Of all the things that would be nice to see in DoomRL by the time it reaches 1.0, I would like to suggest something that would not only provide functionality common to other roguelikes, but would also give the game more of the same kind of ambience and atmosphere that made the original Doom stand out from everything else out there at the time. This suggestion can be summed up in two words: Lighting conditions.
It strikes me as odd that DoomRL uses bright white periods (.) to designate unoccupied floor tiles, when no changes in lighting conditions take place anywhere in the game, for any reason. In most traditional roguelikes, the unoccupied floor tile has a white period in it only if that square is lit, and not if it isn't. Perhaps this is also the case in DoomRL, but since we never get the benefit of seeing an unlit square within our LOS, it's impossible to tell for sure.
Consider what adding a lighting system might do for DoomRL:
First of all, there wouldn't be any oil-based lanterns, as is typical in medieval fantasy roguelikes. Though, there could, I suppose, be a flashlight, a la Doom 3 (though I consider this type of equipment purely optional). What I really want to explore here, is the idea of dark, unlit rooms, scaring the bejeezus out of us. Perhaps weapons could temporarily generate light when fired, due to their muzzle flash. Perhaps this creates a lighted area of effect for a limited distance around the player character. This effect would only exist during the same game turn on which the firing of the weapon takes place. Perhaps energy weapons produce more light than powder-propelled slugs or buckshot.
Another possibility is that there could be floor-mounted light fixtures along the walls of rooms or hallways, as a way of explaining how it is that certain areas have light. For those who don't remember, the orignial Doom had these very slender cylindrical floor-based lamps that couldn't be destroyed and produced no real light to speak of (they were simply 2D sprites). In DoomRL, something much like these could be represented by the use of whatever ASCII character seems most appropriate, but the idea here is that, unlike in the original, the DoomRL version of these lamps could conceivably be destroyed in the midst of battle, so that whatever light was created by them disappears as a result.
If there's a concern about toying with the possibility of having dangerously low light levels in the game, perhaps there could be a challenge mode dedicated to this concept, at least as a test-phase to see if the option has any gameplay potential.
Eventually though, I foresee this lighting dynamic becoming the way the entire game works generally, or at least becoming a setting that the player can choose. A simpler alternative is for it to become a new aspect of the Nightmare skill level. As if it wasn't hard enough.
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Topic: How to make DoomRL really scare the bejeezus out of us... (Read 3321 times)