JS roguelike game: The Royal Wedding | Hacker News Reader

JS roguelike game: The Royal Wedding

ondras.zarovi.cz

283 pointsondras73 comments

I found the dynamic lighting effects quite impressive, and I like the use of proportional text for the story rather than more monospace.

Habits from other roguelikes make me keep looking for an inventory and the ability to move diagonally, but neither one actually seems necessary, just unexpectedly missing for a roguelike.

Edit: "Achievements: 0 gold found 1 secret gold stashes found". So, I found one secret gold stash but it had no gold in it?

I believe you were mugged. By the mugger! He was wandering around outside the castle with the dog. I found 3 gold spots, but interacted with the mugger twice and finished with 1 gold, so I'm betting I got pick pocketed or something.

Just checking now, vi keys work for diagonals.

Also the diagonal numpad keys.

The dynamic legend and narrative bar are really great additions to roguelikes. Did you have inspiration for these things? I don't know that I've seen either of them done before.

Brogue has a dynamic legend. I've not seen a narrative like that, though.

Brogue has a dynamic legend for monsters and items. I've never seen one done so well for terrain. This game does a nice job of combining all useful information I need in one tiny spot. Well done!

Aaaand... idea stolen! ;)

Ah, I don't remember it from Brogue but it has been a while since I played it.

Thank you for mentioning Brogue, from a couple of levels I went through I found it very approachable (both in UI and gameplay) yet not shallow.

The dynamic legend I have not seen before, but this game must be based loosely off of nethack (which includes a narrative).

That was great! I'm particularly impressed with the smooth learning curve, especially the dynamic legend.

I sometimes didn't notice when a new narrative appeared. I would just glance over once in a while to see if something new had happened. Maybe bring more attention to that, like having it blink once instead of fade in? Sure it doesn't look as nice, but you want the player to focus there.

I agree; the narrative should bring more attention to itself. Not sure about the proper UI/UX way to do that, though...

Having the text in different colors would be enough. Maybe just a different "brightness" of that golden color

Anyone who feels inspired by this should enter the Seven-Day Roguelike Challenge! It starts this weekend! http://7drl.org/

Seconded! The library used in this game (rot.js) is the perfect platform for a 7DRL game as well. I've been using it quite extensively (via coffeescript) and it handles a lot of the hard stuff (FOV, lighting) very well, which frees one up to work on more interesting things: setting, gameplay, etc.

nice. as someone unfamiliar with rougelike games I liked the walk you through it on the side and map legend on the bottom. In javascript too. I like the reference to the toolkit on the homepage.

> I like the reference to the toolkit on the homepage.

Oh. That's a problem. The only thing I can think of that might be more of a productivity drain than playing a roguelike is writing one. Goodbye sweet, sweet sunlight...

I just started playing Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup the other day for the first time (I've played Nethack and Angband for years though), so I'm in a Rogue sort of mood. Thanks! This is wonderful.

Tome 4 (http://te4.org )is a really polished, modern take on roguelikes. It's also based on a pretty modular, GPL3 licensed engine, in case you ever feel like making your own.

Yeah, I played that quite a bit a few years back. Unfortunately at the time quite a bit of some of the runecaster class was broken, but it was still quite fun.

That was all before the current engine, which I have to say looks pretty awesome from videos and screenshots. I'll have to try playing it again.

If you're talking about the old Middle Earth one (tome2), then it's a very different game in many respects. A lot more changed besides the graphics, but it's turned into a pretty polished game that encapsulates many of the best parts of *band roguelikes.

I've been playing a ton of Brogue lately. The dynamic lighting in this is similar to what Brogue has. Brogue is by far the prettiest ASCII game I've ever played.

Brogue's gameplay also is extremely well-rounded.

Given the selection of characters that represent walls, corpses etc. I'm guessing that this game is influenced by Adom. The narrative system is pretty well done, and the font is awesome by the way :-)

Edit: The author has built other games as well http://ondras.zarovi.cz/

Great game! Too bad it bugged on me at some point; after getting out of the dungeon I can't move anymore...

Sorry to hear that! Can you post the output of your browser's JS console?

Mine froze when I entered the castle garden looking for the bride. :(

Using Opera 12.14, exception traceback: http://pastebin.com/DJXrkae5

Thanks for the traceback! Will try to investigate.

Oh, sorry, I reloaded the page and played the game again to the end this time :) Thank you for the fun!

Same thing happened to me, and I reloaded before I read this post...I'm starting over now and I'll post the output if it happens again. Loving it so far!

same here, maybe this might help out debugging Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property '36,20' of undefined on line 272 of level.js

It looks very nice, and I'm pretty impressed with the effects.

I do have to admit though that personally I just don't 'get' rougelikes, maybe I'm just too young, but they just don't really interest me.

Normal game: You pick up an unknown potion. Do you drink it? You save the game and drink the potion. The potion kills you. You reload the game, dont drink the potion, and move on to the next level.

Roguelike: You pick up the potion. Do you drink it? Hmmm...too risky, it could kill you. You decide to visit a wizard who can identify it for you. Oh no! A monster. You fight! The monster is strong...You're down to 1 health..the potion is your last chance...AHHHHGH OMG IT WAS POISON. <or> OMG ITS A HEALTH POTION I LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY!

People play roguelikes because the specter of permanent death (no save games* ) creates tension and suspense you rarely see in other games. This tension has a dramatic influence on gameplay choices and the emotional response elicited by those choices.

If, however, it's the oldskool text graphics and complex control schemes that you dont 'get', you'd be forgiven for thinking that 'ascii graphics = roguelike'. This is not the case, its just that the many famous roguelikes are dungeon crawlers with this graphical style. And yes, the controls are complex and the learning curves are steep. They are not for everybody. ADOM is my favourite roguelike dungeon crawler.

