68 replies to this topic

[A. J. Raffles]

Juni Ori, on Jan 25 2006, 11:26 AM, said:

Name a single game taking place in WW2 that is politically accurate??? And I have (big surprise) great ideas to it!

I never said I was in favour of WWII games in general, did I?

Oh, and I meant to say politically incorrect - seems like I still wasn't properly awake then. Sorry about the confusion; I'll edit my post.

[Juni Ori]

You know what is really weird and confusing? We both thinked the same... I also meant correct...

[MdaG]

At the moment I don't fancy a fantasy setting with the traditional magic, elves, dragons etc. Blä! Maybe I'll implement something reminiscent of Mindcraft and use it sparingly... hmmm. I also don't want it to turn into a shooter like DOOMRL so WW2 is out of the question.
I'm currently buildning a prototype GUI, I'll post a screenshot later on, when it's taken form and you can comment on it. I'm aiming on ease of use and I think I'll rip key commands from popular games to ease the learning process.

[Bobbin Threadbare]

I don't know if this is "fantasy" but a Chrono-Trigger-esque style would be cool.

[MdaG]

Ok, a very simple and HIGHLY unpolished attempt at a  GUI. Don't pay attention to the stat names and such. It's all just ripped from ADOM. I just wanted to fill out the empty spaces. There is no working game yet. It's all just "dead" ASCII characters printed. Like I said before, it's just a concept GUI. Do you think this will work?

Test GUI

[A. J. Raffles]

Hmm, you know that grammatically, it's the heart that collapses and dies, right?
Otherwise it looks fine. Are you planning to have mouse control?

[MdaG]

A. J. Raffles, on Jan 25 2006, 10:14 PM, said:

Hmm, you know that grammatically, it's the heart that collapses and dies, right?
Otherwise it looks fine. Are you planning to have mouse control?

No mouse control other than to reach the menus. Not at the moment anyway.
The message at the bottom was written in a hurry to fill out the space   .

[Umber]

I agree with AJ. It looks nice.

[MdaG]

I've got some thoughts and ideas for this game. For one it will be a slightly more modern roguelike which I'll be writing in Java. I don't think that a Java roguelike will be slow as some probably fear. It might be RAM consuming, but by the time I'm finished with this, RAM won't be a problem.
Since I'm writing it in Java I might as well take advantage of various fonts and character sets. In other words it might end up being a game where Unicode replaces ASCII, hence T and T will be two different things and you might find some ?, fight an ¥ and wield a ?. Another idea is having the option of graphic tiles. And now I don't mean static gifs, but rather a true 3D environment with animated 3D objects moving around in a othervise turn based setting. The 3D objects I imagine will not be dragons, robots or whatever I conjure in the game, but rather 3D objects of the characters, much like those in the ADOM gallery. The 3D tiles will however have the lowest priority since it will be a time consuming process to learn the ropes of a respectable 3D graphics engine (ex. OGRE).

I have a post apocalyptic setting in mind for the plot. Nothing is decided yet though. The different "races" will all be derived from Norms (Normal humans). The ones I've thought about are: Norms (normal humans), Psi-norms (like norms, only physically weaker and get access to psionic powers), Mutants (will come in a lot of different sizes and mutations), Cyborgs (cross between Norm and Robot with abilities from both races, only less) and Robots(upgradeable or something). I'm not going to use magic, but rather something similar to mindcraft in ADOM, but with more "powers". These powers will at first only be wielded by Psionic characters, but a non-psi character gaining some kind of special technology will also be able to do it (just not as well). Technology will be used sparingly. I'm thinking of using hi-tech stuff much like Biskup uses artifacts in ADOM (they will be rare and not available in the early game). Most objects will be relatively primitive so that it doesn't turn in to a shooter like DOOMRL.

The ideas of a plot revolves around a future after mankind battled eachother to the point where each super power developed meaner and badder weapons. One side did genetic engineering (resulting in Psi-Norms and Mutants) and another developed the A.I. (which resulted in Cyborgs and Robots). Battle, battle, battle... bla bla bla   A.I. becomes self conscious and starts kicking Norm-romp... und so weiter ... Anyway the game should take place a long time after all that boom boom. I haven't really made any real effort on the story since it won't be anything else than a setting to build the rest of the game upon. Maybe something along destroying the A.I. and freeing the world from nasty machines or something. Feel free to add your own suggestions (input is good, maybe I like the idea and implement it). Maybe only a few norms are left and live underground? On the surface only Mutants and the remaining Cyborgs live (and battle each others for territory and resources). Robots are still controlled by a nowadays really confused A.I. The remaining Psi-norms either hide or try to live like ordinary norms without ever using their powers (only the baddies do).

