
JS roguelike game: The Royal Wedding - ondras
http://ondras.zarovi.cz/games/trw/
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JoshTriplett
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?

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gmkoliver
Just checking now, vi keys work for diagonals.

~~~
ondras
Also the diagonal numpad keys.

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mrcharles
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.

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

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robocaptain
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! ;)

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bajsejohannes
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.

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

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

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jes5199
Anyone who feels inspired by this should enter the Seven-Day Roguelike
Challenge! It starts this weekend! <http://7drl.org/>

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robocaptain
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.

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acomjean
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.

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kbenson
> 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...

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kbenson
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.

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ricree
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.

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kbenson
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.

~~~
ricree
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.

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RobotCaleb
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.

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p0nce
Brogue's gameplay also is extremely well-rounded.

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antonios
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/>

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

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

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

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

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ondras
Thanks for the traceback! Will try to investigate.

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lucaspiller
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.

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AlexDanger
_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.

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rcfox
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.

~~~
AlexDanger
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.

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failrate
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.

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mercurial
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.

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rcfox
Yes, this is the opposite of permadeath.

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jasonshen
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!

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3327
Fantastic! Finally my 16 core Xeon dev laptop with 32 gb's of RAM is finally
doing some useful computing.

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zizee
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

~~~
zizee
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/>

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biot
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.

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smickie
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?

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

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aroberge
Brilliantly done! Nice lighting effect.

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acoleman616
That was fantastic! As others mentioned, really enjoyed the dynamic lighting
and key. Great touches.

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frsandstone
Incredibly well done. I love it.

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EastCoastLA
What's next Dwarf Fortress?

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Draiken
That would be so awesome. :D

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SeppoErviala
Certainly a bit easier than dungeon crawl or adom.

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lindsey-lohan
Dungeon font at second screen appears too small.

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sirwitti
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?

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killahpriest
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).

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esrauch
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.

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

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

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

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

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hakaaaaak
Can't find the murderer. :(

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

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sideproject
You my friend, is crazy! :)

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khromov
Gardener killed me. :(

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wink
Excellent!

