Fun with monkeys

Hullo,

I've just been tinkering with the monkey sprites I already had to make some cheap (but fun) variations.

Whats more terrifying than a vicious blood thirsty ape? A bloodthirsty ape with wings! I might do a colour change on these to make some gargoyles or something later on.

...I don't know how you could justify the bellhop apes in game, but I'm sure someone will find an excuse.

Setting the Scene

No real topic for this post, I've just been playing around with the tiles.

I quite enjoy setting up little dioramas using the various charicters and scenery, I don't know how hard it would be to duplicate this kind of theming using procedural generation techneques but I think it would be worth the effort. With a well made quest generator, it could breath a lot of life into a tiny game.

There are a few extra bits and pieces in these images that i haven't blogged yet, some from V0.2 and some that will be in the next release.

Raising the alarm

I'm sure alarms are included in a fair few roguelikes, and if not they should be. A simple thing like having to fell a monster before he calls his mates, or drawing a tough beast to one side of a level while you sneak down a side passage adds a great deal of immersion and drama whilst playing.

So far I have only thought of a few objects to act as alarms, bells gongs and horns. If I can think of more i'll add them.

Drums....that didn't take long....

Version 0.2 ready to download

Hello folks,

After quite a long delay the next version of the tileset is ready to download. Version 0.2 is a modest update, but  the additions should be pretty useful. Included in v0.2 are:

• Brightened wall tiles (following feedback)
• Floor depression tiles
• Animated floor tiles for lava, water and mist (for use with floor depressions)
• Doors!
• Some other furniture bits and pieces including some with fire
• New race of Ratlings
• A few NPCs

Head over to the download section now to have a butchers for yourself.

As always your feedback is much appreciated, and if you get anything working with the tiles don't forget to let me know, I'd love to hear about your project.

Doors

I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with doors and the way they opened. I tried foreshortened doors that fit exactly with the perspective of the walls, I tried doors that were shown front on or side on depending on their position. In the end I decided that utility should come first, so I opted for the front facing variety with a collapsed version to indicate an open door and a alternative graphic for broken doors.

Below are a selection of doors intended to cover a range of durability and visibility options. So a curtain would offer no protection when closed but would block line of sight completely, a wooden door with a peep hole would offer some protection whilst allowing a line of sight when next to it and a metal grill would offer a free line of sight, good protection against melee attacks and no protection against ranged weapons.

Roof geometry

Of all the tiles I am making, without a doubt the hardest to program for will be roofs. So if you planned on having towns in your game sorry in advance.

I am still working on the roofs but the images below show the layout I will be using for their geometry. I'm making three sets of roof tiles. the first will be for thatched buildings, the second will be steeply pitched tiled roofs (churches and such like) and the third and simplest will be ramparts.

The templates below are mock ups intended to show every possible angle juncture. I will texture them and slice them up into 8 by 8 tiles, keeping one of each unique tile. I've not counted how many this will be but it will be it'll be loads.

Hopefully these tiles will allow you to place a roof on any procedurally generated building footprint (within reason). I feel like I'm going overboard on this but its quite fun.

Click to see full size images.

The murkey depths

New year new update, and today we are going to be talking about recessed floors! how exciting.

Basically I have added tiles that allow for depressed areas of floor in dungeons, these depressions can then be filled with various entertaining elements, like flaming hot magma, fuming acid, filthy sewer water or swirling mists. In addition to looking pretty snappy, these should open up some nice new game mechanics: equipped armour could rust if you wade through water too long,  floor tiles could drop away into lava the second you step off them, yawning gulfs could be spanned with flammable rope bridges, etc etc.

In addition to the more dramatic effects the depressed tiles can also be used on top of a solid floor to create slight height difference. This could be purely aesthetic or it could give you a slight advantage when beating down on an enemy. All told these should interrupt what would otherwise be a level and uneventful playing field.