Potential Roguelike Ideas

[Covenant]

After being inspired by the programming/coding thread, and also a few thoughts on the release of the ADOM source code (mainly that we can't wait for things to happen, we have to do the best we can ourselves with what we have), I thought I'd post a few of the Design Doc's from my own conceptual Roguelike, which is a fancy way of saying I'll copy and paste bits from the very long, very messy file on my desktop called 'developmentplans.txt'.

I'd just love to know what people think of my ideas. Nothing's set in stone.

Not having done this before, there initially won't be much method to what I'm posting here, but any formatting suggestions are equally welcome.

Stats:

Some things are omitted here, because it's hard to think of everything a stat might cover, so small things are left out (for example, Dexterity will affect Pickpocket success).

Strength: Think ADOM Strength
Dexterity: Think ADOM Dexterity
Constitution: Think ADOM Toughness, also affects Carrying Capacity.
Intelligence: Governs magic and crafting skills
Spirit: Governs resistance of all kinds (including physical damage), divinity skills.
Perception: Slightly affects melee weapon accuracy, moderately affects missile weapon accuracy, and affects vision range.
Charisma: Governs NPC reactions, shop-prices.

A 'Luck' statistic will also exist, but I'm undecided if this will be visible on the display line or will instead be a 'hidden'. Luck would affect many things, slightly.


Classes/Skills:

There will be no classes as such within the game. Instead, a character's job-title (such as warrior, archer wizard, etc) will be determined by his skills.

Skills will run from 0-100, as per ADOM skills. Unlike ADOM, however, a skill-cap will be implemented. This may be race-dependant, and the exact figure of the cap is yet to be determined, but initial working figures are

500 for Trolls
700 for Humans
800 for Elves

(Other races will exist, but these represent the lowest, highest, and average, as far as the skillcap goes).

Benefits will be given at certain ranks (hypothetically, when the skill 'Fire Magic' reached 50/100, the character would gain intrinsic fire resistance, and at 100/100, Fire immunity would be gained. However, 69/100 Fire Magic would give higher damage/success rates than 68/100 - not a great deal more, though).

On character generation, the player would pick a race followed by a 'template'. For example, choosing the 'Fire Mage' template would start a player with 40/100 Fire magic, 30/100 Evocations, 30/100 Intuition. An 'advanced' template would perhaps exist, allowing complete customisation (to equivalent strength of a starting template) of skills/stats.

Skills would be advanced by a mixture of use and level gains, as in ADOM (I feel a bit like I'm just conceiving a rip-off here, but I prefer to think that I'm simply appreciating good ideas. And to be honest, the skill system owes more to Ultima Online than ADOM). A level gain would provide 10 or so (I'm tempted to double this) rank points to the player. Skills would require more rank points (and use) to advance as they became higher. For example, 0-10 would require 1 rank point, 10-20 would require 2, etc. So to level a skill from 90 to 100 entirely on level gains would take ten levels.

To prevent undesired skills rising (such as gaining Shields, when you don't want to gain shields, you just want to hold two of them while you run like a madman from the demon chasing you) you'll be able to 'lock' skills, and also remove a LIMITED amount of skillpoints throughout the game.

List of Skills

Skills are placed into trees - the 'Melee Fighting' tree contains Swords, Shields, etc. A certain amount of points within any one tree will gain the player a title (in this case, 100 points would make the player a 'Warrior', 200 an 'Armsmaster', 300 a 'Hero'). Titles would be cosmetic, and would be chosen by the player from all those available; however, most titles (being available, not being chosen) unlock certain benefits.

Melee Fighting 100/200/300 = Warrior/Armsmaster/Hero

- Swords - Increases skill with sword-type weapons
- Two Handed Weapons - See above, same applies for below
- Shields
- Maces & Hammers
- Polearms
- Exotic Weapons -Whips, and special cases (I may include 'alien' weaponry)
- Daggers
- Unarmed

Warrior: Undecided, most likely a straight bonus to Accuracy and Damage
Armsmaster: See above, larger bonus.
Hero: Can wield any weapon at 50/100 proficiency, added bonus to Accuracy/Damage

Armour 150/200 Defender/Iron Man

- Light Armour
- Heavy Armour

Defender: +25% DV/PV
Iron Man: +50% DV/PV

Armour based skills

Dependant on armour weight, you'll use either the 'Light Armour' or 'Heavy Armour' skill. Light armour will typically be high in Evasion (DV), low in Protection (PV). The higher the skill, the greater bonuses you'll gain from the armor, with bonuses given for how extreme you go. If you're a GM Heavy Armour user and are wearing VERY HEAVY armour (total, not just one piece), you'll have a very high protection value - but you'll be easy to hit. This will be somewhat more useful than in ADOM because critical hits won't entirely bypass PV - or perhaps, at least not once PV is above a certain threshhold.

