Partially 3D ASCII RLs yet again

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

I know this is a topic that has been discussed many times before, but I
felt like bringing it up yet again. I was going through old archives of
rgrd and found a topic called "Dungeon space" or something. Truly
inspiring ways of visualizing 3D space partially in ASCII were found
within those messages. One of them I particularly liked:

|.|
+---+ |.| +---+
|...| |.| |...|
|...+---|.|------+...|
|...'...|@|T.....'...|
|...+---|.|------+...|
|...| |.| |...|
+---+ |.| +---+
|.|

This is rather easy to visualize and all the fun bits of 3D space could
be added to roguelikes. See the troll passing underneath the bridge?
Imagine the player leaping upon its back LOTR style and ambushing it.
This method of visualization could really work.

########
########## #......#
#........# #.###+1+
+1+#####.# #.# +2+
#+2+# #.# #.# #.###
#...# #.# #.# #...#
#...#============#...#
#...'....T.......'...#
#...#============#...#
#...# #@# +1+ #...#
##.## #.# +2+ ##.##
#.# #.# |.| +2+
+2+ #.##|.|###+1+
+1+ #...|.|.....#
#.# ####|.|######
#.# +2+
#.#########+1+
#............#
##############

This is my edit of the above dungeon. The +s symbolize a transition from
level to level: a staircase. The numbers in between represent the level.
The Troll is on a level 2 bridge and might just decide to crash down on
the unknowing player above! Imagine a gigantic beast thundering down on
a tiny little human... SPLAT.

One of the first problems I see is visualizing transitions themselves.
How should staircases be shown? And should higher levels have something
to set them off from the lower levels? Maybe:


|.|
/+---+ |.| /+---+
|...| |.| |...|
|...+---|.|------+...|
|...'...|@|T.....'...|
|...+---|.|------+...|
|...| |.| |...|
+---+ |.| +---+
/ / |.| / /

I experimented briefly with ways of filling in that space with special
ANSI characters, but none looked too good.

The second is the toughest. If the player passes under a bridge, how are
they to see under the bridge?


|.|
+---+ |.| +---+
|...| |.| |...|
|...+---|.|------+...|
|...'...|$|......'...|
|...+---|.|------+...|
|...| |.| |...|
+---+ |.| +---+
|.|

(The $ represents where the Player is, but below)

Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?

Any other real disadvantages to this visualization method? I think I
might just use it...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Attempting to emulate 3D environments in ASCII isn't the greatest idea I've
ever heard. I say go for real graphics or work within the constraints of the
medium.

--
Blog:
Shedletsky's Bits: A Random Walk Through Manifold Space
http://www.stanford.edu/~jjshed/blog

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Da-Breegster wrote:
> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?

You could show the current level only and the lower level with
dark grey, but not anything above the player. Maybe in look mode
the player could take a look what is above.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Krice wrote:
> Da-Breegster wrote:
> > Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?
>
> You could show the current level only and the lower level with
> dark grey, but not anything above the player. Maybe in look mode
> the player could take a look what is above.

Actually, I plan to implement something like this. a blnak space
represents no terrain on your level or the level under you: a hole.
using look while adjacent to the hole will allow you to look down it,
with a view of the bottom equal to the width of your sight radius - the
depth that you are looking down to.

Up holes will be different. when there is a hole abov you, you get a
message, and the hole is marked on your map, but I think I might have
trouble with representation between the hole and the terrain your
standing on. maybe have light shining down a hole?

Basically, I have few representation problems left, because nothing
above you is drawn, unless you look up. maybe holes bigger than 3x3
will be dectected and non-border squares are done in dark gray. I like
that idea.

The problem with all this is that my ideas for a game to call my own
are expanding and evolving beyond what I can do with a roguelike. I may
just have to name my project YARL and post it to a graveyard
somewhere, and start over with a real time strategy, although I like
many of the ideas that roguelikes have. simple interface, simple
everytring. keep graphix symbols rather than drawings.
make everything unique. make it so that players can not plan for every
circumstance. stuf like that. so long.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Da-Breegster wrote:
> The second is the toughest. If the player passes under a bridge, how are
> they to see under the bridge?
>
>
> |.|
> +---+ |.| +---+
> |...| |.| |...|
> |...+---|.|------+...|
> |...'...|$|......'...|
> |...+---|.|------+...|
> |...| |.| |...|
> +---+ |.| +---+
> |.|
>
> (The $ represents where the Player is, but below)
>
> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?

