Roguelike Game Kit Development

[Etinarg]

I don't want to clutter the announcements thread http://www.roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=1245.0 with development news too much - also I think Slashie set up the forum so that only new releases should be announced there and general development talk should go here ... so I make this new thread in development.


First, a new screenshot of the wilderness map generator. Same code as already released, but with a different configuration set, that includes ponds or pools of water:

Click to view full size.

Then the real news. I'm working on a new generator for mines and cave like structures. It's mostly complete and will be released soon unless I find serious flaws in my tests.

It takes a "branch chance" setting, that influnces how dense the mines will be dug out.

With a 20% branch probability it generate almost sparse mines:

Click to view full size.

At 23% branch probability it generates quite a maze of corridors:

Click to view full size.

And with a 50% branch probability it generate wider, cave like structures:

Click to view full size.

I hope this will be a useful addition for the roguelike game kit.

[Fenrir]

This is awesome, Hajo. Are you planning to make a roguelike with it, or will you just keep to developing the engine? Either way, good stuff.

[Etinarg]

I have a few ideas for games. Ranging from a "Dungeon Keeper" type game to more traditional "rescue item/person from dungeon" themes. A "dungeon keeper" style game seems too big for me though, so I'll try something smaller and easier first.

But I'm not really the game designer type. So I hope the modules of the kit will be helpful for better game designers, and free them from the work on the basics.

In the long run I hope to get a bit of both - having made something that is useful for other game developers, and also useful for my own game projects.

Thanks for the feedback, Fenrir! Makes me happy to know that I've created something interesting, and maybe even something useful

[Etinarg]

Working on a small 'game' thing of sorts, with several interconnected dungeons. It's fun I now have a few items in there and a sort of enemy with zombie level AI. At least it moves

Meanwhile I found some problems in the kit components, which soon will be fixed. Also there might be modules for equipment management and scheduling of in-game actions (AI, other automated stuff) emerging from this game project.

I feel a bit uncertain about adding to many different modules to the kit, but equipment management is something most roguelikes need. I'll try to make up my mind.

[Etinarg]

I think I start to enjoy creating ASCII based games. It's very nice to introduce new items, dungeon features or monsters without the need to paint a new tile each time. Writing good descriptions is difficult at times, but interesting to me.

The equipment and scheduling modules have not been part of the release 10, since I felt too uncertain if it would be good to include those. Maybe later, when I have a clearer picture if people would find such helpful, or rather want to create their own systems for such.

The equipment module currently just is a list of named item slots, which can have constraints (callback objects which can check if an item is allowed in that slot). This is very generic, and seems suitable for a game development kit.

I haven't used it yet in my own game project, so I don't know yet if it's good or not. I'll let it ripen some more I think and then decide.

[Etinarg]

After some time of being busy with other toy projects, I have finished work on the equipment module and committed the sources.  It's simple, but looks quite useful to me so far.

A brief introduction how to use the module:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rlgamekit/index.php?title=How_to_use_the_equipment_module

And the source code:
http://rlgamekit.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rlgamekit?revision=100&view=revision

It's a small thing and it feels a bit silly to write an announcement for it. But the core of the kit is done, and I think there are only smaller, supportive things left to do. Maybe add the one or other sort of map generator, too, when I get ideas for such.

[Etinarg]

In another toy project, I wanted to create a dungeon populated with inhabitants that do "sensible" things, like sleep, eat, wash themselves (if ever needed ...), and search the dungeon for the right locations to do so. It's fairly difficult to find "sensible" things for random dungeon inhabitants

Since this involved a lot of pathfinding, I wanted to add a few notes and saw that I had not written any documentation for the path finding module yet. Just the source for the pathfinding demo, as example.

So I started to write a page:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rlgamekit/index.php?title=The_Path_Finder

[Etinarg]

I finally got around to add two more documentation pages.

A brief introduction into the area finder:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rlgamekit/index.php?title=The_Area_Finder

And a short example how to traverse a path that was found by the path finder:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rlgamekit/index.php?title=Traversing_A_Path

[Etinarg]

Also there might be modules for equipment management and scheduling of in-game actions (AI, other automated stuff) emerging from this game project.

I feel a bit uncertain about adding to many different modules to the kit, but equipment management is something most roguelikes need. I'll try to make up my mind.

The equipment module was added a while ago, and now also the scheduler and action base classes have been added. I'm still worried that now there are too many modules and it will confuse people who want to use the kit, but I don't know how to do it better.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rlgamekit/index.php?title=How_to_use_the_action_scheduler