Author Topic: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.  (Read 66170 times)

Gr3yling

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #15 on: November 20, 2013, 11:54:56 PM »
Well, dwarves, pheraps, but the thought of a cowboy riding a raptor seems very old wild fantasy west (does this genre even exist, tho? XD)...

You just invented it.  Not many people can say they gave birth to a genre, you know. 

Honestly, somehow it does all fit to me, in a weird sort of way.  Perhaps there was some sort of dimensional confluence, or perhaps the past and future were superimposed due to the discovery of a powerful Mayan (read: alien) artifact.  I'd be interested to hear what you end up using for backstory.

Z

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2013, 12:29:50 AM »
I have read somewhere that a talented programmer is more than 10x faster than a typical experienced professional programmer. So it is hard to estimate, because it depends on how talented you are.

C++ is much, much faster than Python. It could matter for complex algorithms, like AI or other advanced pathfinding or procedural generation. In my experience, C++ things are easier to run (I sometimes run into problems with Python executables). And some libraries are only available in C++, like NotEye (although probably Python bindings could be created, like it has been done for libtcod). On the other hand, Python is easier to learn and beautifully designed. C++ is around for a much longer time, so it is possible that some experienced programmers use it because that's what they know best.

AgingMinotaur

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2013, 12:43:55 AM »
So, here's a question.  Learning Python sounds tempting, but I noticed that Crawl, Nethack, ADOM, and DDA were all written in C or C++ (at least according to roguebasin).  Is it possible to write a game with the types of features that ADOM has using Python?  What are the pros and cons of C/C++ vs python in general?
I don't know if Python was even around when the games you mention started development. There are many younger RLs which utilize Python and similar languages. In any case, C and C++ are much faster than Python, but probably not so much as to make a huge difference when writing a Roguelike. You may encounter some lag, for instance with complex AI and map generation. It would definitely be possible to write an ADOM clone in Python. I make this claim having no knowledge of C, but having used Python a bit.

Also, how long would it take someone completely ignorant of computer languages to learn python well enough that they could start making a game?
Well, you'll be writing the game from the outset, wouldn't you, learning as you go along? ;) When I started my first RL, I was at about the point you describe. I had already looked a bit at Python, writing some very simple programs to manipulate huge chunks of text, but was more or less a blank slate. I think if you're able to do the design part (ie. envision a rudimentary rule system), you can get your hands dirty pretty much straight away. Maybe do some exercises to get to know the basic data types (strings, integers, lists, tuples, dictionaries) and start reading about classes (object oriented programming). You'll also need some external module just to handle drawing a window, getting keyboard input and so forth (not something you want to implement from scratch, no matter how idiosyncratic you are). libtcod might actually be worth looking into, although I use pygame myself, which is really simple if you need it to be, but still supports some advanced stuff you might want later. In addition to a basic Python tutorial to get a feel for the language, the official documentation really contains all you need to know. Same goes for pygame: Get started by googling specifics like "pygame draw sprite" or "pygame keyboard input" – just cut and paste the code you need – and then rely on the official documentation.

I think my very first attempt with python (before I threw pygame into the mix) was at a character creation interface, that I threw away. Then I looked up pygame, and had a "@ walking around an empty map" within a few days. I started from scratch several times, scrapping months worth of development at a time, but after a year or two I had a working game of about the scale you mention: a simple dungeon crawler with enough stuff to make it feel worthwhile. I decided to abandon the game three years ago, just about when it could have started to become interesting, but at least I learned enough from the process to feel comfortable with python and pygame.

As always,
Minotauros
This matir, as laborintus, Dedalus hous, hath many halkes and hurnes ... wyndynges and wrynkelynges.

Vanguard

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #18 on: November 21, 2013, 01:25:51 AM »
Java is a good beginner language.  It's pretty much easymode C++.  The syntax and concepts are similar enough that if you want to learn C++ in the future, it'll be a quick adjustment.

TheCreator

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2013, 06:12:50 AM »
Java is a good beginner language.  It's pretty much easymode C++.  The syntax and concepts are similar enough that if you want to learn C++ in the future, it'll be a quick adjustment.

No, it would be slow and painful. If you want to learn C++, start from C++.
Fame (Untitled) - my game. Everything is a roguelike.

guest509

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #20 on: November 21, 2013, 10:21:27 AM »
Yeah, when it comes to what's easiest to learn in the Roguelike context, whatever you want really.

