Info line idea

[mushroom patch]

Hm, yeah, reminds of The Shadow over Innsmouth. Sometimes facing reality can be mind-bending experience.

[pat]

When I started my project 20 years ago I was as ignorant as anyone else. I knew I was ok at programming and I had done some small games before. Like many I had an idea that a roguelike will probably take couple of years to do... now, 20 years later I'm only slightly better at making a guess when it's going to be ready. This is the "magic" of large scale projects. So many beginners think that if their 7DRL is 10K lines of code, then 100K lines of a bigger roguelike will "obviously" only take 10x more time to complete.

There are couple of ways to react to reality when it hits. Often the moment when you realize the scope of the task is when you have started and are well on the way to create the game engine. At some point it will be clear that it's not 10x, it's closer to like 100x more work. Often people will simply stop there and make up excuses about their real life issues etc. They then proceed to "know" that they would have been able to create the game. The other way is not to give up, but grow up as a person to understand more about the reality of large scale game programming.

People who give up are always going to be bitter about it, but they can't admit the facts, they rather attack real game developers in forums and try to make fun of them when the development is taking realistic amount of time (several years). They can't accept it, because the way they try to prevent a mental breakdown that could follow if they would have to face the reality.

why don't you just release what you've done so far

[Krice]

why don't you just release what you've done so far

Why release an unfinished game? Besides, I already did it and found out it was idiotic. The ancient release version (it's before I started using C++) of Kaduria is still floating around on internet somewhere, but I doubt it will work unless some kind of emulation is used, because it's so old it was using I think VGA 320x400 special screen mode. That's some old technology!

[Krice]

That you haven't been banned for your rude and boorish behaviour is, frankly, beyond me.

I try to avoid unneccessary personal attacks, that's why I guess. When I say some game isn't a roguelike, it's not really a personal attack against the developer. I firmly believe that we need to look at roguelike projects in critical way, both our own projects and everything else being released.

However I feel kind bad saying that mushroom is ignorant, but it's more a realistic observation than anything else. And it may have a positive outcome if mushroom starts to make his own roguelike just to see how hard it actually is.

[mushroom patch]

Wow. Sympatico, man. I mean, for example, when I say Krice's game isn't real and you can tell from his lack of anything substantive to say about roguelike games, that's not a personal attack! You gotta apply a critical eye to claims people make about their alleged projects.

Just bein' realistic here guys...

[Lord_Mork]

why don't you just release what you've done so far

I googled it and found a download for 0.4.5 version of Kaduria, from years ago.
It was stashed in a public Google Drive titled "Roguelike Archive", which includes other since-taken-down games like "Warp Rogue".

Here's the link to the 'drive if you care, the download works in windows 10.
https://b04b18ee9cbabeab8fc2e4b40722d201dccd8a77.googledrive.com/host/0B2SRk3wthlxFSlJWbmhGUkduWlU/Kaduria/

[pat]

I googled it and found a download for 0.4.5 version of Kaduria, from years ago.
It was stashed in a public Google Drive titled "Roguelike Archive", which includes other since-taken-down games like "Warp Rogue".

Here's the link to the 'drive if you care, the download works in windows 10.
https://b04b18ee9cbabeab8fc2e4b40722d201dccd8a77.googledrive.com/host/0B2SRk3wthlxFSlJWbmhGUkduWlU/Kaduria/

apart from combat seemingly not working at all, it's a reasonably good start of a project

i got to admit, from the way Krice talks about the Roguelike Legacy, i'm surprised that it isn't an ascii game

[Krice]

when I say Krice's game isn't real and

That and when people say I'm a troll.. you have noticed that I never call anyone a troll. That's because I'm a better person than they are. Making a troll non-argument is not only ancient, it's a way to downplay another human being, to say that his opinions don't matter at all. You know who also downplay other people? Well, racists do that, for example. So next time you call someone a troll remember that you are on a same level with racists.

[AgingMinotaur]

Making a troll non-argument is not only ancient, it's a way to downplay another human being, to say that his opinions don't matter at all.

That would be in contrast to, say, accusing forum members of being bots, or downright telling them to fuck off?

As always,
Minotauros

[Krice]

That would be in contrast to, say, accusing forum members of being bots, or downright telling them to fuck off?

I only accuse bots of being bots, not forum members. And fuck off only means you care about someone's opinions a lot.

[Tzan]

And fuck off only means you care about someone's opinions a lot.

