I completely agree that we should go for a less known theme. Players simply have less expectation for such genres. However we have a small problem. There is already a lot of art, and it would not be a good idea to waste that. My suggestion is that we should choose a genre.
What about choosing some genres and exploring on the wiki the potential benefits / problems, what can be reused and what cannot?
Later on we'll choose (maybe vote, with Clint having veto) between those genres.
A few suggestions to decrease the effect of this "problem"
For the mapper
Don't place monsters / treasure near the edges of the map.
Randomisation
Randomise spawning of monsters. This can be done in various ways.
Instead of 2 goblins, 1d3 goblins (chosen out of 4 variants, with differen rarities).
Let monsters walk around.
This will change the map each time you play it. Hopefully this will lessen the urge to and make the game more fun.
Technical
Keep the last X maps in (RAM) memory. This works similar to a cache. Before loading a map it looks in the list, if he can find the map. I haven't looked in the source code how difficult this will be, but it might be easy.
Let monsters respawn on the map. This one is quite obvious. If monsters respawn, it is less nessesary to use the trick of going in and out to let monsters respawn. It will also seem more natural, because monsters respawn anyway.
I often foind it difficult to see (in a moment notice) if I am logged in or not. We could solve that by having two styles. One for when you're logged in and one for when you're not logged in. Recolours are good enough to show the difference. (e.g. Green = logged in, blue = not logged in)
As a developer I have no place to write what my skills are. (Something like the artistic talents field). Please add this. (I am sure this is easy.)
Load & save. I don't know if you want to store this information on a server or what you are planning, but it would be a great addition, even if just everything is stored in a cookie. (The easiest way I presume)
I hope this is a good enough help to make the game more fun to play
I was also thinking about dungeon levels. Basically we assing a level to each dungeon, and show the name and level above portals. E.g. A level 1 player will know he should not go to "The Minotaurs Cave (Level 7)".
In alpha's this is not so bad because players expect that they might run in those troubles. However in a more final game, I think those names will really help to guide the newbie player.
this tutorial (http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/tutorials/isometric_tiles/) might help.
Two things that can make the wiki more succesfull:
1. The main site should have a link to the wiki.
2. A few things can be moved to the wiki:
EDIT: I can help moving those things to the wiki. Do you want me to do that?
I completely agree that we should go for a less known theme. Players simply have less expectation for such genres. However we have a small problem. There is already a lot of art, and it would not be a good idea to waste that. My suggestion is that we should choose a genre.
What about choosing some genres and exploring on the wiki the potential benefits / problems, what can be reused and what cannot?
Later on we'll choose (maybe vote, with Clint having veto) between those genres.
A few suggestions to decrease the effect of this "problem"
For the mapper
Don't place monsters / treasure near the edges of the map.
Randomisation
Randomise spawning of monsters. This can be done in various ways.
This will change the map each time you play it. Hopefully this will lessen the urge to and make the game more fun.
Technical
Keep the last X maps in (RAM) memory. This works similar to a cache. Before loading a map it looks in the list, if he can find the map. I haven't looked in the source code how difficult this will be, but it might be easy.
Let monsters respawn on the map. This one is quite obvious. If monsters respawn, it is less nessesary to use the trick of going in and out to let monsters respawn. It will also seem more natural, because monsters respawn anyway.
Here is a pathfinding algorithm I made
Is this a good idea for FLARE?
PS: I am aware that flare is written in C++ and this application in C#. I am willing to rewrite it.
I have 2 suggetions.
I have a few suggestions.
http://opengameart.org/content/battle-loop Combat (Background)
http://opengameart.org/content/3-melee-sounds For combat
http://opengameart.org/content/mysterious-calm For towns (background)
Remember, sound and graphics makes a game seem cool.
Implementing it might be possible with
I hope this is a good enough help to make the game more fun to play
I was also thinking about dungeon levels. Basically we assing a level to each dungeon, and show the name and level above portals. E.g. A level 1 player will know he should not go to "The Minotaurs Cave (Level 7)".
In alpha's this is not so bad because players expect that they might run in those troubles. However in a more final game, I think those names will really help to guide the newbie player.
I as talking about the Scrolls. You can use a scroll when you don't have the teleport power. This can let you get stuck.
EDIT: Even after 1 hour of waiting, I cannot teleport.
@nander: Don't worry, I just ran this test as a background process.
EDIT2: When you shutdown, it restarts at an entry, so it is only a minor bug. I suppose we shouldn't fix it.
I have looked around for a bit and found:
http://opengameart.org/content/gui-window-buttons
This will at least give you some decent buttons.
Another thing I noticed is your graphics are quite simple. (and people judge mainly on how the graphics look like)
A few sprites I found in a couple of minutes:
Make / find a background image for your combat scenes
Game technical:
One other thing, Happy programming!
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