Roguelike game ideas

I am planning a roguelike game and I want to see if anybody can help. Here's the basic idea: I think that there should be a game with an enormous, randomly-generated world, complete with towns, NPC's, shops, castles, towers, and of course dungeons. It ought to be similar to ADoM except ALL random, not just the dungeons. Also, the quests and characters should be randomized. The game should include a random name generator, which is used for every character, and even optionally for the main character. Also, multiple players should be able to play in the same game world, similar to a PSW (Persistant State World). The players should be able to mail each other, etc. And the players should be able to build things in the game world such as houses, walls, and the like. The computer controlled characters should also occasionally build structures. There should be guilds as well, which both PC's and NPC's alike can join. The NPC's should have special personalities, once again mostly random. And the game should not nessesarily have one major goal, instead the player could set their own goals or choose a larger quest on which to go.
There ought to be several children in the game, a few of each race, which have little personality. These children should be replaced by player characters when a new one is generated. This way the new characters are blended seamlessly into the game environment. The children should also re-generate when a player is created, to allow for more players to start with the same race. Alternatively, players could enter the game as travellers from an outside world.
The PC's should be able to change their cl*** at any given time, with certain penalties. This way it is more like real life.
Lastly, the player should be able to generate multiple game worlds if he/she desires. The PC's could visit the other worlds or even permanently "move" there.
I am in the *extremely* preliminary stages of designing this roguelike game.
If anybody who has experience with programming roguelikes in C++ and they are interested in helping me, let me know at Gary...@prodigy.net.

"jakub" ja...@mks.com.pl

ROTFL :)))) And now sit down, take a piece of paper, or better a long roll of paper and draw Gant chart for this project :) cheers Jakub
--
"We're just toys in the hands of Xom" www.xenocide.w.pl - SF roguelike in development

"Victor Schnapt_" schn...@yahoo.com

You're probably not aware that your story has been heard many times before.
People who start projects as ambitious as yours (and I haven't seen many more ambitious), rarely, almost never, finish them. Unless you consider yourself in the top half-a-percent of designers/coders, you should probably restrict the scope considerably, and implement a small, extensible subset of what you propose above before moving on to more advanced features. Otherwise, you'll be bogged down long before you finish it.
How great is your development experience? Try computing the project size using function points or some other estimation technique, and see how large it comes out.

The Sheep sh...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl

Dnia Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:46:47 +0200, jakub napisal(a): Hey, don't laugh! We all started this way...
Shortly, he'll see. The only hope is that he won't abandon his project, only make it a little more specific and less ambitious.
Note: Starting with ide `I'll write a roguelike' isn't very good, IMHO.
`I'll write a game' is much better...
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski To bee or not to bee -- this is the question!

"copx" inva...@invalid.com

before.
Yeah this is probably one of the most stereotypical r.g.r.dev 'new game ideas' posts ever. Heard thousands times before and loaded with unnessesary complexity that will just screw the gameplay anyway.
Born dead.
copx

"copx" inva...@invalid.com

before.
Yeah this is probably one of the most stereotypical r.g.r.dev 'new game ideas' posts ever. Heard thousands times before and loaded with unnessessary complexity that will just screw the gameplay anyway.
Born dead.
copx

Pieter Droogendijk g...@binky.homeunix.org

'hey, what if dungeons were generated like this?' or 'I wonder how line of sight is calculated' is a nice starting point as well.
'I'll write a game' would most likely result in an idea that produces same sizzling sound as 'I'll write a game like [insert existing name], but with [insert random, seemingly miraculous feature]'.
--
You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to leave it behind.

