Potential Roguelike Ideas

[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.roguelikedevelopme...ke_in_15_Steps

And this one gives a list of thing you must think of before typing the first line of code :
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopme..._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.