Defunct projects (C++)

[Krice]

It looks like there are not that many defunct roguelike projects written in C++ (or C). I've tried to find one browsing roguebasin, but no luck yet. I've also tried my luck with two projects, but I found out both of them were quite impossible to continue (first one was Abura Tan, I think the second one was Trollslayer). I like the idea of unfinished game which could be easier to develop than just starting from a new project.

[yam655]

You think taking on an existing project will be easier than starting from scratch.

I suspect you will find that's not the case.

Existing source code tends to grow convoluted with time unless the person writing it already refactored the code once or twice to clean it up. To get an example of this, compare the code for Moria with the code for Angband. Moria only had the one spin-off because the codebase isn't clean. Angband has had many spinoffs because -- while it was based upon Moria -- the codebase was refactored and cleaned up.

Roguelikes tend to grow fast while the initial developer is making good progress on implementing cool features. By the time they lose enough steam to abandon the project it is likely -- in part -- due to interesting bugs and hard to debug code.

I wish you luck!

Cheers,
Steven Black

[Alex E]

Existing source code tends to grow convoluted with time unless the person writing it already refactored the code once or twice to clean it up.

Ha, I can't even understand the code I wrote for my last roguelike.

[Krice]

It could be easy if the gameplay is ready or something like that. I'm quite good at refactoring. If the code needs only bug fixes and doesn't have large design issues I think I could handle it.

[tuturto]

You could have look at some of the projects at github:

https://github.com/Hirato/roguey
https://github.com/argent0/FaRogue
https://github.com/TheMartin/LikeRogue
https://github.com/edwerner/Rogue-Game

or any of the games in: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php/Category:Defunct_games

Picking up an old code written by someone else isn't the easiest thing to do. Moreso if all the plans and design is still only in the head of original author.

Why couldn't you continue with Abura Tan or Trollslayer?

[Krice]

Why couldn't you continue with Abura Tan or Trollslayer?

They were getting annoying. I spent lot of time trying to fix Abura Tan's strange gameview routine, but something in it made me snap and I left it. Maybe if it was possible to completely replace it with regular gameview routine.. who knows.

[tuturto]

That's how it goes when you pick up code written by someone else. Rarely it has been written in a way that you would have written it and often it may look like a mess.

[Omnomnom]

I spent 5 years maintaining some C/C++ application. 7 hours a day (well...not quite...). And still I didn't understand it. I could tweak parts (sometimes after some effort) but never did I tame the leviathan.

[tuturto]

I spent 5 years maintaining some C/C++ application. 7 hours a day (well...not quite...). And still I didn't understand it. I could tweak parts (sometimes after some effort) but never did I tame the leviathan.

I can somewhat relate to that. Sometimes a software system grows just too big and complex..

Feathers wrote a excellent book "Working Effectively with Legacy Code", which I found really good read. Instead of telling how not to write tangled code, it tells us how to save and clean that tangled mess that somehow appeared. Might be interesting read if one were to pick up an existing roguelike and started maintaining it.

[TheCreator]

Feathers wrote a excellent book "Working Effectively with Legacy Code", which I found really good read. Instead of telling how not to write tangled code, it tells us how to save and clean that tangled mess that somehow appeared. Might be interesting read if one were to pick up an existing roguelike and started maintaining it.

I think I've seen this book on some shelf in my company and I tell you, that was a perfect place for it. Outside those walls I don't want to see any legacy code and even hear about legacy code. I guess it depends on what you do for a living. If you work on a fresh piece of code, you may feel some kind of hunger of maintaining legacy code or at least feel strong enough to fight it. In my case programming a roguelike is a kind of antidotum to the legacy nightmares from my job. I do use some third party stuff, some pieces of it are even written by amateurs and are older than 10 years (and that's a lot in the IT world), but this stuff is something I'm too dumb to program myself. Everything else must be my own work, otherwise I would go crazy after spending several hours at my job, which is fighting the tangled code written by others .

[Krice]

You could have look at some of the projects at github:

Those were way too simple. My framework is more complex and much better.

[tuturto]

You could have look at some of the projects at github:

Those were way too simple. My framework is more complex and much better.

Or you could continue with yours, instead of picking up an existing one.

[Krice]

Or you could continue with yours, instead of picking up an existing one.

Teemu is in defunct state right now, so yes I could do that too. But it's so boring to work on your own project. Maybe I should check out beta section of roguebasin and steal one of those projects.

[tuturto]

That would be an option too (borrowing a project). There's plenty of C/C++ roguelikes around after all.

I thought that Teemu was pretty far already (tens of thousands of lines of code or something like that)? Amount of code added was slowing down and you could focus on details and getting world in place.

[jorgea]

I think you ought to consider starting a new project instead of picking up on one.