On the more technical side I've thought about a random name generator. Sometimes I really can't come up with a name of my own so I like the idea of being able to get a random one. Another thing is that I'm thinking about having different kinds of dungeons and hence different dungeon generators. For one, a traditional dungeon will not look the same as an abandoned army base and so on. I also want sound effects and maybe some easy tunes in the background. DOOMRL pulled it off in a good way and I for one think that it added to the experience. In my game it won't be as hectic though. I want the music to add to the atmosphere. The player is suppose to forget about the letters on the screen and imagine a world (don't know how I'm suppose to pull that one off though). I want to the game to be 95% random so there will be a few static places. Like a village, city, boss area or something.

There are still lots of things I haven't thought out, but this will take time (if I ever finish it) so there's no hurry . So what do you think, am I on to something or does it just sound boring?

[MdaG]

This project is put on ice indefinately. Lack of inspiration, time, master thesis and soon work has made me realize I cannot give this the priority it'll need to ever get finished. If I ever pick up on it I'll probably make use of Biskup's JADE to save time and concentrate on my personal ideas and not on the engine.

*edit (2006-07-23)*
Got some time this summer so I've taken up where I left off. The code has been completely rewritten using Python and the SDL wrapper Pygame. Now, let's see if I can reach v. 0.1 before september (unlikely though) ...

[MdaG]

Wow, over 1000 reads and only 8 votes...  
Anyway. The game engine is at a point where I can test it. There are for example doors that can be opened and closed. There are roaming monsters. It's possible to ascend and descend stairs. So in short the game looks like an ADOM (using ADOM as a point of reference) dungeon without loot and the ability to do stuff except run around and close/open doors. Soon I'm going to implement a smarter A.I. and some RPG rules making it possible to do battle. At that point I'll be done with the (early) generic engine and I'm going to slow down, clean up the code and start thinking about what kind of Roguelike I want my game to be.

[greywolf]

For me, it was a tie between Apocalyptic and Sci-fi, mostly because the two are so similar. ADoM has also made me want to make my own roguelike, too, but I have no idea where to even start. I really wanted to make a sci-fi one, since the only other sci-fi-ish one, Alphaman, sucks. If you do end up making a futuristic one of sorts, please, please, don't make it a Star Wars roguelike for the following reasons:

1. A roguelike you make should be your own creation, not someone else's. Although you might get a lot of immediate sells from the "brand," it will never be as fulfilling as making your own universe successful.
2. There's always the chance LucasArts might get wind of it and aim all sorts of legal stuff your way, and that is always a pain.
3. Break the mold with your game! With Star Wars, you have a set pattern to follow: make lots of money, buy a starship, become a jedi (being either light side or dark), and made jedi decisions (like killing innocent people or saving helpless bystanders from terrorists, etc...).

I think that's enough to support my request for now... But I vote for either a general sci-fi game, or an apocalypic one - whichever strikes your fancy.

EDIT: Ooops... Looks like I didn't wait for all the posts to load.. sorry about that.

[A. J. Raffles]

Hey, I voted! I can't remember what I voted for, but I did vote.

Anyway, good to hear you're making progress on your roguelike, MdaG. It hasn't reached a playable state yet, though, has it? *looks hopeful*

About Star Wars, the only possible advantage I can think of would be that the name would draw attention, but obviously you want people to play your game because it's GOOD, not because they're Star Wars fanatics, right?

[MdaG]

A. J. Raffles, on Aug 10 2006, 08:03 AM, said:

Hey, I voted! I can't remember what I voted for, but I did vote.

Anyway, good to hear you're making progress on your roguelike, MdaG. It hasn't reached a playable state yet, though, has it? *looks hopeful*

About Star Wars, the only possible advantage I can think of would be that the name would draw attention, but obviously you want people to play your game because it's GOOD, not because they're Star Wars fanatics, right?

No, even for a roguelike player one'll have to have a great imagination to play the game in it's current state *hehe*, for me as the developer it's more fun now since whatever I implement from now on makes a direct (visual) impact on the game. It's one thing to write the "engine" for drawing pixels, quite another to actually see the "open door"-code open the door and allow the @ to pass through
The setting has been geared toward dark sci-fi/wasteland/gothic, but I haven't gotten much further on the subject yet. I only know that I want the game to feature (optional) atmospheric music and sfx. I just don't know how I'm going to create the sounds. Maybe I'll have to ask another to do it?

Star Wars would be a cool setting, but it's a huge world with a lot of pre written material (too much for me to read up on) and I don't want the pressure of pleasing every Star Wars fanatic. Hence no Star Wars.

[DakaSha]

i might be able to create the music for you

itd be cool to create some atmospheric music instead of hip-hop and crazy electronic music