

    You could, however, ask the player if they want to input a specific seed.  (Have them type in a string, called it char seed[10], then use "srand(seed)")  If they input the same seed twice, then the number generating algorithm will churn out the exact same numbers twice, giving you the same map.

I don't want to make any kind of wilderness or cave, since those generate mainly with fractals or algorithms. I'm talking about creating a wall at a random place. Or making a road go 20 tiles north and then go 8 tiles west.
  The wilderness and cave structures can also be generated through seeds (I made a cellular automata dungeon with seeds and the rand function).  It's all about how creative you are.  

    Creating a wall at a random place: Seed the RNG with a specific string, tell it to pick a number between 1 and 100.  As long as you use that exact seed, you will always get the same number.  Instead of telling it to pick a number between 1 and 100, tell it to pick two numbers to use as coordinates, then place a wall there.

    Making a road go 20 tiles north, then 8 tiles west: If you mean you want it to go exactly 20N then 8W, it's more reliable to do that manually.  However, if you mean just random directions/lengths but always the same due to seeding, then do the same as "creating a wall at a random place."  Tell it to pick a number between 1 and 4 (North, East, South, West), then a length.  Do that a couple times, and you get a road that goes in a few random directions.  Use the same seed again, and you get the same road.

Summary:
How would you translate this into roguelike where you are mainly picking a random point in the level and adding assets there?
   Seeding is all about giving the RNG something to work with.  If you give it the same seed twice, you get the same results twice.  If you give it the same seed each time you start the program, all the random points you pick will be the same each time you start the program, due to the magic of seeds.

26
Programming / Re: When is Random Too Random?
« on: August 19, 2012, 02:36:06 AM »
  I have the same problem. I bounce around to different ideas. I made a thread once about how many design choices are made because doing it the way you really want is just too hard to program.

  Lol, I got responses along the lines of, "Well even first person 3D shooters are one man projects now." Very useful info! Not.

  So I think it's about picking reasonable goal and sticking to it.
    I feel the same way.  I jump around a lot with video games as well (I enjoy thinking up ideas based on games). 

  As far as learning a language, you can't go wrong with C++. Pretty standard, and after you learn that the rest is easy. If you are savvy you can be kicking ass in that language in a year.
    That's why I'm looking into HaXe; it can convert into C++ source code and several other formats.

27
Programming / Re: When is Random Too Random?
« on: August 19, 2012, 12:50:15 AM »
 So I guess I'm saying most games that do it really well are those that toss a curve ball once in a while.
 Yes, I think for something to be interesting it has to be unpredictable (to a point).

 If you are pretty code savvy the source code would be neat to read. I'm not so code savvy, other people's code makes my eyes bleed. :-)
  I'm probably the least code savvy person on the forum. :P  I mostly dream about how awesome my roguelike would be if I could just get to learning (and I mean really learning, I have basic knowledge of C) a language.

 Randomized quests seem totally doable and interesting to me, it's just tough to make them interesting. Side quests are rarely interesting anyway, I find making the END GOAL of the game different each time to be very very interesting. Slay the Dragon this time, you need to load up on fire resistance. Slay Dracula next time, better find a lake of holy water to dump him in. The next time it's a Hydra, blunt weapons are good, but a scroll of multi-fireball is the real winner.
 My original goal was: Have 20-ish monster types, have a boss type of each of those, so 20-ish bosses.  Dungeon dive to about depth 25-ish, fight random boss (out of the pool of 20-ish bosses).  Go deeper to fight the rest of the bosses, or high-tail it out of there for your reward!  Unfortunately the whole needing-to-know-how-to-computer-program-thing got in the way of designing, so now it's just a fun idea.
   Now that I think about it, I have tons of "fun ideas" that I can't really implement (again with the computer programming :P).  I guess I just have to choose one language and stick with it; I keep bouncing around because I think one is "better" or "easier" than another, but they're all good in their own ways.  I'm looking at Haxe now.

28
Programming / Re: When is Random Too Random?
« on: August 19, 2012, 12:06:16 AM »
@Paul, I played (the demo of) Hack, Slash, Loot, and I think you're right.  Two things are random that make it insane to play:

A: From what I can tell, your character is blind in one-and-a-half eyes and has zero muscle coordination.  Apparently, it takes 10 tries to hit once, and then it's usually a one/two-hit kill.

B: Good artifacts are very hard to come by, making it less a game of exploration than a game of hunt-for-a-weapon.

@kraflab, That slider between puzzle and roguelike is so finicky!  I don't want players to be omniscient, but I do want them to be thinking about the "smartest" way to do something.  I want to reward tactics and make them preferable over engaging in open combat.  I don't, however, want the game to be the same every time.  A few things will be the same (the types of monsters, for example), but I'm trying to figure out how much needs to be different to make it interesting every time.

29
Programming / When is Random Too Random?
« on: August 18, 2012, 09:04:13 PM »
    At what point does a game become too random?  Of course, random map generation and item/monster placement is pretty much necessary for a roguelike, but when do you stop?  Should the items themselves be random?  Should monsters have random stats and powers and movement patterns? 

    What about combat? Is it a bad thing if you know goblins always have 75 health? 
 
    Another part is setting and narration.  Should quests be random?  Would a random setting make the game too confusing?  If the game has a story, how much of it should be constant?

    I feel that past map generation, item/monster placement, and item generation, it becomes too incoherent.  It becomes too hard to gauge the strength of monsters; even if you know it's a goblin, it could have anywhere from 50 - 100 health (for example), meaning you might charge in, thinking it'll go down in a couple hits, but in actuality it takes 5, nearly killing you in the process.

30
Programming / Re: Good Settings for Free-Roam RogueLikes
« on: August 18, 2012, 12:03:25 AM »
 Stone age survival? Jungle, desert, islands, swamps, etc...megafauna like Sabertooth Tigers and Mastadons. Beavers the size of horses. Flash floods.
    That's pretty good.  I also thought of another "all-alone" kind of setting, where, by unspecified (so far) means, you end up in the ruins of a centuries-, millennia-, or even eons-old civilization (maybe with awesome advanced technology) and must find out what happened (or maybe you're just there for the gold).  You have to fight rats, spiders, maybe ancient machines, etc in order to reach your goals. 

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