7DRL Aftermath

So it's been about 3 weeks since the 2010 7DRL contest ended and I am starting to look back to see what I did right and wrong and how the contest went overall. In the end, there were 85 competitors in the contest, of which 50 submitted a finished product. I was part of a panel that reviewed all of the completed projects giving scores and feedback, where my project earned a respectable 1.96 overall score putting it at about the 50th percentile. Not bad for my first game I suppose. I got hit hardest in the Roguelike category of all things. I knew that I wasn't going to be earning a 3 in that category, but I was hoping for at least a 2 (a Roguelike-like rating), but apperently, I was unable to sway the judges with my own treatise on the subject. So far I have managed to give two of the top three games a try, PrincessRL and Harmless7DRL.

PrincessRL is a Roguelike adaptation of the Gainax Princess Maker series. The objective is to train your character (a would be princess) proper manners and how to beat people up. Sounds odd, but that's the objective of the source material as well. I haven't completed the game yet, but it is very complete for a 7DRL project, easy just pick up and play (if you are familiar with roguelikes) and innovative.

Harmless7DRL is a more traditional than PrincessRL, it puts you in the shoes of an apprentice magician who must dive into a dungeon to find a missing professor. The game differs from you average RL by making the hero extremely vulenable to attack. To survive, you must collect magical runes to assemble spells to protect yourself. It is also very complete, at least as far as I managed to get, and it too can be pick up and played. It might not be as innovative as PrincessRL, but it follows the Roguelike blueprint more strictly.
As far as my own project is concerned, I got high marks for Innovation, and average marks for most everything else. Oddly enough I managed to get all three possible scores in the Aesthitics category. One reviewer that it was nice looking and easy to use and another thought it was angry fruit salad, so I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Lessons Learned

I coded the entire project in Notepad++, a handy little text editor that will highlight syntax and help you match parens and brackets. While I think it was a decent enough tool for this job, I think that I would have faired better this a more powerful IDE like Eclipse. I even went through the trouble of getting Eclipse up and running before the contest, but I didn't have the time to familiarize myself use it.
Smart AIs are a pain to program. The one I included in WWRL is functional enough, but it's limited to chasing the player down and beating on him. Next time, if I want to make a decent AI, I'm going to have to cut back on the rest of the project.
Time wasted isn't always time wasted. On day 3, I spent way too long developing the facing algorithms for WWRL. In the end, they were a work of art, but they over 2 hours to code. I thought that I had made a big mistake and that I would regret the lost time later. However, it turns out that the algorithms were actually fairly bulletproof, even when used for a variety of other movement activities. So much so that I only had to make some minor additions when hitching various attacks, jumps, and interrupts to the algorithms. In the end I probably saved several hours because I invested the extra time.

7DRL Day 7: Sleepless Victory

At 2am, 161 hours after I began, I announced the completion of my Seven day Roguelike. It came down the the wire as I tried to force my sleep deprived mind to comprehend the intricacies of how jar'ing java class files until collapsed at the keyboard, my hand striking the submit key as I fell.

...

Well ... maybe it wasn't that epic, but hunting for the instructions on how to handle classpaths in jar manifest files at 2am isn't a task I'd inflict on anyone.

In the end, WWRL has a character selection, a information screen, "full" featured combat, and plenty of room for enhancement. It can be download from the WWRL Google Code project.

I've included a manual, but if anyone has any questions, drop me a message in the comments or head over to the rec.games.roguelike.development mailing list, and I'll see what I can do. Any and all feedback is welcome.

7DRL Day 6: Spit and Polish

After 6 days I have a game. It isn't a great game, it isn't a game that is quite ready for release, but it is a game. During day 6 I completed the character selection and information screens. I added around a half dozen moves and I streamlined the process of adding moves and wrestlers. I refactored the AI section, but I didn't really improve it much. I think that the AI only needs to be taught to vary it's attacks and pin at this point. Overall, day 6 was a victory.

Choose your wrestler!

He may wear pink , but I still wouldn't want to get in his way.

Objectives for the 7th and final day are to get defensive and fan maneuver working, implement throws, teach the AI to do more than use it's first move, implement jumping attacks and add moves. It's fair too ambitious, but I'll try.

7DRL Day 5: Working but not Finished

At the end of day 5 it looks like I have the frameworks for setups in place, if not working 100% correctly, running attack at a lot more predictable, and the in game message system works and scrolls correctly. I even added the Inverted Cloverleaf as a move, but it isn't much to see yet. Attacking prone opponents now yields more damage and the player can now make speculative attacks. Overall, I wanted to add more moves and finish setups, but I'm still calling today a victory.

No screenshots today, not much new to see. I'm hoping to have a gameplay video tonight.

Goals for day 6 are, in order: clean up setups and holds, implement character select screen, refactor AI, and add moves.


edit: okay, one screenshot:

You can feel the pain, in an ASCII kinda way

7DRL Day 4: Fighting and Falling

Day four is done, and I now have a "playable" game. Playable to be interpreted loosely. Gameplay currently consists of:
1. Kicking your opponent while he punches you2. Running away from him when your stamina is low to recover
3. Repeating steps 1 and 2 until your opponent's fatigue bar fills up
4. Performing a running kicking to knock your opponent to the mat
5. Pinning him to win
Well, I suppose I've played Tiger handhelds with less gameplay than that, be it still needs some work before I can call it a roguelike. However, since my goal for day 4 was to deliver a barebones game, I am declaring victory.

My boot in yo' face!


A winner is you!

The goals for tomorrow (well, today now) in order of priority are: Add support for additional setup maneuvers, clean up running attacks, add damage modifiers for prone and climbing wrestlers, finish message boxes, and add moves. I probably won't get them all done, but the more the merrier.

7DRL Day 3: Sprinting Wrestlers and Lost Time

At the end of day three, I have wrestlers on the mat, and the player controlled one can walk, run, and try to climb. In addition both wrestlers now have faces, or at least a direction they are facing. My target yesterday was to have the message boxes completed and content for the wrestlers to use for the big day tomorrow. Neither of these were quite completed and movement still needs some more work. Today w asn't the victory days 1 and 2 were, but I am hoping to make up time tomorrow.

An, as yet, unpopulated character details screen

A Wrestler running around as his opponent tracks him and the clock ticks.

The goal for tomorrow is to have a bare bones game completed by the end of the day. This might sound a bit too much of a stretch, but I have the day off and hope to be able to devote 8+ hours to development. I've also been doing a lot of work as I go to set up the infrastructure I am going to need.

7DRL Day 1: A Screen Takes Shape

Day 1 of my 7DRL project, the World Wrestling Roguelike, is drawing to a close and I remain optimistic that I can pull this off. My objective for today was to get the title screen and main wrestling arena screens designed and in place as well as reminding myself as to exactly how Java works.

Title Screen - Verbiage to be improved later

Wrestling Arena - Needs Wrestlers, shouting press, statues, etc.

Tomorrow, my objective is to get wrestlers moving around the ring, updating the graphics accordingly and to start work on message presentation.