The IDE's wait is over! I'm now back to real coding again. With the new robot hacking system fully designed, this week it was time to actually start building it all.
Last time I shared an initial mockup of the UI layout, which has since changed significantly. It's getting closer to what it'll probably look like, and I noticed it was kinda fun to see how the idea was changing as I played with it, so here it is as a time lapse:
That's still just a mockup--more changes are likely before I piece that bit together. (Also note that as a mockup, the contents themselves will not fully make sense and aren't quite realistic, so don't try to read too much into it :P)
I haven't needed the UI yet since none of the hacks themselves have been implemented, but the system's foundation is getting pretty solid. First up was adding the new mechanics for getting access to robot hacks in the first place. I'll be covering the system and its design in more detail later on, but know that you'll not have access to most hacks unless you do... this first:
You'll also need to collect this new type of hackware!
Still a long way to go before this collection of features is done, but it'll be worth it.
Seeing as I'm retiring the old robot hacking system, may as well share a shot of its spreadsheet calculations that I used to aid in its design some years ago:
This is common in design, to have spreadsheets where you can enter hypothetical values and see how they affect outcomes. I'm by no means a math whiz, but predictions like this make the testing and balance effort go so much more smoothly. Without something like this, grounding the design in too many guesses would be a recipe for wasted dev time!
The new spreadsheet I've already put together has a larger and more complex data set :P. It helped me set all the base values earlier this week--now I "just" have to code all those hacks...
PARSE
Many of you are probably aware that the current robot hacking scheme includes a relatively easy command, PARSE, one that I was initially planning to remove under the new system.
I've decided to keep it, while adjusting and improving it at the same time to make it more useful.
It'll still basically open up an extra page of info about the target, and you'll still do it via Datajack, but it'll be both freely available and you'll be able to do it to almost any bot. So my question to you is whether or not there's anything in particular you might want out of this new PARSE data?
I already have a new mockup complete with some fresh ideas of my own that have convinced me it'll be worth keeping, but thought I'd bring it up to see if there's any other input before I work on that.
Markov
There has been some recent talk of putting Cogmind's lore into a markov chain generator to see what kinds of things could result, and although interested I didn't have any time to play with it myself. Then a couple days ago Raine did just that and shared some results with us. Pretty funny stuff...
It's fun guessing where each piece of this new "lore" originated.
That's some nice tech...
And this sounds like a different game entirely xD
Unfortunately some of the others, including some good ones, can't be shared without clearly spoiling parts of the game :P
Now You Make a Roguelike
Last year on r/RoguelikeDev we held our first annual "Tutorial Tuesday" event, a couple months of weekly assignments for building your own roguelike, along with a primary tutorial to guide complete beginners and also help provide structure for other devs using their own libraries and languages. There were lots of participants and it was a great success.
We're doing it again for 2018!
It starts next week, so if you want to try your hand at roguelike development and need that extra push to help you get started and build momentum, consider joining! It'll take just a day or less of your time each week, and by the end you'll have your own roguelike you can build on :D
Lots of other people will be doing the same steps during the same weeks, so there'll be other devs who can possibly help answer your questions if you have any, and obviously there's the motivation of working on a project alongside a bunch of other people. You can get help on the sub in the upcoming weekly threads, or more immediately via our Roguelikes Discord in the dev channels.
The schedule and more info can be found in the announcement.
If you don't have a preferred language or library, it'd be a good idea to get a head start on the first week by checking out the python tutorials linked last year. We'll be following a different libtcod tutorial this year, but you'll want to know some of the language first.
Note that libtcod is the library I first used when I began creating roguelikes years ago, and it makes things very easy for you, taking care of all the heavy lifting so you can focus on adding all your cool roguelike ideas :D
There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums.