Annouce: XNA Roguelike (working title) v0.1 release
Paladin_za
(CTP). I have created a new project at http://www.codeplex.com/XNARoguelike.
All new project updates will be uploaded to that URL.
This release contains the following features:
Basic dungeon generation
Dungeon prefabs
Fov using shadow casting
Coloured lighting using shadow casting
A* path finding used in dungeon exploration
and has the following dependencies:
DirectX 9c
.NET 3.5
XNA 3 CTP
The major new feature is the auto-explore option. Press "enter" to
activate/deactivate auto-explore. The player character will begin to
explore the dungeon using the A* algorithm when auto-explore is
active.
Have fun with this new release and, as always, your comments are
appreciated.
You can read more about my development progress at http://dirkkok.wordpress.com
uschkinre...@gmx.de
> I've just finished porting my work in progress Roguelike to XNA 3
> All new project updates will be uploaded to that URL.
>
> This release contains the following features:
>
> Basic dungeon generation
> Dungeon prefabs
> Fov using shadow casting
> Coloured lighting using shadow casting
> A* path finding used in dungeon exploration
>
> and has the following dependencies:
>
> DirectX 9c
> .NET 3.5
> XNA 3 CTP
>
> The major new feature is the auto-explore option. Press "enter" to
> activate/deactivate auto-explore. The player character will begin to
> explore the dungeon using the A* algorithm when auto-explore is
> active.
>
> Have fun with this new release and, as always, your comments are
> appreciated.
>
> You can read more about my development progress athttp://dirkkok.wordpress.com
Would be nice to know if the average roguelike player has xna/.net3.5
installed.
Ido Yehieli
>
> DirectX 9c
> .NET 3.5
> XNA 3 CTP
Do you have a link to the linux version of these libraries? :p
Brog
> I've just finished porting my work in progress Roguelike to XNA 3
> All new project updates will be uploaded to that URL.
>
> This release contains the following features:
>
> Basic dungeon generation
> Dungeon prefabs
> Fov using shadow casting
> Coloured lighting using shadow casting
> A* path finding used in dungeon exploration
>
> and has the following dependencies:
>
> DirectX 9c
> .NET 3.5
> XNA 3 CTP
Yeah, basically what you'll find from this group is a lot of
complaints about not being about to run your game from linux junkies
too lazy to boot/emulate into windows. However, by using these things
you will be able to get the attention of the considerably larger
segment of gamers who use windows and are intimidated by non-graphical
representations. So you can just ignore these complaints - it's
perfectly okay to alienate yourself from the hardcore roguelike
players in order to appeal to more other gamers. You might even get
more people interested to try other roguelikes, not a bad thing at
all!
Brog
Hold on, I take that back. Just looked at the blog and it seems
you're just using tile graphics. Not sure why you need dx9 for that.
I assumed from the dependencies that this was some kind of 3d
graphical semi-roguelike. Unless that's coming later?
uschkinre...@gmx.de
Um; I'm running windows and have dx9.0 installed; but neither .net 3.5
nor xna3; and i'm not a hardcore gamer; i usually play smaller ones
with some multimedia additions like sfx,music and graphics.
Paladin_za
The problem is developing in C# which requires .net, unfortunately (or
fortunately) I use .NET 3.5 in my day job, so I've become used to the
new language features.
C# has terrible console support which ruled out ASCII graphics very
early in the development process.
XNA is microsoft's wrapper around DirectX for .NET.
I tried using SDL.NET, which is a wrapper around SDL, and compiling
for MONO, allowing the code to run on linux. Unfortunately I don't
know much about linux, and the first time I tried to get my code
working on OpenSUSE I failed. Some issues with DevIL (used for image
loading etc.) Therefore, the lack of support (for the open source
libraries) and my knowledge of the linux platform has made it a
difficult target to support.
This gives you some background my the technology choices. I am not
trying to alienate the linux community, but would need some help in
getting my code to render correctly on that platform taking into
account different graphics drivers etc.
Right now I'm concentrating on the gameplay elements, fancy graphics,
rendering and platform support can come later. The code is architected
in such a way that these concerns are sufficiently abstracted from the
gameplay elements.
Thanks for the comments, questions, and concerns.
Krice
> I am not trying to alienate the linux community
You are trying to alienate everyone:) It's always bad
if the game requires something the user must install
and twice as bad if it's something from M$.
Pfhoenix
> if the game requires something the user must install
> and twice as bad if it's something from M$.