(To anyone who has played 'Elona', although the systems are somewhat similar, I actually wrote this before I'd ever even heard of it).


Stealth 100/200/300 - Thief/Rogue/Assassin

Poisoning - Adds poisoning effect to a weapon (success/duration/chance to poison/damage increases as skill rises), but this causes it to get damaged quicker. No resources required for regular poisoning, but 100/100 is required to poison artifact weaponry (as artifacts don't become damaged), as is a poison potion (and it wears off! So save those poison potions).

Hiding - General 'Stealth' skill, ability to not be detected by monsters.

Escaping - Ability to swap places with a monster. Size/strength dependant, certain ranks required for certain swaps (e.g 1/100, you can try swap with a kobold, and succeed, eventually. But you'll never succeed on a dragon. At 99/100, you'll succeed most of the time you try to swap places with a dragon)

Stealing - Pickpocket, ability to pickpocket from a store at 80/100 (success rates low, if you fail, shopkeeper is hostile)

Backstabbing - Damage bonus for attacking a monster that is unaware of the player's location.

Thief:
Rogue:
Assassin:


Missile Targeting 100 Archer
- Bows - Same as Melee weapons, but with missile weapons.
- Crossbows - See above

Archer: Range increased by 1 with all missile weapons.

Divinity (MAX 100) 20/50/100 Initiate/Acolyte/Disciple

Divinity is a player's relationship with one of the minor Gods of the world. It won't require anything like sacrificing or such to gain, but instead, like the other skills, will rise by use/skill point assignation.
There are seven Gods planned, but only two are done so far, so I'll just post those two.

- Wyrd, God of Fate
- 20 - Roll the Dice: Random effect to your character, weak, luck dependant)
- 40 - Cat's Grace: (Divinity/10 + 1) Bonus to luck, though it drains SP while in effect
- 60 - Transform: Transforms one creature into another
- 80 - Wheel of Fortune:
- 100 - Black Roulette: +20 to all stats(/skills?), +100HP for 10 turns, has a 1/20 chance of killing you.

Passive effects:
20: +1 to Luck
50: +3 to Luck
100: +10 to luck, 10% higher chance of item drops

- Aether, God of Elements
- 20 - Quad Bolt - Fires a four-element bolt, e.g. 4d6 (in practice, fires four bolts, each 1d6)
- 40 - Resist Elements - 1d10+15 turns, substantial PP cost.
- 60 Elemental Wreath - Does ice and fire damage to any monster attacking or attacked by the player, adds +1 to Hit/Damage rolls for melee/missile attacks (Air), and provides +5 PV (Earth). Drains PP while active
- 80 Summon Elemental - Summons one normal elemental of random type (Air/Earth/Fire/Water)
- 100 Chromatic Breath - Gain elemental breath of each of the 4 types. High damage, but -1 Constitution each use, and it takes up a large amount of PP to use.

Passive Effects:
100: Gain one level of resistance to each of the four elements (can't be lost, as long as the skill is at 100)
100: Summons a greater elemental instead of a normal one with the Summon Elemental skill.

Mercantile 100/200/300 Trader / Craftsman / Artisan
- Weapon/Armour Care - Lowers chance of damage to weapons and armour, allows you to repair them, and you have a chance to improve them to a certain degree (add to their +'s).
- Harvesting - Herbalism. Also other uses, such as mining.
- Enchantment - (need to be a Wizard). Add bonuses to a non-artifact weapon/armour. Tied to Crafting system (not discussed here)
- Detect Curse - Skill gain increases how quickly it acts. Unsure about this.
- Intuition - Detect how 'good' an item is (think Angband's pseudo-ID). Unsure about this.
- Music - For charming animals/monsters.

[Covenant]

Spellcasting 125/250/375/500 Magician / Wizard / Sorceror / Archmage

To learn a spell, you need the appropriate skill in its school. Then you need to find the right spellbook. Where 'Archmage Spell' is listed, these spells won't be found randomnly, but will be available in fixed places. Also, a character must be an Archmage to cast the spell.

