Progress and ideas

Something snapped in my brain a while ago and as the result I have almost completely stopped refactoring source code in all my projects. It means that the focus is now on the game design. I also figured out how to combine physics and traditional RPG system which also was a sudden realization.

Physics simulation in games is kind of weird subject, because games can never be completely physics based. If they were it would ruin "the hero" aspect of games, where the player character always seems to have some kind of special advantage over everything else. For example in most games the player never runs out of gas, but is always ready to do whatever it takes. Some games have a kind of stamina, but it's always limited to a certain level. The plan for Kaduria is not only have more realistic stamina effect but also long term fatigue which means you have to sleep to regain it.

There are lots of other ways I'm going to change the gameplay compared to a typical roguelike or a role-playing game. I'm not even sure if it's going to be a better gameplay, but I'm just so over the traditional style of roguelikes in particular where everything is based on getting tons of stuff (which in realistic terms you would never be able to carry anyway), killing thousands of monsters just like that etc. In Teemu I have deliberately chosen a traditional approach, because it's not a serious game, but Kaduria will be different.

User interface stuff

I feel that this project is going to be somewhere between old school ascii and "modern" graphical styles in the way how information is shown on screen in the main gameview. In traditional roguelikes you often have information packed in various status lines etc. which I guess become easier to understand once you get used to it. However it feels like mirroring that to a graphical roguelike isn't the best, or having packed information at all.

Graphical games can have icons to replace text, but in many cases it's worse. In any case, how much and what information is directly on screen is a matter of design which is harder than it seems. User interface design is difficult in all programs, not just in games. Luckily I've learned from my past mistakes and now adding something only if it's easier to have on screen all the time. But it's also a design decision, especially now when you have the space, assuming the gameview is small enough that space for stats etc. is available.

The design of "off-screen" information is just as important, and making it easy to access can remove the need for on-screen information.