You must be so proud on that sub 10% user market slice.
- Pfhoenix
http://adeo.pfhoenix.com
DarkGod
>> You are trying to alienate everyone:) It's always bad
>> if the game requires something the user must install
>> and twice as bad if it's something from M$.
>
> You must be so proud on that sub 10% user market slice.
And a few years ago people said the same thing to people
making websites that worked on all browsers :)
heckr...@yahoo.com
Yeah, M$ is poison when it comes to programming. I understand it's
your background and, you know, YOUR JOB, so I really can't blame you
for the tools you use. But I can certainly blame your tools for being
shoddy.
Although I do hate myself for even marginally agreeing with Krice...
And as for Pfhoenix and his <10% market slice.
1. Only a Windows fanboy would talk about a "market slice"
2. Porting from Linux to Windows is easy as hell now a days. Hell, try
to think of a major Linux app that doesn't get compiled for windows.
Firefox, Gimp, Open Office,
In the development of the GNU, portability was, and is, an important
issue and so the tools developed for it make portability easy.
Portability is also an issue for M$, but the goal was more or less
reverse. They wish to lock-in everyone they can.
But it's your job, so I can't really tell you to try open source, see
the light, all that crap. All I can really do is tell you that the
grass is greener over here.
-HeckRuler
(current job has be working on Posix-compliant firmware, but I still
compile with gcc)
Paladin_za
Wow, you guys are really passionate about this.
I don't think my dependencies are so excessive for windows machines.
Most people who play games have DirectX 9 on their machines. So that
one is solved.
There is a redistributable package for XNA which is 2MB, but its not
available for download yet, considering that it's still in beta. I
could include it in the release package and might do so for the next
version.
So the real complaint is .NET 3.5, but windows XP SP2 comes with .NET
1.1, Vista is released with .NET 3 ( or 2 I think), its just a matter
of time before .NET 3.5 it is released as part of an operating system
update.
And after all is said and done. My purpose for writing a Roguelike
isn't market share, or $$, it's about actually writing a game, having
fun while doing it, and releasing something. (More than I can say for
some people).
Your choice, being the community, is to hate it, love it, don't care
about it, or complain about having to actually install software on
your operating systems.
It would be more consctructive if you were actually making comments
about the fact that the dungeons look boring, suck, are interresting.
The lighting is crap, useless, or pretty. The auto explore function is
weird, pointless or works nicely, etc. etc. etc.
Krice
> It would be more consctructive if you were actually making comments
> about the fact that the dungeons look boring, suck, are interresting.
If we could only play it.
jice
> Wow, you guys are really passionate about this.
>
> I don't think my dependencies are so excessive for windows machines.
>
If your goal is to have fun doing a roguelike, no problem, use your
favorite languague/IDE whatever dependencies it has. But if you choose
something that keep most users from running your game, you won't
probably get significant feedback.
I don't think it's only a Linux/Windows issue. See, I am a Windows
user, I consider myself as a hardcore gamer, I even happen to
have .NET 3.5, but I don't have XNA (like probably 99% of gamers since
most commercial games don't use it yet) and I won't go into a tedious
installation just to test a work-in-progress game. So the only people
that can easily take a look at your game now are C# roguelike
developers who already have XNA and they are far from being in the
majority here...
It may be an issue or not, but it explains the gut reaction here ;)
--
jice
Paul Murray
> I've just finished porting my work in progress Roguelike to XNA 3
> (CTP). I have created a new project at http://www.codeplex.com/XNARoguelike.
> All new project updates will be uploaded to that URL.
If it is XNA based, have you tried compiling for the XBox 360?
uschkinre...@gmx.de
Right.
You are already targetting a minor group of players; but it is getting
much more smaller with your dependencies. I'm playing roguelikes cause
they usually don't require any big dependencies, are mostly able to be
run under a VM, and have mostly small sized downloads, too (beside
from additional music, sfx etc.). Even game launchers like zoopteks
one are evil.
Paladin_za
True. I'll include a download with a MSI installer for all the XNA
stuff (its just 2MB).
Maybe I can add .NET and the DirectX web installer into the MSI.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>I don't think my dependencies are so excessive for windows machines.
>
>Most people who play games have DirectX 9 on their machines. So that
>one is solved.
>There is a redistributable package for XNA which is 2MB, but its not
>available for download yet, considering that it's still in beta. I
>could include it in the release package and might do so for the next
>version.