I started with Pascal. I betcha I could write a fucking AWSOME RL in turbo pascal.

Vanguard

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #21 on: November 21, 2013, 01:45:31 PM »
No, it would be slow and painful. If you want to learn C++, start from C++.

It worked for me~

TheCreator

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #22 on: November 21, 2013, 01:50:16 PM »
It worked for me~

Of course it works. Slowly and painfully :). Java experience does not make it any better.
Fame (Untitled) - my game. Everything is a roguelike.

AlexPT

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #23 on: November 21, 2013, 03:35:16 PM »
Well, dwarves, pheraps, but the thought of a cowboy riding a raptor seems very old wild fantasy west (does this genre even exist, tho? XD)...

You just invented it.  Not many people can say they gave birth to a genre, you know. 

Honestly, somehow it does all fit to me, in a weird sort of way.  Perhaps there was some sort of dimensional confluence, or perhaps the past and future were superimposed due to the discovery of a powerful Mayan (read: alien) artifact.  I'd be interested to hear what you end up using for backstory.

Well, I have many many ideas, but the sad part is the lack of ability to implement them on a game, in this case, a roguelike, but I can learn though.

When I threw all these ideas together, I hadn't thought of a backstory, pheraps in the future, if I can make this game, I'll think of a backstory. (tho, I'll admit, I'm good at throwing ideas, but stories, I'm not so sure, it doesn't hurt to try though)

Gr3yling

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #24 on: November 21, 2013, 06:20:17 PM »
Thanks for all your advice, girls/guys.

I've started playing with python a little using the tutorial in AlexPT's link.  So far it does seem a lot easier to understand than C++ (I made a very brief attempt to learn C++ but then stopped because I didn't know if it was the best language to learn for my purposes). 

In python it seems so far that you can learn by playing with the commands, by switching out components and seeing how the results differ.  With C++ it seems like trying to do that usually just resulted in a error.

I, personally, think I'm going to stick with this language.

Kevin Granade

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #25 on: November 21, 2013, 07:35:27 PM »
Python is a great language, and it has good library support for game authoring in pygame and libcotd.
When performance becomes an issue, python supports you dropping in optimized small chunks of C/C++ to do the really CPU intensive bits, and most libraries for python are actually implemented in C/C++ under the hood, so the performance is very good compared to a "pure" interpreted language.

If I were starting a roguelike from scratch, I'd most likely build it in Python and only do performance-critical bits in C/C++, and this is from a professional programmer specializing in C/C++ :P

Gr3yling

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #26 on: November 23, 2013, 08:33:15 PM »
Hey AlexPT, I think you should check this site out: http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/python.  The pace is much slower than the other site that you linked (which is good for me).  Each concept is broken down into a number of small lessons, and that helps too.  You might like it if you are still getting discouraged with string formatting.

CrowdedTrousers

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #27 on: November 23, 2013, 11:03:16 PM »
I love this idea, I can really picture an ASCII Red Dead Revolver with permadeath and a dash of the Jurassic.
I'd be tempted to pick it up if I wasn't already a couple of months down my own RL rabbithole

Break out that Python Tutorial and go for it. By the end of that tute you'll have a reasonably comprehensive set of mechanics and it explains what it's doing every step of the way. Well done Jotaf, where-ever you are (presumably ascended).

Coding it is where the idea really begins to solidify - no idea will survive exactly the same once you start implementing it.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2013, 11:08:49 PM by CrowdedTrousers »

AlexPT

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #28 on: November 24, 2013, 06:10:55 PM »
@Gr3yling - thanks for the link! I'm following it now, and hopefully I don't get stuck. X)

@CrowdedTrousers - yeah, I'm going for it. :)

Gr3yling

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Re: An old wild west roguelike? Ideas.
« Reply #29 on: November 26, 2013, 01:38:14 AM »
So, I'm having some problems starting my roguelike. I am trying to follow the "Complete Roguelike Tutorial, using python+libtcod" on roguebasin, link here:

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod

First, I downloaded python 2.7 and libtcod 1.5.1.  Then, I made a new folder for my project containing several files from libtcod just like it said.  I then went in the python folder, opened python, and tried to type in the first command that the tutorial instructed me to: rename libtcodpy as libtcod.  And then python told me that there was no module named libtcodpy.

Any suggestions?  I'm guessing maybe I need to move more files around, but I don't want to experiment and end up messing something up.