Let's Play Angband video series

**buzzkill** · August 15, 2009, 05:02

I'll be the first to take a stab at this. I'm no expert, and all comments follow watching about 10 minutes total of several different "let's play" episodes.

I'd like to pay a special tribute to "Lets play Angband #17"... 9 minutes and 44 seconds of shopping. Seriously, what were you thinking? (the 1 view, that's me)

But seriously, you play fairly quickly, and while there is commentary, I don't quite know how to describe it other than it's vague and has little to do with the specifics of what is happening at the moment, such as fighting a particular monster or finding a particular item. I can follow it because I'm familiar with the game, but if the goal is to lure new players you may be missing the mark.

I'd suggest a larger font and/or graphic tiles as well as a slower pace, more focused commentary and editing for time. Cause, let's face it, even playing the game becomes monotonous at times.

**nobody** · August 15, 2009, 06:35

i don't find it boring, i sorta "zen out" to playing it, usually pretty fast. i probably lose alotta characters zenning out, truthfully, but its cool

**Pete Mack** · August 15, 2009, 06:54

I'm with buzzkill on this: I'd rather play than watch. In fact, watching is incredibly disconcerting, because we have very different strategies. In fact, this is a pretty old idea. ToME has "movies", which allow you to replay bits of your game (including messages). It's mostly used for interesting moments like Princess quests and vaults. Watching people shop or wander around the dungeon is pretty boring, by and large.

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

**Sirridan** · August 15, 2009, 08:20

Originally posted by Pete Mack

I'm with buzzkill on this: I'd rather play than watch. In fact, watching is incredibly disconcerting, because we have very different strategies. In fact, this is a pretty old idea. ToME has "movies", which allow you to replay bits of your game (including messages). It's mostly used for interesting moments like Princess quests and vaults. Watching people shop or wander around the dungeon is pretty boring, by and large.

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

Agreed here *Winking and nudging PowerDiver*

But it's a bit late and I'll check out the movies you made tomorrow sometime since its my day off. In any case Kudos

**Nick** · August 15, 2009, 08:43

Some things Need to be Done, and this is one of them. It's not that I particularly want to watch it; it's just nice to know it exists. Good work.

**Nile** · August 15, 2009, 13:18

Originally posted by buzzkill

I'd like to pay a special tribute to "Lets play Angband #17"... 9 minutes and 44 seconds of shopping. Seriously, what were you thinking? (the 1 view, that's me)

Hmmm, it looks like you must have jumped to the other series, as he shops for the time you stated in his #17.

But seriously, you play fairly quickly, and while there is commentary, I don't quite know how to describe it other than it's vague and has little to do with the specifics of what is happening at the moment, such as fighting a particular monster or finding a particular item. I can follow it because I'm familiar with the game, but if the goal is to lure new players you may be missing the mark.

Nah, I'm not trying to lure new players. I kind of assume those watching know something about Angband. In any event, I'm really just cataloging my journey for fun.

Originally posted by Pete Mack

I'm with buzzkill on this: I'd rather play than watch.

Definitely, but, at least for me, it's fun to watch other people play sometimes too.

Originally posted by Nick

Some things Need to be Done, and this is one of them. It's not that I particularly want to watch it; it's just nice to know it exists. Good work.

Exactly. The thought of having an entire successful game of Angband on video is...epic. Even if it is boring to watch at times.

**Nile** · August 15, 2009, 13:56

Originally posted by Pete Mack

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

I would definitely watch that!

**PowerDiver** · August 15, 2009, 17:52

Originally posted by Sirridan

Agreed here *Winking and nudging PowerDiver*

I was thinking about logging keypresses, but that seems much harder than I first thought. If the size of the screen is off, there might be problems with the number of -more- prompts or looking about. I know that due to some wierd config problems my code acts differently when overwriting a saved Name.txt file.

**Pete Mack** · August 15, 2009, 18:59

It may be easier than you think, at least for those platforms where Term_resize is honored--that's all the major platforms. (main-win, main-x11, main-osx, main-ros all have terminal resize commands.)

EDIT: it may be easier than I think, too. Looks like it will take about 50 lines of code. Classic Databases (101) homework project.

**Pete Mack** · August 16, 2009, 07:23

Update:
I'm about 50% done with a movie function. Most of the effort is in re-learning the source code and it's interaction with the OS. The actual logging is dead easy. (The only tricky thing is making sure to treat user preferences--macros, options, and keymaps--correctly.)

**PowerDiver** · August 16, 2009, 07:41

Originally posted by Pete Mack

Update:
I'm about 50% done with a movie function. Most of the effort is in re-learning the source code and it's interaction with the OS. The actual logging is dead easy. (The only tricky thing is making sure to treat user preferences--macros, options, and keymaps--correctly.)

Things to consider:

Do you want to store time delay between keystrokes as well?
On playback, do you want to be able to pause and check inventory etc?
Do you want to add some visible feedback for things like searching?

I tend to make a fair number of char dumps, often going off into another window to move them, thus perhaps avoiding a prompt about overwriting. How to deal with that?

**Pete Mack** · August 16, 2009, 07:59

Originally posted by PowerDiver

Do you want to store time delay between keystrokes as well?

Already done

On playback, do you want to be able to pause and check inventory etc?

That's a separate issue--I'm looking for basic functionality and correctness.

EDIT: The basic pause functionality is #1 on my TODO list.

Do you want to add some visible feedback for things like searching?

Another separate issue.

I tend to make a fair number of char dumps, often going off into another window to move them, thus perhaps avoiding a prompt about overwriting. How to deal with that?

Good point--I've already added some restrictions on recording -- like no messing with macros, keymaps, or options. Character dumps will be another.
If you want to do something out-of-game, you have to stop logging, then create a new session.

EDIT:
I'm still a bit ambivalent about this change.
I once added an Undo command as a joke in the OSX menus; it has since been removed. (It popped up an alert saying "Cheaters never win.") With redo logging, crude support for genuine undo becomes a trivial exercise (though it may take a lot of time.) I've already added another NOSCORE flag, but it will still be easy to abuse. It's already ridiculously easy to hack save files; the possibility of undo takes it to another level.

**Sirridan** · August 16, 2009, 10:11

So how does this work actually? Does it save your keystrokes, and all the random seeds, and then on playback just re-create the entire game from that data?

**Pete Mack** · August 16, 2009, 14:59

It's simpler than that. A "movie" is a directory with 3 files:
1. A wizard-mode save file from the start of the log (aka: checkpoint)
2. User preference file for prefs that change keystrokes. (keymaps, options, etc)
3. The actual key log, with an injected keystroke(s) for window size, (etc).

To replay, you just open the save, apply the preferences, and start replaying the keystrokes.

The hardest part is getting the preference file right.

Let's Play Angband video series

Let's Play Angband video series

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