7DRL Smart Kobold Complete!
Jeff Lait
Smart Kobold is a Seven Day Roguelike written for the Sixth Annual
Seven Day Roguelike Challenge. Coding on this game ceased 168 hours
after it started.
You are a brave adventurer seeking the gold to repay a few minor
debts you incurred when last in the city. You have reason to believe
that these kobolds hide some of the noble metal in their caves. Gold
is, of course, of no use to such vermin. So by recovering it you are
doing the economy-at-large (and yourself-in-particular) a great
favour.
While you have no ranged weapon or healing potions on hand,
experience has taught you that you should be able to acquire what you
need from the kobolds. You doubt you'll need a melee weapon upgrade -
your sword could kill a kobold five times over with its weakest hit!
Delve into the kobold warrerns seeking gold! These purple dogs sully
the
noble metal by possessing it. This adventure should be a cake-walk -
even the weakest hit by your sword would kill a kobold five times
over.
You can find a copy of Smart Kobold at:
http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold
The feature of Smart Kobold:
* Amulet of True Sight allows you to scout out terrain.
* Ring of Searching speeds trap detection.
* Shout system to draw speech on-map
* Non-cartesian maps (like Jacob's Matrix)
* Multithreaded (like Jacob's Matrix)
* Kobolds in this dungeon are smarter than your average kobold.
--
Jeff Lait
(Smart Kobold: http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold)
Ray
> Delve into the kobold warrerns seeking gold! These purple dogs sully
> the noble metal by possessing it.
Purple?!
Okay, I know they're imaginary creatures, but I'm curious; How did you
decide that they were purple?
Great job, btw; I particularly like the dungeon generation.
I had several places where I sidestepped to avoid line of sight,
and stepped right onto a trap -- which gives me the idea that the
traps were deliberately placed in anticipation of the move. Is
that true, or was it just coincidence?
Bear
Eric Cumberworth
automatically moving diagonal along the wall, for example.
I don't like the sparkle effects, though.
Good game I will continue to play more
Jeff Lait
> Jeff Lait wrote:
> > Delve into the kobold warrerns seeking gold! These purple dogs sully
> > the noble metal by possessing it.
>
> Purple?!
>
> Okay, I know they're imaginary creatures, but I'm curious; How did you
> decide that they were purple?
Real reason: Because purple was underused in my tileset.
Retcon reason:
Description of Kobold Mage:
In Wpark the Wonderful's youth he believed that the kobold species
held great promise. It was only their lack of higher knowledge
that prevented them from being accepted as equals among civilized
nations. He set out on a pilgrimage to teach the kobolds the
wisdom of the world.
While Wpark has refused to ever speak of his experiences, it was
only after then that blue-robed kobold mages began to terrorize
the underworld. Their use of modern magic spells and wearing of
the signature blue wizard robe suggest Wpark may have been at
least partly successful.
Description of Headless:
The origin of these abominations is unknown. Well, it is pretty
clear that some mad wizard was responsible, but WHICH mad wizard
remains in doubt. Rheo the Book Eater certainly wouldn't have had
the foresight to provide them with a crude form of telepathy to
compensate for their lack of eyes. Wpark the Wonderful's
fascination with the colour puce rules him out - he'd have surely
dyed their hide. And Treska of the Seven Alphabets? Her prudish
nature would have ensured there was no second generation of
headlesses to terrorize the world.
> Great job, btw; I particularly like the dungeon generation.
>
> I had several places where I sidestepped to avoid line of sight,
> and stepped right onto a trap -- which gives me the idea that the
> traps were deliberately placed in anticipation of the move. Is
> that true, or was it just coincidence?
Oh, I wish! That is just the RNG creating a false sense of
intelligence.
Jeff Lait
> I really like the way that you handle moving.. appropriately,
> automatically moving diagonal along the wall, for example.
That is a late addition to Jacob's Matrix. I haven't tested, but
Smart Kobold likely even has joystick support.
Wall-sliding I think should be a feature of all roguelikes. As soon
as you have non-straight corridors it is a pain to navigate with the
usual rules of avoidance. Turn on wall sliding and twisty turny
corridors are easy to move through.
