The first steps for the 7drl challenge are complete. At some point I think it might be cool to have a page hosting a different link for each couple of days to see the development progress but for now I’m just going to focus on the game. For now, please look at the Play page to see what I have uploaded.
To be transparent I’m starting with the code I put together following this tutorial by Tomas Sedovic. I did a couple things asthetically different from the tutorial but for the most part the engine is the same.
As for the vision for the game, I’m looking to merge streets of rage and roguelike gameplay. Also, asthetically I want to use vaporwave themes. I’m imagining an overdone 80s movie with lasers and neon and overly optimistic visions of the future.
You’re a badass rogue fighting your way through a street. And you have to keep going because there is a wall of fire behind you. I might try to come up with a story for why this is all happening, but for now this is all just to build good gameplay.
One cool idea I had for the combat mechanics is to attack squares adjacent to successful movements, I think this leads to a more “flowing” style of game and prevents the player from getting stuck in one spot while they kill off a bunch of enemies. The combat style is inspired by the mobile game Hoplite which uses a similar mechanic but it is hex tiles instead of grid. I had to make a couple adjustments to get it to work in a grid.
The movements are currently broken down into two types, slashing and lunging.
Lunging works only when moving up, down, left, or right. Essentially if the move is successful you attack one step further than before. In the example below, if the player ‘@’ moves to the right one space, the Punk ‘P’ will be killed by a lunge.
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.@.P.
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Slashing works only when moving diagonally (currently done using the ‘y’,‘u’,‘b’, and ‘n’ keys vim style). If the move is successful, you attack the two adjacent tiles that the player stepped ‘through’. In the example below, if the player ‘@’ moves up and to the right one space, the two Punks ‘P’ will be killed by a slash. Keep in mind that moving diagonally will not lunge so the Police Officer ‘O’ will not be killed.
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...O.
.P...
.@P..
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I’m not sure the best way to teach this to new players yet. I’ll worry about that later if I can.