Cave map 'theme' ASCII symbols & colors

[RogueMaster]

Hi there.

Sorry for all those post i opened, but now i need some advice or opinion about which ASCII symbols and colors would you implement or want to see in a cave map. Choose one of those in the next images or specify another different theme. Remember it's a cave map, not a dungeon:




The walls in B, D, F and H are any ASCII character between 176 and 178.
The brownish color doesn't have to be exactly that color.


Right now, about the viewing algorithm: which would you use for this kind of maps?

Would you use 360º Raycasting , 360º Fov, or maybe Linear Raycasting/Fov?
This is, player can view all around or only what's in front?
Will player be able to see 'through' walls (FOV) or every wall will block the view behind it (Raycasting)?
Or will you implement a 'full-revealed' map?



And about monsters: will you use color coded monsters? Or every monster will be white/grey? or monsters the same color as the map color?




And finally, about HUD design:
Health bar = red, mana/energy bar = blue, but which color could describe better a 'lamp fuel' bar? (the grey part is the depleted part)
Also which ASCII symbol would you use to represent the bar itself?
ASCII 254: Health: |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■|
ASCII 219: Health: |██████████████|
ASCII 178: Health: |▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓|
ASCII 61: Health: |============|

In my oppinion, i think ASCII 254 and 61 are the best one since it's easy to see how much left because you can count the units left and depleted, but 254 looks better than 61.
Or if you have anything better please specify it.

Now, would you include the real value of the bar?
Health: |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■| 60%
Health: |■■■■■■60%■■■■■|
Health: 60%|■■■■■■■■■■■■■■|


More about HUD:
The basic elements are: message log (monster hits you, you kill monster, you pick gold, etc...), Stats bar (HP, energy, fuel), temporary/permanent status (poisoned, cursed, burning, blessed, blinded, Stone Skin, etc...), map name and depth, gold coins and clock.
Any other non decorative element is also absolutely necessary?


That's all. Thanks in advance.

[Krice]

Try to think yourself.

[Darren Grey]

Krice has rather a valid point - you as designer should have some feel for what is thematically best for your game, and make decisions based on all of the UI elements you are intending to implement.

Having said that, I prefer E but with inner wall elements hidden.  ASCII 219 looks good for the health bar, but instead of a percent (which should be obvious from the bar) I'd prefer to see "30/50" written on the right of the bar.

If using a plain console interface beware that custom colours are hard to port to all systems without the user having to put effort into customising their console options (which they likely won't bother doing).

[Psiweapon]

E and the third percentage bar.

[guest509]

  I like E as well. I also like the 254 bar with the % to the right.

  As for the rest of your questions, Krice is right. You'll have to go with what you think is best. We lack the info to make a good choice.

[Z]

Use dots on floors, as all roguelikes do. I think it is important to be able to count distances. Probably the same argument is true for using # for walls.

There is no ASCII 177 or 254, as ASCII has only 128 characters. Everything else is "extended ASCII". You might run into compatibility issues when using characters over 128. For example, when I play Crawl under Windows in the IBM charset mode, floors are composed of some strange quote-like characters instead of centered dots (NotEye or going fullscreen fixes that). I have encountered console programs which display some Czech (?) letters instead of line drawing ones, because the OS designer thought that since I am in Central Europe, I am more likely to want to use Czech letters than line-drawing characters (luckily this happens only to the less useful characters, not 177 or 254, I think). Consider that. Maybe an option to choose plain ASCII or IBM extensions, just like Crawl and some other games do.

[Skeletor]

I'd say I agree with the main points emerged.

- Layout: E, because it's more easy to count distances.. by the way, I also like F which is visually better looking at the cost you can't quickly count wall squares, but not a big problem

- Health bar: I don't like them, I'd go for an usual "hp"/"hpmax" numerical indicator. However, ASCII 254 is my favourite amongh those four.
 
- Monsters: color coded enemies would be better because they're more easily recognizable and maybe add a bit of flavour

- HUD: I'd say you listed everything necessary but I don't know what you have in mind

- Viewing: this is really up to you but I usually prefere it the way it is in Adom, DoomRL, etc.. but I'm not saying I wouldn't like other possibilities

[yam655]

There is a middle-cell dot that I've seen used in Roguelikes supporting IBM Extended ASCII characters (aka CP437). You don't actually have to use periods for the floor. It allows counting the cells, but is smaller than a period.

When I first played Moria (in the 80s) I played it on a PC configured to make use of the Extended ASCII characters for much of the dungeon structure. Moria is really the canonical veined-mine Roguelike. If you've not played Moria or Angband, you should at least download it to look at how it can be configured to display the dungeon.

One thing I wanted to warn you about, though: Make sure the game is *fun*. When I hear about "digging through a level of #'s to get to hidden things" all I can visualize is busy work and boring repetitive tasks. That sort of game mechanic doesn't sound fun to me.

Cheers,
Steven

[RogueMaster]

A screen showing some early development feautres: random generated cave-type map, bresenham and Raycasting FoV, the basic HUD elements and the diggable walls (the ones not brown). Ofc, everything can change in the future:

There is a middle-cell dot that I've seen used in Roguelikes supporting IBM Extended ASCII characters (aka CP437). You don't actually have to use periods for the floor. It allows counting the cells, but is smaller than a period.

When I first played Moria (in the 80s) I played it on a PC configured to make use of the Extended ASCII characters for much of the dungeon structure. Moria is really the canonical veined-mine Roguelike. If you've not played Moria or Angband, you should at least download it to look at how it can be configured to display the dungeon.

I'll be using normal dots for floor, #'s for walls and other normal ASCII character for monsters and other items. The only non standard ASCII symbols are the horizontal and vertical lines separating the different HUD elements that i suppose every terminal has them. Also the squares in the health/energy/fuel bars. And i can exchange such squares for ='s or even #'s: |======| or |######| don't look bad at all.

Whatever, thanks for your tip.

One thing I wanted to warn you about, though: Make sure the game is *fun*. When I hear about "digging through a level of #'s to get to hidden things" all I can visualize is busy work and boring repetitive tasks. That sort of game mechanic doesn't sound fun to me.

Cheers,
Steven

No, the game is not an ASCII minecraft. You will need to mine certain minerals to allow city and castle development, but the mine maps are not full of #'s where you have to dig the whole level to find certain vein (see image above). The deeper you are in the mine, the most valuable veins will appear, but you will find them pretty easy (again, see image above). Also it will not be necessary to dig 999999 veins, maybe 5 or 10.

In the image above, the brown walls are not diggable while the yellow, white and pink are diggables. As you see, it's pretty easy to find veins, and you know that you will need to go deeper to find different minerals, but also powerful monsters.

[jocke the beast]

Looking really good. Will be nice to see how it develops.

[ddwy]

Agreed, looks interesting.

On a completely unrelated note, what font is that? It looks very familiar, but I can't seem to find it on my windows or linux machine...

[Z]

It's the the font that PC uses by default in its text mode, and you can probably see it while your computer is booting, in Linux by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 (return to X with Alt+F(something)), in Windows XP or earlier by pressing Alt+Enter in a console, and in later Windows by using some DOS look emulator (e.g. NotEye or DOSBox).

[ddwy]

Ahh yes, that's it, thanks. I knew I'd seen it somewhere!

[Pueo]

A

Also which ASCII symbol would you use to represent the bar itself?
ASCII 61: Health: |============|

Now, would you include the real value of the bar?
Health: |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■| 60%

My choices