Yes it should.


b |.|
b +---+ |.| +---+
b |...| |.| |...|
b |...+---|-|------+...|
b |...'....@.......'...|
b |...+---|-|------+...|
b |...| |.| |...|
b +---+ |.| +---+
b |.|

Hasn't this already been addressed by all the tile based RPGs with
multiple floors and roof popping? C.f. the Ultima series for
references.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At Fri, 02 Sep 2005 17:57:36 GMT,
Da-Breegster wrote:

> The second is the toughest. If the player passes under a bridge, how are
> they to see under the bridge?
>
> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?
>

You might consider the to make it the way the DOOM's maps were done.
As you probably know, DOOM didn't have 'true' 3D maps -- there was
always only one floor and only one ceiling. All the neat look and
effects were achieved by changing the floor's and ceiling's height.

This way you've got no problem with things 'passing under', or with
monsters occupying the same space but on different heights. On the other
hand, you can still take advantage of your height, have stairs and
elevators, etc.

To visualise your maps, you can use a system similar to the one used
to display the DOOM's automap -- you show the edges where the floors
change their height, using colors to show how large is the change and
whether it can be walked on or not. The only improvement I'd suggest
is to also show at which side of the line the floor is higher.

It looks very good in graphical mode, where you can use shading similar
to those used when displaying windows's buttons to show the elevation.
In ASCII mode you also have a broad range of characters you could use.
All of these show a mound (I've been advocating this before):

JvL u v Y U ,_; _
>.< ].[ >.< }.{ D.G ].[ ;.:
7^F n ^ A n `-' "

As you can see diagonals can be pretty hard.

> Any other real disadvantages to this visualization method? I think I
> might just use it...

Prepare for some hard work designing your FOV and pathfinding algorithms.
Displaying parts of the map your character doesn't see but remembers can
be a problem too in some cases.
And of course you'll need to redesign your level map generator, but that's
probably pretty easy.

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
<..> ] 0110110?
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At 2 Sep 2005 12:14:19 -0700,
NIm wrote:
> Krice wrote:
>> Da-Breegster wrote:
> The problem with all this is that my ideas for a game to call my own
> are expanding and evolving beyond what I can do with a roguelike. I may
> just have to name my project YARL and post it to a graveyard
> somewhere, and start over with a real time strategy, although I like
> many of the ideas that roguelikes have. simple interface, simple
> everytring. keep graphix symbols rather than drawings.
> make everything unique. make it so that players can not plan for every
> circumstance. stuf like that. so long.

There's no need to constrain yourself. If you want to add something
unroguelikeish (...) because you think it woul make your game better --
why not?

There's no contest to make a game meeting certain criteria of a roguelike
(at least not at the moment, or I haven't heard of it yet).

You can still call your game a roguelike-inspired game

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(nn) 3 Grin
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 2005-09-02, Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <thesheep@sheep.prv.pl> wrote:
> At Fri, 02 Sep 2005 17:57:36 GMT,
> Da-Breegster wrote:
>
>> The second is the toughest. If the player passes under a bridge, how are
>> they to see under the bridge?
>>
>> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?
>>
>
> You might consider the to make it the way the DOOM's maps were done.
> As you probably know, DOOM didn't have 'true' 3D maps -- there was
> always only one floor and only one ceiling. All the neat look and
> effects were achieved by changing the floor's and ceiling's height.
>
> This way you've got no problem with things 'passing under', or with
> monsters occupying the same space but on different heights. On the other
> hand, you can still take advantage of your height, have stairs and
> elevators, etc.
>
> To visualise your maps, you can use a system similar to the one used
> to display the DOOM's automap -- you show the edges where the floors
> change their height, using colors to show how large is the change and
> whether it can be walked on or not. The only improvement I'd suggest
> is to also show at which side of the line the floor is higher.
>
> It looks very good in graphical mode, where you can use shading similar
> to those used when displaying windows's buttons to show the elevation.
> In ASCII mode you also have a broad range of characters you could use.
> All of these show a mound (I've been advocating this before):
>
> JvL u v Y U ,_; _
> >.< ].[ >.< }.{ D.G ].[ ;.:
> 7^F n ^ A n `-' "
>
> As you can see diagonals can be pretty hard.
>
Visualizing stairs and other transitions is easy, I get it. I'm not sure
I understand about the overlaps, but it'll come to me later.

