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How to make roguelike games in Rust

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Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#31

Post by darksaints »

Are there any AAA studios using rust yet? I personally think it's not going to happen any time soon, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong.

My theory that it won't happen without some form of inheritance-like structure. Games, like many forms of simulation, are inherently stateful and tends to fall hard on the OO-side of the Expression Problem spectrum. Traits tend to give you the best of both worlds, but in very important aspect it falls short: the traits themselves do not have data members. I saw a proposal where you could link object data members explicitly to data members that the trait required, which would probably fill that gap...but I don't think it has gone anywhere. Anybody know what I'm talking about so I can look up the progress?

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#32

Post by steveklabnik »

darksaints wrote: post #31

Are there any AAA studios using rust yet? I personally think it's not going to happen any time soon, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong. My theory that it won't happen without some form of inheritance-like structure. Games, like many forms of simulation, are inherently stateful and tends to fall hard on the OO-side of the Expression Problem spectrum. Traits tend to give you the best of both worlds, but in very import…

Embark is a new AAA studio made up of ex-EA DICE folks who are heavily using Rust.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#33

Post by jere »

kris-s wrote: post #3

Are there commercially successful roguelikes that use ascii art only? Dwarf Fortress is the only one I know of and it's getting an official makeover for the Steam release.

Both Cogmind and Caves of Qud have optional tiles that look like little more than ASCII.

Door in the Woods is ASCII only and has sold ~5,000 copies in about a month. In fact this game has inspired me to try to work on a pure ASCII roguelike for my next commercial project.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#34

Post by Pyxl101 »

babuskov wrote: post #29
bmsleight_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trailer did not really show me any game play. So I can not judge it and see if I want to buy.

Showing gameplay would be pointless because 99% of the gameplay is in player's head, analyzing the code, maybe even writing some down on paper. If you just look at the screen, it doesn't make much sense. Here, try looking at this gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4RskXHDLzo&t=183s It's hard to pick any point in that 75 minute video that would be a good trailer material. There's nothing visually spectac…

Every game that Zachtronics releases has a gameplay trailer, for comparison. Perhaps it would be useful to look at some of those for inspiration:

http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/SHENZHEN_IO/?curat...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/716490/EXAPUNKS/?curator_...

I think a gameplay trailer could be made from content from that video, by stringing together a series of short clips. Show the player moving around, manipulating things. Each clip a few seconds in length. Similar to the trailer for Exapunks, you could display text like "Solve puzzles" "Manipulate bits" "Hack your way to safety" (or whatever makes sense). Maybe end with a sequence where something drastic happens (the player does something and the whole screen changes), fade to black.

I think it'd be useful to show the player what the gameplay is actually like. Sure, it's not for everyone, but you can still show what it is.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#35

Post by jere »

babuskov wrote: post #10
kris-s wrote: post #3

Are there commercially successful roguelikes that use ascii art only? Dwarf Fortress is the only one I know of and it's getting an official makeover for the Steam release.

I don't know about roguelikes success (Cogmind comes to mind), but I can tell you that ASCII games can be successful if you have a good idea. For example, I spent about 2 months making Rogue Bit just over a year ago: https://roguebit.bigosaur.com/ And it sold over 25000 copies so far.

25k? Interesting. I would guess about 2,500 copies based on your Steam review count.

Did you sell a lot more on Switch or something? I really would be surprised if an ASCII game could sell 20k on Switch.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#36

Post by master-litty »

babuskov wrote: post #10
kris-s wrote: post #3

Are there commercially successful roguelikes that use ascii art only? Dwarf Fortress is the only one I know of and it's getting an official makeover for the Steam release.

I don't know about roguelikes success (Cogmind comes to mind), but I can tell you that ASCII games can be successful if you have a good idea. For example, I spent about 2 months making Rogue Bit just over a year ago: https://roguebit.bigosaur.com/ And it sold over 25000 copies so far.

Tangential question, was it difficult for you to receive the development kit for the Nintendo Switch?

I'm creating a game right now and I can't get them to respond. I'd love to hear what worked well for you.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#37

Post by ShorsHammer »

darksaints wrote: post #31

Are there any AAA studios using rust yet? I personally think it's not going to happen any time soon, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong. My theory that it won't happen without some form of inheritance-like structure. Games, like many forms of simulation, are inherently stateful and tends to fall hard on the OO-side of the Expression Problem spectrum. Traits tend to give you the best of both worlds, but in very import…

Follow some of the rust gamedev discussion and it does surprise me that people are trying, albeit with small things. Triple-A is an entirely different beast, given that for some AAA games development started before rust even went v1.0 (2015). There's a big risk to be the first into this field, struggling to see why any large company with proven track records and developers who can produce what they need would decide to take the chance on a different lang without seeing smaller ones succeed with it first.

I write rust professionally and people seem to strangely hype the language for many of it's non-usecases. A jackhammer should not be used to change your car tires.

Personally doubt the benefits outweigh the extra energy expenditure required over traditional options but good luck to them I guess, especially in an ever-monetised MMO world rife with cheating.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#38

Post by svieira »

kris-s wrote: post #3

Are there commercially successful roguelikes that use ascii art only? Dwarf Fortress is the only one I know of and it's getting an official makeover for the Steam release.

ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) was ASCII-art-only through 1.1 and on the strength of that fan base raised a bunch of money on Kickstarter to add a visual layer (the ASCII-only version is still there and updated as the story continues).

Not sure if that's a "YES" or a "NO" given your question.

Re: How to make roguelike games in Rust

#40

Post by darkkindness »

prutschman wrote: post #28
Pamar wrote: post #19

Ask HN: are there any roguelike games that can be played (collaboratively) by two players on remote connection? Mac OS would be a plus because both me and my friend use mostly Apple stuff at home.

Mangband (multiplayer-angband) has a Mac OS port of both client and server: https://mangband.org/

Mangband also has a public server, so it doesn't take much to setup a game with a friend. (though the server does go down at times)
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