thanksgiving release RPG Roguelike proof of concept

So I've got something finished and pushed it through py2exe and heres the link

RPG roguelike proof of concept

Its got bugs and even the ending is a bit buggy but it's still my first finished game. Which is sad as it is poorly coded to me at least but it's done. Still I'd like to expand on this idea and this is more of a proof of concept, not going to expand this actual chunk of code but going to probably use it as a basis to make someting more fleshed out. The floor generation could use a sledge hammer on it as it is pretty boring though following original 'rogue' in spirit. Read me is put here just for convenience of filling this out. Also finished before deadline, yay.


RPG roguelike Proof of concept.

run main.exe to play

A simple RPG combat system fitted on top of a very basic roguelike idea. Go through 10 floors to defeat the evil demon lord.

forewarning : This game was more of a steping stone for me to complete a project and learn from the experience. The game probably has more than a few niche bugs that I have not encountered and may never fix. Also the balance is somewhat skewed. Also there are bad jokes in here, the character selection for one.


Character classes

Rogue : A thief who starts with the highest dodge. Rerolls dodge bonus for going first in combat and running away from encounters. Uses cowardly tactics to increase success of dodge rolls.

Fighter : A warrior that starts with the highest hp. Rerolls strength bonus to attacks. Uses tactics to lower a foes chance to dodge or protect an friend by making them harder to hit.

Wizard : A Mage who starts with a wand. Increases damage done with wands. Is able to cast spells that ignore toughness damage reduction and create a shield on self and friends that may completly nullify an attack, this is however unerliable.

Cleric : A man of faith who starts with the most potions. Is able to call down a smite on foes that always hit and heal allies however is not entirely reliable.

Paladin : A man of faith and steel. Rerolls toughness bonus for reducing damage. Has an oath to protect when used on a foe rolls dodge to get in the way of the attack regardless of the target on a friendly target will always intercept the attack.

Peasent : Repressed extra brought into the dungeon, not really a good option doesnt' even have class abilities.

Keys

Battle
Arrow keys - move cusor around
Q Quaff - use a potion on the target to heal.
A/Enter Attack - Attack selected target
Z Zap - use a wand to deliver a massive magical attack at the target
S Stance - change the character to a regular stance
C class stance - use the class stance for class specific abilities.
R Run - run away from battle.

Outside of battle
Arrow key - move character around
S Stats - view stats
P Pick up - pick up an item off the ground and give it to a party member
> Go down stairs - Go down some stairs.
Enter Accept option - used in menus

Last week rush

Alright RPG Roguelike prototype has had it's map size increased, A minor change added to map generation so it isn't painfully long for most floors, paladins added with working stances, fighter stances added, and initiative now works. So I guess it's time to add bloat features as the floors are actually boring with little on it. Granted the "floors" are simplistic 4x4 grids with rooms and such but I can still try and improve going around them.

Rise from your grave.

So I have tried things. I am both pleased it works as well as horrified that it works.

With more instinct and less planing I have thrown together a system. I am unsure if I've talked about the "RPG roguelike " on here extensively or not but I have had the idea of a party based roguelike that uses traditional RPG combat. While not very roguelike it was always something I had in mind and so I used the idea as a basis to just throw something together. Bad code practices, no planing of expansion, ad hoc addition of new features, and for no reason it became more complete and better functioning than anything else I planed. Even only really done on a trip to a friends house and done on lunch break but here is some things.

Combat from a more civilized time.

The bread and butter of the game. Guys on the right, enemy on the left. They smack each other until one expires. There isn't much to this, while the stat system is somewhat interesting and different combat is pick an enemy hit enter to hit, force someone to quaff a potion, and maybe zap some wands. A little bit of complex things with classes such as cleric having healing/smiting ability, wizard effectively zapping a smaller wand, and rogue being able to bravely run away. Right now fighter is shafted until I do some thinking on how to just toss in his class feature of making allies harder to hit.

Every roguelike needs that Z key to be very important

Some items scattered about. Nothing to brag about, characters can only have one wand at a time, one piece of armor, and sadly no weapons. I plan on putting weapons in soon but the typical "nothing complicated" philosophy has deterred me from adding it as the state of the game currently works.

