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[Dervish]

One of the scenes i remember best from playing Doom:
Late night, still discovering episode 2, i enter a pitch black room with my shottie in hand, the door closes behind me, and the next thing i know the light flashes just enough for me to see a demon biting my head off and i almost jump out of my chair ^^.

Anyway, this brings me to my suggestion:

- Variable lighting per map area (monsters/items in dark areas would not be visible unless you were real close or with a light amp). This would include totally dark areas and blinking areas, like 20+ turns dark followed by ten turns light).

- Light amplifying goggles: x turns being able to see in dark areas.

I know this would involve changing the way sight is currently managed, and adding to hit penalty over distance for game balance issues but for me the game is all about what maybe hiding out there...

Other suggestions on the subject:

- new special level: lvl 5-8 "The Halls of the Blind":
severely decreased sight (about 2/3 squares distance), demons/lost souls, an autoloading double shotgun as reward and maybe a surprise (hopefully nasty^^)

- new monster: spectre:
same as a demon except you can only see them when they get real close to you (about 2/3 squares).

[JimmyJ]

Well, ive never heard an idea for lighting in DoomRL, so you'd have to ask kornel, as for the spectre, 2/3 squares seems a little bit close..

[Anticheese]

When you consider it, You only get to see about 6 squares into the distance anyway.


I like the concept but I dont see how it can work in a Roguelike at the moment.

[Dervish]

Maybe i didn't express correctly what i meant.
In most roguelikes the character has a small field of vision (equivalent to the torch, lantern, whatever) but if the room has some light of it's own you can see all the lit area. I don't like the current sight system, sure it's simple, but limiting sight by range alone doesn't feel natural to me.
It's much more logic that you see everything in an open lit area and that dark room/area is unknown to you.

The great advantage of using light/dark is that you get both the safety feeling of being able to see everything before it's dangerous on wide lit areas, and the stress of having to get close to that unknown area without knowing what is in there. You'll have to improvise more often -> you'll have more fun.

The blinking/strobing effects are just something to think about later if the game gets this system in the first place.

I know that setting this up will require a lot of tweaking on other stuff including monster AI, but if it works for other roguelikes, why not for this one.

About the spectre, any old-time doom player will remember the invisible demon which always manages to get close to you at the worst of times... and i think it will feel right at home in doomrl.
3 squares distance to spot it feels perfect to me... far enough to swap to your favourite shotgun/plasma rifle and waste it away; and near enough to be a threat if you got to deal with other monsters 1st.

[JimmyJ]

well, when i thought of making the spectre, i always considered making it a SLIGHTLY discolored normal gray dot ie: .  (but slightly different colored from normal dots)

[Anticheese]

Come on.

Have you any idea how confusing it would be to be under attack and have the suspect to be a dot a slightly darker shade of gray?

I like the other option better.

[Derek]

I think this is actually a pretty cool idea!  As long as it's not overused.  To have a few turns of light followed by a few turns of dark would be pretty intense.

Regarding the spectre, perhaps it could be handled similarly.  The monster could appear for a few steps, and then disappear for a few steps...

[JimmyJ]

Quoting: Derek

Regarding the spectre, perhaps it could be handled similarly. The monster could appear for a few steps, and then disappear for a few steps...

Come on.


Have you any idea how confusing it would be to be under attach and have the suspect to be a empty space?

It seems pretty hard to implement the spectre right now......

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

It would be possible with graphics. But it might be painfull with ASCII :-/. If I only had another (or even better TWO) shade of gray :-/

[Santiago Zapata]

An option would be to remap one the colors you dont use, (like lime green, pale blue, etc), on a windows shortcut so that it looks like another shade of gray; however that wouldn't work in full screen mode...

[JimmyJ]

Yes it does, there is a color setting for windowed AND fullscreen ^_^

[Anticheese]

All the same, It is a pain in the ass to spot a moving patch of gray on a Roguelike.

Perhaps have it as a "d" that changes colour according to what tile it is on

I.E on water it would be blue, On floor it would be gray, Etc, Etc.

Sounds good?

[Derek]

Quoting: jimmyj

Come on.

Have you any idea how confusing it would be to be under attach and have the suspect to be a empty space?

Ha ha... hey, just expressing my (possibly very wrong) opinion. ;)

Well, in the original game, it's pretty obvious once the spectre's on your ass - you could make him always visible when he's adjacent to you and flicker otherwise.

[Malek Deneith]

Quoting: Anticheese

All the same, It is a pain in the ass to spot a moving patch of gray on a Roguelike.

Perhaps have it as a "d" that changes colour according to what tile it is on

Beeing "ass to spot" is the whole idea ... once you know something is there ("Ow! That hurt... FTW?"), you can find it instantly using games auto-targeting feature... color chacnging "d" just wouldn't be enough.

[Anticheese]

Yeah I know that, But what if new players did not know about the Specters? I would imagine it to be a major turn-off for those who dont know.