I Made A Dungeon!

by Hedgemistress
Rogue-like action! Child-like graphics!
ID:1825746
 
One reason I haven't done much with special encounter objects like altars and coffins and haven't implemented things like treasure chests at all is I didn't have a good paradigm for interacting with them. BYOND's standard verb model is actually pretty good for context-specific interactions, which is what I would be going for... but it doesn't work in a pixel-movement game.

The same problem is the reason why trap interaction for thieves has been limited to an automatic temporary disarm of nearby traps when they successfully save versus them, and an all-or-nothing attempt to detect traps when they enter a room.

This morning I've been testing a new interaction model where left-clicking on an object looks at it, which has the effect of putting a blinking square around it and giving you an infobox on it. The infobox is a grid control that displays the object, its descriptive output (which is its desc var plus some context-specific info, like whether a trap is disarmed or not), and available actions. The list of actions is updated as you or the subject move, so that actions that are range dependent can be added or removed.

Since traps are the most dynamic object in the dungeon, I've been using them to model this. Here's a screen shot of a thief interacting with traps:



The ones on the left side of the screen have all been disarmed. I think I am going to replace their icon with the regular spike holes with a plug in them, though, as my attempt to make mangled metal looks more menacing than the regular spikes.

The ones on the bottom screen have been detected by the thief. Notice that they're very faded out. They are still invisible to everyone else, except for others who may have detected them. The ones on the right, the translucent ones are only revealed because the thief is standing on them, but managed to stop them from triggering. That's a relic of the previous system, and I think I'm going to ditch it in favor of those who avoid traps getting the image, the same as if they detected traps successfully. The solidly visible holes are traps the thief both detected and then revealed. Anybody who walked into the room would see them.

The spikes that are actually deployed are what they look like when triggered. The thief has just failed to disarm the trap, which results in the trap going off. A failed disarm attempt does half damage and a 50% chance of non-damage effects (these are poison spikes, so that's poison)... even though the thief's body is not overlapping the spike's tile, they still had their hand in the vicinity of the trap.
Starting to remind me of Castle now.
I've always meant to check out that show. Nathan Fillion is one of my favorites.