>> Any other real disadvantages to this visualization method? I think I
>> might just use it...
>
> Prepare for some hard work designing your FOV and pathfinding algorithms.
> Displaying parts of the map your character doesn't see but remembers can
> be a problem too in some cases.
I'm not going to be adding in LOS any time soon. Right now and for a
while, everybody can see everything all the time.
> And of course you'll need to redesign your level map generator, but that's
> probably pretty easy.
>
I don't think I'll be using this technique very often, it's just an
idea. I'll make a few generators with this technique and most without.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 2005-09-02, Shedletsky <mylastname@stanford.edu> wrote:
> Attempting to emulate 3D environments in ASCII isn't the greatest idea I've
> ever heard. I say go for real graphics or work within the constraints of the
> medium.
>

Though I've left my interface bit of the code modular, I'm sticking with
ASCII for a while, though eventually making a sort of FPS view might be
a goal, if I could teach myself how to mess with 3D graphics. One thing
I would be sure of with the 3D rendering if I did it is that it could
work on an older machine smoothly, like mine.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 2005-09-02, Krice <paulkp@mbnet.fi> wrote:
> Da-Breegster wrote:
>> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?
>
> You could show the current level only and the lower level with
> dark grey, but not anything above the player. Maybe in look mode
> the player could take a look what is above.
>

Not a bad idea, but I'd like to be able to visualize everything at once,
somehow. I say look mode shouldn't be necessary to see above.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 2005-09-02, Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski <thesheep@sheep.prv.pl> wrote:
> At 2 Sep 2005 12:14:19 -0700,
> NIm wrote:
>> Krice wrote:
>>> Da-Breegster wrote:
>> The problem with all this is that my ideas for a game to call my own
>> are expanding and evolving beyond what I can do with a roguelike. I may
>> just have to name my project YARL and post it to a graveyard
>> somewhere, and start over with a real time strategy, although I like
>> many of the ideas that roguelikes have. simple interface, simple
>> everytring. keep graphix symbols rather than drawings.
>> make everything unique. make it so that players can not plan for every
>> circumstance. stuf like that. so long.
>
> There's no need to constrain yourself. If you want to add something
> unroguelikeish (...) because you think it woul make your game better --
> why not?
>
> There's no contest to make a game meeting certain criteria of a roguelike
> (at least not at the moment, or I haven't heard of it yet).
>
> You can still call your game a roguelike-inspired game
>

If everybody makes their roguelikes pertain to some standard, they're
going to get dull real quick.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

[snip]
> It looks very good in graphical mode, where you can use shading similar
> to those used when displaying windows's buttons to show the elevation.
> In ASCII mode you also have a broad range of characters you could use.
> All of these show a mound (I've been advocating this before):
>
> JvL u v Y U ,_; _
> >.< ].[ >.< }.{ D.G ].[ ;.:
> 7^F n ^ A n `-' "
>
> As you can see diagonals can be pretty hard.

It would be very tempting to use all those
nicely-tesselating-but-slightly-non-standard Extended-Ascii characters at
this point (refrains from attempting to insert them into post). Are people
reluctant to use them? What about colour?

Personally, I think use of colour, plus characters 177 - 218 could produce a
nice bass-relief-style effect. See 'Paradroid' on the old C64 for an
indication of how it could look.

http://home.hawaii.rr.com/mafioso/games/ss1.jpg

Or something...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

U¿ytkownik "Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski" <thesheep@ sheep.prv.pl>
napisa³ w wiadomo¶ci
news:slrndhh6d1.g9.thesheep@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl...
> You might consider the to make it the way the DOOM's maps were done.
> As you probably know, DOOM didn't have 'true' 3D maps -- there was
> always only one floor and only one ceiling. All the neat look and
> effects were achieved by changing the floor's and ceiling's height.
>
> This way you've got no problem with things 'passing under', or with
> monsters occupying the same space but on different heights. On the
> other
> hand, you can still take advantage of your height, have stairs and
> elevators, etc.