Evocations
- 20 - Magic Missile
- 40 - Detect Items
- 60 - Greater Identify (Can only GI something that's already been identified)
- 80 - Detect Curses
- 100 - Pimpel's All-Purpose Protection Spell
- 100 - Archmage Spell - Tenser's Transformation

Fire Magic
- 20 - Fire Bolt
- 40 - Flamethrower (2 tiles in front (any direction) of user get heavy damage, items on floor get burned)
- 60 - Scorched Air - Eliminate oxygen in the room, moderate damage to breathing enemies.
- 80 - Dragon Breath - Throw a fireball
- 100 - Wreath of Flame (Drain MP quickly, but burn anything you come near, e.g Firestarter)
- 100 - Archmage Spell - Armageddon - Massive Fire Damage to all on level. Takes muchos MP.

Water Magic
- 20 - Water Jet - Less damage than fire, but, more monsters susceptible.
- 40 - Fickle Finger of Frost - Like an ice beam, but 1/30 chance you'll freeze yourself.
- 60 - Blizzard - Room becomes covered in snow, monsters take cold damage, potions freeze.
- 80 - Ice shield - 5d20 turns, all reflectable spells reflected, resistance to to ice, higher AC and monsters attacking you take cold damage.
- 100 - Drain warmth - Drain up to x hp cold damage from an enemy, but you take that much in fire damage (lowered if you have resistance).
- 100 - Archmage Spell - Water Form - pass through walls, > anywhere, can't fight while in walls. Doesn't work on most non-diggable walls.

Earth Magic
- 20 - Iron Fists - Your melee blows do more damage.
- 40 - Detect Life - Detect Monsters/NPCs.
- 60 - Twisted Vines - Halve the speed of every creature in the room.
- 80 - Nature's Blood - -x speed, + PV Grants regeneration, + Constitution, -1 level of fire resistance.
- 100 - Summon Stone - Creates dungeon wall on any square next to you.
- 100 - Archmage Spell - Earthquake - Terraforms the dungeon. New walls appear, current ones disappear.

Air Magic
- 20 - Sense Surroundings (see the dungeon area around immediately you, including monsters). Small radius.
- 40 - Levitation - Levitates. 4d10 + 80 turns.
- 60 - Teleport - Teleports player. Significant PP cost.
- 80 - Electrocute - Air damage on any targettable enemy within LOS.
- 100 - Invisibility - Invisible on the player.
- 100 - Archmage Spell - Haste.

Shadow Magic
- 20 - Shadow Dance - Scare creatures
- 40 - Raise Skeleton - Minion. Needs corpse.
- 60 - Decrepify - The Monster seems to be rotting from the inside!
- 80 - Soul Suck - Damage all monsters in Line of Sight
- 100 - The Undying - The grave opens to rend your enemy with hooks of steel and bone. Creates pit at target's location. High damage.
- 100 - Archmage Spell - If you're a Lich (Quest reward) - Finger of Death. As this will be the main reward for the Lich quest, I'll need to make this spell suitably powerful.

Light Magic
- 20 - Light - (Normal light, plus, increase vision range)
- 40 - Minor Healing -
- 60 - Holy Fire - Damages undead/evil creatures
- 80 - Enlightenment - Maps the whole level.
- 100 - Major Healing
- 100 - Archmage Spell - Remove Curse - ?

Magician: +20% spell-damage
Wizard: +50% spell-damage
Sorceror: PP cost is halved.
Archmage: +100% spell-damage.


I'll stop there for now. I thought posting it might motivate me to do some more work.

My problem is, I can't code. I have lots of ideas - for example, I've got the basic plot/background planned out, roughly - but I can't really implement any of it. I'm reading a C++ tutorial at the moment, but progress is being made... slowly. So for now I'm amusing myself with just working on the design elements. And hopefully finding out if these ideas are even worth implementing!

[Grey]

My main criticism is it sounds very generic, and particularly a hell of a lot like ADOM. Maybe try converting some of your ideas to a more original setting, and come up with a more original combat system.

C++ ain't easy to learn by a mile. You might want to start off with something easy like Free Pascal or Free Basic (I did the former). Once you grasp the simple things like conditions, recursion and records you can go a long way. Start off with something simple but fun and build up on it piece by piece. The best motivation is to get something released, no matter how crap or basic it is.

[Covenant]

Yes, C++ does seem rather difficult, but I've had limited experience in the past with other languages (not enough to release anything), and I'm following it alright so far, so I'll see how it goes. Plus, the Angband source files are in C, and I find learning by example a useful method.


You're right that what's listed isn't revolutionary; I haven't included things like varying levels of monster resistance/susceptibilities, plot details, the more unusual item types, etc etc. It was more a base system to be built upon - I think a large part of what makes a Roguelike is the content, such as the monsters, the locations, the items. But I'm interested in feedback on the system itself.

At this point, I think any striking similarities to ADOM are more likely just conventions of the genre (as in, ADOM already stole them from somewhere else). The stat system, for example, is pretty much solid throughout RPGs - the biggest variation you'll get is from your STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA to your SPECIAL (probably most remembered in the Fallout games). My own system is a renamed SPECIAL, with 'Spirit' sneaking in as a renamed D&D Wisdom. The same applies for the few specific skills that mirror ADOM skills (e.g how Backstabbing exists in Crawl and replicates a D&D thief's increased backstabbing damage as he gains levels).

Similarly, races and spells are pulled from a shared library. Each of the 4 main Roguelikes includes elves and humans, and 3 of those 4 include Trolls as playable characters (though I was considering half-giants instead as the 'Tank' race, but the 'monsterness' of Trolls interested me more).

Looking at the list, I see one or two spells that are replicated in ADOM, but these spells are replicated in every other Roguelike out there as well. Magic Missile or Teleport spells exist in pretty much any game that allows you to play a mage character. To be honest, I can't see anything specifically 'ADOM' that I've implemented that isn't also in Crawl/Angband/Nethack - hell, even the modern diluted Roguelikes like Diablo. Admittedly, I've used ADOM terminology, but if I posted this on the Crawl Stone Soup forums I could just as easily call it 'Evasion and Armour' as opposed to DV/PV. And neither set of terms would actually be used in the game, they're just there for ease of explanation (and let's be honest, ADOM didn't invent modifiers to chance to hit or damage reduction).

As far as the system itself, my goal was to increase variety in playstyle. Bar a few exceptions (Healing being the main one), I feel ADOM's skills don't influence the game to a great degree. I'm not saying Find Weakness or Alertness won't help your character, but they're not an integral part of the make-up. The only other Roguelike I've seen with anything akin to a skillcap, for example, is TOME. And I don't know of any other that reward players for mastering certain disciplines.

I went down this path because I'm bored with endgame powerhouse PCs who, in games like ADOM or Angband, can beat the game with the same tactics as a completely 'different' PC. Ideally, with the system I described, a character would stick to a discipline or 'theme' - they could branch out, and the versatility would help them, but at a sacrifice of power. If they spread themselves too thinly, they'll be too weak to destroy the monsters they need to.

The way I was hoping for it to work was you could say, want to roleplay a burly Dwarvish Axefighter. He takes Axes, Two-Handed Weapons, Heavy Armour, Divinity (God of Blood), and Weapon/Armour Care to 100, allowing him to deal heavy damage and keep his equipment in good repair. He also decides to train to 50 in Light Armour, to fully maximise his defensive bonuses. With this high defense, the small amount of healing granted to him by his worship of the God of Blood is enough for him to survive the dungeon.

As he's already invested in the Mercantile tree, the player could gain the Harvesting skill to increase his Mining speed (and thereby gain, say, another 30% carrying capacity, as a bonus for investing 200% in the Mercantile tree). This particular player is keen on damage though, so he also decides to pick up 40 Earth Magic. His stats aren't geared for spell-casting, so he fails quite often and has little MP to spare, but the player considers the benefits of increased damage and monster detection worth it. He distributes his remaining 110 points between Poisoning and Escaping, to create a hardy fighter with good survival capabilities.

Now another player decides he wants to do everything - carve enemies to death with his blade then fling arcane fire at those who dare not approach. Not to say this isn't possible, but it'd require careful skill-point allocation. This player trains to 100 in Swords, Light Armour, Escaping, Evocations, Air Magic, Bows, and worships the god Aether. In the end, despite his Swordsmanship skill his melee damage isn't high enough to compete with a more combat-orientated character, despite his access to powerful buffs such as Haste and Protection. Similarly, his magic is too low-powered and costs too many MP to be very useful in the late-game. With judicious use of resources he can kill the average late-game enemy, but when he encounters monsters that are resistant to his Electrocute spell, he faces increasingly risky fights in melee, especially if one use of his breath power isn't enough to kill the enemy. He can escape well with his speed and teleportation, but, unable to kill the stronger monsters that roam the dungeons, he won't get much further.