"Garold" gary...@prodigy.net

Hey, thanks for the advice. Probably what I'll try to do is start very small and simple but allow for expansion.

ha ...@gmx.de (Xenon)

As others have stated, I would highly recommend that you *start small*. Think about your feature list: one human being would probably need half a century to implement all that just in his spare time.
You mentioned ADOM. I would recommend everyone who hasn't done already to take a look at old versions of this game, like ADOM 0.2: http://www.adom.de/adom/download/dos/adom-020.zip As you will see, there is just _one_ dungeon. Thomas Biskup started small and extended his project later. If this was a good strategy for the creator of one of the most popular roguelikes that exist today, why shouldn't it be for you?
I expect that a "small" game with just one dungeon seems too far away of what you have envisioned. However, keep in mind that your motivation for working on your project is crucial for its success. And having something that is fun to play as quickly as possible will help.
Maybe you believe that with only one dungeon, your game will be just like any other roguelike. If this is true, you basically have just one game idea: size. Which would mean that you seriously have to rethink your project, because then you don't really have any game ideas. "Huge game world" isn't really a feature.
Some numbers: Nethack 3.4.0 (the game with only one dungeon) is at about 150.000 lines of code, not even counting platform specific stuff. ADOM 1.0.0 has 146.000 LOC. A single hobby programmer *might* be able create a game as big as Nethack or ADOM in a couple of years (we know that Thomas Biskup has done so), *if* she is talented, and *if* she constantly works on it and doesn't decide every year or so to throw away all the code and restart from scratch.
A game ten times as big as ADOM: impossible. People don't tell you this because they want you to get frustrated and fail, but because they want you to revise your plans, lower your expectations and succeed. After all, r.g.r.d people occasionally also *play* rls =) And while implementing the "crippled" one-dungeon version of your game, you might come to the conclusion that creating a basic RL engine is much more complicated and time-consuming than you thought it was.
Just my two cents.
-Xenon

bluemethod ...@hotmail.com (Amy Wang)

Here's our token good feature...
...followed with needless complexity that belongs in a true multiplayer game, showing us how much the author wants to play a MUD without actually interacting with people.
In other words, the integrity of this sim world is so important that PCs shouldn't be created out of thin air, but should instead be allocated in a way that wouldn't disrupt the delicate society of the AI-driven world.
Although it's a dubious notion that this is how real life works, we can clearly see the 'realism = better' ***umption.
What's a simulated world to escape reality from without a Planescape feature that gives the random number generator some more exercise?
Is this even a real person, or did I create a Prodigy account to troll the group with?

The Sheep sh...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl

Dnia Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:41:54 +0200, Pieter Droogendijk napisal(a): Good point.
By the way, I just decided to write a `dawn of living dead'--like game. No complexity at all, just flying meat and chainsaws. It's a side-quest from my own roguelike-of-dreams.
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski To bee or not to bee -- this is the question!

Pieter Droogendijk g...@binky.homeunix.org

Sheep, you're my hero from now on.
--
Q: What's the difference between a duck and an elephant?
A: You can't get down off an elephant.

The Sheep sh...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl

Dnia Fri, 13 Jun 2003 14:49:54 +0200, Pieter Droogendijk napisal(a): ??? Oo) Hey, wait 'til there is something to play with. These are still just plans...
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski To bee or not to bee -- this is the question!

aardvark2zyg ...@hotmail.com (The Mysterious Aardvark)

I like the idea of randomly generated plots, they are laziness, but if they could be done well, who'd care a whit for the laziness of the game creator? Playing out something with a plot as rich as [some book with a rich plot] would be great. I think we'd have to wait a few decade for a really good random plot generator, however, and it won't come from a novice C++ programmer.
I like the building. Interesting novelty. If we didn't have "token good features" the roguelike genre would never progress! Think of NetHack-- it's 100% composed of "token good features." The fact that it /is/ composed of "token good features" is its "token good feature!" This is quite true, but I /would/ like to see some more personality in NPCs than is currently the norm. And what's wrong with not wanting to interact with people? As an antisocial teenager, I love the idea of living a life devoid of human contact, just the illusion of it! :) Anyways, who says complexity can't be fun?
When you think about it, we as ordinary people don't really affect the delicate balance of real society. Even though the player in a roguelike is some kind of "superman/hero" type guy, he won't change society much. Society as a whole tends to head in one direction for a long time.
Well, I really don't like the idea of cl***es at all. My "grand roguelike plan" really shouldn't be called "roguelike" because it won't have them. But if you must have them, why not implement this feature? It would be fun, if nothing else. Realism just simply isn't a part of roguelike games, in my opinion (or any game for that matter).
No-one should say their game is realistic, just that it is fun.
Why not?
I wouldn't put it beyond you, madam. ;) I present you the Asbestos Cork Award. Many apologies if I do not have the right to do that.
--
+-----------------------------+ |"Hurrah, I have a .sig file! | |Not really. | +-----------------------------+