This is how I did it in my RL. All levels have, apart from a standard
char [255][255] map, a height-map, telling just how high above level 0
is the particular square. The effect is, in my opinion, very nice, and
the coding overhead - minimal. And the system can be easily expanded
by introducing multi-levels, levels that are displayed at the same
time but offset by a certain vector (say, on is 6 squares above the
other).
Of course this requires using some sort of 3D visualization.

regards,
Filip

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At Sat, 3 Sep 2005 13:43:28 +0100,
Dene wrote:

> [snip]
>> It looks very good in graphical mode, where you can use shading similar
>> to those used when displaying windows's buttons to show the elevation.
>> In ASCII mode you also have a broad range of characters you could use.
>> All of these show a mound (I've been advocating this before):
>>
>> JvL u v Y U ,_; _
>> >.< ].[ >.< }.{ D.G ].[ ;.:
>> 7^F n ^ A n `-' "
>>
>> As you can see diagonals can be pretty hard.
>
> It would be very tempting to use all those
> nicely-tesselating-but-slightly-non-standard Extended-Ascii characters at
> this point (refrains from attempting to insert them into post).

Right, they would look very much how I originally imagined them:

_| || |_

=| . |=
_ __ _
| || |

if you can see what I mean... It's like the standard way of showing cliffs
and similar things on printed maps.

>Are people
>reluctant to use them?

They are not a part of the ASCII standard and different charsets may lack
them (or have them in different places?). Changing the code page, like the
batch file included in DoomRL ditro did, or just going unicode can help,
offcourse, but there are still problems when playing over ssh or telnet.

>What about colour?

In the solution I propose the colour indicates the slope -- the difference
in height. Probably the best solution is to have colors similar to your
standard floor color indicate small (passable) slopes, while the ones that
'stick out' should probably mean that there's large difference in height
and the tile is unpassable (at least in indicated direction).

Using color to show geometrical properties might be misleading... but
it might look pretty good:

::::::::::::::::
::: ........::::
:::.::::::::8:::
:::.::::::::8:::
:::.::::::::8:::
:::.::::::::8:::
::::888888888:::
::::::::::::::::

Is this a hole or a mound?

> Personally, I think use of colour, plus characters 177 - 218 could produce a
> nice bass-relief-style effect. See 'Paradroid' on the old C64 for an
> indication of how it could look.
>
> http://home.hawaii.rr.com/mafioso/games/ss1.jpg
>
> Or something...
>
>
>
>


--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(--) 3 ..zzZZ
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

[snip]

> ::::::::::::::::
> ::: ........::::
> :::.::::::::8:::
> :::.::::::::8:::
> :::.::::::::8:::
> :::.::::::::8:::
> ::::888888888:::
> ::::::::::::::::
>
> Is this a hole or a mound?
>

Dude... that's *obviously* a mound.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Da-Breegster wrote:
> On 2005-09-02, Krice <paulkp@mbnet.fi> wrote:
> > Da-Breegster wrote:
> >> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?
> >
> > You could show the current level only and the lower level with
> > dark grey, but not anything above the player. Maybe in look mode
> > the player could take a look what is above.
> >
>
> Not a bad idea, but I'd like to be able to visualize everything at once,
> somehow. I say look mode shouldn't be necessary to see above.

it shouldn't, but it kind of is, becauseyou have trouble representing
that balcony above the moonster, without the monsterbeing obscured by
the balcony symbol. unless you want to do multi-symbol tiles, or use
SDL instead of ascii.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At 6 Sep 2005 08:12:56 -0700,
NIm wrote:

>
> Da-Breegster wrote:
>> On 2005-09-02, Krice <paulkp@mbnet.fi> wrote:
>> > Da-Breegster wrote:
>> >> Should that bit of the bridge just 'disappear'?
>> >
>> > You could show the current level only and the lower level with
>> > dark grey, but not anything above the player. Maybe in look mode
>> > the player could take a look what is above.
>> >
>>
>> Not a bad idea, but I'd like to be able to visualize everything at once,
>> somehow. I say look mode shouldn't be necessary to see above.
>
> it shouldn't, but it kind of is, becauseyou have trouble representing
> that balcony above the moonster, without the monsterbeing obscured by
> the balcony symbol. unless you want to do multi-symbol tiles, or use
> SDL instead of ascii.

The orc says "I can see that bastard down there!".
You say "Yikes!".
+--------------------+ +--------------------+
| .... | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
| ...o | |..............@.....|
| ..o. | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
| ..o. | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
| .... | |....................|
+--------------------+ +--------------------+

A little stretched, maybe, but definitely doable. You can also
have a 'one level below' window. I'd add markers for the player
position in all the windows, however.


--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(Uu) 3 Sigh!
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .