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[magikarcher]

Good luck.
You making me want to continue learning C++ just to compete, Tree Brother.

Thanks, Rock Homey.

[inaluct]

would anyone actually be interested in playing a game like this

Yes.

[Gunner-Chan]

I'd play it.

[magikarcher]

Wow, that means a lot! Thanks guys!! I have a fairly busy week, but I plan to start on getting a room to display on my monitor this weekend. I am going to take a different approach than most, and put up updates pretty much every time I add a new feature, I hate waiting long periods of time for a new update (hint hint hint).

EDIT: Where do I extract The Doryen Library too?

[Derakon]

Which would be more difficult, images of letters as graphics, or an actual console?

It really depends on the power of the libraries you use. In either case you're going to be saying "Make this image at this location"; it's just that in one version the "image" is telling the computer to render the character '@' in a certain font and font size, and in the other you're blitting a bitmap.

[magikarcher]

Ok. I am trying to use the Doryen Library, but I can't get it to import to python D:

Is it possible it isn't made for python 2.6?

[EchoP]

Ok. I am trying to use the Doryen Library, but I can't get it to import to python D:

Is it possible it isn't made for python 2.6?

I can't remember, but python 2.5 is the build that most packages are built for, and that you will have the least trouble with, so I would suggest trying that.

[Derakon]

What's the error that you get when you try to do "import tdl"? Or have you not managed to get it installed? According to this site, you need to have previously installed ctypes and setuptools.

[Sowelu]

For your timeline:

"Sight" is a lot harder than it looks.  Also, any monster AI beyond the very simplest stuff is not really represented before pets.  I'd insert a step between steps 4 and 5.  Let's call this 4.5th step "environmental awareness":  Sight for players and monsters, the ability of monsters to figure out where they want to stand and where they don't want to stand with respect to choke points and ranged abilities, monsters getting out of each others' way, monsters wandering around until they see you and then pursuing you, monsters knowing whether they can break down doors, etc.

I say to put this stuff here because you CAN make a playable game with full visibility to the entire world at all times, and you can have monsters that always know where you are (maybe when you're within a certain range), and can always beeline to you using A*.  You don't need LOS or smart monsters in step 1.  However, you'll want monsters to have some basic environmental awareness before you worry about pets.

That's my only real comment there.  Don't get caught up on LOS and AI early on, they can be discouraging.  Put them off.    Oh yeah, and random dungeons are hard too, don't worry about making them remotely great in step 1.  If they are enough to test your game, then they are enough.


Where are items/equipment/inventory?  I don't see weapons/armor.  Put a basic system in step 1, it's important.  Set some time aside to figure out exactly what you want your system to do and not do, and for the love of god, don't overcomplicate things--set your limits LOW.  Remember, Nethack's and ADOM's item systems are NOT very robust in the end--Nethack just has a bunch of special cases.  Don't try to let the player wield live goblins whose spiky armor gives a bonus to damage.  Down that way lies madness.  Trust me, I know.

[magikarcher]

Don't try to let the player wield live goblins whose spiky armor gives a bonus to damage. Down that way lies MASSIVE INTERNET FAME!

Cool! Thanks for all the tips! I will definitely add wieldable goblins!

[Derakon]

Keep your goals simple. It is incredibly easy, at this stage, to want to add all kinds of pie-in-the-sky features to the game. Don't discount them, but don't plan on having them done anytime soon, either. Make simple, achievable goals, and then mark them off once they're done. That will help you keep your motivation up.

[inaluct]

I think you should give ogres a place as player characters. They're neglected.

Also, you should probably have wielding certain things (like goblins) take some serious size or strength, unless you want to be like Angband and have kobolds and gnomes running around with halberds.

[Derakon]

Angband treats size even more lightly than DF does; every race can wear the same finger rings, all armor fits everyone, and yes, pixies can use 60-pound Massive Iron Hammers if they have enough strength (and since practically every character ends up maxing out stats, your pixie will have enough strength).

As far as I'm concerned, the first rule of game design is to chuck reality out the window as soon as it stops being fun. In this case, why should my dinky little character be blocked from using equipment? That's speciesist! Even if you make it so every race has special equipment that they can use and others can't, and you actually manage to balance this, you're still facing the problem that your average roguelike is all about kitting up your character with randomly-dropped gear. It does your character no good to know that there's cool stuff he could use, if everything he finds is meant for someone else. (This is a common problem with e.g. Diablo 2, where there's massive amounts of class-specific gear. D2 solves this by letting you trade, but that's no good for a singleplayer game).

[inaluct]

So, you're saying that your pixie cleric should be able to hit things with a goblin covered in spiky armor, and massive iron mauls?

[qwertyuiopas]

Another solution might be to implement an equipment-size-change spell that is somewhat easy to obtain though not quite common enough to be useful, at least initially.
Similar to ADoM and cursed items. It is relatively difficult to deal with cursed items, until

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

you get a decent supply of holy water,

but at least at thte start, cursed equipment is practically unuseable(especially if you don't know that it's cursed and discover when you find something better... oops).

Or, let large equipment be used in diffrent ways, such as a giant's bracelet being used as a belt by more normal sized people, or a regular sized one being used as a ring by the giant.