Lanarts (now at 8/22/13 v0r12)

[getter77]

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/v6nwa/open_source_realtime_roguelike_game_c_ive_been/
http://adam-dev-blog.blogspot.ca/
https://github.com/ludamad/lanarts

Hi all. I'm a programmer from Ontario with a passion for programming, that as of recently works full-time as a maintainer for icedtea-web (open source java plugin).

My interest with programming started with game development, but there have been many detours in the years since. Now, I've decided to go back into game development, and hopefully get an open source project started. The game is called Lanarts (read lan arts), and is hosted on http://code.google.com/p/lanarts, using git for version control.

Here's screenshots to start off with: http://www.64digits.com/users/ludamad/lanarts_screenshot.png http://www.64digits.com/users/ludamad/gameshot.png

Windows download: http://code.google.com/p/lanarts/downloads/detail?name=lanarts_bin.zip

This idea was conceived last summer and progress was initially slow as I did not want to use a pre-built engine. The game is now in good state of progress and is well on its way to becoming a fully featured game.

Main design philosophy:

    The game will play like a real-time rogue-like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike)

    The game will be highly customizable, currently the game has rudimentary scripting with Lua (much work to be done here), and all game data is in human-readable YAML files

    The game will feature as much procedural (ie, randomly generated) content as possible. Only features that greatly affect game balance will be static

    The game will discourage grinding of any sort, in theme with roguelikes (and much the reason I don't play traditional RPGs anymore)

    The game will be mainly meant to be a co-op game that is played from start to finish by a group of friends with heavy team play. However single-player will viable too.

I work on the game every day, but my plans for the game are still out of reach of my coding hours. Development happens on the /dev/ branch, while a more stable version sits on the /master/ branch. If more developers are interested I will almost certainly start doing feature branches along with having a dev branch.

Current state and development goals:

    Currently the game has randomly generated levels that work fairly well

    The game makes use of a lot of open source graphics, especially from Dungeon Crawl. I would love if open source artists contributed unique art to the game. Currently very few graphics are original to the game.

    The game features all of its data in human readable files. If you can't code, do any art, and still want to contribute to a game - please contact me! I am very interested in people that will create balanced game content. Currently I am looking for people to create enemies, levels, weapons, and in the future with some rudimentary lua coding, spells will be quite do-able.

    Lua scripting handles how items are used and other features, this will be greatly expanded. I am looking for lua scripters in the long-term to create much of the content. I hope to soon have level generation scripts that will allow for customization.

    And lastly, the engine is hand-written in C++, with much modularization. C++ programmer help is greatly appreciated. I would be more than happy to get anyone up to speed if they are interested in helping.

TL;DR I've been making this game myself and it's getting lonesome. I'd appreciate any help - game testers, content designers, game artists, C++/lua coders, etc

Cheers, Adam Domurad

Also looks rather promising indeed and interesting to see a co-op intentioned slate of aims too.   

[Skeletor]

Good to see all those real-time roguelike projects recently.

[getter77]

6/23/12 snapshot

Recent changes:

-Playing with getting the balance back in order. The recent stat overhaul has mixed things up a bit considerably. Before enemies use to scale as you got further with a simple formula, that has been taken out, in favour of static enemy difficulties. This has caused a lot of rethinking of content.
-As a result, a weaker batch of enemies were added to the beginning, the animals (sheep, rat, hound).
-Quite a bit of code-base refactoring. I hope to soon have AI controlled allies, and generally, monsters that fight each other. The code paths for the players and enemies was considerably merged.
-Certain monsters now leave blood puddles.
-Projectile weapons have been added. These include bows with two kinds of arrows, and stones.
-Small user interface usability niceness:
-Right click around the minimap to see previously explored areas.
-Right click items to drag them onto other inventory slots. Drag onto same slot to drop.
-Left click on action bar to select current action.
-Right click on weapon/projectile in action bar to de-equip it.
-Random level generation mark-up format has been expanded. For a variety of things, an ability to specify a number of random variations was added. The levels are hopefully more varied now.
-For now, permanent death was made not the default. You now spawn on the level right below.

[getter77]

7/16/12 snapshot and such

http://adam-dev-blog.blogspot.ca/    Windows binary snapshot in the top blog post
https://github.com/ludamad/lanarts

Also, looking for help, my countless coding hours can't keep up with my vision of the game. C++ programmers, lua scripters, artists, and people who just want to help with the design/balance are very welcome (the game data files are in very human readable format).

News:

    Moved to github, https://github.com/ludamad/lanarts
    Collaborating with another programmer now, quite competent guy

Recent changes:

    Tabbed side bar interface with inventory, equipment (TODO), spells, enemies, config (TODO)
    Hover over descriptions for many game elements. Available when hovering over inventory, action bar, and new spells tab
    New control scheme (on by default for now) where moving up/down stairs & picking up items merely requires you to stop moving
    Balance changes continue
    A few new enemies, giant bat & giant frog.
    Melee weapons much faster

Recent changes:

    Replay system - play back and saving of replays
    Better menu - but not by much. Now you can chose to run a single player game, make a replay of your run, play back a replay, and host server/connect to server.
    Two new spells, one gained at level 3 that does damage over time and weakens enemies, and one gained at level 6 that damages all enemies in vision. Both are extremely subject-to-change. Blink has been made a normal spell which brings me to the...
    Complete overhaul of the control scheme, along with lots of hard-code being removed. Controls now use yuiop to choose spell slots 1 to 5. Holding the same button after choosing the spell will cast the spell. H now always uses your weapon. J/space/left click use the last used spell/weapon. Mouse wheel & q/e & < > are available to toggle through spells. Using items remains as numbers 1 through 9.
    Currently I have a lot of variations to see whats comfortable.

