Some ideas shamelessly stolen from a commercial roguelike
oeb
about it). Recently I have been playing a lot of 'Mystery Dungeon:
Shiren the Wanderer' on the DS. I believe this game makes some great
strides to make this genre more accessible to someone who has no
experience of roguelikes. It's probably easiest if I break this down
into what this game both has in common to your generic roguelike, and
also in what areas it differs.
First of all it has most of the features that people will swear makes a
roguelike;
* Dungeons are Random (They are themed though, for example there will
always be 5 forest levels between the first two towns)
* Perma-death - When you die you loose all stats and all items, although
there are some pretty big differences here, see the section below on
persistence for more details.
* Cursed Items - Some items are cursed, you often can't tell until you
equip it, and uncursed piece of equipment can not be removed and a
cursed item may have unusual effects.
* The identify mini-game (Although there is a smaller range of items so
it is no where near as difficult as most roguelikes you would be
familiar with)
* Really, really, really annoying enemies - For example there are
enemies that can drain stats and levels, rust (-1) your equipment and
steal your items. You can also be paralyzed, sent to sleep, teleported,
slowed etc.
Now where it differs;
* Persistence - Now, from looking around the web this appears to be a
common feature in a lot of these Japanese commercial roguelikes.
Basically, persistence is found mainly in two places in this game.
Firstly there are the warehouses. Most towns in the game will have a
warehouse. If I place my Katana + 3 in a warehouse in Village C I loose
it for the rest of this adventure. However when I subsequently die and
start again from level 1 in town 1, I can proceed to make my way to town
C and pick up the sword from the warehouse (I can only do this once, I
can not pick that sword up from there every game). There are also two
other ways of getting items into a warehouse while not in a town. The
first is a courier; this is an NPC you occasionally meet, who will take
a single item back to the warehouse in the first town for you. I find
that they show up in one or two games out of five. The second method is
a storehouse jar, this appears to be a rare item, as I have not found
one yet and I have spent about 20 hours at the game so far. This is a
limited use item, by dropping an item into it you loose a charge and the
item goes back to the warehouse in Town A.
The second way persistence is used in this game is with the NPCs. This I
believe is a fantastic feature and I really enjoy the way they have
implemented it. For example, in one of my first games I met the
'Traveling Chef', who asked for my help in getting a certain type of
meat for her, which I did. In a later game I came across a struggling
restaurant perched on a cliff, they asked me did I know any chefs.
During an even later game I came across the chef again, and mentioned
the new restaurant, the chef asked me to escort her to that town. When
at the restaurant the fact came up that the owners could not afford a
chef of such renown and I was asked to pay 10,000 chits. I played this
off a bit at a time during future games when I passed through the village.
Now, of course this type of story only works if you build something into
your plot about why you appear safe and well (if inexperienced) every
time you die, but even if you choose to take the more realistic approach
of 'Every character is a different person' persistence like this could
still be possibly used. What if during this game I find an abundance of
copper swords and sell them all to shop-keepers as I pass through the
dungeon. Should that mean that the next time I play a character that
copper weapons appear slightly more frequently in shops? Should they
cost a little less?
What if there is a one off encounter where I rescue a man imprisoned by
Kobolds in DL5? What if when he escapes future characters will stand a
chance of finding the food shop he sets up somewhere between DL2 and DL8?
Would anyone else like to share their thoughts on this?
oeb
Krice
> Would anyone else like to share their thoughts on this?
What were the ideas you stole?
oeb
All that other strange text stuff in the post.
Numeron
> Would anyone else like to share their thoughts on this?
This is a cool way to have static quests in a roguelike without making
the game the same every time. You could have a cycle for each quest
available, for example:
game 1: You rescue a blacksmith from an orc village
game 2: You meet the blacksmith on the road somehwere having more
trouble and need to escourt him
game 3: The blacksmith has set up shop in whatever town you escourted
him to
game 4: The town is raided by orcs, and you need to help defend (but
alas for the blacksmith is captured)
this sequence is repeated every 4 games. You can have other quests
cycles that run on a different amount of games per cycle, and perhaps
lining up certain points can get you special stuff. For example, game
2 of a quest to race another adventurer from town a to town b may
result in him being in the town attacked by orcs during that point in
the above cycle. Him being there prevents the blacksmith from being
captured for one game, and as a result the blacksmith makes you some
unique item on behalf of the townsfolk.
