Noxico

Seen here is the slightly reworked pause screen, demonstrating the newly implemented stat bonuses.

Typical output from what I’ve been working on today.

Noxico needs prose. That’s not the reason I’m feeling bummed though. That’d be because a handful of people have said they’d like to try writing something, and so far only one of them has submitted something. Two scenes, to be precise.

The Annual Roguelike Release Party 2012 is coming this Saturday, and I’d really like to have a little more of what the game is actually about in there for the upcoming 0.1.10 release 🙁

Until then, I’ll just work on the engine some more…

When you enter a dungeon in the overworld, if it’s the first time for that specific dungeon, it’ll have to be generated. But how to make a multi-level dungeon that makes a bit of spatial sense? Here’s what I came up with:

First, create a list of lists of boards. A jagged array, if you will. The amount of levels is randomized, as is the amount of boards for each level. Pick one board from the top level as the dungeon’s entry point, and one from the bottom as the goal. You could visualize it something like this:

Now, for each level, pick a random board or two and connect it to a random board one level down. Each pair of boards is noted in a special list of connected boards:

Now we use that list I just mentioned to connect each board to its right-hand neighbor, but only if either of them is not already connected:

And voila, you can trace a path from the entry to the goal, but only if you actually have a map drawn out. For the player, finding the path is part of the challenge.

This has been implemented earlier today.

Feel free to use this method in your own games.

I could use some feedback on these.

• Femininity slider – like in Corruption of Champions
• Teeth styles – normal, fangs, more teeth than the Osmond family
• Tooth and Claw attacks, to replace Bare Fists when attacking
• Hairstyles – like in Nimin Fetish Fantasy, should probably reset when bald (length=0)
• Tongue styles – normal, forked, barbed, long, …
• Tentacles – amount, length?
• Penis styles – normal, dog, horse, cat, tentacle, demon, …

Just a quick heads-up: I started on multi-level dungeons. At the moment they don’t make much sense but it’ll get better.

And protip: if at any point you want to try out new stuff that you see on this blog, you can get the source code from Bitbucket and compile it yourself in Visual C# 2010 Express.

Right now, to fire a long-range weapon you have to press A for Aim, put the cursor on target, and press Enter.

Now consider what Noxico started as: a ZZT/MZX clone. In those games, you fire your weapon by holding a modifier key and pressing an arrow key.

If your target lines up with you, use shift-arrows, and if it doesn’t, use Aim mode. Sounds okay, right?

Thanks to Nvos at Fenoxo’s Forum.

Running in Windows 8.

Just implemented this. Feels good, man.