 Milestones:

    LAN play much more stable now - known issues still exist, but occur much less often. A LAN playthrough to the end of the game (11 floors + last boss) has been done, for the first time.
    First game over the internet that wasn't horrendously slow ! Hopefully incremental progress will render this playable while a better network model (lots of work) is done. Update: Followed up by an even more decent game. Things are looking good here.
    Spells are completely defined by lua + yaml now, this will greatly speed up progress in this area. Hopefully there are people more inclined to contribute via scripting.

Dev pace is looking daily'ish----nice to see this is, hopefully, gaining momentum!   

[getter77]

7/28/12

Recent changes:

    -Fighter with berserk spell
    -Hardcore mode = no respawn
    -Class select screen

[getter77]

8/7/12 0.4

Recent changes:

    -Shops
    -Mage's fireballs have significantly less cooldown
    -Mages have a bit more mana
    -Balance nudging
    -Equipment tab
    -Auto-use potions, you can turn this off in the config tab (click on the gears in the sidebar)

Go so far as to add in shops bodes pretty well as I'd imagine them a tricky thing to employ.   

[ludamad]

Can't tell you how nice it was to find this on the internet. Thanks for posting this !

Just so you know, co-op works. Playing online isn't terrible but could be a lot faster. LAN play works well.

I have been working on the network code recently and the next release will allow for >2 players, and some parameters to make online play bearable (the issue right now is latency which I'm looking into ways of reducing).

I will be working on this a lot more, it has become my sole hobby project. Stay tuned

[getter77]

Excellent to hear and welcome to Roguetemple----enjoy your stay and definitely poke around for any topics of useful interest alongside yet more nifty projects which may have a general good idea or so that strikes your fancy.   

[ludamad]

Now at 8/21/12 Version 0.4 is kind of misleading. Lets call this one version 0 release 5 The name's pretty arbitrary but 0.4 implies 6 more releases and it'll be 1.0, but really I'll dub it version 1.0 whenever its feature-complete.

Download: https://github.com/downloads/ludamad/lanarts/lanarts-v0r5a.zip

Recent changes:

    Rewritten net code, uses SDL_net instead of asio. Dependency on boost removed.
    Support for >2 players
    Much faster online play, increase frame_action_repeat in res/settings.yaml as desired and you should get arbitrarily faster play for a trade-off of responsiveness of controls.
    Experience always shared in online
    One synching issue found and fixed, more still exist sadly. Next release will include a button to force a synch as a practical measure.
    Some tile updates, stairs & wall tiles picked from Dungeon Crawl
    Balance changes as always

[getter77]

Gotcha, congrats on another release so soon.   

[ludamad]

http://adam-dev-blog.blogspot.ca/
https://github.com/ludamad/lanarts/downloads

Recent changes:

    Option to force sync in out of sync games - press F5 and you will essentially send a save file to everyone
    F5 to save game/F6 to load game for single-player games
    Improved robustness when playing >2 players
    Bunch of bug fixes
    New archer class - heavily work in progress. Has bow-oriented abilities, such as being able to hit multiple enemies with a single arrow, faster shooting with level-ups, and a spell that only works with a bow.
    More tiles, variations for player class tiles
    Balance changes as always

[getter77]

Quite a nice looking new screen...has something of an aesthetic feel going for it in particular.

[ludamad]

Thanks! I try my best, although admittedly very little of the art is mine.

I'll just reiterate here - I'm in great need of help. A few hurdles are in my way before making the game really great, and I'd appreciate any programming, artist, and game tester input. I can be contacted at domuradical@gmail.com and will gladly bring anyone up to speed.

On a side note, your promotion of roguelikes is admirable, even games like mine which are really roguelikelikes

[getter77]

No worries---it is the spirit of the thing that is important and needs to be promoted and venerated.  Main thing is to keep at it and as lively as possible as often as possible to get momentum.

[ludamad]

http://adam-dev-blog.blogspot.ca/2012/09/lanarts-update-september-11th-2012.html/
https://github.com/ludamad/lanarts/downloads

Lots of notable changes here

Recent changes:
Lots of new types of equipment! In addition to the previous single armour slot there are now two ring slots, a glove slot, a boots slot and a helmets slot. Items spawn and can be found in shops for each equipment type.
Redone equipment system where equipment shows in inventory.
Greatly improved the code for top-bar descriptions of items and things, now guaranteed to be formatted nicely as small as 640x480 (This is the smallest I expect the game to be run, use settings.yaml to change resolution if need be, it defaults to quite large).
Equipment tab now shows all new equipment slots and can be used to see which slots must still be filled.
Some new weapons, thanks to gigimoi.
A few slime enemies and a spider added, thanks to gigimoi.
Enemies no longer stack in tight (1-tile) corridors! This has been long overdue (it was hard to think of a good way to do it for technical reasons) and makes tight corridors a lot safer. (For the curious, previously enemy's more or less ignored collisions with each other when they were in corridors).
Last boss made beatable again...