Roguelike Development

RogueDev Update

Wednesday, January 16th, 2008

libTCoD 1.0

So you’re interrested in creating a C or C++ roguelike with a true color console ? Then libtcod is for you.

libtcod or “the Doryen library” is a part of the base classes used in the development of the roguelike “The Chronicles Of Doryen”.

Unangband Dungeon Generation - Part Seven

At the conclusion to part six, I touched briefly on the importance of taking a data-centric approach to game design in Unangband, and cryptically hinted at merging possible game spaces’ as a means of improving the overall game design

RogueDev update

Sunday, December 30th, 2007
  • RogueSDL by Ed Ropple is a rendering engine for roguelikes using the .Net framework

I’ve just finished work on the first release of my Roguelike rendering engine for the Mono and .NET Frameworks, RogueSDL. As the name suggests, it uses the SDL libraries (through SDL.NET) in order to display graphics. I’ve tried to make it as utterly simple to use as possible, and I think I’ve largely succeeded.

  • Roguelike Library For Java (RL4J) 0.1 has been released. It includes a pretty useful collection of algorithms for field of view (including cones!) and Line of Sight. Worth using in your projects!
  • The series of dungeon generation articles continues at ASCII Dreams with this sixth article
  • From Andrew Doull too… his column discussing the perils and rewards of being an unabashed non-professional creating games has been continued with an article about the feature-lists for roguelikes.
  • Another nice detailed article series about random dungeons, a topic never too old for roguelike development. By Dirk Kok

AsciiDraw

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

ASCIIzed roguetemple with some of its dwellers

ASCIIDraw by Fredereic Lebel, is an useful application made to produce all kind of character based graphics, such as ASCII art, roguelike user interfaces, and generally anything you would otherwise do using a text editor, with the difference you can use back and fore color and pick your symbols easily. It is currently been worked on and evolving pretty well.

AsciiDraw is a console application meant to serve as a replacement for standard
text editors when prototyping a roguelike’s interface. It provides access to
all ascii characters and standard colors.

+ Use it to quickly test color schemes for dungeons and interfaces.
+ Try out room, corridor and outdoor designs without having to code them.

Neon 0.0.1 released

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

dbimagephp.jpg A new roguelike engine has just been released called Neon. Check it out here.

From the author’s website:

Neon is a flexible Java roguelike engine. It features a huge overland map and can be modified/extended through the use of JavaScript and XML. Included is an editor to make non-random maps

Here come the news!

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Lo and behold! Who says that magic is dying! Here is living proof that it is not!

What happens when you dont post for eighteen days? lots of things going on into this, our small roguelike world!

ElderloreLands of ElderLore This promising world-scoped roguelike project keeps advancing with version 0.0.9

After a big rush this weekend, I succeeded in almost finishing what was remaining to do. Thus here is version 0.0.9, still not fully playable, but with a lot of new functionalities which are detailed below.

Après un gros rush ce week-end, j’ai réussi grosso modo à terminer ce qu’il restait à faire. Voici donc la version 0.0.9, toujours non jouable, mais avec pas mal de nouvelles fonctionnalités qui sont détaillées ci-dessous.

(Isn’t french WAY cool?)

The new version includes improvements on tbe world generator for forests and deserts, a new musical introduction, animals, isometrical view for zones and several bugs destroyed. Keep on it Altefcat!

SubterraneSubterrane v0.224, from Tarindel, the same guy of dev-spot, is now available for download.

Subterrane is an underground dungeon crawl largely following in the footsteps of Crawl. The player begins the game trapped in a dungeon, with the ultimate goal of escaping. Along the way, the player will explore the dungeon, encounter monsters, and find treasure to help in that endeavor.

The game now runs on linux and there is a lot of new content, including magical items, non physical damage, textbooks and many more things.

HexCrawl, a 7DRLPatch for Dungeon Crawl is out for public evaluation

It’s crawl, but in hex. “Why?”, you ask; “Why not?” I cunningly retort.

