You can move around a player on an island and meet different enemies. You have 5
hitpoints to lose before death. Enemies start with different amounts of
-hitpoints, depending on their species. Dead enemies become dirt, skeletons or
-"magic meat" -- such objects can be collected, and "magic meat" can be consumed
-to gain hitpoints. Note that different kinds of movements/actions take different
-numbers of turns to finish.
-
-Enemies' AI is very dumb so far: Each turn, they try to move towards their
-shortest-path-wise nearest enemy. If no enemy is found in their surroundings,
-they just wait.
-
-Diagonal movement is possible, but takes (40%) longer than orthogonal movement.
-
-Once you start a new world, every move of yours is recorded in a file called
-"record". Once you re-start the game, all of your previous moves are replayed
-automatically up to the point wherere you left the game. To start over in a new
-world, simply delete this file.
+hitpoints, depending on their species. Dead enemies become dirt, skeletons, or
+food to consume (each turn reduces one's "satiation", and the lower it is, the
+stronger the chance of suffering from hunger and thereby losing hitpoints). Note
+that different kinds of movements/actions take different numbers of turns to
+finish.
+
+Enemies' AI is very dumb so far: Each turn, they look out for actors of
+different species to flee from (if their type starts out with more hitpoints
+than they have) or (if the opposite is the case) move towards for purposes of
+attack. If they see no enemy, they search for and consume "magic meat".
+
+Every move of yours re-writes a file "save" that describes the new state of the
+world, if more than 15 seconds have passed since its last writing. Once you
+re-start the game, the game state is recreated from the "save" file. To
+start over in a new world, simply delete this file.
System requirements / installation / running the game
-----------------------------------------------------
-The game is expected to run on Linux systems that contain the ncurses library.
-Do the following steps:
+The game is expected to run:
+- on Unix systems with a vt100-like terminal environment (xterm will do)
+- that contain the ncurses library
+- and Python3 (version >= 3.2.3).
+
+To build it, this is furthermore necessary:
+- gcc (version >= 4.7.2); some llvm masked as gcc was tested successfully on OSX
+- libc library headers (libc6-dev?)
+- ncurses library headers (libncurses5-dev?)
-$ git clone https://github.com/plomlompom/plomrogue
-$ cd plomrogue
-$ make
+To build and start, do the following steps:
+
+$ ./redo
$ ./roguelike
-(It may also work on other Unix-like systems with ncurses, who knows.)
+If you got a version of djb's redo build system installed and in your $PATH,
+you could also do a simple "redo" instead of "./redo". The ./redo script calls a
+simple partial shell script implementation of redo stored below
+./build/redo_scripts/, written by Nils Dagsson Moskopp a.k.a. erlehmann.)
-Make generates two executables ./roguelike-server and ./roguelike-client.
+./redo generates two executables ./roguelike-server and ./roguelike-client.
./roguelike is a pre-existing shell script that merely executes both of them,
with the server as a background job. You can also ignore the script and start
the two by hand.
Client's keybindings and window management
------------------------------------------
-In the client's default window configuration, the window appearing on the left
-sports a list of keybindings available globally, and additionally via the window
-selected as active.
-
-Hit "w" (per default keybindings) to switch the "active" window to a view that
-allows changing its geometry. One more hit on "w" switches the window to a view
-that allows changing its window-specific keybindings. The global keybindings can
-be changed in the "Global keys" window, those of the window geometry
-configuration in the "Window geometry keys" window, and those of the
-window-specific keybindings configuration in the "Window keybinding keys"
-window; by default, these three windows are not visible, but may be turned on by
-(per default keybindings) hitting the "F6", "F7" and "F8" keys.
+Multiple windows may fill the screen. One of these will be selected as "active"
+– identified by dollar signs enclosing its title. Active windows may come with
+window-specific keybindings. Furthermore, global keybindings are available no
+matter what window is selected.
