Crawl: The Open-Source Roguelike (Gamasutra article)

[Rosstin]

Hey developers, I just finished writing an article about the development of Crawl. Appreciate any feedback. I figure this is a niche enough community (although not for long) that you might appreciate the heads-up.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RosstinMurphy/20130709/195915/Crawl_The_OpenSource_Roguelike.php

[Eben]

Great article! Well written and fun example stories.

The tree on the other hand is, um, anemic to say the least. You've shown one shrub (although with a solid core) in what is a giant rainforest of games. You even mention Pokemon Mystery Dungeon without Mystery Dungeon itself being in the tree, despite it being one of the most important major branches in the genre.

I'd recommend removing the tree image entirely if it's not too late.

[Vanguard]

Good article.  I liked it.

You did a great job of capturing a lot of Crawl's appeal with your Dwarf Elementalist story.

I think the tree is fine for what it is.  The article seems to be primarily targeted at newcomers to roguelikes.  It doesn't have to explain every single thing about the genre.

I kind of wish you wrote about something other than Crawl since everyone who talks about roguelikes goes for Crawl, but oh well.

[TheCreator]

This is more an advertisement of the game than an article about open-source development... I'm not going to convert myself to the open-source religion anyway, because I hate other people shitting into my code, but it could be interesting to learn how this development model contributed to the DCSS's success. The article highlights only the most obvious things (more people involved == more content) and probably misses a lot of details. And you know that details are important. I'd rather read about your biggest problems and how you solve them (or how you don't solve them) than your success story, which is already well known.

[Eben]

I think the tree is fine for what it is.  The article seems to be primarily targeted at newcomers to roguelikes.  It doesn't have to explain every single thing about the genre.

This is exactly the problem. Newcomers are given a very incorrect picture as to the development tree and state of the roguelike genre. It's like claiming that the Greeks invented math and that there's only three branches of science.

[Rosstin]

If someone wants to contribute a more robust development tree (and suggest a good way to represent it) then I'm all for it.

The same goes for better examples of the open-source model. I had limited time to write the article and I'd really appreciate any help.

Thanks for your feedback so far! It's kind of a struggle to write something that both newcomers can read and old hands can learn something from.

[Darren Grey]

Whilst there's some nice things to the article it lacks structure. Ending on 3 bullets unrelated to the main text seems weird - put them into proper sentences if you want to make new pints. You also open talking about roguelikes, instead of talking about Crawl. Normal journalistic style is to have a reasonable overview of your whole post in the first two lines.

And honestly, just cut the tree. There's no way you can get that in any way right. Imagine trying to draw such a tree for platformers - not only would you fail but it wouldn't be much use to anyone.

[Krice]

Didn't read the article, but for those who didn't know Crawl was abandoned by Linley in year horse cart. I have seen the original Crawl's source code and it's simply frightening. I haven't looked at Stone Soup version, but even the fact that they managed to continue the project was kind of cool. It must have required solid programming skills. In this kind of special case open source was the only way to save the project and continue it.

[Rosstin]

It's certainly not my best work... I didn't get featured. You're right, I probably should have narrowed my focus. Oh well, always the next one.

[Rosstin]

Hey, I did get featured! Let me consider your suggestions and take another look then.

I like the idea of adding Mystery Dungeon to the chart, from reading about it it seems to be directly inspired by Rogue. However, I have a hard time seeing where I could squeeze it in.

[guest509]

Hey Krice...'in year horse cart'...wtf is that?

Hey Darren...I like the trees!

[Krice]

Hey Krice...'in year horse cart'...wtf is that?

It's a saying in finnish, I translated it like that. It means in ancient times. You know, when they had horses and carts, and stuff.

[Eben]

Hey Krice...'in year horse cart'...wtf is that?

It's a saying in finnish, I translated it like that. It means in ancient times. You know, when they had horses and carts, and stuff.

I'm going to start using this phrase, I quite like it.

[guest509]

Ah...sort of like, "back in the day" and then we make shit up about how it was back then? I like it!