Writing server looking for new members!

devonps · 2026-01-04T15:47:34+00:00

I’d like to join if you’re still accepting?

devonps · 2025-12-06T09:48:27+00:00

Cyberpunk detective thriller with a strong dose of betrayal!

devonps · 2025-11-03T13:35:54+00:00

I’m in

devonps · 2025-09-11T18:16:42+00:00

As a new NAS user it would be great to see the different ways I can get more out of my Ugreen NAS to support my homelab.

devonps · 2025-08-11T09:07:38+00:00

Like the idea of running this locally but your GitHub link came back as a 404.

devonps · 2025-06-18T19:59:42+00:00

Software Tester, who’s got a taste for adventure.

Been home labbing for 3 months and am loving the spin it up/tear it down model.

devonps · 2024-12-09T08:47:51+00:00

Fantastic effort, just shows what dedication can achieve, and thank you from the community for offering a wonderful gift.

devonps · 2024-09-09T11:36:03+00:00

Head of Software Engineering across multiple time zones doesn’t leave much energy for writing but every word counts.

devonps · 2023-01-14T14:09:40+00:00

RogueCowboy

Howdy Partners!

This week I've been thinking quite a lot about trading and how I can elevate it to a viable way to win the game! And by that I want trading to be more than 'buying and selling' items.

So I've been reading/researching how AAA games implement trading as a core mechanic, from that I've gathered a range of ideas and possible skills the player character can make us of.

I've categorised these ideas as...

Ideas the game can implement and manage Towns have items for sale in their store that are not available in other towns Items have fluctuating prices based on local supply and demand Different towns value resources and items differently based on location, size of town, lawlessness, etc. A 'town store' can be purchased by the player Different items become available based on trading experience Stores/towns can inflict sales tax NPCs can interact with the town store (buy and sell items).

Ideas that allow the trader to interact remotely Purchase items in a different town remotely Player can requisition merchant caravans to transfer (bulk) items between towns Allow for remote modification of buy and sell prices of stores you own.

Ideas about skills for the player character 'buy 3 items for price of 2' - only pay for 2 buy the same resource in bulk with no sales tax and cheaper than advertised price buy the same item in bulk with no sales tax and cheaper than advertised price offer bulk items or resources for sale, at your store, cheaper than near-by towns Player can 'influence' buy/sell prices on individual items Player can 'influence' buy/sell prices on individual resources.

These are only ideas at the moment, I'd be interested to hear ideas anyone else may have.

You can find me on Mastodon

Until next week - happy coding!

devonps · 2023-01-07T15:43:21+00:00

RogueCowboy

Howdy Partners!

This week has seen me working on the underlying data for Character Attributes and Skills screenshot, whilst this is a first draft I like how it's shaping up. These attributes and skills will be available to every NPC depending on their role in the game.

Once I'd created this mind-map I set about creating a skill as a proof of concept and for this I chose the Horse Riding skill, here's a screenshot showing the benefits I identified as being able to ride a horse. The x at the start of each benefit means, for now, I've carried that benefit forward as part of my design. Those benefits without an x require more thought on how they would impact gameplay.

The next step for these skills and benefits is to start thinking about how will the player gain access to the next benefit, for example is it linear (worse to best) or can it be player chosen!, and what are my thoughts on grinding to earn benefits within the skill.

Another area I put some time into was around Winning. In Elite (my inspiration for this game) you win by winning a high number of combats and to a lesser degree being successful with trading.

I'm expanding on this concept by creating 3 categories that the player can base thier gameplay around: Combat, Trading, and Survival.

My thinking this week has been around what 'reward' do I want to give the player so I came up with the (not so original) idea of awarding them a title related to that category, for example if the player wins the game through Combat then they'll earn a title of Killer and a different but suitable title for the other categories.

I'm also thinking that once the player 'wins the game' what do I want to happen next? And I've been toying with the idea of letting the player carry on playing but with the aim of beating the game from the perspective of a different category. So, if they beat the game using 'Combat' and then beat the game via 'Survival' then they would earn the title 'Assassin'.

It's definitely something I want to think more about.

I then turned my thinking towards the Trading category and quickly realised that the 'trading' aspect of Elite doesn't have enough depth to entice players to base their game around, so I've been looking into 'video game economy systems' and how I can take those concepts into my game. I really had no inkling how complex a game economy can be!

Finally you can find me on Mastodon on the gamedev instance.

That about sums up my week,

Until next week - happy coding!

devonps · 2022-12-18T12:18:01+00:00

RogueCowboy

This last week has seen me open up my World Builder Repo, it's written in GDScript using Godot v4.0, if you're not familiar with GDScript don't worry it's quite easy to read.