> I don't like the sparkle effects, though.
Understood, but I like them :>
> Good game I will continue to play more
Good luck!
Konstantin Stupnik
> I am pleased to announce the release of Smart Kobold!
I won it. With around 46 000 profit.
The game said that it's more than enough to cover my debts :)
The key is ranged weapon.
Once you get one - the rest assured.
Or at least that's what I thought when I cleared cave for the first
time.
And died stupidly on trap...
Next time I after I grabbed loot I was returning very carefully :)
Nice game Jeff!
Kobolds are really smarter than your average kobold.
The Aging Minotaur
> I am pleased to announce the release of Smart Kobold!
A fine and fun game. I love the setting -- kind of a satirical
"Dungeons and Dragons meets Heart of Darkness". The speech bubbles is
a cool touch, as well. A few questions:
How does the health bar work? All I see are some numbers just sitting
there?
(Slightly spoily, perhaps) Can you descend deeper than the first
level? After vanquishing the kobold forces and going genocidal on
their babies, what else is there to do, except leave with my
approximately 4k gold? Judging from a YAVP, where the number was ten
times higher, and the fact that "depth" is indicated on the screen, I
feel like there's something I miss.
A nitpick, for me, is that I find the dungeon slightly vast, seeing as
how most of it will be empty when you breach the gate. Maybe I'm just
stupid to get confused by all that fancy non-euclidean stuff.
What makes the game shine if of course the kobold AI. Similar ideas
applied to a bigger roguelike with as much care for detail would
certainly make for a highly interesting game. In the scope of your
7DRL, there's of course a very narrow tactical universe, so that once
you discover how to trick the kobolds, you can win pretty easily.
All in all, very nicely executed!
As always,
Minotauros
The Aging Minotaur
<spam.minotaur.s...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> How does the health bar work? All I see are some numbers just sitting
> there?
Ah, I finally noticed that the sparks indicate health, getting more
and more brown as you sustain injuries.
As always,
Minotauros
Jeff Lait
<spam.minotaur.s...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 14, 9:28 am, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am pleased to announce the release of Smart Kobold!
>
> A fine and fun game. I love the setting -- kind of a satirical
> "Dungeons and Dragons meets Heart of Darkness". The speech bubbles is
> a cool touch, as well. A few questions:
>
> How does the health bar work? All I see are some numbers just sitting
> there?
As you learned later, each spark is a unit of your health. As the
sparks die, so do you.
> (Slightly spoily, perhaps) Can you descend deeper than the first
> level? After vanquishing the kobold forces and going genocidal on
> their babies, what else is there to do, except leave with my
> approximately 4k gold? Judging from a YAVP, where the number was ten
> times higher, and the fact that "depth" is indicated on the screen, I
> feel like there's something I miss.
I suspect either something wrong with my RNG, or the victory post
added an extra zero by accident.
No, there are no kobolds to kill. You killed them all. You murderer.
> A nitpick, for me, is that I find the dungeon slightly vast, seeing as
> how most of it will be empty when you breach the gate. Maybe I'm just
> stupid to get confused by all that fancy non-euclidean stuff.
Have you tried 'm'editating before you breach the gate? The dungeon
isn't empty to begin with. And it doesn't immediately empty when you
breach the gate - the kobolds go to a lot of work to empty it.
This, actually, is the entire point of the game :> The kobolds don't
cheat and have no advantage over you other than their smarts.
> What makes the game shine if of course the kobold AI. Similar ideas
> applied to a bigger roguelike with as much care for detail would
> certainly make for a highly interesting game. In the scope of your
> 7DRL, there's of course a very narrow tactical universe, so that once
> you discover how to trick the kobolds, you can win pretty easily.
>
> All in all, very nicely executed!
Not nicely enough, as there is apparently a simple trick to out wit
the kobolds! :>
I think the right tweak is to improve their reaction to a player with
ranged weapons. They aren't entirely stupid against ranged weapons,
but not nearly as smart as they are vs melee. I have much hope,
however, that regardless of how infinitely smart I make them, someone
will figure out a simple trick to out with them.
