Adventures of a Newbie Roguelike Dev

I had a couple of people asking me about this, so I guess I’ll try and impart some sagely advice. I’ve done two 7DRLs, a 4DRL, a 32HRL and a 1HRL. I’ve also a failed a 7DRL, so I know where one can go wrong too :) Some general points:

1. Plan ahead. Write down your ideas in list form. Don’t get too detailed, but have an idea of how you’ll implement them.
2. Small scope. Your game should ideally be based around one novel concept, or trying to do one thing well. Stick to just one dungeon, basic items (if any), simple mechanics. If you’re going for more than this then make sure you consider what’s essential and what’s not.
3. Throw out the genre tropes. Identification system and hunger clock don’t add much to a 7drl and take away time from more fun things. If removing the hunger clock you’ll likely want to remove background healing too. Plenty of other things can be removed, like stairs to previous levels (so you don’t have to worry about coding persistent levels) or entire combat mechanics. Do you need to code a chance to hit and dodge or can you make things simple and deterministic? One of the best elements of 7DRLs is seeing how you can strip a roguelike to its bare bones and still have it be fun to play – maybe even more fun if done right.
4. Reuse as much code as possible. Borrow off past projects and other games. The goal of the challenge isn’t to spend seven days writing new FOV algorithms. That’s all been done before. Make something new! Level generators are an especially big time sink – stick to quick and easy cellular automata whilst you focus on real gameplay. A lot of players turn to libtcod for a good code base to get their game development into gear quickly. The T-Engine is excellent too. Don’t be worried about your code being sloppy or a mess – if it works then just bloody well use it! You’re unlikely to touch the code again after the week’s over, so it doesn’t matter how hacked together it is.
5. Don’t get distracted. Keep IRC closed. Don’t follow other peoples blogs and projects. Don’t blog yourself. Turn off your whole damned net connection if you have to.
6. Keep planning and revising. Your plans are bound to change, and your expectations. Keep making lists of what you expect to do the next day, and what you need to do by the end of the week. Make sure plenty of those things are optional, since you’ll likely not have time to do them all. Personally I send e-mails back and forth to myself each day from work/home, and make notes on paper or my phone whilst on the move. If you have an idea in the middle of the day be sure to jot it down.
7. Reserve the last day for entirely bug-fixing, playtesting and polish. Most likely it’ll get overrun by other things, but in that case at least you’ve got some extra time for that. And if you do get the time to polish then your game will be all the better for it.

Some further general points about how to make your game appeal to others:

1. Provide a straight exe for Windows, Linux and Mac. You can sort this out properly after the 7 days if need be, since it can take time to get people on other OSes to help you out. If your game is on python or some obscure engine then bloody make sure it can be played on other peoples’ computers. Too many 7drls are flat out hard to get running. Most players won’t spend longer than a few seconds trying.
2. Support standard keys. That means numpad and vi keys generally. Configurable is great, but not necessary. Make sure you can bring up the controls in-game by pressing ‘?’. Preferably have a reasme file too.
3. When announcing your success give a good description, some instructions to get it running, and a link to the download and a screenshot. Try and use some reliable hosting like Google Sites.
4. Better to be too easy than too hard. If the game is impossible to penetrate no one will play it. If it’s too easy then lots of people will play it exactly once. Being in the middle is better, but if you’re going to err one way it’s best to err easy. An elegant way to do this is to have a fairly flat difficulty curve – make the player stay about the same power level throughout, and the monsters get more interesting abilities rather than simply getting more xp/damage. Cutting out character progression also makes things easier to code! Less time needed for playtesting too.
5. Get friends to play it and get feedback. The most invaluable thing is to watch someone else play it in person without giving them any advice – seeing their frustrations and delights is both insightful and inspiring.
6. Do a post-7DRL bugfix/polish release. Makes it more likely that your game will be played and appreciated. There’s no shame in admitting you missed out on some things during the frantic 168 hours.
7. Have fun. I love the thrill of the challenge, and the last day always gets my heart racing. It’s also about the only time of year I get pushed into doing some real coding, which is great because my schedule’s normally too busy. Game coding presents a unique blend of problem-solving and creativity that no other past-time can provide. To create something new that others can interact with and enjoy is truly satisfying. Hopefully you’ll have fun playing your game too ;)

I also think it’s nice to throw in references to the number 7 here and these in your game (or even just in odd bits of the code). Note the number of points made here and how they’re split up. But that’s just me ;)

Okay, so it ain’t exactly matching the 700+ votes of ToME4, but 35 votes for Broken Bottle and 9 for Run from the Shadow is extremely gratifying for me. 9% of the games got over 80% of the votes in the poll, so even getting 1% is fantastic. Broken Bottle has been the highest voted 7DRL this year, which is pretty damned great in my books. Thanks a lot to those who voted!

