spun's Journal: Outpost: Ideas for a new rogue-like

I've always wanted to write a rogue-like. I've been thinking about it recently, and I want to try something new. My idea? A rouge-sim. It would have elements of city building, resource management, and large scale combat as well as traditional rogue-like elements.

I have a whole back story that puts you into the situation. Basically, you were close to the king, screwed up somehow, and got sent along with your trusty sidekick to a remote mountain valley outpost. You can choose your background, which would be one of Soldier, Courtier, Spy, Merchant, or Court Wizard. I want to design a skill based system, something like a stripped down GURPS or D20, but I want people to choose from a set of backgrounds which would have put them in the situation rather than just designing characters willy-nilly.

The outpost starts with a small wooden fort, a construction office, a trade post, a warehouse, and a few farms. The king wants you to settle and develop the valley to secure the kingdom's claims to the strategically important area. The valley is randomly generated every game, and the resources, potential allies, and enemies will always be different.

Some things would be the same. There will always be a 'caves of chaos' main dungeon. There will always be an orc cave, from which random raids are launched. Other things would be random. The presence and location of resources will be random. I'm trying to come up with a list, so far for gatherables I'm thinking wood, stone, iron, copper, tin, gold, silver, platinum, gems, mythril, adamantium, clay, sand, pitch & herbs. For farmables wheat, vegetables, sheep, cows, flax, hops, and grapes. I may pare down these lists.

The outpost would function like a typical resource management sim, except that orders are given by actually walking to a place with your character and placing a building or housing zone. When buildings are placed, construction workers need to take wood or stone from a warehouse and actually build it. I'm envisioning buildings as 2x2-5x5 blocks with doors leading to a function menu, rather than nethack style walled enclosures with stuff on the floor.

The presence of other groups in the valley will be random as well. In each large area of plains, forest, hills, mountains and swamp there may be centaurs, elves, gnomes, dwarves, or goblins, respectively. These could start hostile or friendly, and their attitudes can be swayed through various actions.

Victory conditions I'm considering: time, the weakest win, just survive for X years; Culture, win by creating a large community with lots of culture, ensuring the kingdom's claims to the valley are recognized; Military, remove all relevant threats from the valley; Favor, regain the favor of the king by sending gifts of precious artifacts and fulfilling every request; Fame, become famous enough for your exploits; and finally, the ultra ending, ascend to demi-godhood by completing difficult quests.

The city building and dungeon delving sides play into each other. You need to have trained up enough defenders to meet any threats while you are gone. You can take trained troops into the dungeons with you. More importantly, training your skills requires you to attract experts to the town. You can also attract skilled craftsmen and enchanters and set them to making you custom weapons, armor, and magical items. Some magical items and artifacts found while delving will help or harm the town, rather than you.

All, of course, done with character graphics & turn based, like a normal rogue-like.

question

[bodan]

What's a "rouge-like"?

Re:

[spun]

Based on the original game of Rouge. [wikipedia.org] Think Nethack, ADOM, Moria, Zangband, etc.

Re:

[bodan]

So why do you call it rouge? Is it an inside joke like pron or just a typo?

Re:

[spun]

Typo. Damn it, that's what I get relying on Firefox's built in spell checker. "Hey, no red underline. Must have spelt it right." Oh that's funny, I thought it would do the same thing for spelt, but evidently Firefox knows nothing of ancient grains.

Hehe, I can see it now: "Rouge: the rogue-like for girls! Can you make the fearsome Orc into a fairy princess? Can you properly French braid a hobbit's foot hair? What kind of accessories go best with a chainmail bikini?"

Re:

[bodan]

Don't know about the iron underwear, but I can't wait for the pink unicorns.

Um...

[johndiii]

Do you mean "rogue"? The title had me thinking about makeup. :-)

I had a lot of fun with Rogue, back in the day.

Re:

[spun]

Oh damn it. That is too funny.

I like it!

[benhocking]

Here are my thoughts:

• Don't pare down that list at all. Consider adding to it, even. OTOH, make it level-based, so that a level-1 character can only use primitive technology, etc.
• Consider adding a "stats" option that allows you to view various things (taken from your victory conditions) like:
  • The King's attitude towards you (this might result in him sending knights to you - either to fight you or to help you)
  • Survival duration
  • Cultural level
  • Military strength and/or Troop size
  • Popularity and/or Fame (Hit

Re:

[spun]

Good ideas. I may add to the list of resources, but I don't want to make that part of the game too dominant. One thing I was thinking, actually discovering the resources would be based on skill. And the level of buildings you can build would be limited by the highest available 'architecture' skill at the outpost. Not just yours, which you may not have, but hirelings' as well.

One reason I was considering menu based buildings rather than the 'stuff on the floor' model is so that you can access info and contro

More thoughts

[spun]

So, I was thinking there should be some 'evil' win conditions too. Maybe an 'overlord' win: flip the king the bird enough times and he comes at you with an army many times bigger than any other you'd normally have to fight. Win that, and the valley is yours. And for the truly evil, a 'genocide' win: leave nothing alive in the valley.

Buildings, lets see: a mine, could work for iron, gold, silver, tin, platinum, copper, mythril, adamantium, clay, sand, or gems. Now, the way I see it this would be like other r

Re:

[alister]

Mines containing adamantium? And perhaps xtcium [tmbw.net] as well?

Hey, who didn't?

[melikamp]

I always wanted to write one too, based loosely on Nethack, but I was thinking along more different lines:

Eliminate all numbers and replace them with qualifying descriptions. What are HPs, anyway? I have nothing against number-based systems per se (SPECIAL is awesome, for example), I just want to do something else for a change. For example, if a monster bites you in the leg, your leg is labeled as "bitten". You move slower. The weapon damage is based on the material, weight, and the presence of sharp edge