1 NOTE: This is the PlomRogue engine's RADME text, assuming certain configuration
2 defaults not present in the 7DRL game. So parts of it may not apply to this
3 specific package. (The 7DRL also adds various 7DRL-specific features and
4 optimizations to the server and client code. To play with the "pure" client, get
5 it at http://github.com/plomlompom/plomrogue ("main" branch).)
10 plomlompom tries to build his own roguelike. It doesn't do much yet (although
11 plomlompom has insanely ambitious long-term plans).
13 You can move around a player on an island and meet different enemies. You have 5
14 hitpoints to lose before death. Enemies start with different amounts of
15 hitpoints, depending on their species. Dead enemies become dirt, skeletons, or
16 food to consume (each turn reduces one's "satiation", and the lower it is, the
17 stronger the chance of suffering from hunger and thereby losing hitpoints). Note
18 that different kinds of movements/actions take different numbers of turns to
21 Enemies' AI is very dumb so far: Each turn, they look out for actors of
22 different species to flee from (if their type starts out with more hitpoints
23 than they have) or (if the opposite is the case) move towards for purposes of
24 attack. If they see no enemy, they search for and consume "magic meat".
26 Every move of yours re-writes a file "savefile" that describes the new state of
27 dthe world, if more than 15 seconds have passed since its last writing. Once you
28 re-start the game, the game state is recreated from the "savefile" file. To
29 start over in a new world, simply delete this file.
31 System requirements / installation / running the game
32 -----------------------------------------------------
34 The game is expected to run:
35 - on Unix systems with a vt100-like terminal environment (xterm will do)
36 - that contain the ncurses library
37 - and Python3 (version >= 3.2.3).
39 To build it, this is furthermore necessary:
40 - gcc (version >= 4.7.2); some llvm masked as gcc was tested successfully on OSX
41 - libc library headers (libc6-dev?)
42 - ncurses library headers (libncurses5-dev?)
44 To build and start, do the following steps:
49 (If you got a version of djb's redo build system installed and in your $PATH,
50 you could also do a simple "redo" instead of "./redo". The ./redo script calls a
51 simple partial shell script implementation of redo stored below
52 ./build/redo_scripts/, written by Nils Dagsson Moskopp a.k.a. erlehmann.)
54 ./redo generates the executable ./roguelike-client (and the library
55 ./libplomrogue.so used by the executable ./roguelike-server).
57 ./roguelike is a pre-existing shell script that merely executes both executables
58 ./roguelike-client and ./roguelike-server, with the server as a background job.
59 You can also ignore the script and start the two by hand.
61 Client's keybindings and window management
62 ------------------------------------------
64 Multiple windows may fill the screen. One of these will be selected as "active"
65 – identified by dollar signs enclosing its title. Active windows may come with
66 window-specific keybindings. Furthermore, global keybindings are available no
67 matter what window is selected.
69 Hit "W" (per default global keybindings) to switch the active window to a view
70 that allows changing its geometry. One more hit on "W" switches the window to a
71 view that sports (and allows changing its) window-specific keybindings. (One
72 further "W" will return the window to its default, "normal" view.) The global
73 keybindings are visible (and can be changed) in the "Set global keys" window,
74 those of the window geometry configuration in the "Set window geometry keys"
75 window, and those of the window-specific keybindings configuration in the "Set
76 window keybinding keys" window; by default, the latter two are not visible, but
77 may be turned on by (per default keybindings) hitting the keys "F6" and "F7".
79 Keybindings and default window selection / visibilities / geometries are read
80 from the textfile ./confclient/interface_conf by default, or by another one
81 named by the -i command line option of the client. Some other default window
82 configurations are stored below ./confclient/single_windows/: "map", "info",
83 "inventory" and "log". Each of these opens up only a single window into the
84 client, filling up the entire terminal. This may be useful for running multiple
85 clients in parallel in multiple terminal windows that can be managed by one's
86 own window manager choice, instead of relying on plomrogue-client's bizarre
87 in-client window management.
89 Save files, replay game recording, starting over
90 ------------------------------------------------
92 By default, the game state is saved in the file ./save, and read from there on
93 (server) restart. Another file name to use can be given with the -l option (i.e.
94 start the game with "./roguelike -l alternate_savefile"). To start over in a new
95 world, remove ./save, or use the -l option with the name of a file that does not
98 Once you start a new world, every game action of yours is appended to a file
99 called "record_" plus the save file name. Run "./roguelike -s" to watch the
100 current game's recording from the beginning. Hit any player action key to
101 increment turns (they will not trigger the actions usually mapped to them, only
102 repeat the actions done at that point in the game as defined in the record
103 file). Keys to manage windows, scroll on the map and quit the program do their
104 usual thing. Append a number to the -s option (like "-s100") to start the
105 recording playback at the respective turn number. (Don't forget to delete /
106 empty a game's record file when deleting its save file, or different game's
107 moves will get mixed up in one record file.)
109 Hacking / server internals and configuration
110 --------------------------------------------
112 The game world is set up and made subject to player commands by
113 ./roguelike-server. It's controlled by commands explained in the file
114 ./SERVER_COMMANDS. The server usually reads these from the files ./server/in
115 (written to by ./roguelike-client), ./confserver/world, ./record_save and
118 All source files are thoroughly documented to explain more details of the
119 PlomRogue engine's internals. The ./roguelike-server executable can be run with
120 a -v option for helpful debugging info (mostly: what messages the client sends
121 to the server). Server and client communicate via files in the ./server/
122 directory (generated when the server is first run). The ./server/in file is read
123 by the server for newline-delimited commands. The ./server/out file contains
124 server messages to be read by clients. The ./server/worldstate file contains a
125 serialized representation of the game world's data as it is to be visible to
126 the player / the player's client.
projects / plomrogue / blob