I want to avoid the current Roguelike plague where an 'endgame' power scenario is shared by every character (Nethack, you're just hitting everything without slowing down, or magic missiles. Repeat for ADOM. Lategame Angband, Magic is entirely ruled out by melee damage (even for mages, whose melee output is crippled) and ranged damage). Just look at ADOM advice threads - if you're not bashing something to death with your weapon, you're using Magic Missile or Acid Ball on it. I hope to avoid that by having more than two basic builds. A few examples

Fairy Assassin
Daggers 100
Hiding 100
Poisoning 100
Backstabbing 100
Air Magic 100
Light Armor 100
Either a Divinity, or Stealing, or even Unarmed (if his weapon should break, or be lost. Plus, damage bonuses to Melee for more points spent in the Melee tree)

Ogre Paladin (Ogres have a 600 Skillcap due to increased Natural Stat maximums)
Heavy Armour
Maces and Hammers
Light Magic
Divinity (Good God)
Shields
10 Detect Curse
20 Armour Care
20 Crossbow

Human Lich
Light Armor
Fire Magic
Shadow Magic
Water Magic
Air Magic
Evocations
Daggers

The Light Armor and Daggers skills allow the mage to finish off weak opponents without the need to use up their magical power, whilst stronger opponents will fall to the strength of spells arrayed against them, combined with the wizard's flexibility (Five schools means a good chance to find an elemental susceptibility or even weakness).

(Admittedly, what makes this one a lich as opposed to any other type of mage would be completion of the Lich quest and favour of the Shadow magic school as opposed to the specific skill choices, but the Lich form would have enough benefits (and drawbacks) to make it worth serious consideration).

That's not an exhaustive list, as the skills aren't even finished yet, but I'm just trying to demonstrate how I hope to have more variety of tactics with that system than seems to currently exist in games such as ADOM.


On a final note...

I'm really confused by what you mean with your suggestion of a more original setting. Aside from the use of magic, the only other thing I can think of that suggests any particular setting is the use of races such as elf and troll. The two of those together just suggest a typical fantasy environment. I hold a lot of admiration for the people who break the mold and make a Roguelike about gunplay in space (DoomRL) or your own light-based Gruesome, but there's a reason the mold was established in the first place. People like wandering through fantasy environments, and they make for good game settings. The key is in the implementation.

Similarly, about the combat system, I don't get it. Aside from intimations from things such as the spells and stats, I didn't describe the combat system.

[Grey]

On a final note...

I'm really confused by what you mean with your suggestion of a more original setting. Aside from the use of magic, the only other thing I can think of that suggests any particular setting is the use of races such as elf and troll. The two of those together just suggest a typical fantasy environment. I hold a lot of admiration for the people who break the mold and make a Roguelike about gunplay in space (DoomRL) or your own light-based Gruesome, but there's a reason the mold was established in the first place. People like wandering through fantasy environments, and they make for good game settings. The key is in the implementation.

Similarly, about the combat system, I don't get it. Aside from intimations from things such as the spells and stats, I didn't describe the combat system.

I assumed your combat system was extremely similar to ADOM by your use of the DV/PV terms. Perhaps this system is common because it works well, but a bit of variation in how it operates can make a lot of difference. For instance I've been considering for a new game a system which has an evasion and a multiplier system. The evasion is your chance to evade (obviously) and the multiplier is how many attacks you can evade per round - if you get surrounded then every attack after this multiplier automatically hits, making combat against many weak enemies more dangerous than fighting a single strong enemy. It's not an incredibly inventive system, but it's a bit different and would make combat play out very differently from other games.

As for my note on setting, I more was considering that you might want to think of some twists to the fantasy setting. ADOM has corruption and the battle between Law/Chaos to give it a bit of a unique edge. Crawl has a very interesting gods system, and a lot of inventive spells that you don't see in other fantasy games. Legerdemain, though I've not played it much, seems to have a very interesting take on the fantasy setting - far from generic. You might want to consider something to make your game just a little bit different - it helps make your game feel special, and can be fun in general. Like inventing your own race instead of trolls (half-giant sounds interesting, but you can go even further than that and invent your own monstrous race and its own unique abilities).

The skills system sounds good - a bit like Crawl's in terms of the actual usefulness of skills, and the individual traits/abilities of getting to different skill levels is very nice. Balancing will be your biggest problem, to which I can only suggest trying to add skills one by one instead of several at once. It's much easier to balance a single addition than a whole heap. Your biggest problem will be preventing there being one skill to rule them all, or encouraging players to spread out base amounts in little skills instead of shoving all their points in getting one or two skills maxed (a good way to do that might be exponentially increasing costs for rises, but then that could encourage too generic characters).

