Big Rogue-like Project

[Davidobot]

Also 2 more questions:
Have you started the game?
What help do you need ( sound, graphics, programming )?

Was your rogue abandoned? Almost two months without any news about it. You seem have three games in the forge. Amazing how you can still help in another projects. That's something.

Well, 1 is fully mine, the other 2 are mostly handled by Banoticus. Plus, I got exams going on.
EDIT: Are you working on anything at this time?

[coffee]

Trying to not stay more off-topic:

Well, 1 is fully mine, the other 2 are mostly handled by Banoticus. Plus, I got exams going on.

Well but that also looses a bit the synergy of a team. And good luck for exams!

EDIT: Are you working on anything at this time?

Yes, private project semi-rogue without any intention of future public releases. But I get always time for some help in rogues as I did with your project.

[Davidobot]

Trying to not stay more off-topic:

Well, 1 is fully mine, the other 2 are mostly handled by Banoticus. Plus, I got exams going on.

Well but that also looses a bit the synergy of a team. And good luck for exams!

EDIT: Are you working on anything at this time?

Yes, private project semi-rogue without any intention of future public releases. But I get always time for some help in rogues as I did with your project.

Banoticus usually works on his/our games and I help him when he needs help.

[prototypez]

Sorry for this necropost, but this post of mine made me laugh with how, ah, naive and innocent it is. Rogue-likes are hard work! And I have an actual job to do(I'm in the US Navy)... I think I'll always be more of a consumer than a producer...

[Codex]

My suggestion - instead of one big RL project, how about one big RL library to make creating one much easier.

I recall PM'ing a few other lovers who made RL's about getting a library going so other people can build roguelikes pretty easily. I wouldn't mind contributing, but I don't have enough time on my hands to actually take lead. I do have a few things I could rip out of SQ that I think would be useful for general RL's. (ie. shadowcasting, map layer system, color text print) It would be hard to figure out how design the library to avoid being so specific that it could potentially limit people's ability to add or change things.

[sieben07]

This is Field of Dreams material.
Quote "If you build it, he will come."

Start the Project on github or something.

And we will contribute.

[Hexenhammer]

My suggestion - instead of one big RL project, how about one big RL library to make creating one much easier.

Good idea. LÖVE primarily attracts hobby coders (like me) I guess and roguelikes are a popular genre for that crowd because you don't necessarily need a graphic artist.

(ie. shadowcasting, map layer system, color text print) It would be hard to figure out how design the library to avoid being so specific that it could potentially limit people's ability to add or change things.

It's not obvious (for a non-pro) how to implement a turn-based/ASCII interface in LÖVE, I think this is the primary problem. I have quite a bit of programming experience but it took me awhile to figure it out. Simple things like "let the player enter his character's name" are a challenge if you start with naked LÖVE. Here is the current version of my GetString code:

Code: Select all

-- Prompts the user to enter a string
-- Returns the entered string or false if the input process is not complete
local GetStringBuffer = Rope.New()

function Keyboard.GetString(frame, maxSize)

  local buffer = GetStringBuffer

  frame:Draw(buffer)
  frame:Draw("_")
  frame:MoveCursorLeft()

  local key, unicode = Keyboard.GetKey()

  if key == "return" then

    frame:Draw(" ")

    return buffer:Yield()

  elseif key == "backspace" or key == "delete" then

    if buffer:Size() == 0 then return false end

    buffer:Remove()

    frame:MoveCursorLeft()
    frame:Draw("  ")
    frame:MoveCursorLeft()
    frame:MoveCursorLeft()
    frame:Draw("_")

  elseif Symbol.IsCharacter(unicode) then

    if buffer:Size() == maxSize then return false end

    buffer:Add(unicode)

    frame:Draw(unicode)
    frame:Draw("_")

  end

  return false

end

It works but there is a hell lot of groundwork code behind this. Starting with the most basic stuff like a rope (table of string fragments) ADT for string construction, the whole logic to print colored ASCII characters in an efficient way, etc.

The "non-specific" version of a "roguelike library" would be a curses/conio style library which provides functions for character input/output. We already have multiple generic pathfinding libs which could be combined with this. I am no fan of shadowcasting FOV but those algorithms could be implemented in a standalone, generic way too.

I think instead of trying to make one big "roguelike library", smaller, more focused libraries following the "do one thing, and do it well" spirit would be better e.g. one for pathfinding (already exists), one for character I/O, one for dungeon map generation etc.