ASCII vs 8-Bit

[Pueo]

Originally, I had planned to use ASCII for my rogue-like project.  However, when I was working on some of the finer details, I realized that to populate the large world I wanted to make, I needed more than the 26 characters I could use (a certain function I was implementing would limit me to upper-case only). I realized I needed a graphical interface, but I still wanted a retro feel. I was reading 8-bit Theater, and I liked the art style, so I was thinking, would an 8-bit kind of graphics with an isometric view (like the original Final Fantasy) still keep that retro feel? 

[st33d]

What's wrong with punctuation and other symbols?

Why not a fusion of isometric and ascii? Drawn ascii tiles laid out isometric. Has that ever been done?

[Hamish]

The main strength of using ASCII is that you are free to populate you're game with as many races and creatures as you like without worry. 26 characters in 2 cases and 10 colour combinations gives you 520 monster types - and you could push it a lot further than that.

It would be a huge amount of work to create that many distinct sprites in isometric with animation. and people are more likely to feel cheated by ever so slightly different looking sprites than slightly different coloured ASCII characters.

Still, if you really wanted to have graphics you could check out my blog http://eight2empire.blogspot.com/ *end plug*

[corremn]

Yeah not many people complain about ascii not giving enough choices.  And if you want more choices extended ascii give some flavour.  Look an elf with a hat -> ê

Then of course there is unicode - ȹ ɎƀƃƔƕƜ etc. Probably need to emulate unicode though, not sure.

Finding graphics is a lot harder me thinks, with the exception on Hamish work of course.

[Pueo]

Yeah not many people complain about ascii not giving enough choices.  And if you want more choices extended ascii give some flavour.  Look an elf with a hat -> ê

Then of course there is unicode - ȹ ɎƀƃƔƕƜ etc. Probably need to emulate unicode though, not sure.

Finding graphics is a lot harder me thinks, with the exception on Hamish work of course.

I was concerned about ASCII not having enough choices because I hadn't thought of color, and a certain function would limit me to uppercase only. (And that elf with a hat is cool I wasn't going to use Unicode, either

The main strength of using ASCII is that you are free to populate you're game with as many races and creatures as you like without worry. 26 characters in 2 cases and 10 colour combinations gives you 520 monster types

I hadn't thought of colors, thanks! I still have to only use Upper Case (because of my design), but with colors I can set B, for example, for "Bugs" and have different colors denominate "Bee" or "Cockroach" etc.

I think you solved my problem. Thanks  

What's wrong with punctuation and other symbols?

Punctuation and other symbols are going to be items in my game

[guest509]

  Just a niggling little detail. Final Fantasy was top down not isometric.
  Check out the nethack wiki for a way to depict a bazillion different things with ascii. Also Dwarf Fortress uses a lot of crazy characters as well.

[Pueo]

  Just a niggling little detail. Final Fantasy was top down not isometric.
  Check out the nethack wiki for a way to depict a bazillion different things with ascii. Also Dwarf Fortress uses a lot of crazy characters as well.

Ah, thanks. Must have been some kind of FF-like, I guess   I'll check out the wiki too 

[Krice]

26 characters in 2 cases and 10 colour combinations gives you 520 monster types

It's not that simple if you want your monster names match with the letter like o - orc. You run out of o's really fast if you want to keep different colors for orcs and still have other type of monsters with letter o.

[Pueo]

26 characters in 2 cases and 10 colour combinations gives you 520 monster types

It's not that simple if you want your monster names match with the letter like o - orc. You run out of o's really fast if you want to keep different colors for orcs and still have other type of monsters with letter o.

Exactly. With the way I was going to do thing, I would have had only 26 monster types (upper-case only, no colors).  Z was going to be zebra, A was going to be Angel, etc, but I would have run out of options real fast.  The way Hamish suggested was good, but not perfect, so I decided to use the letter as a group, ie 'A' could be "angelic monsters" and different colors could be be different "angelic monsters," so a green A could symbolize a cherub, or a blue A could be an Arch-angel.  How does that sound? I know you have very specific ideas on what a rogue like is, so does that sound rogue-ish?

[Z]

In most big roguelikes each letter maps to a class of monsters, for example in ADOM: e-eyes, S-spiders, s-snakes, i-insects, h-other humanoids, F-fantastic beasts. Specific monsters in a given group are denoted with colors. You can adjust it to your needs (ADOM has separate letters for (T)rolls, (o)rcs, dark elves (u), and townspersons (t), but elves, dwarves and hurthlings all use "h"; if you game featured e.g. more types of elves and no eyes, then (e) would be used for elves).

[Pueo]

Thanks Z