Anyway, I didn't mean to diss your ideas, just suggest you consider some creative additions. Best of luck with moving towards your goals :)

[Covenant]

I assumed your combat system was extremely similar to ADOM by your use of the DV/PV terms. Perhaps this system is common because it works well, but a bit of variation in how it operates can make a lot of difference. For instance I've been considering for a new game a system which has an evasion and a multiplier system. The evasion is your chance to evade (obviously) and the multiplier is how many attacks you can evade per round - if you get surrounded then every attack after this multiplier automatically hits, making combat against many weak enemies more dangerous than fighting a single strong enemy. It's not an incredibly inventive system, but it's a bit different and would make combat play out very differently from other games.

I agree that variety is important, but I feel that although that can come from wide-ranging game mechanics, it can also come from the fine details. Such as which potions/wands/spells are included, skills, that kind of thing.


As for my note on setting, I more was considering that you might want to think of some twists to the fantasy setting. ADOM has corruption and the battle between Law/Chaos to give it a bit of a unique edge. Crawl has a very interesting gods system, and a lot of inventive spells that you don't see in other fantasy games. Legerdemain, though I've not played it much, seems to have a very interesting take on the fantasy setting - far from generic. You might want to consider something to make your game just a little bit different - it helps make your game feel special, and can be fun in general. Like inventing your own race instead of trolls (half-giant sounds interesting, but you can go even further than that and invent your own monstrous race and its own unique abilities).

Agreed - I regard these as fine details, though (races/race abilities, I mean). The plot is always important. ADOM's interesting in that it does have a good feel of an overarching plot, but if I'm being honest, despite the fact that it's always hyped, I don't think it's a particularly great one, nor is the writing amazing (why does Khelevaster, a great sage, sound like a lazy scouser?). That said, given the scope of a typical Roguelike plot, it stands head and shoulders above the others.

I have a plot in mind, but it's one of those things that's always a work-in-progress. But I do regard it to be an important element. I also think the gameplay and the plot should be directly connected - you shouldn't just randomnly get a quest to do x in between your normal roguelike playing, the quest should make sense in relation to your surroundings, your past behaviour, etc. For example, when you wander into a new city, you shouldn't be able to wander up to the King and 'C'hat to get a quest for a sacred mission vital to the survival of his people. My hazy plot idea at the moment involved exploring a new world. Coming across your first city there, you're unlikely to be trusted. In such a scenario one path (though not the only one) to gain access to the 'higher tier' quests given by more important people at that location would be enlisting in the city guard - completing a couple of kill the foozle/protect the place/rescue the good-foozle quests will result in a promotion, allowing you to access quests from different sources (as well as having other effects).

I don't claim that's ingenuitive by itself, but it's just demonstrating that I think things like quests and plot should be thought about carefully.

I'll give a quick summary of my prospective plot here, (it'll ruin things for people who read this if I ever get it made, but to be honest, I doubt I will without some assistance):

Plot

The player is a trusted servant of the Caliph of an oasis town. This town is one of the last surviving outposts of humanity, with much of the world being plagued by (Event X - I haven't worked this out yet). The Caliph's chief Sage has recently discovered a way to travel to an alternate world, and has created a portal facilitating transport in the desperate hope of finding a way to stop/cure Event X. The player has been selected as the initial scout/representative. You're given an amount of gold to outfit your character in the town before you step through the portal.

The player gets to the alternate world, Kasgyre, and begins to explore. They'll receive quests from the Sage requiring different things (first just simple things like a dead body of a creature from the new world, but these will grow more complex) which will require increasing degrees of exploration and interaction with the new world. They can, however, return through the portal whenever they desire.

As time goes by, the Sage's quests get more and more aggressive toward the new world, eventually embarking on a course of action that would destroy Kasgyre in order to save your world from Event X (or, alternatively, to conquer and settle it) by draining the energy from the core of the planet and transferring it to yours.

The alternative to kill the Sage (not just randomnly, there would be quest-lines and choices involved in whether to go down the Sage's path) and perform a complex quest on behalf of a good King of Kasgyre to close the portal, saving it from invasion by your world.