First I need to do more playtesting to figure out these tricks :>
Konstantin Stupnik
> added an extra zero by accident.
No. All zeroes are fine.
I just picked EVERYTHING!
46 000 is the sum from victory screen.
Jeff Lait
wrote:
Okay, something else wrong with my RNG then :>
There is supposed to be only three $ piles, each with 1000-2000 gold
in them, for max theoritical profit of 6000.
Did you find gold outside of the main storage room?
Konstantin Stupnik
> There is supposed to be only three $ piles, each with 1000-2000 gold
> in them, for max theoritical profit of 6000.
>
> Did you find gold outside of the main storage room?
and added to final sum?
Jeff Lait
wrote:
Nope, only the number of gold pieces counts in the end. Kobold bows
and daggers are worthless, and the wands you keep for future
adventuring.
Aging Minotaur
> On Mar 18, 7:49 pm, The Aging Minotaur
> <spam.minotaur.s...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Mar 14, 9:28 am, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> No, there are no kobolds to kill. You killed them all. You murderer.
To be fair, I let the babies live on my first victory. I'm actually a
really nice guy. But the second time around, I figured I would try to
emulate the vile scramble for loot that is emblematic most RLs. Also,
your description of the kobold babies make it hard to resist the urge to
slaughter them, with comments like: "Luckily, you are not a mission of
extermination."
> > A nitpick, for me, is that I find the dungeon slightly vast, seeing as
> > how most of it will be empty when you breach the gate. Maybe I'm just
> > stupid to get confused by all that fancy non-euclidean stuff.
>
> Have you tried 'm'editating before you breach the gate? The dungeon
> isn't empty to begin with. And it doesn't immediately empty when you
> breach the gate - the kobolds go to a lot of work to empty it.
I did once or twice check out the everyday life of kobolds before going
in. However, once the game "starts" -- ie. when you get past the guards
-- the dungeons are emptied so fast that it doesn't really have an
effect on gameplay. All this work of the kobolds remains largely unseen
by the player. Once they start to retreat, even meditation won't allow
you to see what's going on. Maybe you could consider making meditation
"faster" (eg. allowing the astral self to move at double speed), just to
allow players to check out the actual movements of the kobolds as they
draw back?
> > All in all, very nicely executed!
>
> Not nicely enough, as there is apparently a simple trick to out wit
> the kobolds! :>
> [...]
> First I need to do more playtesting to figure out these tricks :>
(Spoiler alert) This is how I get hold of a ranged attack: I taunt a
group of kobolds and run away, making sure they follow with at least a
few archers or mages. I then position myself behind a door (diagonally,
although I don't know if that's necessary) and start meditating. When I
stray just out of sight of @, a kobold will enter the doorway. After I
hack it down, the remaining monsters keep flooding into the doorway, so
that I can kill them one after the other.
> I think the right tweak is to improve their reaction to a player with
> ranged weapons. They aren't entirely stupid against ranged weapons,
> but not nearly as smart as they are vs melee. I have much hope,
> however, that regardless of how infinitely smart I make them, someone
> will figure out a simple trick to out with them.
Quite probably. I think that for an AI like this to work as a roguelike,
you'll need more and more varied content, so that different elements
will combine to yeild unexpected results. A band of kobolds may be no
match in themselves, once you have learned "the trick" to kill them, but
some kobolds and a ghost might be another story entirely, or a kobold
wearing a ring of speed.
Then again, isn't this game intended in part at least to be a proof of
concept? You actually spill the beans in this old message:
http://groups.google.de/group/rec.games.roguelike.development/browse_thread/thread/30726742e3e08905/e806f65c115c1e97?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=lait+%22smart+kobold%22#e806f65c115c1e97 [1]
Interestingly, your point in that message is that a "smart" AI, striving
for perfect play, is less interesting than a "stupid/in-character" AI,
that will preserve resources, charge the player, act as an organic
creature with a personality. But if you starting hypothesis was that
"Smart kobold" would become a dull game because of the AI, you have
disproven your original point, I think. :) And kobolds standing one
square away from you, waiting for you to close in so they'll get the
first hit, just like we players are used to do in RLs, all the while
yelling: "Coward!" -- is not only an interesting tactical situation, but
quite amusing, and certainly in style for a kobold!
