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Basically what you're suggesting is DoomRL2, written from scratch, right? :)

Would you?  That would be great.  :D

Argh!  I misunderstood a previous post, I forgot Berserk! had graphics and that was Free Pascal as well.  I mistakenly thought you would be looking at having to port all the Free Pascal code into a new language that handled the graphics better. 

Coding doesn't take more than an hour or two, right? =D

I have no answer to that other than I know better... 

Even if the graphics were crudely implemented to begin with (hint: just hack something out in your spare time), you should see a big increase in the number of followers!

Thirded, and isn't there that beautiful graphic set over in the graphics thread.  That would look so cool. 

DoomRL has REAL atmosphere with the sounds and ASCII representation.  It feels great and plays very well.  I think if new people saw the graphics it would tempt them into trying the game out and the game play would make them come back for more.  You could have some really nice screenshots over at TIGSource for example. 

IMHO, I think I would write an engine that could work with the graphics.  Forget making all the levels, just have one level to start with, cram in a random bunch of bad guys and release that. 

1) Tell your chosen indie site that you are going for graphics and get them a screenshot of the tileset. 

2) A week or so later, release your one level design so now there is a screenshot of the graphics in action. 

3) Work on implementing more of the game, a DoomRL Lite with some levels and a sense of progression, release that. 

4) Release the game in it's entirety.  This gradual progression will keep you in the public eye for a few weeks, should interest a lot of people. 

Having said all that...
Good luck with the PhD, to be honest, I want to hear that is going well rather than this tileset idea. 

Edit: PhD, not PHD.  I'm such an uncultured swine. 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/03/23/diabloom/#more-9409

Heads, ugly, rearing...always with the rearing. 

DoomRL is balanced so perfectly. 

Rather than being a set of game mechanics, there is an actual world put together with rules that can be exploited. 

I really admire that. 

Here is a mission and I don't care how you do it, but this is a list of things that you can do to manipulate this world to get you there. 

I haven't played it for a while, but it consumes me once more. 

Edit:

I think it is one of the very few games where although I try to get to the end, I am enjoying the journey more than the thought I might actually beat it one day. 

Just played (and apparently finished) the game, wrote a detailed criticism, lost the detailed criticism and...

Well, to make it short, don't play it. If a lot of work is done on it, it might be good. Until then, no.

Totally agree.  Good marks for effort, but if this is going somewhere then it is far from finished. 

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=394522

Ripped graphics, but reasonable engine. 

I haven't played it properly yet. 

It took me an age to track this one down again, but much better than Z-day imho

Zomband!

http://zooptek.net/drupal/index.php?q=node/15

I had an idea for a game...suspension of disbelief to maximum please. 

A space ship full of colonists has crash landed on some disagreeable hell-hole.  It can't be repaired and the captain of the ship (you) has to build a colony here to survive.  The hold is full of telephone sanitizers...just kidding, the hold is full of colonists held in suspended animation, but the crew of the ship are all awake, including the marine compliment. 

The planet soon proves to be hostile and as a good captain you send many a marine to their untimely death, although the game structure would have to let you win the initial battles but slowly find yourself out-classed by whatever alien species are out there. 

You have a weapon that you can take a persons current abilities and inject them into any number of other people.  Taking a person's abilities like this kills them, and you can only inject that template into another person once.  An example is called for I think, say you have a marine, he's fought some battles and now he is the master of the sniper rifle.  You give him to the scientists to take his abilities from him (sniper rifle skills in a test tube!), this kills him, but you get five more marines together and now you have FIVE sniper rifle experts. 

This is moral choice one, do I kill this person for the greater good? 

Later on, you will run out of marines and have to start using the passengers.  You might say it is not going well.  So, you wake up a passenger, inject them and bang!  You've just been recruited soldier.  I should say at this point there is no end to the number of injections you can get from one "template". 

This is moral choice two, I'm conscripting people from the hold who didn't sign on for this. 

Act 3, the aliens get worse as the game goes on.  So bad in fact that you would need similar aliens on your side to actually win this war.  So...and this is a bit of a stretch, the game would have to let you take the abilities from an alien and inject them into a human.  Most important would be that this would also change the human's appearance into a hybrid alien/human. 

This is the last moral choice, can I make civilian people into alien soldiers to win this war. 

So the captain is always the colony's saviour, but he sinks to ever lower depths to achieve these means. 

Initially I thought, why bother?  A message will appear that will tell the player what has happened, but ranged weapons get animation so it makes sense to do this. 

Personally, I would not worry about the swing of the weapon, but I would like to see the goblin change color briefly and maybe some blood flying off in the opposite direction. 

Code Select Expand

.....   ..... ....#
.....   ...#. .....
.@g..   .@g#. .@g.#
.....   ...#. .....
.....   ..... ....#

I hope you get what I mean from those three frames! 

They're all good for different reasons.  You must try DoomRL.  It is REALLY good. 

Kornel is spending a lot of time developing it to the highest standard and one day it might even have graphics. 

I feel it encapsulates the Doom universe very well.  It's very exciting to play and difficult to put down.  A tactical Doom if you will. 

\The enemy boat(s) would be moving so a hit may not equal a hit next turn, but subsequent hits may give the player enough analysis to predict where the enemy is sailing to and get a number of good hits in\

Idea would require some additional tuning. 1/8 chance to guess where enemy is moving to? Oh, please...

Yeah, I should have thought a bit harder about that one! 

I figured the boat would be bigger than one tile, but even so I don't think that makes my idea valid.  Although wind strength and direction might be a factor. 

I do visit GameDev.Net but I had never really considered they would have the time for a non-profit project like mine. 

Now you have got me thinking Karry and that is the sort of developer analysis I could use to give me the confidence to finish.  Thank you. 

Is there a homepage or something?

Good point, I was using the Great Games Experiment as each game got it's own page as such and was an easy way to get someone else to host some info about it.  I suffered much disillusionment though and removed the game.  What I should do is find a free site and put something together, a few screenshots, version list and download for the demo etc.  I think it's what I should work on next. 

Try TIGSource ( http://forums.tigsource.com/ ).

Thanks, that looks perfect.  There is even a Feedback section. 

Wish me luck guys! 

You'd be surprised Igor, how simple mechanics can be made into really fun and complex ones. The idea is to allow oneself a layer of abstraction, and not go for realism all the way. Take Pipe Dreams for an example -- it has nothing to do with realism except the water flowing, but it's fun as hell. Or any better minigames in older games -- they (if well designed) could be tons of fun, without realism. The point here is to make them NOT BORING. Realism is a secondary need.

It's an interesting idea.  The enemy boat(s) would be moving so a hit may not equal a hit next turn, but subsequent hits may give the player enough analysis to predict where the enemy is sailing to and get a number of good hits in. 

I need some suggestions please for forums where people discuss indie game development of turn based strategy games. 

I have gone so far as to write an engine that works for a squad of people fighting zombies (meh) but it is difficult to stay focused on this without people to test this stuff out.  It is not a RL. 

I tried the Blitz Basic community as that is what I am using to code the game, but the thread sank without trace.  I tried the Great Games Experiment and again, very little interest and no feedback. 

So, I figured the people who hang out here must know of similar sites where I can get some reasonable  interest? 

Of course, the game so far could be complete rubbish, I accept that.  But until someone actually has a go at it and tells me what's wrong, I don't know what bits to change. 

I have 12 years of professional database development experience, I just want to do something different in my free time.