roguelikes

Finally!! I Beat Brogue

2 min read broguefuckyeahroguelikesUncategorized
YEEEEAAAAH!!

After 2 months of obsession intense focus, I finally beat brogue. (Not so coincidentally only two days after Andrew Doull managed a win.)

Brogue is by far my favorite roguelike, and in the running for favorite “game” overall these days. The current version (1.6.4) really hits the sweet spot in terms of difficulty, and showing you “cool stuff” in the game. Basically that means that you are always just barely getting farther than you have before, and always seeing something cool and new, which in turn drives you forward.

After a particularly grueling pair of almost-wins, my actual victory game turned out to be (mostly) a breeze. I spent the first 12 levels with no weapon but the starting dagger, and no pet.

This was pretty embarassing…

On level 13 I found:

  1. A sword
  2. A captive ogre
  3. A +3 Ring of Awareness
  4. A cage zoo
I (ab)used my wand of beckoning that I had been carrying around to free a dar priestess and a troll. Now I was set. The ogre didn’t last long, but the dar priestess survived, and learned flight. I had been waiting for a good moment to use my wand of plenty that I had been carrying around all game, and then I had 2 flying dar priestesses. The troll later turned invisible which is surprisingly NOT useful when you have other pets that cannot see it… with little no regret I polymorphed the troll into a toad and left him to wander the dungeon.
About level 18 or 19 I found a golem. Between the golem and the two priestesses I basically had the perfect tank-healer-dps combination. After I (we?) plowed through two tentacled Horrors in a row, I knew I had a lock on victory… assuming I didn’t do anything stupid!’
For the rest of the game it was just a matter of aggressively destroying any discord-casting enemies (Lich, dar battlemage, pixie) and letting my pets do the rest. Eventually I found a war pike and was able to deal some decent damage of my own. Tentacled Horrors, Dragons, and Golems all fell quite easily. Revenants and Liches are much easier to kill when one of your allies can cast negate. The staff of turret destruction tunneling, which I had attained on level 1 or 2, was incredibly helpful in getting through the rest of the levels quickly and safely.
The rest of the game went something like this
A couple of other things I learned along the way:
  • Plate armor really is worth it. I never knew!
  • Some pets are not worth rescuing (dar battlemage, salamander)
  • Centaurs are easily foiled by doors
  • A staff of tunneling is surprisingly useful
  • You don’t have to pick up every key!
  • Sometimes it is OK to just take the stairs without exploring every last room…
My thanks to Pender for creating such an amazing game. Now I can relax and return to my regularly scheduled development work!

Adventures in UI Design

1 min read robocaptainroguelikedevroguelikesUncategorized

Traditional roguelike games are restricted in what they can display graphically. Restrictions are part of what make roguelikes great (this is definitely true for the original rogue), but graphics no longer have to be one of them. While troubleshooting the firing logic for robocaptain I found myself stuck in a “traditional” mode of thinking.

In the original 7DRL version of the game, firing took two steps: ‘f’ to confirm target, and ‘f’ again to fire. Alternatively, once ‘f’ was pressed the first time, the player could hit ‘g’ to cycle between targets. This is mostly fine, but can be improved. While I mostly play with the mouse, I want the keyboard controls to be just as good.

The thing that ‘unstuck’ me was realizing I wasn’t limited to conventional roguelike graphical restrictions. The restriction being ‘1 tile, 1 character’. Why not just add another indicator over top of the existing character?

I came up with a simple ‘targeting’ overlay that constantly tracks the closest (or last hit) enemy. This targeting overlay can be cycled at any time by hitting ‘g’. Hitting ‘f’ will automatically shoot at the currently targeted enemy.

This kind of ‘passive tracking’ saves the player an extra keystroke, since most of the time you are shooting the only/closest enemy. The rest of the time you can use ‘g’ to cycle between targets just as before. The game will remember the last enemy you shot at and always keep them as the default target.

Don't look down...

1 min read robocaptainroguelikedevroguelikesUncategorized

Work on robocaptain continues. My goal is to transform it from 7DRL into a “lunch break” roguelike. Which is a phrase I just made up after listening to the first 20 minutes or so of roguelike radio (who I noticed has a slick logo now!).

Somewhere between coffee break and a full roguelike. Shooting for 30 or 40 minutes of playtime to finish the game. Maybe less.

In the meantime here is some proof of progress! Anyone reading this interested in alpha/beta testing, drop me a line.

Still working on some less-aggressive color schemes, but for now it is easier for me to design things this way.