Messages

46

Programming / Re: Health and Limbs

« on: June 20, 2012, 06:38:08 PM »

I personally don't enjoy limb-based combat, I prefer to focus on strategy, not "Oh, I hope he doesn't hack my hand off because I recently lost my Magic Metal Gloves of Protection!*"


*Sorry if that sounded condescending towards people who do like limb-based combat; I was making a point, not being mean/sarcastic.

47

Programming / Re: Procedurally Generated Building Environments

« on: June 20, 2012, 06:30:25 PM »

Hm, that's a good question.  It's a little difficult, though, because "buildings," by definition, are not random.  They are planned and constructed with a specific purpose purpose in mind, whether it be residential, industrial, or commercial.  

So, the most logical solution would be to choose a "purpose" for the building, find out what is needed to fulfill that purpose, and put it into a building.  

Say, for example, you wanted a residential building.  You determine that for a good residential "feel," you need at least 200 sqti (square tiles, like square feet, but instead of feet, you use tiles to measure) of space.  So, your building is something like 10x20 or 20x10 or 20x20 or anything that gets you at least 200 sqti. You could also slap X amount of rectangles together, whose total sqti is at least 200 sqti, giving you L- or U- or H- or some-other-letter-shaped houses.  Then, you figure a residential space needs at least one bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining room,  patio, etc.  So, within your 200+ sqti, you put in at least one of those things; maybe limit the kitchen/dining room/patio to only one (no need for 3 kitchens!).  Of course, each type of room also has unique furniture/appliance needs, as there's no need for an oven in the bedroom.  So put the right furniture/appliances in the right rooms, polish it up, and voila! Nice, random (yet structured) residential buildings.

You can do the same with commercial (cubicles, offices, bathrooms, janitor closets, etc) and industrial (factory floor, bathrooms, maybe one office, control-room-type-thing, etc).

48

Early Dev / Re: MicRogue - Update Jun 19th

« on: June 19, 2012, 10:20:56 PM »

Pueo: excellent comments as always.

I try. 

I think selecting the dungeon they want to tackle should be allowed, but the default should be random selection.  I also like the 3 Artifacts per dungeon idea.

Does the blog you are thinking of using do (free) file-hosting?  I'm thinking of getting a blog up when I get further along with my project.

49

Programming / Re: Randomized Object Stats, Randomized Quests?

« on: June 19, 2012, 08:07:57 PM »

  Yeah I checked that out. I responded as well. It seemed to be more about random narrative that really missions or quests.

  I'm thinking of something simple, not a story, just a goal. As in, "Kill X" or "Find X". Many roguelikes have a goal and theme but no real narrative. Like Nethack. Find Amulet in this wacky dungeon. That's the entire story from what I can tell, and I like it.

Well, if it's just something simple, you can do it the same as random items and monsters.  "Kill X" (or "Kill X Amount of Y's") is easy; just choose a random monster and (optionally) a random number for you to kill.  Same with "Find X" or "Find X Amount of Y's."

50

Programming / Resizing Terminal Screen

« on: June 19, 2012, 06:56:31 PM »

I'm having trouble with my C/nCurses setup.  When I call "resizeterm" or "resize_term" (I'm not sure what the difference is), either nothing happens, or my terminal window disappears.  I've also tried "is_term_resized" and I get a non-null character, so I should be able to resize the terminal.  It's a little frustrating, since I do want to eventually distribute this, and it's no good if everyone has to manually resize their terminal.  Also, to clarify, I want to resize the physical screen (that you see on the monitor and has a little title bar near the top), not the virtual screen in the curses window.

Right now (as a little test run) I have:

Code: [Select]

#include <ncurses.h>

int main()
{
    initscr();
    resize_term(34, 142);
    getch();
    endwin();
}
Is that correct?  Should the first integer in "resize_term" be the rows, or the columns?  Should "resize_term" be "resizeterm?"  Should "resizeterm" be before or after "initscr()?"

Short Version:
Question: How do you properly use "resizeterm" (or "resize_term") in order to reliably resize a terminal on almost any machine?
Note:  I want to resize the physical terminal screen, not the virtual screen used by Curses.

51

Programming / Re: Randomized Object Stats, Randomized Quests?

« on: June 19, 2012, 04:29:18 PM »

I'm not sure about random monsters, but I'd guess it's generally the same as random items.  

If I were to go the random item route (which I don't think I am), I would do it much the same way as the random name generators that hide the true nature of potions and such do.  Pick a adjective/noun, a item type, maybe a +x or -x, and an effect (probably best to match the adjective/noun and item type with the effect), and put it in the level.

With this, you get things such as "+1 Heated Mail," which protects you from coldness, or "-2 Lightning Rod," which shoots lightning, or even "+3 Shining Sword," which deals extra damage against undead, or many others.


