Directional Player Character Facing

– Essential For All Modern Roguelikes

There is always a lot of debate, endless it seems, about what makes a roguelike (RL) a RogueLike. With continuing development in this field by various hardy groups of coders (see newsgroup: rec.games.roguelike.development for some of them) there is perhaps a contemporary version of the old question: »what makes a modern RL«?

This finally might be the place to say a modern RL has graphics in at least tile form. »RL Purists« had good grounds to argue a traditional RL has text graphics only and one should imagine the red »a« as an ant. The modern RL question is different enough to accommodate those »RL Progressives« more fairly.

A modern roguelike?

Lets take a look at a quick list of »what makes a modern RL« from features common to many newer RLs these days. As with any such »flavour« list it is perpetually incomplete and a modern roguelike does not have to satisfy all conditions to qualify.¹

• Tile graphics or better (e.g. H-World with very pretty isometric customisable graphics)
• Sound (e.g. DoomRL great use of atmospheric themed music and sound from Doom including MP3s).
• Monster inventory (been around for a while).
• Small command set (not always but often).
• Easier interface options (use of the mouse and menus and other handy ideas).
• Faster paced gameplay (e.g. CastlevaniaRL is a fast paced RL).
• Non classic gameplay (various examples of weird and wonderful ideas particularly during the 7DRL (seven day roguelike) competition.
• Custom RPG systems.
• Moddable (leveraging things like Lua to allow users to script their own functionality).
• Open source (or other availability of code).
• Larger more ambitious worlds and features.
• Themed RL games based on some pop culture (e.g. DiabloRL).
• Use of randomly generated plots and game worlds to add spice.
• Not just one dungeon, usually an outdoor area and several locations to visit.
• Ports or versions for mobile devices and other uses of latest technology.
• Party members and pets that you can control.
• Multiplayer and net based play.
• Innovation of gameplay (extra features added on top of the traditional RL gameplay).
• Special features (a modern roguelike will often have one or more features not seen in usual traditional RLs).
• More playable (less time needed to look up keybindings or monster lists etc).

Note that we don’t get into the nitty gritty yet of things like permadeath which cause heated debate. Some gameplay elements are still timeless – although one could argue there is less permadeath in modern RLs. We will leave debating of what are the modern gameplay choices for a modern RL to the newsgroups. Now to move onto one important barrow to be pushed by this article …

Advantages of directional player character facing

The title of this article claims that directional PC (player character) facing is essential for all modern roguelike. Modern RLs are defined by what is currently being produced but they also need to be pushed by vision and visionaries (aka ShockFrost the brave! [rgrd in joke]). A step forward in gameplay for all modern RLs, this article argues, is the inclusion of directional facing for the PC and monsters consistently in all modern RLs as though it were as obligatory as squares to move on.²

This means the player faces a particular direction and can only »see« in that view cone – and the same goes for monsters. This adds a dimension to RL gaming for both the player and developer.

Monsters can sneak up behind the PC. The PC can sneak up on monsters too and more easily tell that they are »behind« a monster. Backstabbing is an obvious feat/skill to flow from this. Hearing can play a larger role with a detected sound showing a »?« behind the player indicating s/he can not see the monster but did hear it. Feat/skills relating to hearing and sneaking follow this. Seeing through keyholes and cracks are examples of possible extensions that can be added to this base by inventive developers.

Since modern RLs now feature graphics it is easier to represent the direction that the PC and monsters face. Some fun for coders in adding another layer to their LOS (Line Of Sight) algorithms and on screen representation – how to show the squares the PC can actually see at any one time as opposed to those that are lit and unlit. There are implementation options for movement/vision rules governing how the PC and monsters turn around, how long it takes in game time, and whether they can walk backwards or face directions they are not moving in (e.g. Ikari Warriors style). Possibilities abound for atmospheric and spooky settings as they also do for tactics such as ordering your pet to sneak up behind the monsters or performing distractions.

Conclusion

I hope you can see that the directional facing concept epitomises the progressive nature of modern RLs. As can be seen above, such concepts add a new dimension of interest and fun for gamers and also some novel opportunities and challenges for developers. I hope to see this feature and other such innovation became part of the stock features in all future RLs!

Go code. Go play.

ABCGi

 

¹ The reader may be interested to know that the feature list is in the order of which they occurred to the think-tank assigned to produce it for this article (i.e. Slash and the author of this article).

² The author realises that:

1. There are examples of facing features out there already.
2. Moving on squares is not strictly necessary for a RL.
3. That a lot of conjuncture in this article is possible, as it always is with such RL issues, and the author chooses not to muddy the »message« by covering all caveats but invites debate.