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[Eclipse]

unluckly i really don't like the graphics, moving a... bean? makes me miss the classic @ adventurer... at least i can think it's a fierce warrior or a silent rogue... that bean is a bean :\

And i'm totally for graphical roguelikes

[shrimp]

[NiallM]

What sort of solution do you think you'll end up using? I'm pretty interested in this myself, because I'm also working on a roguelike and have yet to nail down the controls. I'm leaning toward the keypad, myself, with redundant movement keys within the main keyboard and configurable layout.

I think that's probably what I'm going to do too.  The key mappings are already configurable, so it's trivial for me to add the numpad keys as defaults alongside hjkl.  I'm still undecided about the cursor keys though - it might be useful to have them as additional defaults to ease people in (people unfamiliar with roguelikes, that is), but again, no diagonals...

I think I'm probably going to also add a mouse interface.  What I'm thinking is to pop up a number of context-sensitive buttons around the player when the mouse is moved on the main play screen.  So empty squares around the player would have an arrow, indicating the player can move there, and adjacent monsters would have buttons for attacking, or applying something to the monster, and so on.  It still needs a little thought (how to fit multiple options within a 32x32 square), but I think it could work quite well for people not ready to use/memorise the keyboard.

NiallM, have you played Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (tiles version)? It's a graphical roguelike done right.

I'm afraid nethack (the ascii version, that is) is the only roguelike I've really spent a lot of time with, but Dungeon Crawl is definitely high on my list of games to play.  I have to say though, I don't find the screenshots of the tiles version particularly appealing.  To me, this looks far better than this .  I find I have the same reaction to a lot of graphical roguelikes though.  I suppose part of the reason for developing Plort is that I wanted something with a visual style more in tune with my own idea of what looks good.

unluckly i really don't like the graphics, moving a... bean? makes me miss the classic @ adventurer... at least i can think it's a fierce warrior or a silent rogue... that bean is a bean :\

Or in this case, that bean is a potato:

The difference is HUGE!

You do have a point though - there should be beans in Plort.  That's one for my todo list.  Runner beans to make you go faster...

I don't actually intend to have any fierce warriors or silent rogues in Plort, as I'm fairly tired of the usual fantasy conventions.  Plort's meant to be more light-hearted.  Having said that, you will find the @ adventurer in there, if you look hard enough.

[ortoslon]

I'm afraid nethack (the ascii version, that is) is the only roguelike I've really spent a lot of time with, but Dungeon Crawl is definitely high on my list of games to play.  I have to say though, I don't find the screenshots of the tiles version particularly appealing.  To me, this looks far better than this .  I find I have the same reaction to a lot of graphical roguelikes though.  I suppose part of the reason for developing Plort is that I wanted something with a visual style more in tune with my own idea of what looks good.

DCSS-tiles screenshots don't show message areas, stats areas, minimap and inventory toolbars. Crawl tiles are generic and effective, but I love your tiles (I'm a fan of clean, colorful sprites like those in Teeworlds or Garden of Coloured Lights) and I don't want you to replace them. Instead, I strongly recommend you to play DCSS-tiles as soon as possible and steal good interface ideas. For example:

• multiline message area (get rid of --More--)
• rich mouse support
• always visible (and interactable, if you add mouse controls) inventory and minimap
• plain text option file (more portable and easier to edit (at least for me))

[Eclipse]

ah so it's a potato :D
speaking about your tiles, i think your floor pops too much, looks just like the walls, and makes me feel like the character is surrounded by blocks instead of being on a stone floor

[NiallM]

DCSS-tiles screenshots don't show message areas, stats areas, minimap and inventory toolbars. Crawl tiles are generic and effective, but I love your tiles (I'm a fan of clean, colorful sprites like those in Teeworlds or Garden of Coloured Lights) and I don't want you to replace them. Instead, I strongly recommend you to play DCSS-tiles as soon as possible and steal good interface ideas. For example:

• multiline message area (get rid of --More--)
• rich mouse support
• always visible (and interactable, if you add mouse controls) inventory and minimap
• plain text option file (more portable and easier to edit (at least for me))

Okay, I've had a quick play with it and I can see what you're getting at.  I particularly like the way just moving the mouse over a tile gives you a description of it.  There are definitely some ideas I could use there, but to do it right is going to require a fairly substantial reworking of how Plort currently uses screen space, and for now I'd rather concentrate on the gameplay (the fun part of development, for me anyway).  The big feature I want to add for the next release is procedurally-generated sidequests, which hopefully has the potential for all sorts of interesting interactions (though I'd imagine it'll probably take me a while to get it working right).

speaking about your tiles, i think your floor pops too much, looks just like the walls, and makes me feel like the character is surrounded by blocks instead of being on a stone floor

How about this:

I've lightened those tiles as well - the game wasn't meant to be so dark, but my development laptop's screen's a bit screwy, making it hard to judge colours.