As always,
Minotauros
[1] Quote from the message: "I'm tempted to write a 7DRL called Smart
Kobold. Modeled after Brent Ross's proposed AI, the kobolds immediately
flee to the deepest part of the dungeon, taking everything with them,
leaving you to explore empty halls until you starve." In light of this,
the vast, empty dungeon makes sense as part of the "author's message",
but maybe the game would become more intense and challenging if you
added a food clock, or some other counter.
Matt_S
> First I need to do more playtesting to figure out these tricks :>
> --
> Jeff Lait
> (Smart Kobold:http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold)
I'm sure people have found smarter tricks than mine, but my simple
trick made for a relatively trivial "victory" (I went on a reckless
genocide spree after getting the gold and got finished off by some
bakers).
(SPOILER)
Anyways, it starts off with getting the kobolds to chase you into a
bottleneck of this configuration:
#....
#..@.
#k###
Then you step to the right, and the kobold comes out:
#....
#k..@
#.###
Step back towards him, and he takes a shot at you/waits around,
leaving you one space away, and then you close the distance, the
kobold breaks their ranged weapon or stabs you, and then you kill
them. Rinse and repeat, and you should still be alive to raid their
gold.
I don't know whether this really qualifies as exploitable, but if you
get a starting arrangement where the staircase isn't visible to the
kobolds standing guard, then you can separate them and kill them off
without sounding the alarm. I haven't yet managed to get inside since
there's some other kobold waiting to pass the alarm on, but I really
want to attempt a stealth victory. Or at least get some stuff before
they sound the alarm. This is a surprisingly fun game.
Konstantin Stupnik
> On Mar 19, 9:55 am, Konstantin Stupnik <konstantin.stup...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > > There is supposed to be only three $ piles, each with 1000-2000 gold
> > > in them, for max theoritical profit of 6000.
>
> > > Did you find gold outside of the main storage room?
>
> > No. 3 piles. But mb other items are also evaluated
> > and added to final sum?
>
> Nope, only the number of gold pieces counts in the end. Kobold bows
> and daggers are worthless, and the wands you keep for future
> adventuring.
Ok. Mb my eyes deceived me. It was very late after all.
Speaking about los:
http://max.sibinco.ru/skv/screen1.png
I saw that wall around the corner previously for sure!
http://max.sibinco.ru/skv/screen3.png
It's a wall to the left of character!
Darren Grey
> I am pleased to announce the release of Smart Kobold!
.
.
> You can find a copy of Smart Kobold at:http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold
>
> The feature of Smart Kobold:
>
> * Amulet of True Sight allows you to scout out terrain.
> * Ring of Searching speeds trap detection.
> * Shout system to draw speech on-map
> * Non-cartesian maps (like Jacob's Matrix)
> * Multithreaded (like Jacob's Matrix)
> * Kobolds in this dungeon are smarter than your average kobold.
Completed on my third try. I then beat it on my fourth try using only
melee. These kobolds aren't smart enough! :( Very fun little game,
especially with all the messages and taunts and insults. Wasn't big
on the overlapping dungeons - they really didn't seem necessary in
such a small game where the focus wasn't on exploration, and only
served to make getting *out* of the dungeon very annoying. Also meant
a few LOS and map memory bugs (though none game-breaking of course).
Also have an odd bug where my cursor turns into a weird line after
exiting the program from full screen (I seem to remember having the
same trouble with Jacob's Matrix last year).
SPOILERS BELOW:
First couple of deaths were naturally frustrating - charging into the
kobolds obviously did no good. However on my second try I'd had some
luck looping them round a room and splitting off a small group to
kill. So on my third try I lured them towards a room and bashed the
first kobold to poke his head through the door - he happened to leave
an ice wand, and I spammed them all to death with that (including the
widdle babies).
