The Plan.

Before I start jumping back into this project, I will outline my ideas, concepts and develop a plan of attack to tackle this project. Instead of just going through and doing what ever pops into my head at the time, I will take a more controlled approach this time in order to prevent further headaches.

The Ideas.

I will go over a few of the big ideas I have planned for this game. This is not going to be a list of every feature I will put into this game, but a few of the major goals and a description of how I would like it implemented. As a gamer myself, I always have ideas of what could make a game better or cooler than they currently are, so writing my own game seems to be a logical step. Anyways, onto the good stuff!

The biggest idea so far, is the multiple storylines for the game. Most roguelikes have only a very minimal story, if any. Some have a decent backstory, but its usually its nothing significant, and it works for them but that doesnt mean I have to follow suit. The way I would like to implement these storylines, is to have an even amount of story lines for each race, most likely dictated either by alignment, or choosen randomly. For example: If I have three races, each race would have three independant story lines for a total of nine. Each storyline would interact with each other, and take place at the same time, telling different sides of the story from different points of view. Say you play through one storyline, and a town gets destroyed by something while you were doing something else. In another storyline you might be the person that is responsible for that destruction. I also would like to have class specfic storylines that are more like sub quests which would be optional. I know this seems like a big idea, and alot of writing, but Im not planning on having each story line be 40 hours, just a few to tell part of the big story. I will also make permadeath an option so you can experience the entire story.

I also would like to have a world that feels alive. Seasons, day/night cycles, civilians, road traffic and things like that, that would make the world feel alive. I want a large world, that is randomly generated when you first start up the game or when you want a new world (Similar to the way Dwarf Fortress does it). Towns would be static of course, but the rest of the world would not, nor would thier position on the world obviously.

Destructable, modifiable terrain. This is mostly for magic, or awesome boss battles. Using spells to crack open the earth to prevent a horde of monsters from rushing you. Freezing rivers to make bridges for you to cross or use as a trap. Bosses smashing through walls to get you, or knocking you through them. The possibilites are endless and potentially amazing.

Item generation similar to how Borderlands does theirs. I absolutely love the idea behind it, and seems extremely unpredictable with amazing results. I will have regular weapons as well, that are more basic.

There is alot of ideas here, and these are deffinately not all of them, and of course they are not all set in stone, so they could change.


The Approach.

Before I start diving head first into the code again, I need to put together a game plan. The first thing I plan on doing is to organize everything and base it around one central "core" file. All of the other files will be independent of each other, and will only interact with the main file, which will supply the other files with all of the information that they need.

Next, I will comb through the current code, and delete anything that I dont think is needed, or beneficial to keep from previous re-writes. A fresh start. Then I will set up a solid, fast way to draw to my console. Libtcod will help with this. I will build a nice base, with a scrolling view and movement. The next step would be to build a system of keeping track of time, as I will be going for real time, instead of the origional plan of keeping it turn based.

That should be sufficent enough to build a nice foundation that can be built upon. I plan on starting the coding process in the next few days, and will actively update this PUTDSCM along the way.