Plans for 2014

[Quendus]

I'd be interested to see a C++ example. I've made tile display engines in SFML, but noteye seems to have better support for UI and smooth sprite movement than my homemade solutions.

[Slash]

Slash: Unfortunately I do not see how to make this work online, or on mobile devices... at least not without lots of work.

What do you think about this? https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/

[miki151]

AFAIK it works only in Chrome, and even then you have to explicitly install the app from Chrome webstore, you can't just run it on a webpage. But things might have changed recently.

There is also asm.js by Mozilla.

[Slash]

AFAIR NotEye's premise is taking a common output format (the console/terminal), read data from it and display it beautifully.

I don't thing there's a common output method in the web that NotEye could build upon, so rather than a tech barrier I see it as a design barrier.

[Z]

That was indeed the original premise of NotEye. However, NotEye can also communicate directly with the game, which is easier to program, more convenient (system console roguelikes in Windows require an extra window for the original game, and libtcod requires using the correct version and inter-process communication), and much more powerful. This is done in Hydra Slayer, ADOM and PRIME. For example, both in ADOM and Hydra Slayer, smooth sprite movement (mentioned by Quendus) is done by NotEye asking the game about the unique ID of the monster at the given location, checking the memorized location of the monster by this ID, and animating the movement. In most cases, it would be possible for NotEye to analyze the console for this data, but this would require probably quite a difficult algorithm and still would fail in some cases (like, a threat room in ADOM filled with rats, which looks great with smooth movement).

[Slash]

In that case a javascript interface might be useful, may be interfacing with something like http://tapiov.net/unicodetiles.js/ ?

[Eben]

Eben: It is possible to use C++ libraries in Java, via JNI. I am planning to do exactly this. A disadvantage is that C++ libraries are platform dependent, so you would lose a bit of Java's portability (the game would only work on platforms where the NotEye library is compiled).

Would the Java program have to use one of the curses jni libs, or could it hook into other things? And even more specifically will there be an api for me to target with my Java library as a display option?

[Z]

I am not sure what exactly you mean... there is a Java class Noteye, and everything is done with its methods. You need to make sure that the Java class Noteye can find the native NotEye library, and other NotEye's files. You do not need to include any JNI for Curses, if you want to use NotEye's Curses output, it is handled by NotEye without any work on the Java side. Also you need to write a script in Lua if you want NotEye's non-ASCII modes look better than ASCII characters in an extremely boring dungeon. Does that answer your question?

[Darren Grey]

Slash: Unfortunately I do not see how to make this work online, or on mobile devices... at least not without lots of work.

I really hope in 2014 someone makes a roguelike library for mobile! I'd love to make some mobile roguelikes, but I lack the skill (or time) to start from nothing.

[Eben]

I am not sure what exactly you mean... there is a Java class Noteye, and everything is done with its methods. You need to make sure that the Java class Noteye can find the native NotEye library, and other NotEye's files. You do not need to include any JNI for Curses, if you want to use NotEye's Curses output, it is handled by NotEye without any work on the Java side. Also you need to write a script in Lua if you want NotEye's non-ASCII modes look better than ASCII characters in an extremely boring dungeon. Does that answer your question?

I believe that does answer my questions indeed. Very excited to see it!

[PTrefall]

Slash: Unfortunately I do not see how to make this work online, or on mobile devices... at least not without lots of work.

I really hope in 2014 someone makes a roguelike library for mobile! I'd love to make some mobile roguelikes, but I lack the skill (or time) to start from nothing.

Unity3D + Playmaker should be a good start. Unity3D now support iOS, android, Blackberry 10 and windows phone 8 for mobile development, and Playmaker gives you a visual scripting frontend, don't even need to touch code. So, just need a proper roguelike library backend that hooks up to Playmaker. That or learning C#/Javascript/Boo ;-) I've had great success porting Eben's SquidLib to Unity, so such a toolset shouldn't be too hard to assemble with Unity ;-)

[guest509]

Slash: Unfortunately I do not see how to make this work online, or on mobile devices... at least not without lots of work.

I really hope in 2014 someone makes a roguelike library for mobile! I'd love to make some mobile roguelikes, but I lack the skill (or time) to start from nothing.

Gamemaker exports to many mobile platforms...I'll look into it. It costs money for the export modules but I have money. Dozens and dozens of monies.

My game this year is going to be on a grid a bit smaller than your Mosaic with simple controls. I'll not tackle the mobile thing for the 7DRL probably. But a port should go smoothly...or more smoothly than average...or smooth enough that I can do it myself.