Author Topic: The Burning Plague  (Read 42215 times)

pat

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The Burning Plague
« on: April 15, 2013, 09:37:41 AM »
The Burning Plague is the working title of a roguelike/CRPG game that I've started working on and will be blogging about as a way of keeping my coding motivation up and also as a way of documenting my progress - already my collection of screenshots is making me laugh as I look back at how it was all looking just a few weeks ago.

The basic idea for the game is that I wanted to focus on a no-frills RPG similar in style to the Spiderweb Software series of games - in particular the Exile and probably Avernum series.

Beyond the style inspiration of aiming for a Vogel-esque RPG, my initial content is loosely based on the Dungeons and Dragons module for low-level players - The Burning Plague. The initial goal is to release an alpha version of the game which fleshes out a short RPG covering an expanded adventure based on that module. Gameplay is intended to be based on roguelikes to a certain extent in that you will only control a single character and rely on providing orders to your companions to boss them around so that it becomes more of a party oriented experience.

Dev blog can be found at the following link: theburningplague.blogspot.com

pat

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2013, 09:38:53 AM »
Latest screenshot:


TheCreator

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2013, 09:44:46 AM »
It loos very nice... Except the horrible font. Those spaces between characters make it looking very ugly and difficult to read. Also I think that the character size could be a bit smaller.
Fame (Untitled) - my game. Everything is a roguelike.

Vanguard

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2013, 09:58:48 AM »
The basic idea for the game is that I wanted to focus on a no-frills RPG similar in style to the Spiderweb Software series of games - in particular the Exile and probably Avernum series.

Sounds tight.

I think the font you chose looks fine.  The grass is what looks strange to me.  It's viewed from the side, while all other floor tiles are viewed from above.

Anyway, this looks like it'll be worth following.  Good luck, man!

TheCreator

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2013, 10:52:28 AM »
The grass looks fine for me. I think it is okay for roguelikes to have some tiles viewed from above and some viewed from the side. This is the case of Fame, too, by the way.

Using a red % as a corpse tile is okay as well ;).
Fame (Untitled) - my game. Everything is a roguelike.

getter77

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2013, 11:56:49 AM »
Certainly seems promising----quite looking forward to seeing you tackle a fully fleshed out project on this scale considering your excellent 7DRL entrants.   8)
Brian Emre Jeffears
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pat

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2013, 10:47:24 PM »
Thanks for the early support.

To be honest, I already had some reservations about the issues you guys raise. The font itself hasn't really been of much concern to me at this stage because it's obviously not used in the game world itself which has been my focus. Readability always seems to be a problem when there is a square font used - obviously it makes the map look aesthetically better but causes problems when it comes to strings of text.

For example: http://xcomrl.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/tune-up.html

Problem is that libtcod doesn't support multiple font sizes and styles in a single window, and the only workaround I know of is a horrible one where you change from a 16x16 font to a 8x16 or something to increase the readability of ordinary characters but when you print a graphical character to the game window, you would in fact print two side by side to make up the representation of a single object. It's workable but doesn't really look like the most fun in the world to program from my perspective.

Of course I could always ditch libtcod for display purposes, but that decision won't be made anytime soon.

With respect to the grass, yeah I don't know if it's going to stay that way. I hated it more a while ago and it's slowly grown on me but something isn't right about it and it looks messy in a way. I'm still open to experimentation in that respect and I might in fact slot in a different character to replace the grass in due course but it's probably not a priority just yet. The only real criteria for a graphical tile is that I would like it to be mostly black so it doesn't contrast negatively with a character tile next to it which will almost always have a black background.

I'm currently working on implementing the complete set of stats and skills which involves reworking the simple combat system currently in place, and once that's done I'll have a character generator to play around with and hopefully something else to show.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2013, 10:50:32 PM by pat »

ekolis

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #7 on: April 16, 2013, 02:14:09 AM »
I actually kinda like the grass. It looks more like grass than your typical "green square with splotches of red and yellow for flowers". And it meshes well with the (also side-view) character icons.
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pat

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2013, 02:38:07 AM »
Here's the game with a different font and a different take on the grass.



I'm not all that sure about moving in this direction with the grass but the different font for the messages works a lot better in my view. I might switch back to the grass tiles...

Vanguard

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2013, 08:14:58 AM »
I think the new grass looks nicer.  It reminds me of old school PC RPGs.  Like the older Ultimas or whatever.  It has a really "tiled" look right now with the black borders around each section of grass, but if you don't like that it shouldn't be too hard to fix.

The old grass looked like it was in a sidescrolling platformer.

pat

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2013, 10:29:56 AM »
I think the new grass looks nicer.  It reminds me of old school PC RPGs.  Like the older Ultimas or whatever.  It has a really "tiled" look right now with the black borders around each section of grass, but if you don't like that it shouldn't be too hard to fix.
Those are all things I was aiming for, so that's positive.

Vanguard

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2013, 01:07:52 PM »
That screenshot gives some sort of primal urge to play your game.

Like, I know that this game is brand new, not at all complete, and probably has next to no content.  I know that.  But I look at your screenshot, and it just HAS to be full of awesome puzzles and crazy monsters.  That just how games that look that way are, you know?

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #12 on: April 17, 2013, 12:55:12 AM »
Ditto, Van.

pat

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #13 on: April 17, 2013, 01:53:16 AM »
That's great guys, it's very motivating to hear that I haven't completely missed the mark in terms of the project's goal. That reaction is exactly what I'm aiming for from old-time players of ancient RPG's!

Development has been continuing. I've adopted the Dead Simple RPG Rules which have been almost completely implemented with respect to combat, minus a few things like armour, the negative effect of being 'wounded' in combat, and the combat bonus for swarming your enemy with allies. It seems like a pretty cool system, and of interest to me, has no HP or EXP mechanics!





I'm already hitting one of the problems with roguelike developers dipping their toes into the graphical world - I need more tiles for more monster types! My dwarves look like peasants for now, which is ok for a placeholder but pretty lousy for a proper game.

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Re: The Burning Plague
« Reply #14 on: April 17, 2013, 05:48:32 AM »
I really like the dead simple mechanics. With that system in mind I developed my own very simple system for my games. I think I'll do a post about it. :-)