Graphical ideas for *bands

[ekolis]

Adam (et al), you might be interested in this game:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tower
I personally can't get into it because the numpad controls don't work so you have to use the old rogue style controls which I hate, but even the screenshots of three-dimensional ASCII characters don't do the interface justice - you can zoom in and out, the letters actually animate when they move and attack, when you eat rotten food and vomit a little % sign falls out of your @ sign... it is simply amazing!

[takkaria]

Originally Posted by Adam Bolt

I must say I've grown to dislike what the Daimonin screenshot represents, trying to put realistic detail into pitifully low res graphics. Frankly, that's what I tried to do with the original Angband tiles. But I was only 15 years old then. I've since realized that simply results in a muddy-looking presentation.

Hi Adam, nice to see you around...

I'm just wondering what the licencing is on the tiles you drew? I can't find much information on what you originally said; perhaps you could clarify?

Without being presumptious, something like the following licence would be a good fit for the rest of Angband:

Redistribution of unaltered copies of these tiles is permitted without restriction. Distribution of altered copies is permitted without restriction as long as the alteration does not significantly alter the content. (For example, conversion to another format is permitted.)

Distribution of all other altered copies is permitted as long as the author's name is replaced with that of the alterer, the original author is credited, and redistribution is not further restricted.

[EDIT: actually, that might not be so great. I'll reply here when I have a clearer alternative.]

[petebull]

Originally Posted by Leon Marrick

The second picture shows which direction the character moves in when you press the number key shown. As you can see, the display is rotated by 45 degrees. This solves the vexed problem of displaying walls in a diamond, but may confuse players used to '6' or -> meaning "go right".

I know that some games use that keypad directions mapping that's displayed here. I would rather use a mapping that is rotated by one position anti-clockwise.

I don't quite get what you mean with that diamond thing. Could you please explain that in a different way?

[Wolfechu]

One option I always liked, and I'm sure it was on a 'band variant, but I can't remember which, was tiles with realistic looking backgrounds (for walls, doors, etc), but ASCII stuff for the player, monsters, items, etc.

I dunno, it just appealed to me.

[Kiyoshi Aman]

The Geoduck tileset for Nethack is like that.

[ekolis]

The latest version of Sangband has an option to do that...

[Adam Bolt]

Originally Posted by ekolis

Adam (et al), you might be interested in this game:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tower
I personally can't get into it because the numpad controls don't work so you have to use the old rogue style controls which I hate, but even the screenshots of three-dimensional ASCII characters don't do the interface justice - you can zoom in and out, the letters actually animate when they move and attack, when you eat rotten food and vomit a little % sign falls out of your @ sign... it is simply amazing!

Looks pretty interesting for sure... I like the idea of animated ASCII.

Though it seems you could do away with the cruder aspects of the ASCII roguelike (the walls, and especially the floors... oh god, the distracting floors) I suppose the games mentioned later in the thread do that very same thing.

I guess what I had in mind would be more like silhouette forms that might animate. Dragons could be a dragon-like symbol that bites or breathes fire, and come in different colors and sizes.

That cuteness in the game you show, I think would serve Angband well. But animated ASCII doesn't do much for grabbing the attention of people who are interested in graphics. It's more for the people who already enjoy ASCII.

[Adam Bolt]

Sounds fine to me. I did it for enjoyment at the time, I never really licensed them. I don't actually care if the tiles are altered, or if I even get credit for them. Have at it.

Originally Posted by takkaria

Hi Adam, nice to see you around...

I'm just wondering what the licencing is on the tiles you drew? I can't find much information on what you originally said; perhaps you could clarify?

Without being presumptious, something like the following licence would be a good fit for the rest of Angband:

Redistribution of unaltered copies of these tiles is permitted without restriction. Distribution of altered copies is permitted without restriction as long as the alteration does not significantly alter the content. (For example, conversion to another format is permitted.)

Distribution of all other altered copies is permitted as long as the author's name is replaced with that of the alterer, the original author is credited, and redistribution is not further restricted.

[EDIT: actually, that might not be so great. I'll reply here when I have a clearer alternative.]

[andrewdoull]

Inspired by this thread, I've just improved the Unangband isometric mode so that the walls display with the correct orientation, rather than a large block (e.g. depending on the adjacent walls). This makes it look considerably better again.

This is only available in CVS at the moment and probably needs some debugging.

Would attach a screen shot, but its late and I'm only going to get a bmp file off windows anyways.

[andrewdoull]

Originally Posted by andrewdoull

Would attach a screen shot, but its late and I'm only going to get a bmp file off windows anyways.

Here's the promised screen shot. Not the most amazing in the world, but it shows the wall code working... still plenty more to do though.