Super Hero RL - Design Fail?

[guest509]

Great concept with loads of promise, Jo. You have enough core concepts sufficiently sketched out to go to prototype.  There you can road test the mechanics and think of new possibilities.

Absolutely do it for yourself, it's one of the best reasons to do anything.  But don't you dare hide this away! I am already salivating to play this game.     

Don't get too excited. I'm better at Talkies than I am at follow through. :-)

[Trystan]

My current screen res is 1366x768, but of course running in a browser you have to factor in the address bar et al which will intrude on that space.  If you're planning on keeping it as a browser game then ideally you should make it adapt to whatever size window it's currently in.

You should be able to download and run the swf on it's own. Maybe that requires the Flash standalone player, I don't know for sure.

[Trystan]

@Jo, what language do you use for RL development? I've been thinking about and prototyping some of these super powers and have come up with some ideas for how to easily implement them but I'm not sure what languages you're familiar with. Lua? GameMaker? Python? Something else?

[guest509]

I've only been using GML (gamemaker language) for the last, well, forever. It's similar to Java, C++ and other high level languages. I can look at python and generally know what's going on.

[Trystan]

I can look at python and generally know what's going on.

Cool. My general idea is that a creature has a bunch of stats (health, str, etc) and a list of Traits. Each trait is an object with an apply method that takes a creature and changes it: increate a stat, decrease a stat, whatever. Each creature also tells their traits when things happen and traits can handle that however they want. So a trait can also effect the creature when something happens: gain health when the creature attacks another, reroll failed attacks, whatever. This covers a lot of cases and keeps the logic contained in each trait. I plan on adding more traits and mechanics like modal traits such as a sneak mode, run mode, or even shapeshifting.

My current project is written in Haxe - a cross platform language similar to Java and other static languages. You can see the traits that I have so far, and the screen where you choose one, at https://github.com/trystan/RogueHeroPlayground/blob/master/Source/CreateCharacterScreen.hx

The creature class is at https://github.com/trystan/RogueHeroPlayground/blob/master/Source/Creature.hx. The addTrait, on, and trigger methods are related to the traits and their effects.

Let me know if anyone has any thoughts.

[Quendus]

Sadist and masochist traits in a roguelike? Have you been playing IVAN?

[Trystan]

Sadist and masochist traits in a roguelike? Have you been playing IVAN?

I tried it years ago but didn't get far. Now that I think about it, I probably got the ideas from Cosmic Encounter - a board game from the 70s with aliens who have some really cool powers and names. The Sadist and Masochist both have their own extra victory conditions. The Sadist wins if all other players lose 8 of their 20 ships and the Masochist wins if they lose all 20 of their ships. Man that game is so much fun....

[Trystan]

I implemented a way to add custom actions (circle attack, power attack, extend claws, etc) to creatures since that seems like a cool thing to have.

Each creature also has a list of custom actions. Each action is a name and a function. The GUI lists each action's name and allows the player to call that function and eventually the enemy AI will know when and how to use them. Actions can be added as part of the default character setup, added by traits, items, chosen when leveling up, or whatever. I prototyped two: a Circle Attack that all heroes get and a Blink trait that just adds a Blink custom action.

See https://github.com/trystan/RogueHeroPlayground/blob/master/Source/CreateCharacterScreen.hx#L202 for the blink trait and custom action.

The latest build (which allows fullscreen when not run from the browser) is at https://sites.google.com/site/trystansprojects/RogueHeroPlayground02.swf

Any ideas for interesting attacks, other custom actions, or interesting mechanics?