My first simple roguelike:Sepulchre of the Serpent King

[MattLloyd]

Good Afternoon, or whatever time it may be wherever you are...

I've always had a keen interest in dungeon crawl style games, and thought I'd try to put one together my self, somewhat in the style of a roguelike. So I spent a good portion of my time reading through the roguebasin wiki site and then had a go at putting together a simple roguelike, with a few graphics though (hope you don't mind).  The object in this game is to slay the Serpent King, a nasty monster who dwells deep in the dungeon.  Instructions on how to play the game as in the zip file...(instructions.txt or similar).  

Hope you enjoy, from Matt


http://home.people.net.au/%7Etmalcolm/roguelike/SerpentKing.zip

[mariodonick]

The screenshots are too big. Could you PLEASE make a line break after each picture?

Otherwise, the dungeon graphics looks good, very diablo-esque. Will try it soon.

[getter77]

Yeah, definitely orient the screenshots a bit better please.

Otherwise, this does look quite fantastic!     What all did you use to make it, what's the gameworld like, etc?

[AgingMinotaur]

The screenshots are too big. Could you PLEASE make a line break after each picture?

Agreed. It wouldn't hurt if you edited the first post and did this, either

What all did you use to make it, what's the gameworld like, etc?

And ... is it cross-platform !?! Anyways, lookin' interesting, yea.

As always,
Minotauros

[getter77]

Also would be awesome if you make a RogueBasin page for it so other people can keep track/find out!   

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

[MattLloyd]

Sorry about the screenshots - they aren't separate images - I combined them into one, however I've shrunk the image down a bit so hopefully that helps.

I used some software called "BlitzPlus" which is a game programming language along with SoftImageXSI 5.0 for the renders, Poser 4 for some of the character models, and a simple paint program called Ultimate Paint to touch up some of the graphics. 

The gameworld is very simple - a very large dungeon filled with monsters, treasure,equipment,shops and , traps, doors and the like where the main objective is to eliminate a big boss monster.

Sorry not cross platform, Windows PC only.

I will look into putting a rogue basin page for it.

I've found a number of the monsters too tough to fight against - I implemented a 'stun' spell but when the player is stunned the same wizard monster can continually stun the player over and over while they get beat up by other monsters...

Thanks,
Matt

[getter77]

Thanks for the screen shrinking---much better now for many people's resolution.

I look forward to yet more details/fixes/updates/development, as I am big on graphical Roguelikes.

Hmm....maybe one day you could up-port it to BlitzMax for multi-platform support?  

ALSO!:  A belated Welcome to The Roguetemple to you!   

[mariodonick]

Thanks for reducing screenshot size.

I downloaded and tried the game. I like the visual style and that you simply have the choice between male and female.

However, I had some problems to find any monsters or stairs (you wrote there's one big level, so are there stairs down to deeper levels at all?). There were monsters, but not that much, so I had the feeling of walking through a big nearly empty maze. So at some point I quit ...

The Field of View / Line of Sight seems strange, sometimes. I could look through room corners, but obviously there was no way to move diagonally.

Some interface issues:

The mouse cursor looks good, but is way too big.

It's unclear from the game itself what can be done with the mouse and what not. The BIG mouse cursor gave me the impression it can all be controlled by mouse, but selecting male/female and clicking on a dungeon tile did not work. So then I put the mouse aside. I read, however, in the instructions.txt that it can be used to attack enemies.

This is all a little bit inconsistent. The inventory/equipment could be more obvious, too.

However, I know this is just an early version, so I expect improvements over time :-)

[MattLloyd]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll change a few things...maybe make it more mouse directed, may alter the dungeon generation system, thanks - very useful feedback.

From Matt

[roguedjack]

Gave it a try.
The gfx style is nice and very "dungeonish".
Some problems I spotted.

Setup
- Width and Height seems sometimes reversed.
Eg I have to choose 1050x1680 for my 1680x1050 desktop.
If I choose "1680x1050" the screen behaves like it is rotated 90deg to the left.

Input
- Problems with an AZERTY keyboard : WASD movement in game works but in the character selection screen my 'M' doesnt work, I have to press where the qwerty M is located.

GFX
- When alt-tabbing to desktop and returning to game the textures are messed. The text is not affected.
- Some monsters are hard to see (gray vs gray background).

Gameplay
- Steal in a shop, got caught, a monster is spawned but also a group of shops buildings are spawned (!!).
- I should be able to move on a tile without grabbing the item.
- Dropping items destroys them? (Fn keys).

Interface
- Confusion between what keyboard does and what mouse does.
- In the inventory you should be able to click anywhere on the name of the item rather than just a small spot.
- Items and equipment should stand out more vs interface text.

Hope I make sense 

[MattLloyd]

Good Evening,

Have made some changes - the interface should be slightly easier to read now (coloured fonts), mouse commands can be used for most actions now (keyboard commands remain the same), made the text display a bit more efficient - should not be quite so choppy.

Some of the bugs/problems pointed out I have little control over - in particular the screen dimensions ie whether it is rotated 90 degrees or not - I do not know why blitzplus does this, but it is avoidable by choosing a different screen res, and the AZERTY keyboard issue, I don't know how to resolve that one either, but with mouse input it should be less of a problem. 

The dungeon has more rooms now, less long windy corridors, and there are more creatures present in the rooms, perhaps too many...

Equipment is now no longer destroyed in combat - I thought it made it a little too difficult. 

Thanks,
Matt

[mariodonick]

the AZERTY keyboard issue, I don't know how to resolve that one either

Does BlitzPlus allow to use Unicode for reading key presses? Than it shouldn't be a big problem. If it only allows direct keycodes, it's more difficult, I guess ...