Ideas for a new game

[Guest]

Sounds good to me, the value and type of treasure should affect the number and type of guards eg if there is a huge amount of gold there will be many Dwarf guards and if there is a large amount of gemstones then Elves will be guarding them

[thomasd3]

yes, but that comes much later, first the cave's layout needs to make complete sense before they get filled up.

[Guest]

Maybe include streams (that can also be drank form though they may be poisonous). Bones , carved and sometimes damaged paths (these could also be enchanted to give the player say quicker movement or extra strength or perception, or they prevent monsters from stepping on them, or damage monsters that do step on them), stone stairways, chasms and fissures. These will all make it more immersive

[thomasd3]

I'll add a water stream as a base element, the other elements are either objects or properties from walls and floors

[Guest]

https://goo.gl/images/QJyYWe

[Gwarl]

Troubles of Arda

Troubles of Middle Earth

OP, you should check out ToME2 because your ideas for a game are beginning to sound rather similar. I don't think it's exactly what you had in mind but it must be worth exploring to see how some of these ideas play out.

FAangband is also worth looking at, it doesn't have the quests ToME does but the Tolkein lore is very cohesive and there's an overworld consisting of locations from middle earth to explore.

If you are going to build your game starting from an existing *band I'd have to recommend using one of the vanilla 4.x versions for having more modern, better organised code. All the particularies and the content can be easily changed and if you know what you're doing you may be able to copy over functions that you want from other variants.

For a multiplayer fork of ToME, look at ToMEnet.

[thomasd3]

I don't know Tome, but I will definitely get it and play to see what they've done.

I will definitely borrow logic from everything that has good ideas.
Right now I have figured out how sil builds its maps and I am reimplementing something similar but where we have a lot more control.

This will be finished this week end and then people can play with the map generator to give ideas and feedback.

Where I think I can really make a difference is in the AI, with smart monsters, communication between them, etc and dealing with a complex world since this draws directly from my professional experience.

I really think this can be great only if The community gets involved at every step since I will put all my focus on the tech but not in the tuning, lore, etc.
This allows me to do the one part I know well and let others do what they are good at!

[Gwarl]

Not to self promote but there are rather a few different variants you can try in the browser at http://angband.live/

The two things make Sil stand out are the gameplay and the atmosphere evoked by staying very true to Tolkein's work. Map generation is very simple compared to other variants. But there are other variants which add their own twists to gameplay mechanics (I recommend checking out Oangband, although FAangband uses much the same system)

Your real innovation here is the multiplayer aspect. I've thought about this too, sharing dungeons between players and having character that can visit multiple dungeons. I'd also quite like a common town area with stock shared between players, so one player could buy a piece of equipment another player had sold.

It would be better IMO to build on what's already there than begin something completely new, even if you plan on changing the entire content.

When I get the time to work on a variant, I'll be looking to take a lot from Sil gameplaywise, and take the overworld from poschengband.

[thomasd3]

I played a lot of the different rogue games before wanting to jump in this.

Sil somehow seduced me; out of everything I played, it is the one I kept coming back to. But like most of these games, the perma-death and lack of 'greater purpose' makes its scope quite small: each game has absolutely no link with the other games, and there is no development since you forget about the previous character the moment you start a new one.
Since everything is short-lived and disconnected, Sil lacks the feeling of discovery, doesn't allow the player to know there are things he can't do yet, etc.
So these are a few things I want to fix, or at least handle differently.

The reason I'm building something rather than re-using an existing system is because there are a few things I want to add that will require major changes in how the map is handled; I looked at the code of 2 games and doing these changes will have repercussions everywhere, so it is not really worth it.
I definitely want to add some elements from Dwarf Fortress as well.
I'm all for code re-use, but it's really not practical in this case.

I don't foresee any difficulty in the coding; what I would be very happy for though is to eventually find someone interested to do the front end (interface/display) of the game while I handle logic, AI and server side since it would free some time I can put in the game play itself.

As far as the maps go, the system I'm putting in place works in two different steps: placement and linking of room templates on a map, and generation of templates based on parameters. It's quite simple, but I think it'll deliver satisfactory results... anyhow, we'll see that in a couple days

[Gwarl]

But like most of these games, the perma-death and lack of 'greater purpose' makes its scope quite small: each game has absolutely no link with the other games, and there is no development since you forget about the previous character the moment you start a new one.

This is key to the whole ethic of the genre. It doesn't necessarily make for small games though, stuff like ToME and poschengband could be suitably described as epic. If you take permadeath away from a roguelike and make it multiplayer you've probably got something a bit like a MUD. Or an MMO if you have infinite respawns. In which case you could make a MUD, or an MMO.

I do like the idea leaving a mark in the dungeon though - for example some variants use bones files to attempt this. Or in the town - guildhalls, a tavern, a bounty office. But to remain a roguelike, which is a bitesize activity by essence it can only be meta-multiplayer in this way. You'd still have to navigate the dungeon alone.

[thomasd3]

in this design, you're still dead for good with no re-spawning, but every adventurer leaves a dent in a the universe.

This allows for gameplay bursts without any strings attached; but what your adventurer does will have an impact; whether as a benefit for his faction, equipment to be taken by the next guy (or monsters that can equip it), reselling rare items on the market, etc.

So this remains a rogue like but with an extra layer on top where things move based on the outcomes of many seemingly unrelated games.
This in turns will affect these games because it'll shift parameters and resource availability, etc and this is where you indirectly achieve continuity in your efforts. In the caves, your legacy is a pile of bones that someone may grind to make something out of.

[Arjen]

Interesting ideas here. I'm not really into gamedesign or code. But if you want to see a working mulitplayer Angband, you should check TomeNET. https://www.tomenet.eu/.

[thomasd3]

Didn't know that one! Thanks, I will look.

[Guest]

you seem to be making very fast progress, if you would not mind me asking could you implement a ally system into Sil that can be turned on or off, I would love to be able to encounter the heroes of Middle Earth and fight alongside them

[thomasd3]

I thought about that; it would be nice to have some other adventurer that could be friend or foe depending on what you do; it's not fundamentally different from the monster's ai where they'll have to organize their action based on others in the group