Spider Stomper
Posts: 216
Joined: Saturday, 25th December 2010, 20:02
I'm thinking of making a roguelike
I have been torn between a few concepts, and I think I settled on one. I'm going to make a roguelike based loosely on the game Shank. I sort of figure there are just enough weapons to be interesting, and I have ideas for how to implement them. Unlike the Shank games, I figure ammo will be a consumable resource, and you'll have to rely much more on the melee weapons, which will each have unique properties to make them different and interesting. In my basic story, Shank has to climb a radio tower of some number of levels to stop the big baddie at the top from broadcasting some secret of Shank's to the world which would make Shank's life a lot shorter. It needs details, but I thought at least it would make a basic story to get the hero into the game. My plan is for the final game to have shank start with only the shanks, and pick up the weapons in a random order as he progresses.
So, having no clue how to begin this, I read up on some of the 7drl stories, and I have a basic progression mapped out, I think. Each topic would be gone through in order, with me making sure each question is answered to a satisfactory degree. Bear in mind, that while I've been considering this for a while, I literally haven't started or even written one line of code for this project yet.
1) Start basic. Can I get a blank level on screen at the size I want? Can I get a player's "@" to display? Can I get it to move with certain keys? What should the basic controls be?
2) Messages. if the player can move to certain places, can I get a display to show the appropriate message? what events should trigger messages?
3) Other entities. Can I get something in place that would block the player's movement? Can I make it move? Can I make it move with regard to where the player is?
4) Walls. Can I make a level generate with them? Can I make a randomized map with them? Can I make them into boxes for rooms?
5) Stats. Can the player have HP? Can it be displayed? Can the enemies have HP? How can the player know how much the enemy has? Can the player reduce enemy HP, and vice-versa?
6) Weapons. How can they be used to modify how the player deals damage (I have a lot of ideas here)? Can the enemies use them too?
7) Scorekeeping and the Endgame. Which things should I keep track of? How and when should I display these? What happens when the player dies?
8) The Boss. Since this is going to have one, how will I handle it? Is it possible to win? to lose?
I have no idea if I missed anything, but that totally makes the whole project look reasonable. I'm a little intimidated by the scope that would need to go into even making a very basic roguelike simulation where the player can move and hit enemies, let alone do more, but I also think I have the potential to make something really cool from this.
I've been having some trouble with Java that I'm hoping to overcome through this project. As a web developer for almost 10 years now, I'm so used to inline script-style programming (it's NOT scripting), that I'm really having problems getting my brain to think in Object Oriented Programming concepts.
Of course the code won't be efficient, and will probably have many kludges and faults, but I'm genuinely excited to give this a try. So um... any advice? Even if you have no experience with something like this, I'll read what you have to say, and the Tavern will totally be the first place I post drafts as I go.