2012 is almost upon us. The votes for Run from the Shadow remind me that I really must polish it up and produce a far better version. With that in mind here are some further ideas in my head for the coming year:
– Port Gruesome and Toby the Trapper to the T-Engine, with updates to both (including massive updates to Gruesome)
– Port Unstoppable to Android (will likely never happen, but it’s a nice thought)
– 7DRL based on sanctity, rage and revenge (come on, March!)
– Make a *Band/DoomRL hybrid called Hobbits with Guns (a much bigger project)
– Make a massive procedural story-based roguelike that’ll blow the world away (I’ll almost certainly never find time for this, but I have some cool ideas that I’d like to play with at least)

I dunno what I’ll actually achieve, but I am itching to make some new stuff next year. I’m still very much a newbie roguelike dev, and I have a lot to learn with the T-Engine especially, but whenever I get the time to code it’s still fun to discover new things. I worry that if I ever get beyond the newbie dev stage I’ll find the whole experience dull…

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for some very very cool interviews and features on Roguelike Radio. 2011 has been a nice beginning for the podcast, and I have high hopes that 2012 will be even better.

Yes, I managed it, though around the 45 minute mark I thought I was seriously going to fail. The game is a simple dungeon crawler – you get your health regenerated upon level change, and must kill/avoid the enemies chasing you. Download the windows version here:

http://www.gruesomegames.com/harrowed-win-1.0.zip

Alternatively Mac and Linux users can download the T-Engine beta 34 and grab the module file for the game here:

http://www.gruesomegames.com/harrowed-mod-1.0.zip

You can find more info about the zero hour game jam here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/10/25/0h-game-jam-make-a-game-in-zero-hours/

Slashie linked me to this post last week:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/10/25/0h-game-jam-make-a-game-in-zero-hours/

And I thought well… that sounds fecking impossible. But it’s stuck in my mind, and watching a documentary about arctic wolves has just given me an inspiration for a simple but potentially interesting game. Not sure if I can do it in an hour, even with the wonderful T-Engine, but I’m damn well gonna try!

One potential problem is that the challenge is set at 3am this Saturday, and I’m supposed to be at a house party that night… Can I make in a game in zero hours whilst pissed? Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out…

Some clever chap has ported my FreePascal games to the Nokia N900. With their relatively low number of keys they should be fairly playable on the small device. Details are here:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=75179

Ido Yehieli is making Cardinal Quest available for free… but just for today. Details are here:

http://twitter.com/#!/tametick/status/120485642504372226

(or if you want a shortcut, visit http://t.co/ipXZGxYK and enter code BXZQ00097)

Cardinal Quest is a commercial indie roguelike by developer Ido Yehieli, with a very unique focus on interface and style. I helped review it on Roguelike Radio a few weeks back, and it’s definitely a game worth playing, so this is a great opportunity for those who haven’t tried it yet.

This is a new game I’ve written in the T-Engine in less than a day and a half. Admittedly I ran a little out of time and didn’t get to add sound effects like I would have wanted to. There’s also a couple of minor features missing. In particular item tooltips don’t work in the inventory, and I never implemented a right-click on player command to streamline the interface.

It’s a very short and simple game, based on themes of guilt and escapism. The gameplay twist is simple – the game boss appears x turns after you’ve been on any level, but early on you don’t have the power to defeat it. The only option is to run! Until you feel powerful enough to face it, of course.

To play you can download the windows standalone version, or download beta 34 of ToME4 and drop the module folder into game/modules/.

Kinda boring screenshot:

http://gruesomegames.com/games/shadow-scn.png

And now for some well-deserved sleep :)

Okay, I really meant to start this months ago, but I’m hopeful I can get a new game made from scratch in the next…. 34 hours. Feck :/ The game shall be called “Run from the Shadow”, and will explore themes of guilt and escapism. Wish me luck!

I was going through a department store and my girlfriend pointed out something which she joked that I should buy. Much to her chagrain I bought it with delight:

Yes, it’s a large wooden @ symbol. Not sure why such a thing was for sale in a department store, but upon seeing it I knew I had to have it. I’m not really one for home decorations (being a bloke and all) but this now has a proud space on my shelf. Next to it is a small toy I saw one time that puts me in mind of a baby grue. Yes, I’m a geek… :)

A guy by the handle of ImpotentLper has done 3 “Let’s Play” style videos of Broken Bottle: 1, 2 and 3. He narrates them with quite a cool throaty American voice (rather fits the main char of the game, I’d say) and he seems to have a number of other interesting videos of roguelikes.

His preferred method of play involves abusing alcohol so he can kill kids. I do find it interesting how easily gamers become hooked on this optimal play style… Everyone has their own addictions, eh? He says he enjoys the story, but I have to wonder if he’s missing out on much of the hallucination texts. He also doesn’t seem to notice that his sight is severely restricted by his headgear later in the game, making life much harder for himself. Anyway, it’s nice to see my game appreciated by others, and very interesting to watch how someone else plays it. Thanks, ImpotentLper!