Realtime Roguelike

[Vanguard]

AKA Dicin' Knight!     http://www.romhacking.net/trans/1073/

I gave that a try since you mentioned it.

I think it's fun at first, and as I thought, the concept has a lot of potential, but it lacks depth, and to me it got old kind of fast.

The levelling system is really unique and interesting.  For those who haven't tried it - your experience points gained from dungeons are handled something like a high score in an arcade game, and only the highest score counts towards your exp total, so if you clear the first dungeon twice, getting 1000 exp the first time, and 500 exp the second, you get 1000 exp from the first dungeon added to your total, but maybe later you can come back after levelling up elsewhere and get it a bit higher.

Then, when you do level up, you don't get more powerful.  What you get instead is another slot to put an orb in.  You win orbs from a lottery system, and some give you more hp, some improve the item drop rate, and so forth.

Overall I think that again, the idea is full of potential, but I don't think Dicing Knight quite meets it, and once you figure it out, the fighting is someone shallow.  There's some fun to be had with the game, but I wouldn't say it's good enough to be considered the roguelike equivalent to Link's Awakening.

[getter77]

Indeed.  But it is the only experiment thus far after all these years.   I so fondly wish for some sort of remake with more gusto for DS, PSP, PC, whatever.

There is an infinite dungeon though IIRC...

[joe]

I don't know to what extent my real-time game will end up being a roguelike, but my solution is to divide the dungeon into screen-sized rooms. There can be only one monster in each room and the player automatically targets it. The player can choose to fire different kinds of projectiles at it or enter "fight mode", in which he and the monster, once adjacent to each other, will engage in hand-to-hand combat until one is either dead or moves away. So, when a player enters a room with a monster in it, the monster will run towards him and the player might press "fire magic arrow" a few times, then press "f" when the monster is near him to fight the weakened enemy hand-to-hand.

The tactical challenge in this game comes from the fact that ammunition and healing potions are relatively rare and not often found in the dungeon. Instead, the player has to undergo perilous travels to reach safe havens where he can restock. If a player is low on regular arrows, he has to decide whether to engage in hand-to-hand combat and use up healing elixers instead, or whether to use his magic arrows and risk not having any when he encounters a creature that is not harmed by the regular kind (there are in fact three kinds of projectiles - iron arrows, magic arrows, and phials of tana powder, all of which do different amounts of damage to different monsters.) Projectiles are also more accurate the closer the monster is to the player, so the player has the choice of shooting at the creature when it is far away, and potentially wasting arrows, or of only shooting at it when it gets close - then, he runs the risk of it getting too close and having to go into hand-to-hand combat. When he's running low on resources, he also has to decide whether to return to a known haven to restock, and then have to fight his way back (random monsters spawn at a rate dependent on the amount of treasure the player is carrying,) or to press on in the hopes of finding a haven or a chest of arrows soon.

I've considered two systems of targeting if I end up allowing more than one monster per room. If there are only ever two or three in a room, then the player could easily just press a "switch target" key. If there are more monsters than that, or if I ditch the room-per-screen system and have a scrolling map, I'll have to use the mouse. ncurses allows for using the mouse, but I don't think you can do that over SSH or telnet, which would be a bit of a disadvantage.

If anyone knows the old Apple II game "SuperQuest," you'll see how my game was influenced by it.

[Omnivorous]

Why have noone made a real-time multiplayer roguelike, like the modern MMOs/semi-MMOs do? I've seen this solution be used on a recent console-RPG, though I can't remember the name atm. Consoles have always had abit of a challenge with multiplayer, especially "massive multiplayer".

Anyway, the way it was done in this game in particiluar, which sounded really awesome, was that the game was actually single-player..but other players appeared in your game as "ghosts".

I've always loved the thought of multiplayer-RL, and played abit ToME.net..but it was way too hard, and it felt cumbersome and impractical. (Turns or ticks pass by actual time, not moves) I still love the idea of a multiplayer-roguelike though, and think that this is the area of the RL-world where the most potential atm lies. Also, I don't understand the motivation of turning RLs into realtime unless we are talking about multiplayer.

My ideas for a mutliplayer roguelike would in reality more or less be a roguelike like any other, with afew additional features and the social aspect of it. (Like merging a forum with the actual game)

The game's mechanics would be turnbased. Other players would only be seen as "ghosts" - you can see them run past you etc. but their movement don't affect -your- game's timeline.

You could also initiate "duels" with other players, where you both would be thrown into a random pit, and combat would be turn-based. You could also chat, and write posts on (a) ingame board(s).

