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The NetHack sidescroller production project.

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Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#26: Jul 24th 2010 at 9:31:34 AM

I may as well get this question out of the way. Is this game going to work on more than just Windows? Will it work on Mac OS X or Linux/Unix as well?

A Nethack game had better work on *n*x. >:|

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#27: Jul 24th 2010 at 9:37:07 AM

^I only have windows available at the moment, but a good choice of language might make multiple platforms easier

Ninja'd!

I'm going to think on the style for a while. Anything really detailed would be immensely labor intensive; the "tiles" folder in vulture's claw version of slash'em contains 1,818 files, and that's with many graphics getting reused a lot. A chicken that looks like a giant floating eye?

Some graphics options:

Do any of these sound good?

With that contemplated, How about plot? Should we use the original plot or go with some sort of Fan Sequel?

edited 24th Jul '10 11:18:20 AM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
dmboogie Phones from Snow Country, USA Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Phones
#28: Jul 24th 2010 at 11:05:20 AM

Castlevania and Metal Slug sound good, though Metal Slug is pretty detailed...

"The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."
AttObl227 Problem? from The Metaworld Since: Jun, 2010
Problem?
#29: Jul 24th 2010 at 11:10:45 AM

I would say Metal Slug, Sure, Why Not??

edited 24th Jul '10 11:10:59 AM by AttObl227

Last Defense Line.
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#30: Jul 24th 2010 at 11:24:53 AM

So, Net Hack meets Metal Slug meets Castlevania? That sounds pretty awesome if you ask me.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
delta534 from somwhere Since: Jan, 2001
#31: Jul 24th 2010 at 11:44:08 AM

I do not care about style, I just wanted to know if you were going the ascii route for graphics. Now for the language recs. I would either use c,c++, or python. Python would probably be the best choice for you.

edited 24th Jul '10 11:44:34 AM by delta534

Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
Cable Cable from Neither the US or Canada Since: Jan, 2001
Cable
#33: Jul 24th 2010 at 2:33:23 PM

My $0.02

Go for Metroid/Castlevania type interfaces. I would lean towards Metroid so that it would be easy to make the game modular and easy to update. If you plan to have the game fast paced arcade gameplay then go for Metal Slug for all means, but if it is going to be exploration based then you'll have to work hard for this interface to work. Also avoid another world, I have a feeling that it will be frustrating for all parties to ensure that the game is simple enough to play, but complex like Net Hack.

Anyways, on another note, this gave me an idea, Sidescroller Dwarf Fortress (kinda).

The landscape will be procedurally and realisticly generated like Dwarf Fortess. Except that you would only be able to interact with a certain slice of it. The gameplay would be like a mix between Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. You would control a single dwarf out of a pack of dwarves, where you would mine into the ground/hill.mountain to create a home for a pack of dwarfs. And then you assign jobs for certain dwarfs (i.e. one would make beds for other dwarfs to sleep, another could be a farmer to feed dwarfs, and another be military to fight against monsters and creatures). Your job will be to defend and command dwarfs, and to build the fort intelligently so that it is easy to defend and for other dwarfs to work. There would still be mining for minerals and metals, to both build your fort and to create objects to sell to traders.

Anyways just an idea that I got from this thread. I'm not expecting anybody to act on it.

"...Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" -Wash
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#34: Jul 24th 2010 at 8:42:07 PM

^That could make for a fun flash game if someone went for it.

^^^Since I won't be doing all that much of the programming itself, simplicity of learning is an unessential quality. That said, the ideal traits of the choice language (that I can think of) would:

  • Be something easily compiled for/run on multiple Os' and computer platforms.
  • Be something a lot of people know.
  • Have plenty of support. (An outmoded language could kill the project).
  • Be easy to handle.
  • Be able to sustain a large number of sprites without slowing down on most computers. (We don't all have gaming pcs).

That's it, however anyone is welcome to get writing the game even if they don't meet these "requirements". I'll still be happy to see a demo.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#35: Jul 26th 2010 at 9:39:11 AM

I have made the project page much more viable, and thus is ready for critique.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
Deathonabun Bunny from the bedroom Since: Jan, 2001
Bunny
#36: Jul 26th 2010 at 9:43:01 AM

This project is going to be freaking huge, you know. I wouldn't be surprised if it never gets off the ground.

That being said, I'll help however I can.

One of my few regrets about being born female is the inability to grow a handlebar mustache. -Landstander
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#37: Jul 26th 2010 at 12:24:10 PM

Hmm, this should have been my first question: Where in the internet should I go to recruit as much help as possible?

edited 27th Jul '10 9:00:57 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#38: Jul 27th 2010 at 8:34:35 PM

^Aaaanyone?

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
GlennMagusHarvey Since: Jan, 2001
#39: Jul 27th 2010 at 9:38:08 PM

I was thinking, maybe you should use a Castlevania-like engine, because it takes time to swing a weapon in Castlevania castletroids, and Nethack tends to like little details like that.