>So the real complaint is .NET 3.5, but windows XP SP2 comes with .NET
>1.1, Vista is released with .NET 3 ( or 2 I think), its just a matter
>of time before .NET 3.5 it is released as part of an operating system
>update.
For Vista, anyway. Odds of it being a basic XP update? Maybe not so
good. And one I might skip anyway. And I can't even download the XNA if
I wanted to? Or your release bloats to over 2 MB? No thanks.
The entire world does not have free, unlimited high-speed internet. Not
even the entire world that is using Windows.
>>And after all is said and done. My purpose for writing a Roguelike
>isn't market share, or $$, it's about actually writing a game, having
>fun while doing it, and releasing something. (More than I can say for
>some people).
Which is fine. Make the game *you* want to play. But people will make
you aware of why you aren't getting more interest in your game.
Remember, you're competing with a lot of other games for attention and
in the roguelike world, a lot of those have small downloads, minimal
dependencies, and crossplatform support.
>It would be more consctructive if you were actually making comments
>about the fact that the dungeons look boring, suck, are interresting.
Which you won't get from people who never try the game.
--
R. Dan Henry = danh...@inreach.com
If you wish to put anything I post on your website,
please be polite enough to ask first.
Pfhoenix
> >about the fact that the dungeons look boring, suck, are interresting.
>
> Which you won't get from people who never try the game.
By that token, those who will not be trying the game shouldn't be
providing criticism on a game they haven't played. It's one thing to
ask if a linux/mac/whatever port is forthcoming; it's another to go on
an OS tirade because your OS of choice isn't being pandered to.
That being said, being dependent on .NET is precisely why I won't port
from C++ to C# for Adeo. I am interested in people playing Adeo, and
to that extent I limit dependencies, which are Windows and DX9 right
now. I consider those reasonable expectations.
- Pfhoenix
Martin Read
>By that token, those who will not be trying the game shouldn't be
>providing criticism on a game they haven't played. It's one thing to
>ask if a linux/mac/whatever port is forthcoming; it's another to go on
>an OS tirade because your OS of choice isn't being pandered to.
When someone has taken a set of decisions that pretty much guarantees
their game is (completely unnecessarily) confined to the latest releases
of a proprietary commercial operating system - even if that OS is the
"market leader" - letting them know is a good thing. (However, being
polite about it would be a good thing.)
>That being said, being dependent on .NET is precisely why I won't port
>from C++ to C# for Adeo. I am interested in people playing Adeo, and
>to that extent I limit dependencies, which are Windows and DX9 right
>now. I consider those reasonable expectations.
Windows + DX9 is reasonable, though it does mean I won't play your game;
the only time I boot into Windows on my desktop machine is to run one of
my existing collection of commercial games, and I'm pretty sure my
Thinkpad R50e doesn't even *have* DX9.
--
\_\/_/ turbulence is certainty turbulence is friction between you and me
\ / every time we try to impose order we create chaos
\/ -- Killing Joke, "Mathematics of Chaos"
Krice
> That being said, being dependent on .NET is precisely why I won't port
> from C++ to C# for Adeo.
Isn't there a way to convert C# to C++? But then XNA is probably
too much.. I'm developing my programs in VC++ which for some
reason requires .NET in native C++ programs (it can be turned
off from somewhere I guess) so I just re-build with GCC when
releasing.
Pfhoenix
I have never found people needing VS2005/2008 for my builds of Adeo,
which do not use .NET at all. I'd definitely check your build and link
settings.
- Pfhoenix
http://adeo.pfhoenix.com
Perdurabo
>
<snip>
Well, I've love to try it out but....
I went and downloaded .NET 3.5. Irritation factor: meh, but I'm
interested in .NET anyway, so not horribly annoyed. 250 MB though.
Then I went to try and install the XNA 3 CTP which you also said was a
dependency...but it insisted I install Visual Studio 2008 *AS WELL*.
Irritation factor: off the scale.
At this point in time, its more trouble than its worth.
Sorry.
I'm not one for demanding that RLs are compatible with someone's
favourite obscure steam-powered OS, but I think requirements of .NET
3.5 *and* XNA 3 CTP *and* VS 2008 are frankly, taking the piss.
Sort this out (.NET 3.5-dependence alone is *just about* acceptable),
and I'll try your RL.
Until then....I've got a RL to code myself that will run on plain old-
fashioned Win32 without *any* dependencies (and will hopefully someday
work on Linux via Kylix or Lazarus)
Best,
P.