Click here to try Scantanador 0.0.1 Alpha.
Scantanador is the name of a roguelike in JavaScript, which I’m programming. It utilizes the library ROT.JS, which is a very nice tool to help a poor, distressed programmer, who is working on a roguelike: its author seems to have a difficult relationship with semicolon and suchlike, but that’s another matter. It’s a good library, if you are crazy enough to program a roguelike. I am.
Command keys are quite easy and are, more or less, those you find in any roguelike. You are the @ in the centre of the screen and you can walk around by using arrow keys, numpad, or clicking/tapping the portion of the screen corresponding to a given direction. Pressing [Enter], or clicking/tapping on the @ icon, you can access to the menu, which lists all the main commands. The ? key will show you a list of all the keys used in the game.
Right now, Scantanador is little more than a skeleton, a bare-bone structure on which I am still working and a lot of work is still needed. A lot. If I were aiming for a 7DRL, which is to say a roguelike wrote and concluded within 7 days, I would be almost there: add a little more stuff, a final boss, maybe another pair of objects and the game would be ready. But not. Since I am crazy enough to think about a bigger game (way bigger), I still have a long way to go, before having a game which, somehow, can be seen as completed. Some day I’ll get there, for sure. Or, at least, I hope.
My model is ToME, mainly, which is a historical roguelike from ‘90s, but still alive and kicking. More or less. In truth, the version I’m using as an inspiration is not exactly alive and kicking, being the old 2.3.5 version, which was still called “Troubles of Middle Earth”, before kicking the bucket and being reborn with a different name and quite a different world. Why am I looking and the old version, if there is a new one, which is richer and probably better in every aspect? Because ToME 2.3.5 (and all the previous versions) is the one I played and loved the most, the game on which I wasted away many and many hours, when I was in college. It’s nostalgia, pure and simple, and I know it, but... it’s a matter of tastes, right? And all tastes are a waste, in the end. More or less. Let’s say so, okay?
Ina distant day, Scantanador will posses many dungeons, all connected by a wilderness or maybe just one dungeon, but extremely deep: I’ m not sure, yet, but I still have plenty of time, to make up my mind about it. There is still an awful lot of work, for me. Anyway, this demo version (which is really an Alpha release, but very alpha) has only one dungeon, with 10 levels, and without a final boss. Not satisfying? I know, I know, but it’s a first release, which manly serves to me as a playground, where I can test new stuff and see if everything works correctly, any time I add some new object, monster or power. It’s just a demo, as I said.
Being a JavaScript game, it should work on a very wide range of browsers and devices, and work fine everywhere. Or at least fine enough. This is the reason why I concentrated on supporting many kind of input: you can play it with your keyboard, with a mouse, tapping on a touchscreen and so on. Or, at least, you should be able to: I could only test it on a limited number of devices and browsers, so I’m not sure that it will really work everywhere. If you find something wrong, just tell me and I’ll fix it.
Given that I’m trying to program a game, which could last many hours, I also spent quite some time on the save and load process. The game is saved inside the browser you’re using to play it, in its localStorage object: if you open Scantanador with the same browser, you should be able to restart a previously saved game. Unless you died after the last save, of course: as a true roguelike, at least in spirit, Scantanador follows the philosophy of permadeath, which is to say “you can only die once”. Once you die, your character and all the saved game are deleted. That’s all. Of course, since it utilizes the localStorage, you can cheat the living shit out of a saved game, if you really want and if you have a minimal working knowledge of JavaScript: all the data are in you browser and very easy to access.
In short, let’s see what has already been implemented in Scantanador (version 0.0.1) and what is still waiting in line.
Already here:
-keyboard, mouse, touch support;
-saving and loading of a game;
-melee fight, plus some weapons;
-some armours, which can be equipped by player and monsters;
-ranged fights (simplified), plus some ranged weapons;
-potions with immediate and prolonged effects (some);
-items with special powers (some);
-player and monsters can pick up, drop and use (some) items;
-monsters with special powers (some);
-slightly changed d20 system rules;
Still waiting:
-improving the ranged fight;
-new monsters, items, powers;
-smarter monsters (or at least less stupid);
-experience points and level-ups;
-classes for the player;
-special abilities for player and monsters;
-new dungeons/bigger dungeon;
-last boss;
-magic system;
-traps;
-unidentified items;
-fix singular/plural;
-NPC?
And much more, starting from all the bugs I will surely have to squash. Put another way, as I said at the very beginning, I only put the basis for a game: now I must build over it, hoping that everything will be solid enough to hold.
Ah, graphics are obviously in ASCII: I’m quite the traditionalist, but I am also as artistic as a cod. It would be easy to add graphical tiles to the game and turn it into something more modern, but it’s not easy to make decent graphical tiles, at least for me. And, by the way, it’s not really ASCII, since I’m using Unicode characters, but never mind.