+
+Hit "W" (per default global keybindings) to switch the active window to a view
+that allows changing its geometry. One more hit on "W" switches the window to a
+view that sports (and allows changing its) window-specific keybindings. (One
+further "W" will return the window to its default, "normal" view.) The global
+keybindings are visible (and can be changed) in the "Set global keys" window,
+those of the window geometry configuration in the "Set window geometry keys"
+window, and those of the window-specific keybindings configuration in the "Set
+window keybinding keys" window; by default, the latter two are not visible, but
+may be turned on by (per default keybindings) hitting the keys "F6" and "F7".
Keybindings and default window selection / visibilities / geometries are read
from the textfile ./confclient/interface_conf by default, or by another one
own window manager choice, instead of relying on plomrogue-client's bizarre
in-client window management.
-Replay game recording
----------------------
-
-Run "./roguelike -s" to watch a recording of the current game from the
-beginning. Hit any player action key to increment turns (they will not trigger
-the actions usually mapped to them, only repeat the actions done at that point
-in the game as defined in the "record" file). Keys to manage windows, scroll on
-the map and quit the program do their usual thing. Append a number to the -s
-option (like "-s100") to start the recording at the respective turn number.
+Save files and replay game recording
+------------------------------------
+
+By default, the game state is saved in the file ./save, and read from there on
+(server) restart. Another file name to use can be given with the -l option (i.e.
+start the game with "./roguelike -l alternate_savefile"). To start over in a new
+world, remove ./save, or use the -l option with the name of a file that does not
+exist yet.
+
+Once you start a new world, every game action of yours is appended to a file
+called "record_" plus the save file name. Run "./roguelike -s" to watch the
+current game's recording from the beginning. Hit any player action key to
+increment turns (they will not trigger the actions usually mapped to them, only
+repeat the actions done at that point in the game as defined in the record
+file). Keys to manage windows, scroll on the map and quit the program do their
+usual thing. Append a number to the -s option (like "-s100") to start the
+recording playback at the respective turn number. (Don't forget to delete /
+empty a game's record file when deleting its save file, or different game's
+moves will get mixed up in one record file.)
Hacking / server internals and configuration
--------------------------------------------
-The movements/actions available to the player and the enemies are defined and
-can be changed in ./confserver/map_object_actions. Each entry consists of a
-first line of a numerical ID used internally to uniquely identify and manage the
-action, a second line of the number of turns the action takes, and a third line
-of a string that maps the action to the game logic to do when it is called.
-Finally, a delimiter line of "%%" ends the entry.
-
-The different map object types, i.e. species (including the player's human one)
-and item types, can be edited in ./confserver/defs. Here the first value is a
-numerical ID that represents the object type, the second one describes what type
-this object decomposes to when it gets destroyed/killed, the third value is the
-ASCII character used to represent the object visually on the map, the fourth
-value is the number of hitpoints the object starts with (items are dead and
-start with zero hitpoints, anything else moves), the fifth is the string that
-names the object in the game log. Finally, the same delimiter as for the map
-object action definitions file follows. Note that the only valid item use so
-far, consuming "magic meat" to gain hitpoints, is so far hard-coded (this should
-change in the future).
-
-All source files are thoroughly documented to explain more details of
-plomrogue's internals. The ./roguelike-server executable can be run with a -v
-option for helpful debugging info (mostly: what messages the client sends to the
-server). Server and client communicate via files in the ./server/ directory
-(generated when the server is first run). The ./server/in file is read by the
-server for newline-delimited commands. The ./server/out file contains server
-messages to be read by clients. The ./server/worldstate file contains a
+The game world is set up and made subject to player commands by
+./roguelike-server. It's controlled by commands explained in the file
+./SERVER_COMMANDS. The server usually reads these from the files ./server/in
+(written to by ./roguelike-client), ./confserver/world, ./record_save and
+./save.
+
+All source files are thoroughly documented to explain more details of the
+PlomRogue engine's internals. The ./roguelike-server executable can be run with
+a -v option for helpful debugging info (mostly: what messages the client sends
+to the server). Server and client communicate via files in the ./server/
+directory (generated when the server is first run). The ./server/in file is read
+by the server for newline-delimited commands. The ./server/out file contains
+server messages to be read by clients. The ./server/worldstate file contains a
serialized representation of the game world's data as it is to be visible to
the player / the player's client.
projects / plomrogue / blobdiff