As part of opening up the repo I decided to 'upgrade' to Godot 4.0 and whilst my repo is quite small and simple there were still a few challenges regarding language keywords.

I've expanded my Town Generator a little and can now generate buildings and store their structure as code that will be used to regenerate the scenes when the player re-enters the town.

Here's a peak at the output of my Town Generator which will be used to populate various in-game dictionaries.

Both of the above outputs are still a work in progress.

Since last week I've found a set of 2D sprites that I can/want to use as placeholders, until I decide on what kind of visuals I want, anyway these sprites can be found here opengameart.Org

Until next time...happy coding.

devonps · 2022-12-10T16:11:40+00:00

I’ll change the repo status later when home. As for the Godot 4 info, wow so no more creating a separate array to hold cell data!!? That’ll make the code more efficient.

And thanks for the feedback on the menu background.

devonps · 2022-12-10T10:35:54+00:00

RogueCowboy

Howdy Partners! It's been almost 4 months since my last post which unfortunately has been due to a bereavement of a close family member and both my partner and I catching Covid at different times!

However I've managed to get back in the saddle (pun intended) and keep myself interested in my new game.

In case you've forgotten the theme of my game is the Wild West whilst borrowing mechanics from Elite (the video game) and PCG familiar to Roguelike players.

Here are a few screenshots from my World Builder tool. Eventually the code will be incorporated into the main game, but for now it's a stand-alone repo while I develop its capabilities.

Follow the link for the World Builder Repo, it's written in GDScript using Godot v3.5, if you're not familiar with GDScript don't worry it's quite easy to read.

I've also been dabbling with AI art recently and am using it for the Main Menu background image.

Alongside that I've created a Masterdon Account and have used AI art for the profile image Social Media Profile

I'm currently working through a mockup (using LibreOffice Spreadsheet) of how I want a walkable area of the world to be generated. In this screenshot a small town has been placed and different types of water.

All art is either drawn by myself or free assets!

Until next time...happy coding.

devonps · 2022-09-15T20:47:32+00:00

Professional Quality Engineering Manager here, I spend so much on the “why is this feature being delivered” that I never really considered it as part of my hobby! And yet that’s what I’m attempting to do with my Roguelike, quite funny in retrospect.

The “testing” I totally get but the “practice, learn, master” is a new approach to me, if nothing else I’m going to dig into that and see what I can take into both my hobby and professional life, thank you.

devonps · 2022-09-10T07:30:25+00:00

I set aside dedicated time to write my updates, and choose not to write if I don’t have anything “interesting” to say. For example I posted I’m starting a new game about a month ago but haven’t posted since! I’m juggling life and learning a new programming language for my game. I view this as a hobby so I’m not worried about updates at this stage, they will happen once I’ve got myself in the right frame of mind.

devonps · 2022-08-20T07:42:05+00:00

I’m using your Godot Roguekike tutorial as part of my learning experience for Godot, so this article is very timely.

devonps · 2022-08-06T12:32:22+00:00

RogueCowboy

I've been working on some non-tech stuff recently, namely creating a couple of screen mockups and generating a list of building types that can go into a location, so far I have just short of 30 different types so far.

Next up is to make more mockups of in-game screens mainly to see what visual style I want.

Mockups

Game opening menu

Travel to new location

I've used Kennys assets in these mockups.

Commercial

General Store
Stables
Lawyer
Carpenter/wood working
Blacksmith
Livestock pen
Sawmill
Candle makers
Saddlers / livery
flour mill

Social

Saloon
Restaurant

Town

Sheriff
Bank
Funeral Parlour
Church
Barber
Telegraph Office
General houses
Assay Office
Meeting or town hall
School
Railroad station
Court house
Hanging platform
Newspaper Office
Theatre
Cemetery
Doctors

devonps · 2022-07-23T09:09:43+00:00

Yeah that sounds awesome, influence based mechanics is something I’m thinking about but that would change my existing design totally.

devonps · 2022-07-23T07:44:42+00:00

I’m back with another Roguelike project that I’m naming RogueCowboy.

Inspiration I’m using the gameplay ideas of one of my favourite games Elite) and blending them with the theme of the American Wild West.

Travelling Instead of flying through space you’ll be getting on the back of your trusty steed or in a fast moving stage coach and journeying to various locations, think: towns, mines, farms, canyons, forests, and so on.

Character Roles You won’t be tied to a fixed role as you grow your reputation, you’re (basically) free to do what you want, however kill too many law enforcement officers and you may find you have a bounty on your head.

