Saturday, July 9, 2011

Roguelikes, the frustration maker.

I like Rogue likes. Not that I'm good at the mind you, I have a morgue file with a body count that gives me problems if they have 'ghosts'. That aside every so often I get into the mood to play them. The first Rogue like I've touched on was Nethack and did horrible at it, after that it was Dungeon crawl: stone soup which I could do half decent at. Later ones I've encountered is doom Rogue like which is actually very fun, and 5 minute dungeon which does away with the notion that everything moves and turns it into some sort of wonderful puzzle Rogue like hybrid that I am actually good at.

I like them for their no nonsense gaming, I'm there to kick down a door and get the best loot without having to memorize a bunch of area layouts or what enemy wave is coming up. It's also challenging though sometimes they like the idea of memorizing certain secrets (Don't pick up cockatrices, throw a longsword in a fountain on this floor) to avoid cheap deaths or have a legitimate chance of getting through the game, which isn't my kind of challenge. Though when they get a challenge right I feel like I could have gotten out of it if I did my tactics a bit better and that makes me come back. Dungeon crawl: stone soup meets this for the most part, there are some things that you realize you shouldn't do after you've gotten yourself into a situation a few times to realize that will just kill you unless you're decked outwith some gear or avoid it entirety.

And to finish up his little rant I have another pointless story. Back when I was getting my degree in my "principals of programing languages" class we were shotgunned with about a dozen languages over the course of the semester in hopes of exposing us to different programing structures and ideas. This was my introduction to python among a few other languages. For one of our projects we had to make a program with TKinter which is pythons inbuilt GUI system, we had a game to make that he liked to use in other projects. I asked if I could do something else as long as it was a game and used TKinter and made a very minor Rogue like. Effectively it was a game where you ran away from zombies towards an exit with some random 'rooms' thrown down. Really the rooms were squares of various sizes with one part removed. I just pushed a line of symbols onto a label it counted as graphics and had buttons that were key bound so you didn't have to click to move in directions. Had made line of sight code which I hate doing, I'm not a math person. While it wasn't exactly what I wanted I was happy with it since I got it done in some week or week and a half which is things I can do when I have actually consequences or someone else sitting behind them. Sadly I don't have the program anymore, lost due to the lowest bidder laptops or just not copying it over it's gone forever now. Could attempt to zombify it but I have other things that would take priority.

6 comments:

  1. Interesting post, I love your blog!

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  2. Yeah I totally know what you mean man.

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  3. It's a shame you lost that game, but at least you only spent a few weeks on it, maybe when you do find yourself with a lot of free time you'll try to remake it.

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  4. I can't get into most Rogue-likes, they are either too complicated for me, or just not that interesting. There is a new one coming out called Dungeons of Dredmor which looks like I might enjoy.

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