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ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 15:10
by gofftc
Although I sometimes start the Tiles Version, 95% of my playtime is in ASCII mode, so clear vote for ASCII from me.
In the beginning I played Tiles Version without mouse alot, it helped me to learn and press the right keys.

I personally prefere the bigger Console, and increased width and height in the viewport options.
What do other people think about ASCII vs. Tiles Version?

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 15:33
by tcjsavannah
Once I found DCSS and started playing tiles, I've never gone back to ASCII. I do miss the opportunity of online play, but many times I'm playing offline anyway.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 15:51
by danr
A major limiting factor for me is my laptop keyboard, without a number pad - switching "Num lock" or whatever constantly would be too annoying to play ASCII. So I need the mouse, and ergo the Tiles version.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 16:57
by Danei
danr wrote:A major limiting factor for me is my laptop keyboard, without a number pad - switching "Num lock" or whatever constantly would be too annoying to play ASCII. So I need the mouse, and ergo the Tiles version.


When I played on a laptop, I used H, J, K, L, etc.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 18:13
by danr
I never could get the hang of those, and I also use a Dvorak layout, though I recall seeing an option for a dvorak mapping I think...

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 18:21
by Kroet
I had the same problem because I switched to Neo-Leyout two month ago. Then I recognized that I didn't play crawl anymore because I couldn't move properly :shock: .
So I trained movement for a while and it works quite well now ( if I concentrate on it ;) ).

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 01:14
by MrMisterMonkey
I hate using my mouse, hate graphical tiles, and like online play; I only ever play offline when I need to do wizmode testing or have no internet connection.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 01:33
by Whelk
I play all other roguelikes in ASCII and avoid tiles like the plague. For some reason I really enjoy tiles mode for Dungeon Crawl, though.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 02:18
by xtc
i usually play tiles, as my playing times are sporadic(i know not a great reason). It is just easier for me to switch back and forth between whatever I am doing at work and Crawl when it is tiles. I don't have to sit, think, and catch my place again. Although I suppose if I started playing ascii again, I wouldn't have to switch away from Crawl when someone walks by(heh). They would prob just think I was doing something productive with all of those symbols on my screen.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:57
by evktalo
danr wrote:I never could get the hang of those, and I also use a Dvorak layout, though I recall seeing an option for a dvorak mapping I think...


It'd be great if you could try it out and give a little feedback. One dev (felirx) uses dvorak and we made the mapping during the usability project.

--Eino

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 19:14
by ekolis
whelk wrote:I play all other roguelikes in ASCII and avoid tiles like the plague. For some reason I really enjoy tiles mode for Dungeon Crawl, though.


Gotta agree with you there - must just be the awesomeness of Crawl's tileset (yes, even compared to David Gervais' Angband tiles!), as well as the fact that Crawl doesn't have monsters that sneak up on your at warp speed from 50 grids away, like Angband does!

Well, actually, I used to play Nethack in tiles mode, but not lately, because UnNethack doesn't support tiles, so I got used to ASCII again...

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Friday, 24th December 2010, 01:24
by Whelk
Fancy seeing you here, ekolis.

Yeah, the lack of "warp speed" monsters probably has a lot to do with it. I don't worry so much about having to see enemies halfway across the map in Crawl like I do in the 'bands.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Friday, 24th December 2010, 03:00
by Wolfechu
Fairly new to Crawl, and was a diehard ASCII fan with Nethack for years. Wouldn't have dreamt of using tiles.

Tiles in crawl, however, are actually more helpful than not having them, so I'm hooked. I'm not nearly good enough yet to faff around on online servers, so I'm fine with this.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Friday, 24th December 2010, 03:18
by starless
Having tried the tiles in Angbands, Nethacks etc, I find DCSS's tiles and interface second to none.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Friday, 24th December 2010, 11:58
by joellercoaster
I'm another in the "Played other Roguelikes exclusively in ASCII mode for years, but am seduced by Crawl's nice tileset" camp.

I suspect I'd play better in terminal mode because it's how my brain is used to processing Roguelike data. But they're pretty, and I like them!

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Saturday, 1st January 2011, 03:59
by Twilight
I've almost always played rogue-likes with ASCII (Since most didn't have anything else), but definitely prefer the DCSS tiles. Other than looking nice, they also convey information at a glance that you wouldn't be able to see without cumbersome manual checking in ASCII (Like monster health, etc). However, I use almost entirely keyboard controls with tiles, with only the occasional use of the mouse to look around the mini-map or go to a specific location on the level. Sometimes I use the mouse for picking things up, too, but more often I use the keyboard, and for drinking potions, reading scrolls, etc, using the quaff/read/etc commands just comes naturally (Probably because of my background with other games). Clicking on monsters to fight them or target them seems odd to me, so I suppose I'm a strange hybrid with mostly keyboard controls and tiles display (I use the numpad, if anyone cares...).

No tiles play is what keeps me from playing online. I could do it, but I don't think the potential fun of on-line would outweigh the loss of the tile interface and information for me.