That seemed too easy, so I decided I must beat it without a ranged
attack. On my next try I lured out kobolds in small groups from the
main chamber (was surprised they didn't call all their friends over)
and hid behind a door, beating up any stupid enough to walk in. The
ones that didn't walk blindly through the door (mostly archers) I kept
peeking out on until they were on the right side of the door, where I
knew I could chase them into a dead end. I slowly whittled them down
and stole the gold, but left the babies alive (though I stole one of
their teddies). Took some time and patience to do it this way, but
was more fun overall.
Some suggestions for improvement:
- limited ammo on ranged attacks
- better reaction to ranged attacks (scattering I suppose)
- more hp for the kobolds, less for the player
- bring the archers to the fore more
- don't chase the player so easily, especially if it means splitting
off from the main group
- don't follow through doors after you've seen half your friends go
through and die!
- avoid dead ends better
Anyway, cool game, and a fun challenge. Would be nice to have a
harder version come out.
--
Darren Grey
Darren Grey
> On Mar 14, 1:36 pm, Eric Cumberworth <eric.kay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I really like the way that you handle moving.. appropriately,
> > automatically moving diagonal along the wall, for example.
>
> That is a late addition to Jacob's Matrix. I haven't tested, but
> Smart Kobold likely even has joystick support.
>
> Wall-sliding I think should be a feature of all roguelikes. As soon
> as you have non-straight corridors it is a pain to navigate with the
> usual rules of avoidance. Turn on wall sliding and twisty turny
> corridors are easy to move through.
Hmm, have to say I'm converted, and would like to implement this
myself. What exactly does your code do for the wall-sliding? (I
can't read the code so easily myself)
--
Darren Grey
win
I don't know how he did it, but I did something similar in my game
with shoving the jellies around.
What I did is I looked at all nine nearby squares and assigned them an
an attractiveness (if it was possible to move into them) by adding the
absolute value of( your intended change in X times the change in X
required to move to this square) plus the same for Y. Then I added
one extra to the attractiveness if it that direction was the one you
had asked for in the first place (because otherwise if you chose to
wait in place it would consider all moves equally attractive).
The shoved jelly would then move to the highest ranking available
square, if there was more than one it would choose randomly among
them.
this is probably overkill, what might work better is
dx means change in x
dy mean change in y
if(x+dx,y+dy is blocked)
if(x,y+dy is blocked)
if(x+dx,y is blocked)
too bad;
else
y=y+dy;
else
if(x+dx,y is blocked)
x=x+dx;
else
if(rand()%2)
y=y+dy;
else
x=x+dx;
else
x=x+dx;
y=y+dy;
win
woops, I didn't mean to say absolute value, that part was from a
different calculation.
flend
> I am pleased to announce the release ofSmartKobold!
I finally got round to posting the short review I wrote at the end of
March:
http://ddrogue.livejournal.com/
Good game :) Bloody things move in packs.
Cheers,
-flend
Jeff Lait
> On Mar 14, 8:28 am, Jeff Lait <torespondisfut...@hotmail.com> wrote:> I am pleased to announce the release of Smart Kobold!
>
>
> > The feature of Smart Kobold:
>
> > * Amulet of True Sight allows you to scout out terrain.
> > * Ring of Searching speeds trap detection.
> > * Shout system to draw speech on-map
> > * Non-cartesian maps (like Jacob's Matrix)
> > * Multithreaded (like Jacob's Matrix)
> > * Kobolds in this dungeon are smarter than your average kobold.
>
> Completed on my third try. I then beat it on my fourth try using only
> melee. These kobolds aren't smart enough! :(
Yep, I am paying for my hubris :>
> Very fun little game,
> especially with all the messages and taunts and insults. Wasn't big
> on the overlapping dungeons - they really didn't seem necessary in
> such a small game where the focus wasn't on exploration, and only
> served to make getting *out* of the dungeon very annoying.
A natural side effect of reusing the Jacob's Matrix code. I did enjoy
that when designing the dungeon I could just place rooms willy nilly.