Some epic quests could be to go to a certain area or level and kill a bossmonster (unless a player was already there as a boss) and if you succeded, you would now be the "boss" of this level till another player comes along, and if you beat them, you'd get some nice ability or whatever.

The game could feature an ingame highscore list. Perhaps certain achievements could give you an "extra-life" or just keep it hardcore instadeath-style...ooor remove the instadeath aspect alltogether, I don't know

[getter77]

That has kinda been done actually, among others, there's Crossfire, Lost Labyrinth kinda and Deliantra---the latter 2 seemingly the most robustly developed but kinda hard to get a bead on really.

[purestrain]

Also, I don't understand the motivation of turning RLs into realtime unless we are talking about multiplayer.

a much more thrilling experience. Maybe you've noticed that in the last 10 years most games (except boardgames, and some strategy franchise) turned realtime because cpu can handle the mechanics in realtime. 

"run and hide" would be much better in a realtime environment because i could watch smooth facing changes; currently i can only see discrete steps, no way to discover if the zombie is turning to you next step.

For roguelikes i would prefer a realtime environment with either a freeze-button or a mechanic to keep the game only running while i move. Anyway, both can be turned easily into a multiplayer roguelike.

[Omnivorous]

Also, I don't understand the motivation of turning RLs into realtime unless we are talking about multiplayer.

a much more thrilling experience. Maybe you've noticed that in the last 10 years most games (except boardgames, and some strategy franchise) turned realtime because cpu can handle the mechanics in realtime. 

Well actually, that's the thing.. It's never a more thrilling experience, to me. The most thrilling experience I have, is in a tough battle in a turnbased RL, your HP so low that now it's too late for any "safe moves", now you just have to scan through your inventory and make the best out of the grim situation..begging that that bolt of lightning will take out the dragon, because it is most likely the last move you get in this battle!

All realtime RLs I've tried, have become a dull experience, because everything is always so simplified to make it possible to play. Diablo 2: leftmouse (attack), leftmouse, leftmouse, rightmouse (special), leftmouse, 1 (Heal!), 1, 1, 1, leftmouse, leftmouse, 1, 1, 1! Or as for "true" roguelikes: leftarrow, leftarrow, leftarrow, leftarrow, leftarrow..hp is low, flee! rightarrow, rightarrow, rightarro-

[purestrain]

replace leftmouse with keypress (bump into monster), rightmouse with a keypress, and every belt-shortcut with 3 keystrokes to your inventory.

But comparing a highly known commercial game with a much broader audience, more success and a actually need to be successfull with games created by hobby-devs ist not that good. I believe blizzard could have put much more complexity in the game if they didn't wanted it be be bought.

[Etinarg]

That has kinda been done actually, among others, there's Crossfire, Lost Labyrinth kinda and Deliantra---the latter 2 seemingly the most robustly developed but kinda hard to get a bead on really.

And Daimonin, a Crossfire offspring. I think it's also in development.

[getter77]

That has kinda been done actually, among others, there's Crossfire, Lost Labyrinth kinda and Deliantra---the latter 2 seemingly the most robustly developed but kinda hard to get a bead on really.

And Daimonin, a Crossfire offspring. I think it's also in development.

It is but I never knew it also hailed from Crossfire same as Deliantra.

Omni:  Give Scallywag: In the Lair of the Medusa a shot sometime on the Realtime RL front as it is surely closer in many respects to complexities than Diablo---not to mention it has some damn good unique features in it that really should be incorporated into more Roguelikes and ARPGS....

[joe]

My ideas for a mutliplayer roguelike would in reality more or less be a roguelike like any other, with afew additional features and the social aspect of it. (Like merging a forum with the actual game)

A while ago I thought it would be an interesting experiment to take Rogue or some other roguelike and add some social features like these. Nethack and other roguelikes already have some inter-player interaction in the form of bones files, but there's a lot more interaction that could occur without fundamentally changing the typical turn-based roguelike gameplay style. For example, there could be a shop or auction house on certain levels where players can leave items to be bought or bid on by other players.

[nhdaniel]

but there's a lot more interaction that could occur without fundamentally changing the typical turn-based roguelike gameplay style.

You can actually go a lot further than you suggest. Interhack is fully turn based and multiplayer. And no, one player does not have to wait for another player to move. Social interaction was added some time ago, so players can "talk" or "yell" to others on the level. It is not real-time, although it can feel like real-time with multiple players on the same level. However if you stop, go get a coffee and come back, you will find your '@' in fundamentally the same location, and with the same HP (there are a few very minor exceptions to this, such as a monster displacing you).