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The Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQ, page. Here, you will find general information. |
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Intrasite Links - News - Changelog - Screenshots - Downloads - FAQ Other Links - Parent website - Microsoft's DirectX page - rec.games.roguelike.development - Roguelike Development |
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Adeo Frequently Asked Questions
What is Adeo? Adeo is a roguelike-in-progress. It's a roguelike at heart, but features isometric view graphics, a somewhat complex material/item/object/weapon system, and an ambitious storyline. It's not your common, every day roguelike, except maybe in the sense that it's unfinished. What does Adeo mean? Adeo is a latin root word, whose derivatives all involve going somewhere or coming from somewhere, with a theme of traveling or starting / accepting something. What makes Adeo different from other roguelikes? This is both an easy and a difficult question. It's easy because there are a lot of features that you don't find in other roguelikes, and it's complex because aspects of common roguelike design are found throughout Adeo. Graphical - with an isometric tileset (fantastically done by a talented artist, so clearly not me), lighting that can be applied per object per grid with arbitrary coloring and shaded to be consistent with Line Of Sight calculations, Adeo is visually distinct from any other roguelike I have seen so far. Interface - Adeo uses a mouse driven interface. During gameplay, unless the player is manipulating a computer console (through normal use or hacking), everything the player can do is accessible via contextual popup menus. This includes working with containers, interacting with objects in the world, and combat. Turn-Based Real-Time - nothing in the world happens until the player decides to do something that takes time to do. This aspect of the time step is turn-based; players have as much time as they want to plan what they want to do in any situation. As soon as the player decides to do something that takes time, the engine organizes all entities and objects that can do something and queries them to give them the chance to act as well. When all relevant objects (including entities) have chosen what they're going to do, they're all sorted by who acts first, and then actions are performed in sequence. In doing things this way, the player gets the benefits of turn-based gameplay (having as much time as desired to plan before acting) while maintaining the realism of time effects (how fast a player can do something becomes critical in planning). Maps - all maps in Adeo are grid-based like normal roguelikes. While Adeo has plenty of normal grid-based maps (where the player moves around one grid at a time), it also has space maps. Space maps simulate being grid-based, but in actuality are a custom space partitioning method that allows for quickly determining what to render without limitations on actual size of the map (while attempting to keep memory overhead down as well). Space maps have no size limit; in fact, it's accurate to say that they have no actual size at all. The player could wander in any direction forever (until they die of old age). This enables arbitrary arranged solar system maps, with things to find and explore at less-than-well-known coordinates. What prompted you to start Adeo? A long while back, a couple friends of mine and I were talking about our favorite roguelikes, what we liked and disliked about them, some neat ideas for roguelikes, etc. It got to the point where one friend and I decided to start our own. Of course, my big thing is I'm a fan of isometric view games, and having not found a roguelike which satisfied that particular craving, I used the chance to make my own. Well, my friend has lost and restarted his project (using SDL and ASCII graphics). My initial idea was called Neopolis, and I had written out (I think) a great story explaining everything, from the town itself, the available shops in town, the people you meet in town and in the Complex (not dungeon), and even a backstory to explain why the Complex worked as it did. At heart, Neopolis was a sci-fi Angband. However, after getting a good amount of design work done, a contracting job took over my time, and invariably, Neopolis laid dorment for a while. When I finally got back to looking at code and design docs that I hadn't seen for months, I decided I wanted to do more than just a sci-fi Angband. I mean, how original would that have been? Of course, that begs the question "Just how original is any roguelike project?" which really is a fair question. If you do enough research on any roguelike system/tech/idea, you're invariably going to be using somebody else's, which by definition hampers any claim to originality you might have. However, getting back on track, I decided that I wanted a roguelike that was much more than a random dungeon crawler hack and slash. So, I came up with a whole slew of extended gameplay requirements, system designs, and extended story (extending the fate of humanity into the future of Neopolis' timeline) that now form Adeo's design doc. And now you know. Why are you using DirectX9? While at first I was using SDL, I was extremely unhappy with the rendering performance of windowed applications using SDL. Since I wanted more, and I wanted to learn something new, the choice to use DirectX (especially since Adeo has always been windows platform specific) was obvious. Why DirectX9? Sure, it'd be simple to use DX8 instead, but then it wouldn't be all that good of a learning experience. By the time Adeo is in a state for general playability, DirectX9 will be common and you won't have a reason to complain (unless I upgrade to DirectX10 =). The in-game tilework looks nice, as does the logo. Who did them? The nice in-game tilework is a combination of the talented Veli-Matti Koukeri and myself; if you see something that looks *really* good, odds are it was Veli-Matti.. The logo was artfully designed and generously donated by one Alex W. Thank them by visiting their websites. How can I help or contribute to Adeo? It warms the cockles of my heart (whatever those are), but unless you can offer some quality tile creating experience, I'm afraid there isn't much you can do directly. However, if you want to help with file mirrors or just create a fan site (who would have thought? not I), by all means, you have my support. What is your stance on realism versus simulation? Realism provides players a basis for comparison, and also allows players to relate more to what's going on in the game. By things being more realistic, the player can expect certain behaviors when doing certain things. However, realism != fun, and there is a point where too much realism all too quickly kills the potential fun of a system or game. Balance is the key to any game design, and by balancing realism with simulation (controlled randomness, for example), you maximize the fun factor as well as provide a grounds to build off of that players can relate to quickly, understand and pick up quickly, and enjoy quickly. Why did you decide on not having permadeath? If you read the question above, it relates to realism. Personally, I don't like the idea that if I make a mistake and get my character killed, that I have no recourse for learning from the mistake and not losing all the progress I had up to that point. However, that's my personal preference, as is wanting permadeath. So, here's another take. Even though I'm making Adeo for myself, I do desire for others to play and enjoy it as well. This means that, when having to make a choice between setting a "hard core" option, or not (and allowing "hard core" players to still play as they want), the smart, and obvious, choice is the latter. If there is any further indecision on the matter, see the next question for further guidance. I don't like a certain feature/theme/system structure/etc. Go play another roguelike that has exactly the things you want. If you can't find any, write your own, and know that creating a roguelike that's fun to play is no simple task. I, as does anyone who endeavors in such a lengthy project, am doing this because it is enjoyable for me (and the learning experiences that come with it). The system designs are as such because that's what works well to me, and my end goal is simply this - if I enjoy playing the game as much as I enjoyed creating it, then the game is a success. I'm no stranger to game design, and if you have nothing to comment other than that you simply don't like how I've done something, you have two final options : 1) suggest something constructive and reasonable and 2) find another project to troll. Adeo isn't a roguelike, and you should stop calling it one. That depends on how you decide what constitutes a roguelike. I've heard myriads of different definitions, and invariably, Adeo shares at least one or two common characteristics with any given roguelike definition. If you want, I could start describing Adeo as a roguelike++. Do you plan to release your source code? Though I have nothing against open source or sharing source code, I have no intention of releasing my work and code to public domain. I am very willing to help others with problems by sharing ideas and thoughts on how to solve certain problems. Why don't you have a forum or messageboard? I've never felt that forums and messageboards accomplished what they were intended for. All too often, they fill with people who just want to troll, or belittle others, or generally waste bandwidth and web space with inane, off-topic, irrelevant chatter. If you want that sort of community interaction, that's what IRC is for, and it accomplishes that goal quite well. |