V with a Gooey... please!!

[desmondch]

Just dropped back into *banding having had a dry spell for a while, and didn't feel like getting into anything too weird, and having just watched LoTR 1 2 & 3 in quick sucession on a projector at home, was quite in the mood for some V.

I am a '*bander of Weakness' (-2 credibility), as I can't deal with the text style, or crap graphics style *banding, and as such rely on the AngbandTk bunch, or TomeTik.

As far as I'm aware, none of the latest versions of V (beyond 2.9.2 which isn't very latest) look any good.... or am I missing something? So am currently killing off lots of human priestesses as I get back to grips with the dungeon, and thoroughly enjoying myself!

Would love an updated version tho..... is there something out there I should know about?

[pav]

AngbandTk is essentially dead, 2.9.3 was the last version I think. There is no other "GUI" for Angband. I don't count just slapping tiles on the game here.

You should really learn how to enjoy ASCII mode

That said, TomeTik looks seriously cool. I wasn't aware it exists.
Looking at the screenshots makes me want to lick my monitor. But it's still tad less godd looking then Wesnoth.

[Atarlost]

I've seen some Sangband screenshots that look a lot pretier than normal bigtile mode, but I'm not sure if they're current or the development version. You might want to investigate that.

[Remuz]

Hi everyone,

As far as I know, the tiles in TomeTik are from David Gervais. I really love them. Those tiles are the same as used in *AngbandTk. TomeTik has the drawback of only working on windows. Long ago, I ported it to linux, but the code never made it on the main project, mainly because I lost interest... In the progress of porting it, I had learned to like ascii, and did not look back since.

Still, those tiles look wonderful, and now that I have a big screen (meaning that I can set it to a resolution big enough to see to more than 4 tiles away), I could probably use some nice graphics.

[desmondch]

bigscreen

i've also just acquired a big screen.... a VERY big screen in fact; an Acer AL2623W (26" of sheer widescreen joy) and have a 20" LG next to it.... *LOTS* of space for pretty tiles!

[pav]

Wasting such a screen with tiles? Sheesh... you can get the whole dungeon level on it in ASCII!

[Elsairon]

I've played so much angband in ascii it's like seeing the game in real life with panoramic surround sound, so its not really an issue here.

I have tried using the various tile sets but that actually lowers the immersion factor for me!

If I played with a graphics interface I'd want to go full 3D. Considering the amount of models necessary to build that staggers me.

[Faust]

There's something about playing in ASCII that's compelling, it alows you to use your imagination (Dreading when I finally buy a Flat screen though as they seem to hate text mode, the flicker on my works computer is almost unbearable).
The tiles are rubbish, they just look like a load of various coloured blobs.

[pav]

There just aren't good looking tiles for Angband...

I prefer ASCII because I can oversee a lot larger area of the dungeon at once. I'm a control freak.

[Faust]

I think for me it's just how long I've been playing. There were no tiles when I started playing, no sound & IIRC no colour.

[dionysian]

i started with a version of v that had tiles, and i played quite a bit of ztk back in its day. but i've long since been a purely ascii player, and you couldn't pay me to play with "graphics."

[Chris Wesling]

I guess I'm weird -- I prefer tiles, but only the "old" (8x8 tiles) because I can see more of the level at once with them. (I can see very nearly the whole level on my 19-inch monitor at 1152x864 res.)

The Adam Bolt (16x16) or David Gervais (32x32) tiles look like crap unless I significantly enlarge the tiles, and by the time I get them large enough to appreciate them I'm pretty much back to 24x80 tiles per screen!

[Mondkalb]

I use to play with the David Gervais tiles.
The drawback is as Chris said, that you can see only a relatively small area on screen. Because detection-spell only affect the visable area this is really a pain.
I plead to increase the detection-radius at least to the same size that the magic mapping scroll has (magic mapping reveals a slightly larger portion of the dungeon than visable on my screen with big Gervais tiles).

[Hugo]

I plead to increase the detection-radius at least to the same size that the magic mapping scroll has (magic mapping reveals a slightly larger portion of the dungeon than visable on my screen with big Gervais tiles).

The range for Magic Mapping, like that of detection spells, is tied to screen size. The only diffference is that detection is always exactly the screen size, and that magic mappping is always the screen size plus a few lines.

For game balance, detection and magic mapping should have an area of effect independent of the screen size. I once proposed this to Robert Ruehlmann when he still was maintainer; the reason he rejected the proposal was that he felt that this would only work if there's also an automated message informing you when you leave tha area where you have detected. (A position I disagree with, BTW).

[Mondkalb]

A fix range for all detection spells would be the best. Since some users seem to be able to see nearly the whole screen the current solution is simply unfair.