It is a big patch, and there is not yet any available documentation… direct download here

hexCrawl

HellbandHellBand 0.8.6. by Sir konijn_ of Montreal (aka Mr. T) has been released.

Phew,

A new release is ready, and this time I will keep on working on Hellband. This release is mainly fixing my pet peeves with the game without breaking save game file format. I will break it for 0.8.7 which should come out fairly soon.

Get the download here

The Dungeon Creation contest at the Dev-Spot forums has finished, congratulations to the 6 challengers!

Okay, final results time. There were 6 entries for this contest:

  • konijn’s undead desert terrain generator — Interesting use of browser transparency and hexes.
  • Icey’s town generator — Love the fact that it includes a brothel. The trees, statues, lakes, and flowerbeds add a nice touch.
  • sinoth’s island generator — Very interesting, I especially like the minimap.
  • gerryq’s dungeon generator — I’ve never seen a dungeon generator do multi-width hallways. The generated dungeons are pleasing.
  • microwerx’s dungeon generator — I like how you linked the stairs via html. Clever!
  • Seventh Holy Scripture’s forest generator — The forests look very lush.

My pick for winner of this contest is… Seventh Holy Scripture, even though the river always goes left. Heh.

Each participant has been given a medal for their bio page at roguebasin. Check the results and generators here

Some critical patches have been released for Incursion taking the game to version 0.6.1.a, check them out at the official download site

What should I be doing with patch release announcements? I’ve been patching frequently, and I don’t want to spam Usenet.

An interesting 7DRL based on DarkGod’s T-Engine, Zombie Horror, has been released. the game seems to be pretty nice and to make a good work at setting up the mood, it includes sound and… zombies!

Features:
* Great music
* Scary and funny (Yes, these are features Tongue )
* Multiple target-zone based damage system
* Lots and lots of gore

What do people have with Zombies and Sewers on roguelikes, I wonder? Smiley

Further info here

Yendor continues with the noble task of bringing life to the original versions of Rogue, with the release of Advanced Rogue 5.8s and Rogue 5.4.3

This is a variant of the original Advanced Rogue 5.8 with some additional magic items, some different monsters, and a variety of “special” rooms (the ’s’ stands for special in the name). This is pretty much the last version of rogue I had laying about waiting for restoration.

Info at rogueforge: Advanced Rogue and Rogue 5.4

Seven Weeks is a new java based 7DRL

I started Friday the 13th and finished on Thursday the 19th. I didn’t find time to actually release until now, but I haven’t touched the code after the deadline ended.

Following a proud tradition of roguelikes, this is a game about a thief. Taking this concept to its logical extreme, it puts a heavy emphasis on stealth and advanced forms of movement. In fact, it contains no winnable combat, and the only enemies comparable to monsters in normal roguelikes should generally be avoided at all costs.

A lot of work seems to have been put into the game, which sports interesting gameplay features. An updated 7DRL version has been released as usual; further info at the projects’ website http://kadwiell.nrkn.com/sevenweeks/

Gape in awe at Stu’s rusty bucket, and find out about his roguelike game in the works: Cracks and Crevices, which got it 0.3 version some time ago now be sure to also check out his cRPG, FishGuts… looking nice!

Actually, 0.4 must be coming out anytime, as it is already been developed

The 0.4 release is shaping up very nicely, I’ve put in a ‘win state’ which is not the true end game but its enough to keep to the game winnable for the time being and give players a goal for early releases.

Anyhow, the game sports semi realtime movement and a classic theme… worth checking!

And so, this long update post ends. Hopefully next one will come sooner :)

RoguelikeLib v0.4

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007

Mr. Jakub Debski has released a new version of his set of tools to aid the fellow roguelike developer on his quest for the next major hit on the scene. Further info and downloads here

Roguelike Library is portable open-source library written in C++.
It consist of set of classes that can be used in all roguelike games.
Library is categorized to fullfill tasks of random map generation,
pathfinding and calculating field of view.

This version introduces code reorganization and many bug fixes.