Move A'tt for great justice

Rooms are small, whole screen is too small right now. I have a bad testing default that lets me look at code and the game screen at the same time. I want to try for a 4x4 room set up and maybe something that resembles interesting rooms instead of this generic grid. Also fog of war, it's not interesting to explore without a fog of war.

Good, bad, he's the guy who starts with the wand.

I said before 4 classes. Each class has different starting stats that matter less and less as the game goes on but have their own  class stance. Class stances are a cheap cop out instead of having menus during combat but it's seemingly working well. I plan for at least one more class and maybe taking out one joke class I added in to amuse my friends I sent this to.

Current plans for this is to polish up what I have, squash some bugs, add another class and some features, and see if I can push this into an exe format. We'll see if I can get this all done before thanksgiving.

Legend redux

After tinkering and doing a few tests I've come to the conclusion that I have hit the classic blunder.

I have optimized my code before getting it to work.

Trying to add to the system is a struggle that requires far more testing than it should and far more planing. I've learned a lot about trying to get this system to work and got what I thought were nice things to put in but I'm left frustrated trying to add new events and functions without breaking nearly all functions before it. Adding new features often breaks old ones in unexpected ways and that's a way of life but I shouldn't be looking into how to rewrite all the old systems everytime I add a new thing as they were too clunky due to optimization attempts.

So I'm going to look around and look at other developments of roguelikes and reread some articles. I hate to lose a lot of the progress I've done but at least I have some functions I can transplant as they were not reliant on the system. Though I need to stop making this harder than it is, for giggles when I visited a friend I got a very basic roguelike set up using some older code I made in the past in about 5 hours. I can't even add in pits in legend in 5 hours which is what the problem seems to be. It doesn't follow my development style and is killing the project more than I am being lazy.

So rewrite three here we go. Least I'll have a few more corpses of experience on this one.

Work load and updates

Alright been a while so I figure some sort of update is in order. This month has been pretty hectic but between last post and this one I have gotten some things done in Legend. I've found a glitch with switches that has been fixed along with arrow not properly destroying themselves on impact with switches. So the old classic shoot the target to open the door is now possible. I have gotten the shooting mechanic linked to a basic variable that pretty much says "you have arrows proceed to shoot" which isn't something I like but it'll have to do for now. Next step is going to be figuring out how to place switches that require an arrow to be shot at them to open up the door without blocking off rooms. There are some cheap solutions like predefined rooms I'd like to avoid but I'm not proud enough to avoid using them just yet. Right now it looks like the quickest way to do this is to put the switch in a corner and make pit tiles around it, simple, doesn't' block doors, and gets the job done. Later I can expand it.

That said times are looking a bit tough in getting to the keyboard to program things. Extra hours at work and just general things getting done has eaten into this. Break time is not long enough for the debugging process right now and I need a better system set up to just add items to the game. Not giving up on it though.

busy life little posts

Not much to say here. I've gotten some dungeon generation code down that I like and works... most of the time. Right now it's step on switch and somewhere a wall moves so that you can pass and go forward. It's rough around the edges but it has some potential. Right now there is a bug where sometimes rooms will magically disappear and link wrong by overwriting a doorway so that you'll walk into the room and walk out of the doorway you just went through to enter an entirely different part of the dungeon. Effectively this makes it so that you can't go back past that point as the doorway that did it was replaced with another one. So fun times trying to fix this bug. For giggles here's a screenshot. I have arrows added as a shift + directional button and may use this as the standard for ranged attacks. I also have FoV made because I thought I could hack out something and well I did. Probably won't be in Legend but it was successful programing. Also added is a menu system to the left, not sure if it'll make it to the game but it was something to try.

mostly explored room

Room east of first one with 2 switches

Stepping on a "switch"

Firing an arrow at the fake door

Minor update

Worked on some tools that may or may not make it to Legend but have finally got a working a* path finding formula going. Maybe could update with something sometime soon but not much worth showing.