The best (IMHO) recent roguelike is FTL: Faster Than Light. Its a spaceship combat/strategy game designed to be played so a session lasts about 30-90 minutes. The graphics are nice and the gameplay is simple to understand but difficult to master. Its brilliant.

FTL: http://www.ftlgame.com/

ADOM: http://www.ancardia.com/download.html

*Generally you can have one save game. So you can save and quit but then have to resume that same game.

Permadeath only really works for games that don't have an explicit narrative. It's no fun to die and then have to sit through the same conversations and plot twists all over again. Roguelikes tend to be complex and random enough to allow the player to experience something entirely new each time they play. There's still an overall story, but every telling of it is unique.

I agree, and I think you've touched upon a critical point.

One thing you'll notice about roguelike forums is the number of 'storytelling' threads where a player recounts their adventure. The lack of explicit narrative is more than compensated by user generated narrative.

Much like emergent gameplay (ie Minecraft), good roguelikes create emergent narrative. The narrative is worth sharing because of the surprising random encounters and do-or-die decisions.

I suspect this partly explains why most roguelikes have such simple graphics. A friend remarked that FTL was 'good for the imagination'. Basic graphics leave much to the imagination which enriches the internal narrative of the gamer.

That said, I dont think AAA graphics exclude a roguelike experience, and are in fact a barrier of entry for some younger gamers.

I think it would be reasonable to have a Rogue-like with a narrative if the death of your character did not mean the death of the world. Maybe dying would mean that you had a new character in the same world. Omikron: The Nomad Soul had a similar mechanic (although it was non-random).

[edit] Shiren the Wanderer also has a notion of progress that is saved even though your character will die.

In Planescape Torment, your character wakes up after dying. In most situations in the game, dying has little consequences, you just wake up a little while later.

Yes, this is the opposite of permadeath.

Thats a cool idea. Havent played either of those games but will check them out.

I've thought about it some more, and I think the main issue is that most rougelikes I've seen are in the fantasy genre, but dungeons / castles / magic / etc don't really interest me at all. As such I've never really got into them to see what they can offer. I never knew that there was the randomness or permadeath - they are both pretty nice game mechanics.

I'm perfectly happy with the graphics, I've played Dwarf Fortress (in fortress mode - I think the city building overcomes my lack of desire for fantasy) and use Vim all day at work :)

Thanks for your explanation, and yeah I'll think I'll give FTL a go!

Be careful, FTL is very addictive :)

Incidentally FTL was funded (at least partially) by a Kickstarter they did in early 2012. It ended up being one of the biggest PC games of 2012.

They are a bit tricky to get. And OP's game probably doesn't quite have the hook that will make you get them. As far as I can see, the draw is that the games are ruthless and kill you over and over again, but they are also ever so slightly different, and always hint at the chance to crack a bit more of the game on the next play, when you have both learned more about the game's tricks and get a new roll of the procedural generation dice. And, if they're done well, they don't waste your time. There should be something that even a veteran player won't just sleepwalk through right through the door.

Just curious, is it the kinds of visuals, or...?

Holy shit that was impressive. I clicked just for fun and got sucked in for a full 20 mins. Glad it ended where it did!

Fantastic! Finally my 16 core Xeon dev laptop with 32 gb's of RAM is finally doing some useful computing.

Great fun, a nice short diversion! Why did she do it! Such a senseless waste :-)

Achievements:

1 gold found 1 secret gold stashes found 4 precious gems found 27 enemies killed 2899 turns played

p.s. for anyone looking for a great Rogue like game for mobile checkout "Legends of Yore". I have wastedH^H^H^H^H^H whiled away a lot of time with this gem.

http://www.legendsofyore.com/

Nice. I hope the next feature is to use localstorage to save your current state so that when you return it picks up where you left off.

They lighting effects make every move a visual treat.

I'm wondering how much of it was randomly generated? Does story ending have a random outcome?

Wow, very nice. I kept looking for an inventory too, but I like that it was kind of stripped to its essentials.

Brilliantly done! Nice lighting effect.

That was fantastic! As others mentioned, really enjoyed the dynamic lighting and key. Great touches.

Incredibly well done. I love it.

What's next Dwarf Fortress?

That would be so awesome. :D

Certainly a bit easier than dungeon crawl or adom.

Dungeon font at second screen appears too small.

awesome game!

but is it just me, or is it impossible to defeat the murderer? played it 3 times and i get killed everytime by the murderer.

what did i miss?

Pick up the plate armor, he'll barely score any damage on you. It looks like `[` and is in the dungeon somewhere (in addition to chain mail, which looks like `[` as well).

I had the plate armor and I suspect there was a bug with the axe (or perhaps a feature where one of the weapons does nothing), he didn't do much damage to me but I just had 100% miss rate. Second playthrough used the sword and dispatched him easily.

thanks! funnily had it both times and got killed with good health. anyway now it worked.

totally worth the time this game :)

Use the sword. The axe seems to fail to hit a lot of times. The sword on the other hand seems to be far more imbalanced for gameplay.

Huh?

My game ended because the princess (or was it queen?) drowned herself. Does this game have multiple endings? Nice!

so i dropped my weapon to pick a flower and then i went into the dungeon unarmed... great

There is a weapon in the dungeon! Just have to find it.

There is sometimes another weapon in the dungeon. Hence, the rougelike nature.

I just kept wielding the flower. I killed with love.

Step back over the weapon to pick it up again.

Can't find the murderer. :(

You have to go into the dungeon (> just below the chapel)

You my friend, is crazy! :)

Gardener killed me. :(

Excellent!

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