Anguna
In the Gameboy Advance homebrew scene, there's a recent release that's worth your time to check out. (If you don't have a GBA or Nintendo DS with the equipment to play homebrew, don't worry, you can play this in the VisualBoy Advance emulator.) The game is called Anguna, and it's basically an extremely polished mini-Zelda.
Although the game isn't a Roguelike, this is relevant to Dungeon Crawlers for several reasons. First, to point out that Zelda-type games are dungeon crawls too, and it actually is possible to create a randomly generated game that's replayable many times. By using a custom pseudorandom number generator, you can even number the different available games.
I'd also like to draw attention to the absolutely gorgeous pixel art. BYOND is a tile-based engine; games this beautiful should be a lot more common than they are. I've learned some techniques from the Pixel Art guild, and there's obviously still a lot to learn. Take a look at the nuances in the brickwork, including the occasional missing/crumbling section of brick. My favorite PC game ever had pixel art of this quality.
Playing through this game is a rewarding experience, and doesn't take all that long. (Gameplay is closer to 4-6 hours, vs. about 18-24 to get through Zelda.) It doesn't hold your hand or tell you what to do, just thrusts you into the thick of things with a simple, intuitive interface. It's worth seeing especially for the hope of getting your imagination going, which I think the scenery really does well.
Imagine a BYOND Roguelike looking this good. It's not only possible, it's well within BYOND's capabilities. I'm as much a fan of ASCII art as the next guy, but this is the kind of game, in terms of visuals and smart design choices, I'd like to see more of on BYOND.
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Although the game isn't a Roguelike, this is relevant to Dungeon Crawlers for several reasons. First, to point out that Zelda-type games are dungeon crawls too, and it actually is possible to create a randomly generated game that's replayable many times. By using a custom pseudorandom number generator, you can even number the different available games.
I'd also like to draw attention to the absolutely gorgeous pixel art. BYOND is a tile-based engine; games this beautiful should be a lot more common than they are. I've learned some techniques from the Pixel Art guild, and there's obviously still a lot to learn. Take a look at the nuances in the brickwork, including the occasional missing/crumbling section of brick. My favorite PC game ever had pixel art of this quality.
Playing through this game is a rewarding experience, and doesn't take all that long. (Gameplay is closer to 4-6 hours, vs. about 18-24 to get through Zelda.) It doesn't hold your hand or tell you what to do, just thrusts you into the thick of things with a simple, intuitive interface. It's worth seeing especially for the hope of getting your imagination going, which I think the scenery really does well.
Imagine a BYOND Roguelike looking this good. It's not only possible, it's well within BYOND's capabilities. I'm as much a fan of ASCII art as the next guy, but this is the kind of game, in terms of visuals and smart design choices, I'd like to see more of on BYOND.
Posted by Lummox JR (Dungeon Master) on Monday, May 12, 2008 09:02PM
- 6 comments
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Keywords:
graphics,
design,
nonbyond
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#6 Lummox JR:
Wow. Awesome to have you drop by. I've been into homebrew for a few months now (before that I was interested but didn't have the equipment for it) so I've been following pdroms.de on a daily basis, which is how I found out about Anguna. Anguna was just a hugely enjoyable game and left me wanting more.
On a related note I've been playing Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on my DS for a while, and sooner or later I'll get around to making a post about it. It's a graphical Roguelike, but because it's a Roguelike it's more like Rogue than Zelda. I've felt for a while that a Zelda-type game could be done with generated content.
Monday, May 19, 2008 11:49AM
#5 Gauauu:
I'm Nathan Tolbert, the guy who made Anguna. Interestingly enough, one of my original plans in making Anguna was to make 2 versions:
-one with a full static level-designed game (What I ended up releasing)
-one that was basically inspired by roguelike games, with a randomized dungeon each time you played. I never got around to making this roguelike version, but it's interesting that you mention this :)
Monday, May 19, 2008 11:42AM
#4 IainPeregrine:
Lummox JR wrote:
> The key-up shouldn't be lost now in newer BYOND versions, but because keys are implemented as commands, the one-command-per-tick rule still applies.
Really! Looks like it's time to update!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 12:17PM
#3 Lummox JR:
The key-up shouldn't be lost now in newer BYOND versions, but because keys are implemented as commands, the one-command-per-tick rule still applies.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:14AM
#2 IainPeregrine:
The bigger problem is that if someone presses z and x during the same tick the server often discards the key-up event on one of them, meaning that your game still thinks one of those keys is being held.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 10:59AM
#1 Jtgibson:
It actually makes me half-interested in working on Realms again, which was basically Link to the Past meets DROD meets Mr.MUD meets Harvest Moon (the SNES version) meets authentic medieval life. With 4.0's new framerate I could probably make it pixel-oriented and smooth. Ideally I'd make it playable with a gamepad, since a keyboard has a simultaneous key limit.
One thing that bothers me about BYOND's ability to do action-RPGs like this is the fact that it only accepts only one keypress per tick -- so if someone presses Z and X simultaneously, there will be a 1 tick lag before the server knows that both are being held down instead of just one. Although now that I think about it, I haven't checked this out recently...
Monday, May 12, 2008 10:00PM