Numeron
I Own The Letter O
wrote:
This could work brilliantly in an 'epic but coffebreak' Roguelike. You
can complete the game in a couple of hours, and each time you complete
it you get one step closer to completing a grander arc that spreads
across multiple characters. If you're not careful and get a bad ending
or do something wrong then it could set you back a couple of games.
i.e. Accidently kill the only priest that knows how to uncurse a
farmstead that could be used to feed an extra regiment of troops that
would in turn defend against the above orcs for a game and the
blacksmith is captured and cannot make the artifact for you! Well in
one game you have to find a child who is thinking about his career and
convince him to become a priest. In the next game you convince him to
stay on his path and keep his faith by performing some act in
accordance with a certain god you wish him to follow, in this case one
that teaches that uncursing spell. Then in the next game he is ready
to help uncurse the crop and blah blah blah the blacksmith is safe and
builds the artefact. This career child could be used for multiple
'savings' of the plot depending upon direction you push him in, and of
course a new one is born each game to help you.
Also perhaps a winning character could then set up stock in a village
and start up a trade based on his skills/class/actions when playing.
This could increase the number of shops/items/services available in
subsequent games (kind of like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles). Some
might even follow you for a little while as a follower, missing his
old glory days of dungeoneering they tag along for one last dive.
oeb
> On 14 May, 00:52, Numeron <irunsofastineedafinonmyh...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> You can complete the game in a couple of hours, and each time you
> complete it you get one step closer to completing a grander arc that
> spreads across multiple characters. If you're not careful and get a
> bad ending or do something wrong then it could set you back a couple
> of games.
>
> i.e. Accidently kill the only priest that knows how to uncurse a
> farmstead that could be used to feed an extra regiment of troops that
> would in turn defend against the above orcs for a game and the
> blacksmith is captured and cannot make the artifact for you! Well in
> one game you have to find a child who is thinking about his career and
> convince him to become a priest. In the next game you convince him to
> stay on his path and keep his faith by performing some act in
> accordance with a certain god you wish him to follow, in this case one
> that teaches that uncursing spell. Then in the next game he is ready
> to help uncurse the crop and blah blah blah the blacksmith is safe and
> builds the artefact.
>
> and start up a trade based on his skills/class/actions when playing.
> This could increase the number of shops/items/services available in
> subsequent games (kind of like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles). Some
> might even follow you for a little while as a follower, missing his
> old glory days of dungeoneering they tag along for one last dive.
This could even go into more details.
Lets say your epic but coffee break game tracked populations (Something
they were talking about doing in DF, dunno is it implemented yet.).
This requires the use of themed levels.
Your dungeon generator has the (rare-ish) possibility of deciding that
this level is a Monster Y (Lets say Orc) themed level. This could be
used to represent the fact that a small tribe of orcs has started to
grasp for the reins.
Your generator creates the level by dumping down a boss room which is
going to have a named orc char, and a bunch of guards, the rest of the
level is then built around this (Why not have themed rooms to represent
things like a mess?). Your monster generator is then highly skewed
towords generating orcs of all types, with perhaps some other related
monsters.
Now, should the player assault this level and kill their leader, several
things could happen to orcs. Maybe they become more infrequent? Maybe a
lesser orc starts apearing (A maimed orc), maybe orcs start having worse
equipment? Now, what if the player does not get that deep? What if he
tries to assault the level and fails?
In this case orcs become stronger, perhaps eventually ending up with the
village being attacked as the orcs leave the dungeon for greener pastures.
Does something like this give the appearance of a 'living world' or does
it just over complicate things?