The third ending (which I suppose takes the place of ADOM's 'uber' endings) would involve a series of quests culminating in the realisation that the Sage isn't evil but is in fact being mind-controlled by the Caliph. The Caliph is host to a 'spore' sent out by an extra-dimensional being named (I can't really think of a good name yet, but I'm temporarily going with Faze). Many such spores were sent out, but one entered the Caliph, transforming him so that Faze could telepathically control him. On the Caliph's death, the Sage becomes freed from mind-control, and the player learns that Faze lives in the core of the planet of Kasgyre, and is draining its energy. Faze knows that the energy from Kasgyre will run out soon, so it sent out the spores as preparation to enter a new world (hence the Caliph making sure the portal was built - Ending 1 would have actually resulted in Faze being transported to the core of your planet). To get the best ending, the player must descend through the planet and fight Faze, its death returning all of the stolen energy and allowing both worlds to survive.

To tie all this to gameplay further, throughout the game, strange effects (haven't decided on the form yet, I'm currently thinking 'Elemental Storms') would take place on Kasgyre, both as plot devices and regular gameplay, and it would turn out that these were a result of Faze feeding on the planet's energy.

This would all be interspersed with regular sidequests, of course. 'Please go kill the sleeping Lichlord buried in the Catacombs beneath our city, because he's making the dead in the Graveyard rise up and attack people' kind of thing.


The skills system sounds good - a bit like Crawl's in terms of the actual usefulness of skills, and the individual traits/abilities of getting to different skill levels is very nice. Balancing will be your biggest problem, to which I can only suggest trying to add skills one by one instead of several at once. It's much easier to balance a single addition than a whole heap. Your biggest problem will be preventing there being one skill to rule them all, or encouraging players to spread out base amounts in little skills instead of shoving all their points in getting one or two skills maxed (a good way to do that might be exponentially increasing costs for rises, but then that could encourage too generic characters).

Anyway, I didn't mean to diss your ideas, just suggest you consider some creative additions. Best of luck with moving towards your goals :)

Thanks. You're right about balancing, it's going to be a tough but very important step. One of the things I love about Crawl is precisely that, that such a variety of different builds are viable (though sadly, at least in previous revisions, 'one skill to rule them all' did indeed exist).

I think I did mention exponentially increasing costs for rises, but I'm hoping players will max some skills, just not ALL of them.

Anyway, don't feel obligated to read through all this - I'll probably be posting a lot here, on and off, and it's for my own peace of mind more than anything. I sadly don't think anything will come of my ideas.

[gut]

I thought about posting this recommendation a few days
ago, but your idea seemed like it was heavily focused on
being a roguelike. After reading this though,

> I sadly don't think anything will come of my ideas.

I decided to post it anyway.

Have you thought about using a program like RPG toolkit?
As far as I know, they won't allow most of the game-play
features that you are wanting, but it would allow you to
make something of you ideas.

[Grey]

It's a decent suggestion, since plot is often considered an excess in roguelikes (I've seen people say ADOM is far too text heavy to play!) Some of those RPG maker programs do let you get something off the ground quickly, and I'm personally of the opinion that the most important thing as a developer is to get something released ASAP.

[Sradac]

maybe also grant certain "abilities" or "traits" when getting a skill to a certain point as well not just gained intrinsics. getting fire magic to 75/100 could unlock the "engulf" ability (generic name) which causes the target to erupt in flames dealing moderate direct damage and large damage over X amount of turns. Only usable every X turns. Im a fan of cooldown timers on spells > mana pools. Thats just my preference though.

[Covenant]

maybe also grant certain "abilities" or "traits" when getting a skill to a certain point as well not just gained intrinsics. getting fire magic to 75/100 could unlock the "engulf" ability (generic name) which causes the target to erupt in flames dealing moderate direct damage and large damage over X amount of turns. Only usable every X turns. Im a fan of cooldown timers on spells > mana pools. Thats just my preference though.

In a sense, that's what the spells do - if 'Engulf' were the Fire spell requiring 80/100 Fire Magic skill to learn, it'd pretty much fill this slot. Though of course, as you say, it's not on a cooldown. Regardless, not every ability granted by achieving a certain ranking will be intrinsic. I imagine this would be doubly appropriate for melee abilities.

Cooldown timers are interesting, but tricky; sometimes it would be appropriate for a player to use one strong ability twice in a row, for example.

What I do like, for now, is the idea of spells using a proportion of MP as opposed to a fixed amount, and the more this comes to the greater the effect of the spell. However, it would lead to a similar situation where players can only use a spell a few times before running out of mana completely, leaving spellcasters quite useless. To counter this, breakpoints could be used for certain more powerful spells, e.g. a spell that normally costs 50 MP would be increased to 100 MP once the player's maximum MP hit a certain threshhold (however, the power would be increased to make up for this effect). Still, that seems like it might lead to tweaking/powergaming. I wouldn't want a player purposefully avoiding increases in MP.