And this is why I think you should join the Brikwars forum, everyone really cares about each other.

[mushroom patch]

when I say Krice's game isn't real and

That and when people say I'm a troll.. you have noticed that I never call anyone a troll. That's because I'm a better person than they are. Making a troll non-argument is not only ancient, it's a way to downplay another human being, to say that his opinions don't matter at all. You know who also downplay other people? Well, racists do that, for example. So next time you call someone a troll remember that you are on a same level with racists.

When you think about it, Krice is pretty much like indigenous peoples in the global south who have been mercilessly exploited and brutalized for centuries by racist colonialists and capitalists.

I suppose I should walk back my claims re: the un-reality of KriceRL. It's not so much that I doubt any code exists as that Krice claims up and down that he has surpassed prominent existing works, say for example nethack and crawl, and constantly talks trash to this effect, while making no substantial releases for decades and having only the most vague possible things to say about roguelikes, game design, programming, etc. My prediction is that there will never be a substantial release because he knows very well that he can never measure up to his talk or, more damningly, the games he favorably compares his work to.

[Krice]

Krice claims up and down that he has surpassed prominent existing works

Yeah, about that.. the truth is that it's easy to surpass them. And the reason is quite obvious if you think of it, since most roguelikes are deep in the past. Nethack for example, it hasn't changed a lot since.. when? It's practically the same game it was 20 years ago. ADOM is just a slightly extended version of Nethack. The whole concept of roguelikes is so ancient and many developers think it should remain like that. I don't agree with that. That's why it's easy to surpass them. And I'm not even doing anything special, just thinking that there can be something else than copying 1:1 old roguelikes like everyone seems to do.

[Skullcoder]

The whole concept of roguelikes is so ancient and many developers think it should remain like that. I don't agree with that. That's why it's easy to surpass them. And I'm not even doing anything special, just thinking that there can be something else than copying 1:1 old roguelikes like everyone seems to do.

I agree the roguelike genre needs a few shots in the arm. In some cases it's happening as many games become popular by being less roguelike than roguelike-lites and borrowing only a few roguish features.  Popularizing the RL labeling (even when incorrectly applied) has attracted some new roguelike devs interested in making what's old new again.

I'd disagree that it's easy to surpass long running projects like Nethack.  It may be easy to come up with better designs, like this Info Line Idea (now with visible history), or Gods that employ Machine Learning, etc; However, at some point one has to factor in all the dev hours it takes to get something as complete as one of the big old games out of the dungeon and released. Therein lies the "difficulty"; Even more so for One Man Army development teams.

The big old roguelike projects have had the benefit of having many devs and/or starting out modifying a working game (one way to get devs), or at the least borrowing heavily from an existing working design (but forever being a slave to past design decisions).  There's a reason so many devs start out (re)making a crusty "classic" roguelike, and there's nothing wrong with that.  It seems impossible for most devs to avoid coming up with fresh ideas while working on any old project, whether they can make them a reality is another story.

For instance, here is the W.I.P. tile sheet for the Roguelike that Derek Yu was developing when he came up with the idea for Spelunky and made that instead.  I personally wouldn't say that Spelunky surpassed Nethack or ADoM as a roguelike since it's so far from the original genre and is much closer to Notch's Infinite Mario than a RL, IMHO.  It's the extreme example of adding new things to a roguelike (so much that it's not a RL anymore).  If only more devs didn't pander to the Fakebook generation with such dumbed down gameplay we might get more innovations in the hardcore RL genre.

It's hard to compare any solo project to a decades old existing game.  1 Man Army successes seem to be at the cost of neutering much roguelikeness.  Personally, I'd avoid spreading FUD about ambitious solo projects.  They rarely materialize because of the time and effort required to climb that mountain, not due to any fault of the developer (except for being ambitious).  Props to the "starving artist" devs that actually try to pull it off.  We can use all the dedicated souls we can get. 

P.S. I like shy Info Lines that autohide but aren't so timid they disappear before I'm done checking them out.

[Krice]

I'd disagree that it's easy to surpass long running projects like Nethack.

It's easy, but more like in concept level. In practice it's hard to create a large roguelike game, as we have seen many times. But even if you had only a plan of a game it can still be better than any existing roguelike. The way Mushie reacts to conceptual games is typical for american people. They want actual results, something they can hold in their hands. Otherwise it doesn't exist. It's funny, but americans are so material people.