> SPOILERS BELOW:
>
> First couple of deaths were naturally frustrating - charging into the
> kobolds obviously did no good. However on my second try I'd had some
> luck looping them round a room and splitting off a small group to
> kill. So on my third try I lured them towards a room and bashed the
> first kobold to poke his head through the door - he happened to leave
> an ice wand, and I spammed them all to death with that (including the
> widdle babies).
>
> That seemed too easy, so I decided I must beat it without a ranged
> attack. On my next try I lured out kobolds in small groups from the
> main chamber (was surprised they didn't call all their friends over)
> and hid behind a door, beating up any stupid enough to walk in. The
> ones that didn't walk blindly through the door (mostly archers) I kept
> peeking out on until they were on the right side of the door, where I
> knew I could chase them into a dead end. I slowly whittled them down
> and stole the gold, but left the babies alive (though I stole one of
> their teddies). Took some time and patience to do it this way, but
> was more fun overall.
I think this won't be possible now. Your ambush point will gain
kobold corpses, which will warn later kobolds to stay away.
> Some suggestions for improvement:
> - limited ammo on ranged attacks
I want to balance with smarter AI, not with changing the balance.
> - better reaction to ranged attacks (scattering I suppose)
I tried improving this again. The right thing to do is to avoid the 8-
way attack when approaching.
> - more hp for the kobolds, less for the player
Again, not an AI change.
> - bring the archers to the fore more
It was in my original plans for the kobolds to automatically open up
firing corridors for ranged attackers. I think I ended up spending
all my time ensuring they could move down corridors without tripping
over each other instead.
> - don't chase the player so easily, especially if it means splitting
> off from the main group
They now keep to the ambush location, at least until babies are
killed.
> - don't follow through doors after you've seen half your friends go
> through and die!
Dead kobolds now tell tales.
> - avoid dead ends better
>
> Anyway, cool game, and a fun challenge. Would be nice to have a
> harder version come out.
It is out! I'm pretty sure it won't hold you back long.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold)
Jeff Lait
Thank you for the excellent review!
The kobolds exposing themselves is because they don't know where you
are so think it is safe to move to that square. I tried hard to avoid
any cheating on the part of the AI, which I think means it is
impossible to ensure the kobolds never open themselves up for an
attack.
One thing to note is that it isn't a group based AI, in the sense
there is no group controller. Each kobold is acting independently of
the rest, the group behaviour is because the kobolds all are making
similar decisions (since they've trained this scenario before)
Ray
> I think this won't be possible now. Your ambush point will gain
> kobold corpses, which will warn later kobolds to stay away.
Interesting. Is it possible for the player to exploit this
behavior by moving kobold corpses around to herd the survivors
into a dead end?
Bear
The Aging Minotaur
> Is it possible for the player to [move] kobold corpses around
> to herd the survivorsinto a dead end?
>
> Bear
Probably not ...
As always,
Minotauros
Jeff Lait
I did think of that. I then reasoned that the kobolds have excellent
sense of smell so merely dragging the corpses around is unlikely to
confuse them, as they'll know where the fresh bloodstains landed. I
thus removed the ability to pick up the corpses.
(Also, since there is no food clock, if moving corpses was allowed, it
would defeat the entire point of the corpses since someone could
always wait arbitrarily long for the kobold to re-fall to the same
ambush point)
Gerard
In my first run, I killed the two kobolds at the entrance. Then
between the rest running away and my confusion with the non-euclidean
geometry, I eventually died from running over too many traps. The
second time, I did a bit better and managed to kill about 10 before
getting surrounded and killed.
I'm now downloading it to get my revenge!
-Gerard
Jeff Lait
> Hey, I saw your game at E3! Congrats!
Thank you!
I'm sorry I couldn't make it to E3 to show it off in person.
> In my first run, I killed the two kobolds at the entrance. Then
> between the rest running away and my confusion with the non-euclidean
> geometry, I eventually died from running over too many traps. The
> second time, I did a bit better and managed to kill about 10 before
> getting surrounded and killed.
>
> I'm now downloading it to get my revenge!
Good luck!
Of course, my intent is for it not to be possible for you to get your
revenge. Thankfully I failed at my intent.