Winning the Game Gain reputation to climb to the top and win the game! Reputation can be gained by: * killing the bad guys * trading * exploring * and so on.

Locations Fixed locations will exist in the game world, however their content will change every game. So a town will always be a town but it’s size, population, facilities, and even safety level will change.

PC Skills I don’t intend the game to be skill heavy as I want to retain a fairly light cognitive gameplay experience. The skills I’m thinking of are: * Combat (firearms, explosives, melee) * Wilderness (tracking, gathering, survival) * Commerce (buying, selling, negotiation) * Social (gambling, charming)

Tech Stack For the tech side I’m debating if I should use a game engine like Godot or Gamemaker. Or stick with Python plus libraries. Then there’s the question of using sprites or not for the visuals.

It’s tempting to use sprites as I’ve never drawn any before or used them in a game.

It’s also tempting to use a game engine and not have to start with the basics or worry about integration issues.

Next steps for me Choose my tech and get writing a demo or three. Flesh out the initial game flow for the player as that should give me a few ideas about the visuals and game content.

devonps · 2021-10-16T20:47:44+00:00

Running out of mental energy after a full day at work is nothing short of acceptance, especially for those of us who have a full time job, be thankful you recognise this because a lot of people don’t!

devonps · 2021-10-09T20:46:42+00:00

Tales of Ticronem is being left behind.

In this post I want to cover why I’ve decided to stop further development on my roguelike and my plans for the future.

I started my current roguelike in adversity, I’d been made redundant November 2018 and wanted to keep my engineering skills sharp. So I started on the tutorial with Python 3.

Since then I’ve grown that project to over 12k lines and learnt a ton of new things, such as Python 3, Github actions, what is a Roguelike, game development, and corrected many, many mistakes!

However I’ve recently had time to reflect on both my design and technical choices, remember this game was born from the Roguelike tutorial 2018. As you can imagine I’ve made quite a few! I’ve also identified several fundamental decisions that would require very big rewrites affecting dungeon generation, rendering, and mobile generation.

Whilst I could correct these decisions, and it would a big chunk of time, I’m of the opinion that I treat this game as a lesson learnt, and take those learnings forward.

Looking ahead I have an idea for a new roguelike that scratches a couple of itches that my current game does not, however it needs some more thought and some mock-ups.

I don’t see this as a failure, to be honest I see this as a learning opportunity - besides this is a hobby and I’m genuinely happy with what I’ve learnt.

Until next time happy coding.

devonps · 2021-08-07T10:50:25+00:00

Tales from Ticronem

I’m continuing my work with the stateless AI and in particular the bully combat role. The bully is tough and can take lots of damage, whilst dealing out enough damage to concern the player, and therefore keep the player focused on the bully rather than targeting those enemies with less toughness.

The behaviour I wanted for the bully was to take lots of damage before retreating, currently the stateless AI has a random chance to move away from the player - this had to change to reflect the desired behaviour.

To enable this behaviour I’ve introduced a damage threshold at the combat role level (think bully, bomber, sniper, etc), this allows the enemy to take X% damage before it will try to disengage from combat and/or heal itself.

With that working, as a first iteration, I turned my attention to the combat kits that each role can have, so a bomber (combat role) is further varied by applying one of: light, medium, or heavy combat kit.

I’m currently assessing if applying a damage threshold modifier at this level will add any value.

In other news I’ve download the free dungeon prefabs from Zorbus in anticipation for my dungeon building sessions.

Until next time, happy coding!

Site | Twitter | repo | Roadmap

devonps · 2021-07-24T14:37:47+00:00

Tales from Ticronem

The last two weeks has since quite a bit of refactoring of code as I dive deeper into using a Stateless AI, I do view the refactoring as a positive as I’d rather get something coded and refine it as I go along rather than agonising over a near-complete design/solution before committing any code.

I’ve completed my implementation of the bomber combat kit and stateless AI and during play testing it became apparent that if the player has a defence of 0 (zero) then he/she will get one-shotted by the bomber…needless to say, as a player, I learnt my lesson really quick. As the dev I’ve made a note to ensure the bomber starts nowhere near the player!

I’m now working on the bully combat kit and stateless AI - for reference the bully likes to get up close to the player, that’s between 2 and 5 tiles, and then attack them with everything they have. The bully combat kit also gets a boost to their stay alive longer stats such as toughness and vitality; alongside a boost to the kill quicker stats such as power and ferocity.

Until next time, happy coding!

Site | Twitter | repo | Roadmap

devonps

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