I Own The Letter O
>
> - Show quoted text -
Or perhaps the orc survivors are maimed/injured in one game. But
survivors where the veterans as the less experienced died of their
wounds, and after healing they are badass and out to get the player
that did them for or one of their associates (the new character).
Perhaps they are looking for somewhere to re-establish themselves for
one game, and you encounter scouting parties and caravans. Or raiders
trying to steal farmlands to feed themselves. Maybe in one of the
subsequent games the Orcs have annoyed another monstrous race by
moving in on their patch and the two go to war affecting various other
things. The game would have to track relationships not only between
the various monstrous races and the character, but also between the
monstrous races. Perhaps normally Orcs and Goblins get on okay as they
are kinda related, but after the Orcs get booted and move in on the
Gobbo's turf Goblins will attack Orcs over attacking the player. The
feeble Goblin could cry "Killz da urk wiz me?" and launch at it hoping
for your assisstance. If the player then moves the Orcs on again
perhaps Goblins will become less hostile for couple of games and
perhaps even trade some bizarre Goblin tech or open up the option of
playing a Goblin character for a couple of games and visit the hooman
shops due to the uneasy (and temporary) alliance, thus allowing you to
do some Goblin specific tasks for the grander arc.
The possibilities are nearly limitless.
oeb
This would do an awful lot towords generating what appears to be a
realistic world. I wonder how difficult it would be to implement
programaticly?
I guess you could generate a registry file during game one, and load
that during subsequent games to get a 'state of the game world'. The
registry class would hold things such as big list of monster types,
detailing agression level, population level, wealth and health. Three
states for each would probably suffice.
A race with a low agression level would be more likely to be generated
as friendly, with possibly some of the other benifits listed above (Such
as being available as a PC, etc). A race with a high agression level
would have a much higher chance of being generated hostile, with a
slightly higher number of named chars appearing (Who would represent
bounty hunters or champions or the like)
Population would affect how often monsters of that type appear obviously
enough, wealth would dictate the quality of their equipment (For example
a poor race may not have as many magic items), and health would allow
for bonus (or penalty) hitpoint modifiers to represent finding strong or
wounded monsters.
This would also allow you to generate random events. For example a
player could hear a rumor apon starting that a goblin caravan was raided
by the orcs recently. This would increse their agression, decrease their
wealth while increasing the orcs wealth.
To follow on from what you mentioned above races could also have an
enemy flag which highlights a race they will attack before attacking the
player.
Realisticly this would not need to be done for all races, only the
intelligent tribe based ones. For example, in most fantasy settings
dragons tend to be solitary creatures, so killing one will not
realisticly effect any other dragon.
I Own The Letter O
>
> - Show quoted text -
And I cannot see ooze's having the intelligence to get annoyed and
send champions/assassins after you just because you walloped to many
of their kind. It would only apply to intelligent and social monsters,
which would cut the list down dramatically and therefore make it
easier to implement. Of course you could have a 'Joke Civilisation'
setting like there are sometimes for joke monsters which would
generate say a kingdom of rats (plague of every level 1 adventurer) or
even a kingdom of Star Spawn of Cthulhu with randomly determined
rather than genetically determined attributes.
Another idea maybe as you play through the games and through
adventuring/trading etc a normally peaceful human/dwarf/generic goody
goody race rises against their neighbours due to jealousy etc ending
in a war between the two countries in one game. For a couple of
following games if you play a character from one side of the war you
are treated with violence/aggression/distrust etc from the other side
until the global relationship between the two settles. This could
interfere with plots involving co-operation between the two kingdom
and you may have to focus on trade/diplomacy to help heal the bad
blood between the two kingdoms rather than dungeon diving and saving
the world. With this even your good actions (trade etc) can spark a
negative consequence that needs you to sort something out before the
greater arc can be completed. Perhaps in the very first play through
the relationships between vital countries are randomised. Then in
later games you repair some relationships and others might fail and
you cannot keep everyone happy at once so you need to decide what you
want in that play-through and work towards that rather than trying to
sort everything in a single game.