Hardcore ASCII roguelike in... 3D...

[gray]

Can a roguelike still remain a roguelike, I mean a traditional roguelike, if it's done in 3D?

I've been toying with this idea, maybe found a possibility.  But I'm not sure really...  checkout the concept video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vgsBMxalrw

Millions of voxels, shadow maps, multiple lights, funky stuff, etc, etc... but a traditional roguelike. 

Worth pursuing?

[getter77]

Of course---you are not alone in this field either, though the others are quieter/stalled/in the shadows.

Have confidence and attack it!   

[akeley]

This could work, since it`s a very clean design and a good angle - no tactical confusion. Still, I`d have to see more items/enemies in a room to judge that properly.

[gray]

This could work, since it`s a very clean design and a good angle - no tactical confusion. Still, I`d have to see more items/enemies in a room to judge that properly.

It's actually a free roaming camera, so you can get any angle you like, but that angle was kinda what worked best for me.  Although, when running down narrow east/west corridors things get a bit obstructed.  I guess making the walls blocking the character translucent, could work, so you can see what the hell is hitting on you.

Another thing that can be done is positioning the camera directly above the scene, rotating the voxel models 90 degrees, and then you have the classical roguelike view...

[gray]

Of course---you are not alone in this field either, though the others are quieter/stalled/in the shadows.

Have confidence and attack it!   

Quieter!  That's the first ever public post I've made :-p

I'm attacking it, honest!  Just... with the heart of someone who really loves traditional ASCII and who eyes this voxel nonsense with scepticism

[guest509]

No reason that cannot work just fine.

EDIT: Lol. I swear English is my main language. This looks like it should work just fine. Now it's down to game design.

[gray]

you are not alone in this field either

If anyone else is hacking on voxels, you'll need, sooner or later, a voxel model editor.  I couldn't really find one simple enough for my needs, so I wrote my own. :-/

It's pretty minimal, but gets the job done.  I got my girlfriend to draw all the ASCII characters in it. :->  Cross-platform and open-source, written in pure Python.

Free open-source voxel editor. Windows binaries available.

[Paul Jeffries]

If anyone else is hacking on voxels, you'll need, sooner or later, a voxel model editor.  I couldn't really find one simple enough for my needs, so I wrote my own. :-/

It's pretty minimal, but gets the job done.  I got my girlfriend to draw all the ASCII characters in it. :->  Cross-platform and open-source, written in pure Python.

That's some good delegation skills ;-).  My own attempt at doing a 3D Roguelike is unfortunately in the 'stalled' category, mainly since it dawned on me just how much work the content creation would be.  Sticking to voxel-ASCII (and getting your girlfriend to do all the hard work) seems like it should successfully circumvent that problem.

[guest509]

That's a sweet team right there.

[gray]

That's some good delegation skills ;-).  My own attempt at doing a 3D Roguelike is unfortunately in the 'stalled' category, mainly since it dawned on me just how much work the content creation would be. 

That looks brilliant.  You should finish it!  Perhaps enlisting some female slave labour for content creation could help?

[Krice]

Depth or that third dimension is the big question. It's something you should actually use in 3D roguelike, yet this and some other demos are just flat 2D maps with 3D output. You could argue if it's really a 3D roguelike.

[gray]

Depth or that third dimension is the big question. It's something you should actually use in 3D roguelike, yet this and some other demos are just flat 2D maps with 3D output. You could argue if it's really a 3D roguelike.

I agree with you.  In fact it is exactly that in a technical sense.  The backend is a standard 2D tile based engine, which is just feeding the usual 2D tile updates to rendering engine which converts them into voxels for display.

Actually using 3D as aspect of gameplay in novel ways would take a game designer with some good ideas.  Sadly, I am not such, I'm just a humble hacker.

[Enke]

This...is...simply amazing. I love this! I also like the voxel editor. This is a very good blend of the classic and the modern! Please keep working on this.