Elderlore

Source: Legend of Angband

I just heard about the Reddit Game Jam. This is a 48 hour period to write a game for a theme that is chosen at the start of the contest. It is sort of like a 2DRL with a lot more rules. In the end they use Reddit votes to determine who has the best game.

You cannot steal images for your game. They want you to make it cross platform. You cannot use any commercial libraries. If you use some personal libraries, you have to supply the source code to everyone.

Your game has to run on minimal hardware. When you are done, you must share all of your source code. That does not mean that you have to open source your code. But you must post it all out there. You get one extra day to package your code. This all sounds like a fun idea. Maybe I can unleash some kind of roguelike on them. It might be tough to get it all done in 48 hours though.

Source: Legend of Angband

I just found out that it is not that hard to learn how to write in Elvish. Now there are many ways to translate English to Elvish. However one easy way is to use a mapping between the English and Elven alphabet. You combine this with some simple rules regarding the placement of vowels. The result is one simple way to do the translation.

Previously I imagined the written Elven language to be complex, like the Klingon language from Star Trek. However this need not be the case. If you want to learn how to write Elvish yourself, go check out Ned Gulley's tutorial on this. You will be glad you did.

Source: Legend of Angband

I finally completed my new game Mazeband. It was completed in about siz days. So I can say that I met the 7DRL challenge.

Download a copy of Mazeband right now.

Make sure to click on "request download ticket". Then click on "download". Sorry I could not put this game on my hosting service. It is currently down at the moment. This was the best free alternative I could find.

Play the game by navigating with the number pad on your keyboard. Get all the gold in the least amount of turns. See how good a score you can achieve (lower scores are better). I hope to have a more exciting game next year. Peace out.

Source: rec.games.roguelike.announce Google Group

Hello all. I have completed my 7DRL entry Mazeband. It ain't much. But
I met my goal of writing code to draw interconnected rooms.
Get the executable from here: [link]
Note that you need to first click on "request download ticket". Then
click "download". My normal hosting service is down, and this is the

Source: Legend of Angband

Now I have my Mazeband game drawing 5 distinct rooms. They never overlap. That was quite an achievement.

You got to make sure a new random room is not in any existing rooms. The trick is that you have to also make sure none of the existing rooms are in the new random room.

We now come to the crux of my project. Time to join the rooms with halls. I only have 1 day left in my 7 day roguelike challenge. Will I make it? I got a can of Mountain Dew. And I have some ideas for the hall drawing algorithm. Wish me luck.

Source: Legend of Angband

I got it so that your character moves around when you press the movement keys. That seemed like good progress. Now it is time for the main part of my game - the maze.

Everything about programming the maze is math. Sure it is just 2D math. But you got to get the details right. I got some rooms being randomly drawn. However they are all clustered in the upper left hand corner of the screen. And they always overlap.

I think I just need to tweak some values being passed into my random number generator. Then I need to code the rules that throw out a random room if it overlaps another. Then I will be off to the races to connect the rooms. Will I be done? No. But I will have achieved my goal - which is the MazeBand.

Source: Legend of Angband

I finally figured out that I needed to use the WriteConsoleOutputCharacter function to get something drawn on the screen. Now I have the power. The rest is mechanics.

So I got a simple startup screen done. And I drew the outline of the maze. Finally I put character symbol on the screen too. I can retrieve keyboard presses. But they just don't do anything yet.

Now for the fun stuff. Time to experiment to figure out how to draw a good maze. That is the main goal of my 7DRL entry this year. I want there to be a bunch of interconnected rooms. The rooms should be random. Let's see if I can get this done by the end of the week.

Source: Legend of Angband

To save time I decided to develop my roguelike entry this year in the C++ programming language. I downloaded Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Normally this software costs around $600, especially since I got the professional version. Luckily I am a student at a community college. Microsoft gives the software for free to poor students like me.

I know Visual Studio can target a "console application". To me that means you get text output on an old DOS box style window. I got an app to come up and display the DOS box. However I can't get the thing to display text where I want it on the screen. I am calling the WriteConsoleOutput function. You would think that would be simple. But the darn thing keeps throwing an error.

The optimal development environment would be one where I could concentrate on the mechanics of the game. I feel like I am wasting time trying to figure out the mundane programming tasks now like just drawing anything on the screen. If this keeps up, I am going to be doomed and fail in producing anything that looks like a game. I need luck. If you know how to do ASCII output with Visual Studio easily, let me know.

Source: Legend of Angband

Last year I entered my first seven day roguelike contest. The problem was that I was just learning the Java programming language. Unfortunately I have not learned much more Java since then.

I still want to enter this year again. However I plan to fall back to using C++. That is the language I am most familiar with. I don't really know much about writing games. That's why this will be an adventure.

Wish me luck. Time to post my intentions on the roguelike development newsgroup. I will keep you posted here.

Source: Legend of Angband

I got the chance to peek at an excerpt from a game development book. This chapter covered the essential game mechanics of successful games. I thought I would rate Angband in terms of the necessary mechanics listed. The categories were points, collecting, feedback, exchanges, and customization.

Well Angband is definitely point driven. You see your score each time you save your game. Angband is also not just a game of collecting gold. It is a game where you must figure out which items to keep, and which to sell. So it goes beyond just simple collections.

There is a turn based feedback system in Angband. You constantly know what the effects are on your health, mana, location, etc. This makes Angband very interactive. You may need to play a multiplayer version of Angband to get into any meaningful exchanges. Otherwise vanilla Angband scores low in this category.

I know Angband has numerous settings that you can customize. I usually play with the same settings applied. However there are many other options available should I want to change them. Angband seems to fare well in all the game mechanic categories. That is probably part of the reason why this is a timeless great game.