Probably my favorite style of game implementation is
Roguelike. There's two things I've always wanted to be able to implement but couldn't work out how:
1) A roguelike that is online and multiplayer in the same environment. This doesn't work in my head because of the nature of roguelikes. Their turn based where the turn is controlled by the player. How do you allow multiple people all to control the turn without slowing the game down to a crawl (one of the other nice things about roguelikes, the game pace is set by the player)
2) A squad based roguelike. Again this seems fiddly because traditionally rogue likes are played via keyboard control and a single character - this is so the focus doesn't change alot.
I think (2) is approachable but I'm not sure about the turn flow. This is what I was thinking about implementing:
1) Environment is displayed, player units and the are that they can see is displayed.
2) Player uses the mouse to select units and give orders
3) Player uses space to advance one turn, in this turn:
a) The player's units take one step, or take a shot, or whatever their orders allow them to do.
b) The opponent's forces take one step
So, pressing space gives your a roguelike turn. So, the game play once you'd got used to the controls would come down to:
- Give Order
- Press Space
- Press Space
- Press Space
- Ohhh, something happened (unit attacked, new enemy seen). Change some orders
- Press Space
- Press Space
- etc..
So, does this work as a game? Is it still a roguelike? Does it give anything over a traditional turn based strategy game?
My feeling at the moment is that with the right scenario (say sci-fi shooter, or ww2) it could be fun. I think it could be played (by an experience player) much faster than a normal turn based strategy game. It also makes me think you'd feel more in control since you had step by step control with minimal fuss.
WDYT?
Kev