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Pixel Dungeon

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 2:31 pm
by PomCompot
When installing AT a while ago, I have also installed another game from FDroid in the same spirit: Pixel Dungeon. It's a roguelike game. There's no big plot under the game like AT, you are just seeking further and further in dungeon levels.

But there is nice things in this game, especially the UI (see the screenshots):
  • the animated title screen is great, with choice buttons settings, artistically design,
  • you can chose between multiple characters, painted pixelized but tall on the screen,
  • character is well integrated in the scene (no white border around like in AT),
  • when the characters move in the dungeon, there's small animations, same for fights, same for monsters, same for interaction with part of the scenery (water, grass),
  • there are side range weapons, with a mechanism that works quite well (weapon selection, then target selection for shot),
  • in game interface is classy (small integrated action buttons, subtle battle log),
  • move between rooms or between levels is fluent with when needed a small fade in, fade out (no gate effect à la AT between map tiles),
  • inventory is simple but styled,
  • a fog is displayed where you haven't yet visited part of the map,
  • death is also scripted and rendered in a effective way (you feel the fatality!),
  • fonts in the game are wisely chosen.
All those points are highly subjective, but I really think that AT would gain at taking some inspiration in those subtle details. This plus the story background with quests and NPCs would make AT even greater! Does the core team is open for some proposals and perhaps some pull requests on those graphical aspects?

Re: Pixel Dungeon

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:16 pm
by Zukero
I did play a variant of Pixel Dungeon (namely, Yet Another Pixel Dungeon) for a while. It is a great game.

We've made many improvements to the UI of AT. If you build the game from the master branch on my github repo, you'll see.

Animating characters is another matter. Pixel Dungeon uses Opengl, and thus has a nice hardware accelerated framework to handle animation. We use plain old Java2D, in a very battery-friendly way, compatible with poor devices.
Having animated sprites also requires a lot of pixel art work, and we have no dedicated resident pixel artist. The number of different characters to animate in AT is orders of magnitude larger than in PD...

You get the picture.

For fonts, we rely on the default system font, and I decided against changing that to avoid running into horrible issues with localization. We have translations for many languages that have many different glyphs. Never supported in pretty fonts.

Re: Pixel Dungeon

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 2:09 am
by BethelAbba
PomCompot wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 2:31 pm When installing AT a while ago, I have also installed another game from FDroid in the same spirit: Pixel Dungeon. It's a roguelike game. There's no big plot under the game like AT, you are just seeking further and further in dungeon levels.

But there is nice things in this game, especially the UI (see the screenshots):
  • the animated title screen is great, with choice buttons settings, artistically design,
  • you can chose between multiple characters, painted pixelized but tall on the screen,
  • character is well integrated in the scene (no white border around like in AT),
  • when the characters move in the dungeon, there's small animations, same for fights, same for monsters, same for interaction with part of the scenery (water, grass),
  • there are side range weapons, with a mechanism that works quite well (weapon selection, then target selection for shot),
  • in game interface is classy (small integrated action buttons, subtle battle log),
  • move between rooms or between levels is fluent with when needed a small fade in, fade out (no gate effect à la AT between map tiles),
  • inventory is simple but styled,
  • a fog is displayed where you haven't yet visited part of the map,
  • death is also scripted and rendered in a effective way (you feel the fatality!),
  • fonts in the game are wisely chosen.
All those points are highly subjective, but I really think that AT would gain at taking some inspiration in those subtle details. This plus the story background with quests and NPCs would make AT even greater! Does the core team is open for some proposals and perhaps some pull requests on those graphical aspects?
Been playing Pixel Dungeon for about 4 - 5 years as well.... as well as many of it's variations (and there are many)...

but to address at least one of your bullet-pointed list --- the "fog of unknowing" does play into AT, albeit just now how you think of it.

There is a world map to this game, which isn't anything like Pixel Dungeon. PD simply generates as you go, and changes every time you play. AT is a SET world, with SET towns and SET caves, and ... well, you get the picture. That means Everything is already SET in advance.... BUT.....

If you haven't been to an area, it's blacked out on your world map. There is your "Fog of unknowing" (sorry, old school D&D DM.) It is there.... just not as you think in terms of the other game.

As for death --- trust me... I feel it every time, and get angry at myself (or at the monster) every single time. It's not how it's rendered that causes the IRL affect... it's simply having lost the progress you've already made and knowing that you're going to have to work double time to make that progress up. No different pixilation necessary.

As for the movement between rooms, et. al. --- again, apples and oranges. You're playing a different game with PD than you are with AT, and thus the movement pause is (gate effect) is mostly necessary because in Pixel Dungeon, you're simply moving around a single level... level by level. in AT.... you've an entire world to explore. The movement pause would be simply akin to moving from one LEVEL in PD to the next LEVEL in PD... and I do know that there is a slight pause when the next level is generating for the first time.

Re: Pixel Dungeon

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 2:14 am
by BethelAbba
Zukero wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:16 pm For fonts, we rely on the default system font, and I decided against changing that to avoid running into horrible issues with localization. We have translations for many languages that have many different glyphs. Never supported in pretty fonts.
I really REALLY wanted to work on the Chinese translation for Andor's Trail.... and I even read through all the necessary links about doing so. Sadly.... my Taiwanese wife isn't of the same opinion as me, and HATES doing translation work. Even for me, when I teach ESL, she HATES being my teacher's assistant (And she's an elementary school teacher in real life!!!) and having to translate my English into Chinese for my students to understand the points being made.

Suffice it to say... I would love to be on that crew... and working towards that aim.... but my other half is lazy and refuses to cooperate. :x :roll: :oops: