Background

• !CS
• Languages
• Freelance everything

Pre-2006

First Game

• Brother vs. Brother AI
• SRPG, not roguelike
• Learning experience
• ~10,000 hours

2006.2 ~ 2011.6

My Year of the Roguelike

• "Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup"
• Amazing genre never heard of
• Wanted to make one immediately

2011.6

Research!

@

Exploring Options

• All-time favorite

2011.6

X@COM

(XCOMRL)

• Roguelite
• Good starting point
• Technical/UX focus

2011.6 ~ 2013.12

Mods

• Battlescape fun
• Community + fan base

Branching Out

• New engine
• New game
• New tools

Rogue Engine X

• Based on SDL
• Fully object-oriented (C++)
• 32-bit color console
• Command-driven input processing
• Sound/music support
• Archived resource access

2011.11

7DRL

• BattleTech
• Thailand / Planning

2012.2~5

• Almost too ambitious

Cogmind

• Crazy week
• Two months
• Tournament
• "The End"

2012.2~5

• ASCII Art
• Other uses

2013.5+

Community

• Avoided social media
• Blogging
• Reddit
• Forums / Twitter
• Pulse of roguelike world

Roguelife

• @ + @ = @@@
• Now or never
• Made possible by previous years
• Turn 7DRL into a small game

2013.6

"A Small Game"

• Polished 7DRL, limited scope

2013.6 ~ present

• Share methods to help devs
• Expand roguelike audience

1.0?

• Good reception
• Want impressive first commercial game
• Always more you can do
  with a grand roguelike!

How?

• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
• EXTREME
  POLISH

• (Then polish some more)

Important Features

• Audio
• Accessible & Intuitive UI
• UX / Player convenience
• Eyescii candy

Audio

• Immersion
• ASCII + SFX + imagination
• >1,000 samples

Accessible & Intuitive UI

• Mouse support
• Drag-drop
• Context help

UX / Player Convenience

Data visualization

Tileset

• Accessibility
• ASCII characteristics

Particles & ASCIIplosions

Animated UI

(Gameplay)

"Working" so far...

• A first roguelike for many
• Reviewers see mix of old and new
• Lots more data on dev blog

You

• Resources
• Dedication
• Do it for the love of roguelikes!