Re: [OT] Roguelikes?
 

For those not in the know, 7DRL stands out for "7-day roguelike". It's a competition where roguelike designers try to take a week's break from their absurd projects to try to make a complete game in just seven days. Some of the games are ingenious, and are later honed further. The finished projects are very interesting even when they aren't good games, and they often are. It's surprising that a fun game can be made in so little time, when you consider how hard it is to make one in a year...

Re: [OT] Roguelikes?
 

first, thanks a ton to getter77.

second, I can't help but plug the FourthAge roguelike which will soon re-enter development (after a semester long break).

My goal over the semester was to do one thing: get some sort of map generation.

Thanks to some tips my lch and a weekend spent reading up on fractal and noise generation algorithms (and the availablity of existing implementations of these things), I've got a foundation for terrain generation which I am close to getting prepped for generating the kinds of maps I want for FourthAge.

I'm using Perlin Noise. It seems like a simple way to model terrain, providing a one-number-per-pixel representation. In its simplest form, the number is mapped to greyscale (higher being whiter and lower black, or vice-versa) and produces these 'plasma cloud' images. The noise can be smoothed, and multiple layers (called octaves) can even be blended together, it can even produce noise in multiple dimensions (1D, 2D, 3D, even 4D for time variable noise in 3D). These values can be mapped to discrete colors, or even objects (for example, a city scape can be made by assigning each number to a particular building, since Perlin noise tends to clump but also can look diluted, you simply place buildings that are likely to be built next to each other together in the range of numbers. This will produce cities with industrial areas, downtowns, suburbs, ect.) It seems like a very simply baseline, and to my understanding is used as base noise in other fractal algorithms.

The only issue I am wrestling with now is understanding base noise and 'permutation' tables. I've read that Perlin Noise takes base noise and applies it to the algorithm. An entire grid of base noise is memory intensive and slow, instead a lookup table (permutation table) is used. I just don't understand the relationship between the length of the table, the values (and repeated values), and what kind of base noise is provided. I understand the table cannot have a value higher than its (length - 1). What about repeated values in the table? I also understand the lookup will 'wrap-around' the table. Does this mean that it goes through cells, assigning each cell a value out of the table until it reaches the end of the table, then starts at the beginning of the table again? Doesn't this make some sort of too obvious pattern in the noise? Does my table need to be as long as the number of cells I have to prevent this? Doesn't this leave me back at the memory problem that lookup tables were originally meant to ameliorate? I just don't know.

Once I've completely grasped these issues, I'll begin working with the implementation and getting some maps out of it. I've already produced some greyscale stuff, but am not moving on until I understand the issues of base noise.

Any experts on the issue feel free to contact me :)

Re: [OT] Roguelikes?
 

If you've not already Omnirizon, I highly recommend you submit your technical queries to the Google Group and/or the Roguetemple board...as there are technical minded folk there that would surely take a gander and weigh in.

I also forgot some earlier, oops. Furthermore then:

http://roguelikefiction.com/ Legerdemain Combines Roguelike with Advtenture game to a nifty result. Had an old school cluebook version of the game you could get awhile back, well made and in journal form sitting on my dresser---free in general though.

http://www.zincland.com/7drl/letterhunt/ Letterhunt is an older 7DRL project that falls into the "so nifty" category alluded to above. Conquer the alphabet in an entirely different manner all over again.

http://egoboo.sourceforge.net/ Egoboo is a long developed Roguelikeish thing that is graphical and has an interesting, if whimsical, style to it.

http://slashie.net/news.php Many interesting projects here, including the newfound Expedition and older projects that we all dream of further completion on like CastlevaniaRL

http://hokuto-no-rogue.sourceforge.net/ Hokuto no Rogue is something the classical 80's anime fans will immediately recognize and salivate over. Still early but the Java and graphical implementations are very promising and does some appropriate, yet nifty, things like locational damage targetting.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/rfish/index_e.html
http://elona.wikia.com/wiki/Elona_Wiki

Elona is a hyper feature packed graphical Roguelike that is potentially downright creepy depending on how one plays it. Perhaps the most outlandish Sandbox of a Roguelike out there yet.

http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/index.htm Feeling like some classics like never before? This man has you covered with a classic Rogue, graphical Rogue, graphical Hack(predecessor to Nethack), and various other projects.

http://scourge.wikia.com/wiki/S.C.O.U.R.G.E.
http://scourgeweb.org/tiki-index.php

SCOURGE, while the main site is down right now, is a graphical 3/4'ish perspective up and coming party based Roguelike that is bursting with ambition and graphical flare attempts. In dev for quite awhile now and chugging along thusly with their newfound wiki helping to keep it all together.

Hmm...that'll do until some other stuff comes to mind that I might've forgotten these times around.

Re: [OT] Roguelikes?
 

I've played Dwarf Fortress, ADOM, Crawl and Nethack in that order.

Dwarf Fortress is fun and complex in dwarf mode, but I wouldn't really call it a roguelike. It's sort of like a cross between The Sims and the Caesar/Pharaoh/etc. games. Adventure mode is definitely a roguelike. It's alot of fun and has cool concepts, but it feels incomplete compared to the other games I mentioned.

I never really got into Nethack and ADOM. Compared to Crawl they're a lot less random and more spoiler reliant.

I've made it to, but not beat, the endgame in Crawl. In a lot of ways Crawl feels like a turn based Diablo with greater playstyle variety. As other people have mentioned, there aren't any moments like "you weren't wearing item a when creature b attacked so you auto-die". Unfortunately, what it does have are moments like "you ran into Sigmund with a wand of draining on level two of the dungeon and there was no possible escape." You can get screwed by the RNG more easily than in the other two. Also, I find the that the tile verion of Crawl with a real GUI really does add to the game, tradition be damned.

Re: [OT] Roguelikes?
 

http://www.asceai.net/meritous/ Meritous was another good, distilled one I forgot about---a nicely different style it has going for it.

Re: [OT] Roguelikes?
 

It finally happened. v1.0 of Mines of Morgoth, www.minesofmorgoth.com , is at last available for digital purchase. Development will continue to add and such as time goes on. Not since the local Scallywag has anything like this happened to my knowledge on the PC front---so I see this as a pretty big deal. Refresh the site a couple times if you don't see the purchase section.

Cost seems to be 19 Euros.