Scantanador is the name of a roguelike in JavaScript, which I’m programming. It utilizes the library ROT.JS, which is a very nice tool to help a poor, distressed programmer, who is working on a roguelike: its author seems to have a difficult relationship with semicolon and suchlike, but that’s another matter. It’s a good library, if you are crazy enough to program a roguelike. I am.
Command keys are quite easy and are, more or less, those you find in any roguelike. You are the @ in the centre of the screen and you can walk around by using arrow keys, numpad, or clicking/tapping the portion of the screen corresponding to a given direction. Pressing [Enter], or clicking/tapping on the @ icon, you can access to the menu, which lists all the main commands. The ? key will show you a list of all the keys used in the game.
Right now, Scantanador is little more than a skeleton, a bare-bone structure on which I am still working and a lot of work is still needed. A lot. If I were aiming for a 7DRL, which is to say a roguelike wrote and concluded within 7 days, I would be almost there: add a little more stuff, a final boss, maybe another pair of objects and the game would be ready. But not. Since I am crazy enough to think about a bigger game (way bigger), I still have a long way to go, before having a game which, somehow, can be seen as completed. Some day I’ll get there, for sure. Or, at least, I hope.
My model is ToME, mainly, which is a historical roguelike from ‘90s, but still alive and kicking. More or less. In truth, the version I’m using as an inspiration is not exactly alive and kicking, being the old 2.3.5 version, which was still called “Troubles of Middle Earth”, before kicking the bucket and being reborn with a different name and quite a different world. Why am I looking and the old version, if there is a new one, which is richer and probably better in every aspect? Because ToME 2.3.5 (and all the previous versions) is the one I played and loved the most, the game on which I wasted away many and many hours, when I was in college. It’s nostalgia, pure and simple, and I know it, but... it’s a matter of tastes, right? And all tastes are a waste, in the end. More or less. Let’s say so, okay?
Ina distant day, Scantanador will posses many dungeons, all connected by a wilderness or maybe just one dungeon, but extremely deep: I’ m not sure, yet, but I still have plenty of time, to make up my mind about it. There is still an awful lot of work, for me. Anyway, this demo version (which is really an Alpha release, but very alpha) has only one dungeon, with 10 levels, and without a final boss. Not satisfying? I know, I know, but it’s a first release, which manly serves to me as a playground, where I can test new stuff and see if everything works correctly, any time I add some new object, monster or power. It’s just a demo, as I said.
Being a JavaScript game, it should work on a very wide range of browsers and devices, and work fine everywhere. Or at least fine enough. This is the reason why I concentrated on supporting many kind of input: you can play it with your keyboard, with a mouse, tapping on a touchscreen and so on. Or, at least, you should be able to: I could only test it on a limited number of devices and browsers, so I’m not sure that it will really work everywhere. If you find something wrong, just tell me and I’ll fix it.
Given that I’m trying to program a game, which could last many hours, I also spent quite some time on the save and load process. The game is saved inside the browser you’re using to play it, in its localStorage object: if you open Scantanador with the same browser, you should be able to restart a previously saved game. Unless you died after the last save, of course: as a true roguelike, at least in spirit, Scantanador follows the philosophy of permadeath, which is to say “you can only die once”. Once you die, your character and all the saved game are deleted. That’s all. Of course, since it utilizes the localStorage, you can cheat the living shit out of a saved game, if you really want and if you have a minimal working knowledge of JavaScript: all the data are in you browser and very easy to access.
In short, let’s see what has already been implemented in Scantanador (version 0.0.1) and what is still waiting in line.
Already here:
-keyboard, mouse, touch support;
-saving and loading of a game;
-melee fight, plus some weapons;
-some armours, which can be equipped by player and monsters;
-ranged fights (simplified), plus some ranged weapons;
-potions with immediate and prolonged effects (some);
-items with special powers (some);
-player and monsters can pick up, drop and use (some) items;
-monsters with special powers (some);
-slightly changed d20 system rules;
Still waiting:
-improving the ranged fight;
-new monsters, items, powers;
-smarter monsters (or at least less stupid);
-experience points and level-ups;
-classes for the player;
-special abilities for player and monsters;
-new dungeons/bigger dungeon;
-last boss;
-magic system;
-traps;
-unidentified items;
-fix singular/plural;
-NPC?
And much more, starting from all the bugs I will surely have to squash. Put another way, as I said at the very beginning, I only put the basis for a game: now I must build over it, hoping that everything will be solid enough to hold.
Ah, graphics are obviously in ASCII: I’m quite the traditionalist, but I am also as artistic as a cod. It would be easy to add graphical tiles to the game and turn it into something more modern, but it’s not easy to make decent graphical tiles, at least for me. And, by the way, it’s not really ASCII, since I’m using Unicode characters, but never mind.
Why to pick up an item you have to first press Enter, then use a command instead of binding this to a single key (like 'g'et)?
RispondiElimina