Twilight

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Saturday, 1st January 2011, 08:43
by galehar
Twilight wrote:I suppose I'm a strange hybrid with mostly keyboard controls and tiles display (I use the numpad, if anyone cares...).


I don't think you are a strange hybrid. I play tiles for the same reasons, and I use the keyboard and mouse the same way you do. I guess it's quite common.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:14
by casmith789
Ascii all the way :D

I don't play offline, but if I did, it'd be ascii too.

And let's face it - what's better than a good community crawl ascii game? :)

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 08:52
by Mychaelh
One more 'other roguelikes more in ASCII, but Crawl more in tiles'. Reason for Crawl in tiles are already mentioned. ASCII makes of course the best 'graphics' like in textadventures or reading a book tops every movie. I would like to see the return of a Iso-Tile version for Stone Soup. Or even a first person view mode like there is for IVAN:

Image
Dungeon Crawl Iso tiles

Image
IVAN 3D

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 20:29
by fnwc
Lack of tiles online is the only thing preventing me from playing online.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 20:39
by Jenx
Haven't played that many roguelikes, but form the ones I've played - Nethack I play with Tiles, cos I like it, DCSS play with tiles because I like it even more, Doom RL I played without tiles, since those are apparently still being made (they are being made by the Derek Yu who made Spelunky, and from the mock screenshots I've seen they look awesome).

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 20:50
by Lugh
Crawl's tileset is gorgeous. The only ASCII roguelike that I still play at all is Incursion, and if Julian Mensch ever adopts a good tileset, I'd switch. I don't have a problem with ASCII, I'm just kind of tired of it. Not to mention that the tileset has enabled me to get a few buddies into Crawl, whereas ASCII was a huge barrier of entry, fair or not.

Jenx wrote:Nethack I play with Tiles


I found the tileset that comes with Nethack to be actively ugly, and the only other option I've found, Falcon's/Vulture's Eye has hideous isometric CGI. What do you use?

fnwc wrote:Lack of tiles online is the only thing preventing me from playing online.


Try NetTiles. The only thing stopping me from playing online is that I'm a trunker.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 22:21
by lucy_ferre
Don't use NetTiles. It's buggy and outdated. Besides, it lacks all of the tiles version's features. NetTiles is useful if you're too lazy to memorize monster glyphs. :P

You can play the developmental version of Crawl online on CDO.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 22:27
by GermanJoey
lucy_ferre wrote:Don't use NetTiles. It's buggy and outdated. Besides, it lacks all of the tiles version's features. NetTiles is useful if you're too lazy to memorize monster glyphs. :P

You can play the developmental version of Crawl online on CDO.


Yeah, NetTiles is no good. I tried it a few times and it just drove me crazy. It was cool for watching some of my pals play on CDO, though, during the August tournament.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 6th January 2011, 00:51
by fnwc
I'm wondering if there are plans in the future to somehow support tiles online play, even if it requires a dedicated client (as opposed to telnet).

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Thursday, 6th January 2011, 01:37
by MrMisterMonkey

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Saturday, 8th January 2011, 21:30
by dtsund
I prefer Crawl with tiles, though that doesn't stop me from playing online from time to time.

I play NetHack using the Geoduck tiles, which I quite like.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Sunday, 9th January 2011, 21:41
by evilmike
I prefer tiles, but I also like playing online. Thus, if I'm playing offline I'll use tiles, but otherwise it's ascii.

In the past, I prefered ascii in every case because of crawl's monster list feature (which tiles used to lack). I still think the ascii one is a bit better, but the one in the tiles version is usable enough.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Monday, 10th January 2011, 00:42
by lucy_ferre
I like Crawl's tiles. I played online for a few months and during the tournament, but that was mainly for bragging rights. I'm in no rush to get back online and ruin my current streak. ;)

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Monday, 10th January 2011, 10:18
by xored
Crawl with tiles! It makes it oh so much easier 8-)

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Monday, 10th January 2011, 13:25
by Zicher
ASCII, for two main reasons:

ASCII tends to provoke my fantasy much more then tiles do, although they're very nice to look at. And I'm also too idle to learn monsters' tiles, when I already know their glyphs.

Second reason is, of course, online play. Not only does it allow me to watch other people's games, especially in interesting locations. But it also allows other people to watch my game and comment my play (both in a helpful and snidy manner, when called for).
For one, I have one SpVM all-runer, which I would probably not get without great advice by Casmith789 and Monky during my Pan times (thank you, guys, yet again :) ).
And of course, the bragging is so much easier with the ##crawl channel and their bots :) .

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Monday, 10th January 2011, 19:44
by Grimm
Tiles only because I am a latecomer to roguelikes and cannot be arsed to develop ASCII interpretation skills. I make enough YASD mistakes as it is.

Re: ASCII vs. Tiles

PostPosted: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:21
by szanth
Tiles all the way. I've tried using ASCII before, and I just like the mouse interface too much. Also, pictures are generally clearer as to what's going on than letters.