But yeah, mainly, you need to decide what are the core aspects of Nethack you want to keep. You can't have all of them.

TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#40: Jul 28th 2010 at 9:47:30 PM

^Amen

Are there any good programing related forums I could go to in order to get a demo of some sort created? That would be helpful.

edited 28th Jul '10 9:47:58 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#41: Jul 28th 2010 at 11:00:30 PM

Well... there are the Gamemaker forums. But I don't know how much help they'd be. Failing that: These were the first two Google results.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
loinbread definitively ambiguous from Melbourne, Australia Since: Mar, 2010
definitively ambiguous
#42: Jul 28th 2010 at 11:06:19 PM

Go to TIG Source, maybe work from Spelunky source code.

TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#43: Jul 30th 2010 at 9:39:53 PM

Tig source sounds good, although spelunky is a negatory; Every single game maker game that I have ever tried to play (except Iji) gave me the "unexpected error" or in other words, it crashes without fail every time without remedy. This is unfortunate considering game maker's potential and all the great games that go with it. That said, even if I make it work, a lot of people would left out. Anyone else have that happen a lot? On all three decent and up to date computers in my house; game maker fails without fail.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
DYRE Since: Apr, 2010
#44: Jul 30th 2010 at 10:30:20 PM

Are there any good programing related forums I could go to in order to get a demo of some sort created? That would be helpful.
It'd be best if you do a significant amount of work on the project yourself before you go looking for help. Nobody wants to work on a project if they don't even know if it'll go anywhere. So do something to show you actually care about the project. Either program a good chunk of the engine or do a bunch of art resources or whatever. You'll probably have to do something to get people interested.

TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#45: Jul 31st 2010 at 7:30:09 PM

Your probably right; I'm going to ask around on tig for advice and figure out what will work best. From there try put some work into producing something, although if I can get anyone to do it for me, I'll do so in a heartbeat.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
mrsaturn Youkai Serious Since: Jan, 2001
Youkai Serious
#46: Aug 2nd 2010 at 9:01:18 PM

Will this game have Real-Time with Pause? You might need it to aim spells/thrown objects.

They assed first. I am only retaliating in an ass way. -The Dead Man's Life
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#47: Aug 4th 2010 at 8:37:22 PM

Wow, I didn't know that trope existed. But yes, that sounds about right; It's kind of unavoidable given the nature of Net Hack. With that in mind, it will have to be very innovative to work. One of the main draws of Net Hack is the fact that once your character dies, they're dead and buried: this means you will likely sit there for a long time to consider the ways to save your character that took weeks to produce.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD
Brickman Gentleman Adventurer! from wherever adventure takes me Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: My own grandpa
Gentleman Adventurer!
#48: Aug 4th 2010 at 10:51:45 PM

I think you're setting yourself up for failure. Not because the project's too ambitious, but because I don't think the goal is as good an idea as you think. Nethack is a game that prides itself on its overcomplexity; any feature they could think of is added in, and it's been modified many times to add even more. Platformers rely on you having something simple to use as an anchor for the rest (though entirely-simple platformers can certainly be successful, they're hardly the only choice, as any metroidvania will prove). It is usually the character itself, limited to two or three attacks and a double jump and/or dash, but it isn't always. Sometimes it's the goal/direction of gameplay—sidescrollers that give the player more than 6 attacks tend to then present a very simple "beat up everything in sight and either keep moving forward or explore everything" goal. Metroidvanias are "explore everything" but with the added bonus that you have the goal of reaching definite, non-gradual advances in your character's abilities that allow you to explore more and traverse the old areas easier (as well as possibly gradual increases in power). Look at Spelunky—the goals are myriad, the threats myriad and the strategies myriad, but the main character has a main attack, limited bombs, limited ropes, the ability to throw stuff, and whatever carried item you're lucky enough to find. Oh, and Goomba Stomp and flip hangs, but still. You've got more varied abilities mapped to one button in Nethack than the Spelunker has in his entire arsenal.

My advice is to A: Limit and cut down on the inventory severely and arbitrarily. I'm talking, like, five or six "usable" slots, and whatever you wear, with a few slots for spare swappable rings and amulets. Offensive wands should be interchangable within two or three "tiers" (fire is on par with ice and lightning, fireball is on par with death and above all those, striking is on the bottom tier), with everything that's not simple or doesn't have an obvious way of differentiating it being discarded; wands of speed and invisibility should have only a few charges, other noncombat wands aren't worth the trouble. Potions should just be reduced to "healing", "extra healing", "speed", "invis", "poison", "paralyze" and maybe "gain level" or soemething similar. Scrolls that don't teleport you or have an effect that's immediately useful or harmful in combat should be done away with, and all scrolls should have only temporary effects (enchantment scrolls need exaggerated effects to compensate). Rings and amulets whose effect wouldn't come up in combat can be done away with, and possibly all bad jewelry too for simplicity (since curses require ways to lift curses). Armor should all be +0 and just be a tradeoff of speed+spells vs defense, except the boots/gloves/helmets with magical effects. Food should not exist. You get the picture.

