Tablet ideal device for a roguelike?

[hawk66]

What do you think...is a tablet PC a suitable platform for playing roguelikes or do you think the PC still wins here due to the availability of the keyboard, which is usually the most efficient way to play a rl?

On the other hand a tablet is ideal in that sense, that rl do not need have much requirements concerning cpu/memory/graphics and an ascii/tile UI can be nicely done on a tablet. I might also be more convient to play on your couch...

Appreciate your thoughts^^

[Krice]

Maybe the least ideal. Tablets are for fast casual games. I think we need more complex keyboards just for roguelikes with a lot of special keys.

[hawk66]

Yes, that's also my biggest concern...if you bring all those key combinations as buttons, menus etc. in the GUI, you might get a overkill...

[kraflab]

I think "least" might be a little extreme.  I think phones are much much worse.  Personally, i like thumping away on a keyboard and am not a fan of touch controls.  i'm sure nonetheless that there is some way to put all the controls in there without sacrificing anything, although it has yet to be seen.  Apparently Biskup has adom running on the ipad and thinks it's better than on a computer.

[Krice]

Biskup has adom running on the ipad and thinks it's better than on a computer.

I think the iPad version will be commercial? That would explain such comment. Biskup is a creep who only wants money.

[requerent]

I personally hate touch controls, but it really just depends on how many use cases you have and how much input is required to reach those actions without cluttering the screen.

IMO- as long as all usable abilities, actions, items and what not require no more than 2 (+1 for targeting) input actions with no more than 4 root selections from screen (disregarding movement), then the game will be very playable.

Some action games on android that I've taken a look at have as many as 12 things to touch on the main UI.

Mysterious castle is a roguelikelike that was designed for touch phones. It's pretty mature and works well. You flip the screen (like turning a page) in any direction to see a different menu.

[purestrain]

I don't see a problem with phones / tablets and roguelikes - maybe because i can live with contextual actions instead of 'you can do anything.... you can even (<,>) go up and down stairs on non stair tiles; you can also (z)ap a wand if you don't have one... but you could....'

[yam655]

I think the key in making a roguelike use fewer keys is:

Hang actions off items, not vice versa.

The user-interface of the "every key has a command" type of Roguelike is oriented along the lines of, "here is a verb, select the verb, then get a list of the items it applies to."

If you turn that around, so you have an inventory and you select the item and then are presented with a set of commands to perform on it, I think you solve the biggest problem. You can drop all kinds of dedicated keys.

That same approach can be applied to the dungeon, as well. A generic "modify environment" command directed at a location which then presents a menu of actions.

You can simplify the available commands, sure, but I think -- even with the mega-set of commands in the big roguelikes -- this simple switch can make things much more likely to succeed.

But my preference would be to just have a keyboard. It's how I play roguelikes on my phone now.

Cheers,
Steven Black

[Ancient]

I don't see a problem with phones / tablets and roguelikes - maybe because i can live with contextual actions instead of 'you can do anything.... you can even (<,>) go up and down stairs on non stair tiles; you can also (z)ap a wand if you don't have one... but you could....'

Not to actively derail the thread but what is wrong with this approach? It makes playing easier and smoother. You do not have to bring up inventory to see whether you have wands at all.

Games that use <,> properly bind them to descending/ascending instead of stair usage. Then using stairs is only a small subset of what this command does.

[Darren Grey]

If you make items only have a single application then you can get rid of any verb-object disparity.  Instead you'll have a wands button, a potions button, a food button, etc.  Not my sort of thing personally, mind - means 3 clicks for any action (wands button, choose wand, choose target).

You could also have an interface a bit like Dredmor's, with selecting an item skill to make that your active skill, so whenever you click on the map it applies that item or skill.  Items that are just used directly (food, potions) can just be clicked on within the inventory, or held on to drop.

Hmm, another version of the first suggestion - you have a wands button, a potions button, a food button etc.  For each one you have a "default", which will be your first picked up item of that type.  Clicking the button activates that item.  Holding the button lets you choose a different "default".  As items get used up the default will cycle to the next in the list.  Icons would show you what is the current default.

[kraflab]

There is always the Epilogue way of having the inventory always visible to remove the opening element.  Then you just press the key for the item and the key to use or aim or whatever.  It would be easy to expand this to add awareness for attempts to combine items or dip an object into another object, etc, although those types of interactions do not exist in Epilogue so I never really thought about them.

[Alex E]

I've tried a few free roguelikes on my iOS device, so I think i can give some feedback.

Rogue. It was laggy, and the controls were apsolutely horrible. You have to swipe in different ways to get different things to happens. Swipe halfway down and across to the right to pick up item....swipe left and to the bottom right corner to attack....Not sure if those were the exact commands but I never bothered to learn the swipes. Nethack also had those commands.

iNethack was better. The commands would be on the sides of the screen. Easier, but each button had a picture of a key. Like "99" waited 99 turns. The "#" would do, uh, I don't remember. It was pretty good, but then you get to the menus...They are hard to navigate, annoyingly pop-up on screen at random times to show you what items on the ground, and there are too many of them. Why not just have one menu where you can drop, throw, or eat items? Each of these commands has to open a different one.

Powder has the best controls of these. Moving is easy, and most of the commands are on screen as buttons. As an added bonus, they have pictures so it's easy to remember which does what. It's not perfect, but pretty good and casual.