Have you thought about using a program like RPG toolkit?
As far as I know, they won't allow most of the game-play
features that you are wanting, but it would allow you to
make something of you ideas.

I had a look at RPG Maker a few years ago, but wasn't very enamoured of it.

For one thing, though I do have a fairly complex plot in mind for my game, it's nothing like an RPG. I don't have the inclination to sit down and write reams of dialogue for hundreds of NPCS.

Also, I'd prefer to create something that stands alone as a program, so that it'd be more of my own creation (this one is more a 'feeling' than a logical reason).

That said, the ideal solution as far as I can see would be to find somebody who enjoys coding but doesn't have much of a talent toward game design., and collaborate with them. Aside from saving me learning a programming language, it'd help in that I just don't think I have the free time to create an entire Roguelike myself. I don't think this is particularly likely though, as I'm sure we're all convinced we have new and original ideas that would revolutionise the genre, and we want to see them implemented (if I could code, for example, I wouldn't want to be making someone else's game, I'd be wanting to make my own).

I will give C++ another look - it's been on the back burner because of work for my MA, but that's done with for now, so I have a little more time.

[Grey]

I've been having a little look at Python lately - man is it a nice language. I really recommend you have a glance at it - seems very easy to pick up (kind of a cross between C and Pascal).

I think your ideas are over-ambitious, but then my personal philisophy is to start small and move in tiny steps. If you begin with a very simple dungeon hack and then start tacking on your story ideas and depth later on then you may find it less challenging and more rewarding.

[UnknownSoldier]

I think your ideas are over-ambitious, but then my personal philisophy is to start small and move in tiny steps. If you begin with a very simple dungeon hack and then start tacking on your story ideas and depth later on then you may find it less challenging and more rewarding.

Nothing is too ambitious, but I enterely agree with the small step part :
start small, a single hardcoded map at first, moving the @ without any monster and increment from here.

The content part of a roguelike should, IMHO, be added after the engine is in workable condition.
There is no use in coding a dungeon generator if you are not capable of testing it by walking through it.
Also you don't need healing potions if your monsters have no AI.

Also, take some time at first to think about your code design. An error in the design can make you rewrite huge part of your code.

Here are links to two articles I found interresting when I started developping my own roguelike :

Here is a rough guideline of the development :
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=How_to_Write_a_Roguelike_in_15_Ste ps

And this one gives a list of thing you must think of before typing the first line of code :
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Code_design_basics

Good luck on your project,

Unknown Soldier

[Covenant]

Thank you for your encouragement!

I must admit though, after consideration I think Grey is right to an extent - for a first-time project, my ideas are overambitious. That's not to say they're beyond the scope of a roguelike, just that I should probably downscale somewhat, if only for the sake of experience (which would later increase my ability to work on a larger project).


To be honest, I've been thinking lately that games the size of ADOM are just a bit much to be done by one person. Perhaps collaboration is the way to go? People involved would have to compromise and negotiate regarding exactly what they wanted to make, but considering the problem of a large number of budding developers wanting to make projects, but getting overwhelmed and abandoning it halfway through, group projects seem a reasonable compromise to me.

[Grey]

To be honest, I've been thinking lately that games the size of ADOM are just a bit much to be done by one person. Perhaps collaboration is the way to go? People involved would have to compromise and negotiate regarding exactly what they wanted to make, but considering the problem of a large number of budding developers wanting to make projects, but getting overwhelmed and abandoning it halfway through, group projects seem a reasonable compromise to me.

Well if you look at the big roguelikes then it's clear that ADOM is the exception to the rule. The others all started off as small games by one person and got expanded by being open source, passing through a great many hands in the process. A great many people have tried to single-handedly make a big roguelike and not gotten anywhere near to release. In my opinion this is because they bite off more than they can chew - more than anyone could chew really. The only way to get somewhere with a game is start off small.

I have grandiose ideas myself of a big roguelike I want to make with loads of classes, multiclassing, complex skill chains, hundreds of enemies, different worlds, the rise and fall of gods, etc... Simple fact is I know I may never be able to achieve that, and the only way I'll ever have some hope of approaching that dream is by starting off with some simple games that have no classes, no items, few stats, etc. It's a fun way of training myself up, and even if I don't reach my end goal I'll have enjoyed the route and feel proud of the little things I've done.