Also, since your title mentioned random quests, you could look at this:
http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=2232.0

52

Early Dev / Re: MicRogue

« on: June 19, 2012, 04:13:43 PM »

1. Different Dungeons - will have different enviroments, traps, enemies, and final depths

I think that's a great idea, especially along with #3.  Say the king says "Ice Diamond!" and you go "!"  Then you can go into the Ice Cave to get the Ice Diamond.

2. "Quest" Tiers. level up dungeons as you beat them, forcing you to go deeper to find the treasure. (can always play an easier tier)

I'm not too sure about that one.  It seems against your original(?) goal of a quick/fun game if you have to keep track of tiers and choose a tier to play in.

3. "Artifacts". right now the king says jewel, but this could be a randomly chosen mcguffin to get and I could keep track of all of them for the player. so the player can see which ones they found.

See #1.

4. Skills. basically the player would have one skill/spell to use. this would replace in game items. Not a lot of people actually use the items though.

This and #5 (I think) would make a great addition to the game.  I imagine it as the original intro cut, but instead of one hero, you can choose the hero that goes "!" and play as him.

5. Different heroes. (This would probably be best if I did the skills idea. each one could have a different skill)

See #4.

also a final question. I am thinking of replay-ability. Anything you would like to see?

I think if you add in numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5, you'll have the perfect amount of replay-ability.

53

Incubator / Re: Intro to the Incubator

« on: June 15, 2012, 03:51:29 AM »

Great, a spam-bot made its way into the Incubator, too.

54

Programming / Re: Using -- and ++

« on: June 14, 2012, 05:08:23 PM »

Things like this happens when people try to "pack" code in smaller, more compact form. It may look cool, but it's an endless source of possible bugs.

Also it looks like you are using a raw array. Do not do that. With dungeon map you can easily use an array class with out of index check. Then you can access the map even with bad values without crashing the program.

I'm not sure what "raw array" means, but about the part about array classes; is that applicable in plain C?
What I did was make a struct and make an array of said struct.

I'm thinking of transferring out of C, some things are a pain.

55

Programming / Re: Using -- and ++

« on: June 14, 2012, 06:13:04 AM »

yes, use "row-1'

Alright, thanks.

56

Programming / Using -- and ++

« on: June 14, 2012, 04:29:37 AM »

Quick question, when you use -- and ++ when accessing an array, is it also decrementing or incrementing the value?
(Example)

Code: [Select]

dungeon[row--][col][depth].connected = TRUE;
dungeon[row][col][depth].connections[dungeon[row][col][depth].numConnections][row--][col] = TRUE;
What I'm trying to do is access the section one row above (physically above, so the row has to decrease) the current row.

What the debugger says I'm doing is that the row variable (the one I'm decrementing) starts at 1 (before this code block starts), goes to 0 (after the first line), then goes to -2 (after the second line).  Then, of course, that means I'm trying to access an array with a negative value, which is producing a BAD_ACCESS error.

57

Early Dev / Re: MicRogue

« on: June 14, 2012, 03:50:11 AM »

Okay so here is an Update.

1. There is a test timer in the top corner. It counts down each step, but you get +6 each time you go to a new floor. At 0 you die because I haven't come up with a better idea yet.
2. I also added the ninja back in.
3. I added the rats back in and going with the theme of enemy deaths being interesting I went with the idea of the rat swarm. When you kill a rat now. 2 more will spawn on the level.

The next two things I need to decide are:
A. How to do spells. People usually don't use items, but I think if I give the main character one really useful spell that will work better, and be good to get you out of a situation. I just need to figure out how recharging works? automatically recharged per floors? by killing enemies? is it a rare mana potion drop? One time use, make it count?

B. How to do the End Game. I can have the Player reach a certain Level but that seems Anti-climatic. I have two options though. Return so let the player go in and grab something then rush out. It basically is the same as reaching a certain Point, But thematically it works better. I am also pondering the idea of Bosses, but that opens up another can of worms. Although it could be cool, it might be better left for later.

I really enjoyed when the plot was, "Delve into the dungeon and get out before the Night comes and the Dark Lord awakens!"

58

Programming / Re: Chasm Indicator

« on: June 13, 2012, 07:34:16 PM »

Thanks for the replies guys, I think I'll go with an empty (blank) space.

59

Early Dev / Re: MicRogue

« on: June 13, 2012, 04:21:17 AM »

Nice build

I personally like the eyes not being able to kill you, it makes them more of a "team player," where they are sort of this extra thing you have to watch so that you don't get teleported into a blob pack.

60

Programming / Chasm Indicator

« on: June 13, 2012, 03:42:52 AM »

Just wondering, what would you want to see used to indicate chasms (as in pits you can fall down).  I know Brogue uses some kind of 4-dots tile, but I was wondering what that is in regular ASCII (I think Brogue uses tiles that look ASCII).

Or, what do you think is better?