Ignite

Recent changes:

• Added: Sacred Protection – tier 2 holy spell
• Added: Guardian Spirit – tier 2 holy spell

As you see – almost all holy spells about self-defence or buffing.

• Several new monsters for Arcane dungeons were added.

Recently i was trolled by “hardcore” roguelike players for my non-traditional views on UI that roguelike must have in 21st century.

More and more roguelike developers trying to implement modern UI in their games. Z from RogueTemple proposed interesting poll about user friendly interface in roguelike game. It was about ADOM, but i will post answers about an Ignite – my project.

1. Add beautiful graphics. Done. Look at screenshot section.

2. Combine Eat, Drink, Zap, Read, Use, etc. as a single “use” command. Done.

3. Point-and-click interface. Like Dredmor. You see your inventory as a window, left click to use, drag to pick up/throw/drop/equip. Similar windows for “main menu”, “skills”, “quests”, and so on. No mouse interface, sorry. I`ve checked and keyboard is better for roguelike games.

4. Mechanics should be clear. I want to be able to tell whether +2 St or +2 Dx is better. Mechanics should be clear, but there always should be a place for a decision. + 2 Str or +2 Crit rating, what is best? The decision that will boost YOUR build more.

5. Permadeath should be only an option. People want to win!! It will be the option … later.

6. Rules should be clear. I want to make informed decisions, not die because I did not know something. I will add there – not to die in one turn (Hello, Crawl!): 1st turn – fighting some orcs, 2nd turn – giant appears, throw stone at me, i’m hit for a more HP that i have. I’m dead. There should not be situations like this in permadeath game.

7. Single use for each item. Some things are equipment, some things are melee weapons, some things are missile weapons, some are one-use or multiple-use items. Who does wield a non-weapon or throw a non-missile anyway? It`s cool to ‘w’ield an boots instead from ‘W’earing them. But no one do that in mid or late game parts (where all the fun is).

8. Make the process of character creation easier. One screen when you can choose all of the options. This.

9. Unlockable characters. New players can only play Human Wizards, Archers, or Fighters. Other 197 race/class combinations need unlocking. The amount of decisions you need to make is too intimidating for a new player. Unlocks are in a list to implement. At the begining player have melee, caster and universal character to choose one from.

10. Equipment choices are bad. Make it obvious which armor or weapon is better. And if it is, equip it automatically. Nope. It is a player who must choose a right equipment to his character. Ignite already have color differentiation of equipment (gray < white < green < blue < violet < orange), but advanced player will find that some blue items might be better that violet.

11. Remove the horoscope. Who has time to read 148 lines of manual. The effects of Silvernight/Darknight are negligible, and other sign effects are too random. Horoscope was a lame ADOM feature.

12. Tooltips. Moving mouse over anything should tell you what it is. No mouse, but Ignite have intuitive tooltips.

13. Ability to record macros. Not implemented.

14. There should be no “clean ears” or “wipe face” command, this is clearly a bad design. Two extra keys to remember for almost no reason. No such thing in Ignite.

15. There are three “pick up” commands, three “drop” commands, two “pay” and two “pray” commands. *ONE* SHALL BE ENOUGH! One command should be enought.

16. Too many “display foo” commands! There should be one command (say, @ – display character information), which shows a menu with all the options, if they are really necessary. Ignite right now have 2 such commands.

17. Make movement four directional. People play on laptops nowadays, how are they to move in 8 directions?
18. A way to configure the keyboard layout with an intuitive menu. Nope, Ignite will be 8-directional with ability to ne playable at laptops.

19. A way to configure other options with an intuitive menu. I think a roguelike should be a game in the first place and good game have best parameters as default and does not force player to configure it for a hours to be playable.

20. Sound effects, as an alternative to reading the message log. I need a help there.. maybe my girlfriend with music education can help there? Ehh, i definitely need help with sound effects.

21. Effects of your actions should be visible on the screen so you won’t need to read the log (for example, animated drops of blood when you hit or are hit). Done.

22. Spell screens should show the numbers (damage etc), instead of requiring us to consult the manual. Done.

23. Avoid using numbers. Present them using bars, colors, qualitative descriptions, and so on. Done

24. Add an option to use VI key movement. No, rather add an option to use something natural for movement. Something should be implemented there. Advice needed!

26. Monsters should be accompanied by UI elements which show important information about them, like health bars. Done.

27. Please don’t quite the game after losing, maybe I want to start a new one. Done

28. After the PC dies, show a menu, rather than a sequence of questions (do you want to see your inventory? do you want to see high scores? do you want to create a final log? etc) Done

As you see, Ignite is pretty modern game. Not in a cassual way but very user-friendly.

Still don`t have internet access from home. Waiting for tomorow for a tech service from new ISP.

Many changes in Ignite:

• New way to place leveled, themed dungeons across main map.
• New dungeon layout – Fort.
• Underground water and lava lakes in caverns.
• AI improvements to make monsters get away from lava (if they do not fly or have fie resist)
• New bunch of monsters with a couple interesting abilities
• Ranged combat (player can find bow or sling during his adventures)
• Ranged monsters with own AI
• A lot new items with procedure generated magic effects (ex: increased fury generation, stat increase and many else)
• Several really rare items to find!
• Several ways to identificate magical items
• Cursed items
• New resource system – Fury. Player generate Fury during melee combat and can spend it to various “Rage” abilities. Fury is spontaneously decreases with time.
• No more mana need to use “Rage” abilities.
• A lot more faster skill progression
• Various UI changes.

I have problem with my internet connection at home. And my ISP do not want to fix it. I’m thinking about to switch to another ISP. Before that i can`t post any Ignite updates (fancy screenshots etc) to this blog. Sorry.

But i keep working on it. Yesterday i’ve compleated an Item Editor, created a lot of items and implemented their creation in the game. Right now item can be only looted from monsters. There is a gradation of item quality:

• gray items – simply bad items. You can get them at the start of the game, from trivial (to your level) monsters or when an item gets broken.
• white items – ordinary item with no magic properties
• green items – items with one unusual or magic properties. All of this items are generated randomly.
• blue items – rare items with two unusual or magic properties. Some of this items will be pregenerated.
• violet items – epic quality items with up to three magic properties.  Some of this items will be pregenerated.
• orange items – legendary quality items with up to four magic properties. All items from this category will be pregenerated.

Right now Ignite have several “dungeon” types:

• Ordinary caves and forts – they have full variety of monsters
• Vermin cave
• Insectoid hive
• Kobold cave and outpost
• Haunted castle – castle full of ghosts and wraiths

This dungeons are fully random generated and can be found while exploring the main map. They have various difficulty.

New monsters tile:

Fire and unholy fiend (looks like an alien, but i was trying to draw a kobold )

Some kind of worm