LambdaRogue: Infiltration Development Thread

[mariodonick]

Sounds good, have you decided on whether active NPC's or party members(player created or coming with various decisions in the story) will be a new feature for this expanded direction or will it remain a solo adventure?

Actually I thought about this, because I like how this works in the old BioWare games.

From a technical point of view, it is not very difficult to implement. It's more difficult to flesh out a really working concept and include the party member interactions in the story.

With 3 starting factions I have 3 really different main protagonists, and other party members would need to work with all of them in a believable and logical way, in all situations -- they really need to enhance the story. If they are just "there" and help the player in gameplay, they are boring. They need to make sense in the overall concept.

So while this certainly offers very nice possibilities for interactions within a party (conflicts between party members, love stuff, ...) it makes my work not easier.

So -- maybe. But probably not.

[runequester]

well heck, I just downloaded Lambda Rogue to finally play it, and I guess I get to start on the definitive version

[Legend]

For the life of me, I can't get fullscreen to work properly.

I set the config to fullscreen. ?But when the game starts, the command prompt starts in full screen but when the actual game main menu comes on, it goes into a windowed mode.

Is sthere some other setting that I am missing?

[Krice]

LR site seems to be down, and when I last sent Mario an e-mail he seemed to be depressed about something (I don't remember what it was). What is going on? Is it just some real life stuff?

[getter77]

Hmm, it wasn't all that long ago that the site was up just fine even if nothing had been updated since the plan for the big 1.7 update and the RPG of a different style to come.  I hope everything is OK...

[mariodonick]

After a long, long time my mind is free for a little bit LambdaRogue.

This has partly to do with the fact that I'm able to enjoy computer games again. Over the last two years, I still played, but only occassionally, and I was not able to real immerse myself into games. I simply had many other tasks, both in terms of job and of PhD thesis, and esp. writing the thesis is finished now (I "only" need to defend it some time in autumn). So I had some time to play games, and this made me think of LambdaRogue again.

I'm not quite sure how to continue, though. I obviously didn't have the money to keep the website up, but the game is still available at Google Code (https://code.google.com/p/lambdarogue/). I started to order a big tileset in the end of 2012, but only about 30% of it are done (the rest needs to wait for more money).

In fact I'm thinking of declaring LR 1.6.4 the final version of the original game, and creating a "fork" based on the game's coffeebreak mode -- i.e. some kind of "LambdaRogue: Core", where all story and all quests get removed and only the game itself is being worked on. Why? Because the story of the current game is finished, the game mechanics are optimized for that story and there is no reasonable way of improving either -- basically the game is finished, and new developments are only possible on a clean basis.

So in a LR:C, I would keep the basic game engine, but reduce the story to a classic one liner: "Go down and kill Eris. She's evil." I would re-create and/or re-arrange items, levels, monsters etc. (I would keep the graphics, though. The small tileset looks good and did cost a lot of money), and I would think about new abilities for player and monsters.


However ... This is quite risky, of course, because honestly so far not the game mechanics were setting LR apart from other roguelikes, but the story. It will be difficult to come up with interesting ideas not already found in other roguelikes. (And I have currently NO idea what has been going on in the roguelike scene. Which are the most interesting games at the moment, the most successful ones etc.)

We'll see.

[getter77]

Welcome back.   

Hmm....that is a tricky situation.  I would say one of the first/easier things to do would be to get caught up on the Roguelike scene from where you last left off---blasting through the Roguebasin release header archives and the Release and Early Dev sections here.  It is all but certain you would then come across some interesting features and projects to stoke the embers of inspiration---with a likely source perhaps being the recent goings on with Angband and some of the other major variants over in Rephial/Oook considering the earliest roots that LambdaRogue has going there and some core similarities.   Angband itself is presently hurtling, though very slowly in some respects due to the nature of their teams and dev processes, towards some massive overhauls and fundamental changes---nothing to say you couldn't, for instance, get out ahead on some levels as you can likely operate with greater flexibility and fluidity.

There is no harm in availing of other good ideas found in other Roguelikes---as a good idea is a good idea and doubtless you would add your own twist into the mix as it is.

[Krice]

I simply had many other tasks, both in terms of job and of PhD thesis

I thought you died in Syria. Well, nothing major has happened in roguelike scene. If you are stuck with Lambda it could be a good idea to create another roguelike. When I started another roguelike project (Teemu) it was the best idea I've had for a long time, especially when I still don't know when Kaduria is going to be ready.

[Krice]

We'll see.

You need to start a dev blog and keep us informed.

[mariodonick]

I think this thread will keep as some kind of dev blog. After I've deleted the old LR website/blog, I don't want to start a new one.

Yesterday I finished (i.e. printed and handed-in to the university) my thesis. This means I finally have some "mental space" free for other tasks. I started to make a copy of the source code where I'm now removing all the story stuff, to have the game's core to start to work with.

[getter77]

Congrats on completing the thesis!   

[Zireael]

Congrats on completing the thesis!   

Seconding this (I'm writing my own thesis and submitting it by the end of next year, so I know how much work goes into it)

[mariodonick]

Thank you, @Getter77 and Zireal,

and good luck on your own thesis! At some point you will have the feeling that it's done and the time is right to stop writing and improving. Although nothing is perfect and theoretically could be improved infinitely, suddenly a point will be reached when it is done and "feels" right.

Much like programming a roguelike, by the way.

[TheCreator]

and good luck on your own thesis! At some point you will have the feeling that it's done and the time is right to stop writing and improving. Although nothing is perfect and theoretically could be improved infinitely, suddenly a point will be reached when it is done and "feels" right.

Much like programming a roguelike, by the way.

Not really. In programming you usually run some tests at that point and it turns out that you were wrong - totally wrong .

[AgingMinotaur]

and good luck on your own thesis! At some point you will have the feeling that it's done and the time is right to stop writing and improving. Although nothing is perfect and theoretically could be improved infinitely, suddenly a point will be reached when it is done and "feels" right.

Much like programming a roguelike, by the way.

Not really. In programming you usually run some tests at that point and it turns out that you were wrong - totally wrong

Whilst writing a thesis there are no tests to prove it – you just have to trust Murphy's law to know that you are, in fact, invariably wrong

Anyway, congrats on the thesis, Mario, welcome back, good luck forward with Lambda, and … any comments regarding this?

As always,
Minotauros