An "old school" roguelike made in AGS

[ArgyBoi]

Hey guys, I've been experimenting with AGS lately... And after reading some old threads in this forum, I noticed that nobody has released a "classic" roguelike made with AGS yet...
NOTE! Those threads are very old!
AGS Crawl by ShiverMeSideways
Ghost's tiles for an HereticRL?

So, I thought, why not?
I just coded the basic features (level generation, input, movement, creatures entities), but hey, I'm proud of my crappy procedural level generator You can check it out here:

DevLog #1:
[embed=700,450]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20d-l-NFITg[/embed]

DevLog #2:
[embed=700,450]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoSTjzKYA68[/embed]

DevLog #3:
[embed=700,450]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UbJEyNxRk4[/embed]

What do you think?

EDIT: OK, that's it for prototyping... If I finally decide to make a game out of this, I'll create a proper "in production" thread...

[bicilotti]

Quite avid Nethack player here, love your generatelevel function, it does really create "realistic" caves, I would play it!

[Problem]

Very nice! The levels look quite natural already. I love roguelikes, so I'd definitely play one made with AGS.

[ArgyBoi]

Quite avid Nethack player here, love your generatelevel function, it does really create "realistic" caves, I would play it!

Indeed, I created a "debug console" (the grey box in the video), for calling procedural generation functions. The generatelevel generates a level with a basic algorithm, adding "room features" (just random square rooms and corridors right now, but I coded it to be easily extensible) randomly and connecting them.

[Ghost]

I am SO keeping tabs on this!

[selmiak]

Not to stop your momentum but it really has been done before, Shivemesideways made Zombie Attack for a Bake Sale. So this looks cool, keep it up.

[ArgyBoi]

Not to stop your momentum but it really has been done before, Shivemesideways made Zombie Attack for a Bake Sale. So this looks cool, keep it up.

OK I'm cancelling this...
Just kidding
I've checked out Zombie Attack, but I don't think it can be considered a roguelike (at least IMHO, and the RogueBasin definition).

[abstauber]

Very exciting news to see some more non-adventure games. In case you want to get rid of the ascii-art, here's an awesome (free) texture pack:
http://opengameart.org/content/dawnlike-16x16-universal-rogue-like-tileset-v17

[Ghost]

I've checked out Zombie Attack, but I don't think it can be considered a roguelike

Depends on the strictness- it surely has the same elements that make people consider games like BoI a roguelike. But yes, an actual turnbased, ASCII roguelike has not been done. So go for it!

In case you want to get rid of the ascii-art,

But... but ASCII is the POINT!!!

[ArgyBoi]

Depends on the strictness- it surely has the same elements that make people consider games like BoI a roguelike. But yes, an actual turnbased, ASCII roguelike has not been done. So go for it!

Exactly. That's why I used the term "old school roguelike". I don't consider games like BoI to be roguelikes (it seems to me the same as considering Diablo an RPG because of the leveling). For me, the "baseline" to be considered a roguelike are the turn-based (after all, this games are based on tactical gameplay, not in action) and randomization.
ASCII graphics are not relevant, some people like it, some people don't; NetHack (maybe the most famous roguelike) has tons of tilesets, even an isomertic version, but this doesn't affect its "roguelikeness" at all.

Very exciting news to see some more non-adventure games. In case you want to get rid of the ascii-art, here's an awesome (free) texture pack:
http://opengameart.org/content/dawnlike-16x16-universal-rogue-like-tileset-v17

In fact, I'm using 8x8 tiles for the monospace font. I've seen some pretty neat 8x8 royalty free tilesets, but for now I'm going to stick with ASCII, and maybe do my own tiles (optional to ASCII) if I finally decide to make a game out of this prototype.

[LostTrainDude]

Great stuff indeed!

It's something I'm exploring too, lately (and I was really interested in AGS Crawl) even if I'm trying to sort it out on Game Maker Studio, at the moment. I'm still trying to learn how to code a tile-based procedural level generation.

Just out of curiosity (dumb question, anyway): does the map feature actual ASCII characters printed on the screen or are those image files of those characters?. I've experimented too few with AGS to tell if it's actually possible to print out on screen just like that.

EDIT:

In fact, I'm using 8x8 tiles for the monospace font. I've seen some pretty neat 8x8 royalty free tilesets, but for now I'm going to stick with ASCII, and maybe do my own tiles (optional to ASCII) if I finally decide to make a game out of this prototype.

Ehm... I believe this is the answer

[ArgyBoi]

Great stuff indeed!

It's something I'm exploring too, lately (and I was really interested in AGS Crawl) even if I'm trying to sort it out on Game Maker Studio, at the moment. I'm still trying to learn how to code a tile-based procedural level generation.

Just out of curiosity (dumb question, anyway): does the map feature actual ASCII characters printed on the screen or are those image files of those characters?. I've experimented too few with AGS to tell if it's actually possible to print out on screen just like that.

EDIT:

In fact, I'm using 8x8 tiles for the monospace font. I've seen some pretty neat 8x8 royalty free tilesets, but for now I'm going to stick with ASCII, and maybe do my own tiles (optional to ASCII) if I finally decide to make a game out of this prototype.

Ehm... I believe this is the answer

Yep, I'm using 8x8 sprites. I think it's easier and enables you to mod the tileset without changing the code
On procedural generation with tiles: it's really straightforward, basically you apply the algorithm to the tile array/matrix that represents your level. There's a lot of usefull information in the Prodecural Content Generation Wiki.

[ArgyBoi]

Guys, just one more little update... I added some features like Field of View, Map discovering and a basic AI for the foes. Here:

EDIT: video updates in first message.

I'm pretty satisfied with this prototype... Maybe I would create a game out of this... Maybe...
Let me know what do you think!

[CaptainD]

DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!

[selmiak]

DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!

+1