Bardess- a multi-character party roguelike

[deepshock]

Link here: https://sites.google.com/site/bardesstemp/

This is a beta of a roguelike game in which you choose a party between one and six characters (Bard, Guardian, Ranger, Mage, Hunter,
Pugilist) and fight to get to the 20th level of the dungeon and defeat the Ascendant Bard. Each party member can use a unique ability and an
array of lesser and greater techniques. Leveling up is done by descending further in the dungeon. Time is divided up into 'frames', and every action has 'frames' of recovery before a unit can act again.

Not everything will be available/fully ready. If there are any bugs/issues, feel free to let
me know so I can make this game as enjoyable as possible in the full version.

In addition to the standard dungeon crawl, there is the option of a simple combat demo, which represents the earlier state of the game.
Choose how many allies you want to fight with, and how many foes you want to fight against. Rout them to win.

W: Move up
A: Move left
S: Move down
D: Move Right
1-0: Lesser Techniques 1-10 (Acquired one by one, at every odd
numbered level)
R: Use ranged weapon
T: Use unique ability
Y, U, I, O, P: Greater Techniques 1-5 (Acquired one by one, at every
fourth level)
G: Get item off of the ground
H: Basic Help
L: Long-form character sheet
Z, X, C, V, B, N: Switch to character 1-6
M: Use item
<: Ascend through up stairs
>: Descend through down stairs

/: Wait one frame
Enter: Accept the location of a targeted technique
Esc: Cancel a targeted technique

'ssss.exe' is the file.

Screenshots:

http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz219/deepshock/bardess1.png
http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz219/deepshock/bardess2.png
http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz219/deepshock/bardess3.png
http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz219/deepshock/bardess4.png
http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz219/deepshock/bardess5.png

[corremn]

Shouldn't this game be called Bard-ass

Not sure if you want visual feedback (i have not played the game) but I see some problems with it.  I assume it is a work in progress and you are working on the game, not the GUI but I m still going to comment on it
I would really reconsider the GUI layout and GUI 'look'.  For a start make make the non-editable text boxes not look like text boxes, e.g remove the frame, or use a static text control, with no frame.
Move things around, people are more comfortable with an application that is wider than it is longer.
All that gray is very old school.   Load/Save should be a menu item.

Perhaps take note of other graphical RLs or CRPGs and take inspiration from them.  People judge a book by its cover (even in the roguelike world).

[getter77]

Not able to get any of those pics to work, and upon trying a boot up it sort of did so, but what I think is supposed to be the game screen is just solid blackness.

I'm strongly inclined to agree with corremn's notions as well.   Keep at it as I see you've been knocking on through things over on the ADOM/JADE board on this for awhile now!   

[deepshock]

That's weird. I'm interested in a screenshot of your own. It might give me an idea of how to fix this when I get back to it. I realize that what works for my machine/setup will not necessarily work for others, so solving that problem is an important thing for me to do.

@corremn: You make some really good points. I think I'll get busy over the weekend and fix these problems as best I can.

[getter77]

It looks exactly like the 3rd screenshot in your links---only the darkness surrounding the field of view as seen in it is all consuming with not a single ASCII bit visible.

[Ancient]

Evil google docs will not let me download this. All it does is lead me to some "moved temporarily" link which loops to itself. Any change getting this some another way?

[deepshock]

I'll post the zip here and a permalink in the original post. It bugs me that there are problems like this that I can't see or reproduce on my own machine. Over the weekend I'll start building a site with the project itself. If that fails in a way I can't properly observe and test, then I don't know how I'm going to serve it. How do you other roguelike programmers avert problems between machines?

[Darren Grey]

Google Sites is good for hosting files, and it doesn't use silly urls that presume you're the owner of the site.  I have my own server space for most of my stuff though.

A blog can be a good way of publishing stuff like links and pictures (along with places like here).  Blog feeds can be linked in with Planet Roguelike so most of the scene will see your update.

Also, check out this thread: http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=1726.0

[deepshock]

Thanks a million, Darren Grey. The placeholder site is up and in the OP, with a VC++ redistributable package and the beta in question.

Edit: Improving the game takes priority over making a site from scratch, so the placeholder will be there for a while. Once I have time after that, I'll be sure to make a proper one. It shouldn't be long. Early September is my goal.

Edit 2: I almost have 0.4.1 ready, with the changes mentioned in the thread. The playfield should be more readily visible to everyone now.

@Corremn, when you say the grey is very old school, is that a neutral observation or a suggestion that I change that a tad?

Edit 3: 0.4.1 is ready and available. It's still in grey, but I'll think about a better color to put it in if there's another one that will -really- work. (Blue might.)

[deepshock]

0.4.1 notes:

-Wider main form design (with data on each side of the playfield rather than above and below it.)
-Loading can be done from the intro form
-Save/Load are menu items rather than buttons on the main form
-Extraneous, unused forms removed from the project
-Fixed dark screen bug where the screen wouldn't show unless a button was pressed.

Screenshots to come later, attached to this post. I'll work on optimizing the code over time as well, so that I can handle larger enemy counts (This will be essential if and when I make a campaign mode.)

https://sites.google.com/site/bardesstemp/home/bardess041-1.PNG
https://sites.google.com/site/bardesstemp/home/bardess041-2.PNG
https://sites.google.com/site/bardesstemp/home/bardess041-3.PNG
https://sites.google.com/site/bardesstemp/home/bardess041-4.PNG
https://sites.google.com/site/bardesstemp/home/bardess041-5.PNG

[donellfm]

I see problems with your games. Not able to get any of those pics to work.

[Skeletor]

This looks interesting and original..
.. but I can't run it (WinXp sp3), I receive this error message: "the application wasn't correctly initialized (oxc0000135)".

[deepshock]

@Donellfm: What errors do you get trying to load it?

I'd spent the last month or more working on 0.5 and doing what I could to improve as much of it  as possible. Any error and data that might clue me in as to how to reproduce said error is welcome. If there's anything that can completely torpedo the project it's errors I can't reproduce, that are specific to machines I can't take a look at.

@Skeletor: That's odd. I'll take a look at that error message and see if I can figure out how to make the game accessible to Windows XP users without gutting it.


Edit 09/30: VMWare to the rescue. I'll see what virtual Windows XP has to say about Skeletor's problem.