R Dan Henry rdanhe...@earthlink.net

On 15 Jun 2003 03:48:29 -0700, in a fit of madness aardvark2zyg...@hotmail.com (The Mysterious Aardvark) declared: Don't be silly. Rogue didn't (doesn't) have cl***es.
--
R. Dan Henry rdanhe...@earthlink.net They can have my ASCII graphics when they pry them from my cold dead (c) and (d) slots.

"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" a...@andrew.cmu.edu

Not even rogues? :)
-Arthur

"Icosahedron" no...@nowhere.com

[snip] Sounds very much like the Sims meets Animal Crossing meets Nethack. To be honest, while the Sims may be a great game, it doesn't gel with the games that this group represents. (I say that, but rest ***ured that EA is working on an expansion that does exactly this ;)) I like the idea of cross pollinization of dungeons and worlds, which is something that Animal Crossing does very well.
Icos

bluemethod ...@hotmail.com (Amy Wang)

Agreed. Randomness is generally necessary in hobbyist games, since replay value is important. What's lacking is developers who know how to use this concept intelligently, instead of depending on it to create their games for them.
What about theme? Should every game be a mish-mash of features?
Besides that, it's not even an original feature. It's Ultima Online.
Progress should come from people using concepts and themes in an intelligent way to create games that have a feeling to them, not random borrowing from the developer's limited sources of attraction.
Complexity for its own sake only adds tedium, not fun. When a feature improves a game's fun factor, it isn't the complexity of it that is appreciated.
Having a drawn-out mechanism for the introduction of the PC should be even less necessary, then. It's an idiotic idea that adds complexity to the game without making it *any* more fun. Even if it was a well-meaning feature (if the theme of the game would be disrupted by having PCs created out of thin air, which we don't see happening in most games) it would immediately be discarded by any developer with half a brain, since the difficulty of implementing it completely outweighs any potential benefit.
Why not? Because it makes the game more difficult to implement. At what point is it 'fun' to change your PC's cl***? What part of the idea post makes us think that a PC would live long enough in this game to care about diversifying its skills? This idea poster wants a 'realistic' game, but isn't able to make that one brave step out of AD&D that would give him a slightly less retarded skill-based system, which would eliminate the need for cl*** switching.
Because it isn't necessary? Because we would hope, with a giant world filled with every imaginable feature, that a single PC wouldn't run out of things to do? Let's face it: the original idea is just an RPGer's munchkin fantasy of having a character that's a level 100 fighter/mage/thief/priest tanking his way through multiple worlds, building castles, raising armies, taking on gods, blah blah blah, all played through his bastardized version of the AD&D rules.

aardvark2zyg ...@hotmail.com (The Mysterious Aardvark)

Perhaps it is similar to Ultima Online (a game I have never played).
Nevertheless, if he can implement this feature well and with some sense of atmosphere, then so be it.
When a feature improves a game's fun factor, it isn't the complexity that is appreciated, no. But that doesn't change the fact that complexity can be fun. Complexity doesn't necessarily mean tedium--if it's well implemented.
This is very true. I wasn't arguing for it, just saying that the hero doesn't need to disrupt the balance of society.
That's why I don't like cl***es. I'm just saying that if he wants to implement this and can do it well, then I have no problem with it.
I'm not arguing for this guy, I'm as sick as AD&D as you are. As stated before, I'm not going to try to prevent him from prevent him from doing this as long as he does it well and the game is fun to play.

To Top

Roguelike game ideas

Back to Game Ideas

Back to Home Page