Mikko's Sil thread

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The last time I tried Sil, a long time ago, I couldn't get it to work on Linux. At that time I just tested it a bit on Windows and read the manual. Now it compiles beautifully, and I feel like playing.

I've a Linux-specific problem. I'm starting the game with subwindows with this command:

./sil -mx11 -- m5

The first two subwindows have a good font size, but in others the font is so tiny that I can't read it. How do I change the font?

I just ran into this problem with my own Halls of Mist a week ago and gave up... This page adviced me to edit the .Xdefaults file but I couldn't get it to work. I tried replacing the word "angband" with "mist" or "Halls of Mist", but neither worked.

I'm on Slackware 14.

[fph]

The Linux package includes a shell script "silx" which is meant exactly to start the game int multi-window mode after setting font and window sizes appropriately. The default window sizes need tweaking for me (Ubuntu 13.04/Unity), but apart from that everything works.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Oh, there's another executable "silx". I can open it in a text editor and change font sizes. Wow!

Ok, this works for Sil, but I still need some advice for Halls of Mist.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The Linux package includes a shell script "silx" which is meant exactly to start the game int multi-window mode after setting font and window sizes appropriately. The default window sizes need tweaking for me (Ubuntu 13.04/Unity), but apart from that everything works.

Thanks for the lightning fast reply! You were still not fast enough, I just solved the problem myself.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

It looks like the shell script ends with the exact same command that I use to launch Halls of Mist.

Would it be possible to create a similar shell script for Halls of Mist? My codebase is ancient, and Sil is built on ultramodern NPP tech, so there may be some problems.

***

First impressions: Playing Sil with roguelike keys seems slightly awkward, as there are commands under the movement keys (they're useable with the control key), but otherwise the interface is superb.

[debo]

It looks like the shell script ends with the exact same command that I use to launch Halls of Mist.

Would it be possible to create a similar shell script for Halls of Mist? My codebase is ancient, and Sil is built on ultramodern NPP tech, so there may be some problems.

***

First impressions: Playing Sil with roguelike keys seems slightly awkward, as there are commands under the movement keys (they're useable with the control key), but otherwise the interface is superb.

If you have real-time questions you want answered and you're an IRC person you can come to ##sil

[Mikko Lehtinen]

If you have real-time questions you want answered and you're an IRC person you can come to ##sil

Thanks, maybe I will!

This feels like a deep game.

Even though Sil and Halls of Mist share the Angband base and have quite similar game design philosophies, the two games are completely different. It's interesting to play Sil and analyze why Mist does this or that differently.

My first thought was that with Mist I'm trying to achieve a much simpler and faster-paced game than Sil.

[Psi]

My first thought was that with Mist I'm trying to achieve a much simpler and faster-paced game than Sil.

Faster than Sil? I haven't played your variant, but winning Sil often only takes a few hours from start to finish and can be played at quite a frenetic pace. How much shorter is Halls of Mist?

[debo]

I think he just meant he's aiming for simpler mechanics, not a shorter game. Mist is a bit longer than Sil IIRC, unless a lot of it has been carved out recently

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I think he just meant he's aiming for simpler mechanics, not a shorter game. Mist is a bit longer than Sil IIRC, unless a lot of it has been carved out recently

The current version is 48 levels, the next one will be 30. It will still be a longer game than Sil, so that's not what I meant.

That "frantic pace" Psi mentioned may come with practice, so I'm probably commenting on this much too early. This is just brainstorming my early impressions.

Simpler mechanics is part of it. There's less information you have to process before you can make that perfect move. Eventually I want to go even simpler, without decreasing the tactical complexity -- one glance at the battleground should reveal most of the information you need.

The scale might be different: in Mist you will move around the dungeon more, and fight against bigger groups. It's not quite Angband-style grinding, but there's more of that in Mist than in Sil. Perhaps Mist is more about fighting heterogenous groups, while Sil's mechanics aim to make even one-to-one combat more interesting.

In Mist, each dungeon level is a much more of a separate challenge than in Sil. It's been one of my design goals, actually, and I have many mechanics that strengthen that feeling. You are supposed to clear whole levels, and every move you make only counts against the "tactical clock": the more time you spend on a level, the more mist phantasms will bother you there.

In Sil, there's only one clock that matters, the "strategic clock". For me, that makes every move more "serious". Waste time, and it will ruin your game. In Mist it will only ruin one dungeon level (well, if you don't die).

All that means that in Mist I'm able to whirl around the dungeon level feeling perfectly relaxed, without feeling that I'm making serious decisions all the time, until I'm suddenly in Sil-like deadly situation where I have to think -- or die.

Maybe what I mean is that the games have different pacing. In Sil the gameplay is all serious all the time, and in Mist relaxed and serious parts alternate.

Again, that's all just early impressions. I'm already enjoying Sil and I feel it's going to be with me for a long time.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I said Mist is faster-paced, but maybe I actually meant the opposite of it... Sil is so fast-paced that you have think a lot before each move, and consequently @ moves slower on the screen than in Mist. It's bullet-time.

[Derakon]

My main takeaway from what you're saying is that you want Mists to be more self-contained. As you say, each level is meant to be its own challenge, and as a side-effect of that, things you do on one level have little to no impact on what you do on the next level, beyond improvements to your character (new levels, equipment, etc.). That reduces some aspects of long-term planning, which frees the player to focus on the short-term, which should, ideally, keep the flow of gameplay up.

I could readily believe that Sil players finding their first forge of the game might spend 15+ minutes deciding what exactly they should make (if anything!). And there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're trying to make a game that has a strong sense of flow, then you want to avoid interruptions like that.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Yeah, you're basically right. Part of why I'm making Mist like that is because I want to play only one or two dungeon levels a day, no more. There are many strategic-level decisions, but they don't consume as much brainpower as in Sil.

Sil is a long movie, Halls of Mist is a tv-series.