Basically by doing this you simplify the main character a lot, which you need to do if this is real time. You should not have 15 things you can use when faced with a hostile situation. You should have 5, and they should be the 5 you chose to keep with you last time you found a spare, and as many of them as possible should be somewhat interchangable but more/less useful against special enemies (such as those with weaknesses/resistances. You can then compensate by going absolutely wild with the enemies.

One other suggestion is that there should be a simple, free way of moving vertically that's no less convenient than moving horizontally (aka walking), without limiting yourself to ladders and stairs. Especially with random generation you're simply not going to have an interesting dungeon if you rely on ladders and stairs. My suggestion is the Megaman X style walljump, whether it fits in Nethack or not. Also, don't be afraid to recreate every recognizable special level and have the stretches of random dungeon between them be not much longer (if not shorter).

Oh, and it probably is too ambitious too, but everybody's too ambitious and juuuust enough of them pull it off, and the successes are worth enough, that I won't try to talk you out of it. Still, it's probably a bad idea to do this as your "first" project. You should at least program something simpler in whatever language you use first which you have no intention of using in any part of this project.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)
Cable Cable from Neither the US or Canada Since: Jan, 2001
Cable
#49: Aug 4th 2010 at 11:13:13 PM

^ I'll just add my opinion onto yours.

Start with something simple.

Like a type of Castlevania Clone with about 30 monsters and procedurally generated levels (or choose from a random selection of levels).

Then add onto it.

Like a Castlevania clone and 35 monsters and procedually generated levels, and an inventory, and procedurally generated levels.

And then keep adding to it.

i.e. Update 30 A metroidvania type game with over 60 monsters, 20 weapons (with gun, sword, and wand types), abiltiy to carve your name onto walls and statues, a diablo-esque inventory, and procedurally generated levels that encourage exploration, and a plot to eventually kill the great dragon of Akimboland.

and keep updating it like Dwarf Fortress, and if you keep updating things one at a time, it will be much easier to be able to keep balance and keep gameplay fun.

Just try to keep the game playable in each installment, and keep coding in mind to allow you to include more features in further updates. A good example of what can happen if you forget this is Slaves to Armok: God of Blood (i.e. prequel to Dwarf Fortress), as Toady had to abandon the project due to the Code being too difficult to add more advanced features. The best bet is to perfect the foundation and slowly adding more complex features as you go on.

"...Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" -Wash
TheMightyAnonym PARTY HARD!!!! from Pony Chan Since: Jan, 2010
PARTY HARD!!!!
#50: Aug 5th 2010 at 9:14:26 AM

^That will definitely be the way I go about this; especially since this will require more than one person to realize.

^^I understand where you are going and that has been my main area of interest thus far:

  • For the battles, instead of taking out countless hordes, you would take out more boss like enemies.
  • The gradual improving that separates it from the normal Metroid Vania will serve to be more unique; although you won't need to get speed boots and the jump spell, these will just make it easier (of course the plot important items such as the amulet of yendor will still be required).
  • Non immediate items could still work, given the ingenuity. As Net Hack is mostly about preparing for battle, taking the time to enchant armor, identify stuff, and equip goodies. The only thing I can presently think of as troubling at the moment would be the necessity to handle equipping, eating, switching weapons, and the like in such way to make it more convenient... but not removed.
  • And the controls will be unusual so I'll list all the things Net Hack allows in order figure this out:
    • All projectile things(wands, spells, arrows) will be mapped to one key that will operate on an eight way setup similar to the way Samus fires her weapon in Super Metroid and the like.
    • Short cut keys that do stuff like "wear armor" will be removed and handled by the "Real-Time with Pause" system, greatly simplified, of course.
    • The time it takes to equip things and some-such might be handled by a displayed timer or something and the changes won't take effect until it finishes.
    • Applyable things such as whistle, wands, and unicorn horns might simply be mapped to number keys, although the Real-Time with Pause might handle it.
    • Apart from those would be the actual movement and attack keys:
      • Kick
        • Hold down + attack.
      • Throw weapon.
      • Fire.
      • Zap, use spell.
      • Dash.
        • Double tap.
      • Jump.
        • Simply push up.
      • A macro key.
        • If there is any thing that bugs the player, this could help.
      • Examine.
        • Would bring up a menu for interaction.
      • Aim
        • Target an enemy or or object for ranged weapons/spells.
      • Attack.
        • Handled similarly to a fighting game, possibly.
      • And various other acrobatics just for the heck of it.

edited 5th Aug '10 4:19:05 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

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