Gameplay

You may ask "all that coding mumbo jumbo is very nice, but what about the gameplay?", and I now realize that you would be right, there's not much about actual gameplay on this blog yet. This first article on that matter will try to correct this. As I am still in a very early stage of development, not much is set into stones yet, but this document should give you a relatively good idea of my objectives. Also, I'll gladly answer to any question you may ask.

The following article is about the Final version of the game, only very little (or none) of that will be implemented in the (late) January release. This first release will be a proof of concept only, it will also be a proof that i'm not messing with you with fake screenshots or anything (an idiot did that some times ago, and it was a hoax. He pulled the ridiculous "it was a social experiment" card).

I. Gameplay

So, you'll start as an average citizen with a few coins in your pocket. You'll be able to choose a boring career path and work all day in an office for a few dollars, pay your food, go to sleep, rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Or, and that's definitively the road you'll want to choose, join a gang, fulfill various missions to earn money, equip yourself with better weapons and armors, fight other gangs and the police for territory control to ultimately control the whole city. Thanks to how the AI is designed, you'll be able to fulfill any job that can done by other NPC. If a drug dealer job is implemented, you'll be able to do so. If a burglar job is implemented you'll be able to steal and sell stuff. And, yes, of course they will be. And, yes, you'll even be able to be a cop if you want to as they are nothing more than a faction from the engine's perspective.

What to do with all your money ? Good question. Buying pretty but useless clothing and such is not an option in a roguelike. Buying armor, weapons and ammunition last only for a while. So you'll be able to "donate" money to the faction(s) of your choice so they can buy better gears, and buy safe-houses where you can store your equipment and save your game.

II. User Interface

As much as I love roguelikes, this game genre is plagued with bad design. Developers pull the "it's a roguelike" card way too much when it comes to user interface. No matter how complex is a game, there's absolutely no reason why a player should need to memorize 50 keyboard shortcuts. When I see that  there's still a key to "open a door" in some roguelikes when bumping into it does nothing, I wonder what kind of programmer is behind this design choice. In the 80's, programmers didn't know better and you have to take the hardware/OS limitations of this era into account, but now, seriously... Using the same design because "it feels more like a roguelike" is a very poor excuse in my humble opinion. The complexity of an user interface is not linked to how complex (or complete) a game is. 

That's why I'll follow the DoomRL school here. Bumping into objects will be context sensitive and will be enough for all 'object to player' interactions. You'll only have to memorize a key to select/change target, another to fire or burst-Fire, another to grab something on the ground, a run/walk toggle, and a last one to interact (peacefully) with other objects and NPC. Map, Inventory, Character sheet, will also have hotkeys, but you'll be able to bring them using the main menu. A roguelike shouldn't need more keys than any FPS.

III. Graphical User Interface

I've chosen the pure graphic path here. I sometimes regret it given the lack of free modern era tiles available on the internet. But that's only a practical limitation. On the other hand, it allows me to very easily implement field of vision, a coherent day/night cycle (and why not weather), and way more details than anyone can decently put in a text based game. I do know that some people love text-based UI, and myself i've nothing against it as a player. However, as a programmer, and as long as I can find/create the sprites I want, a tile based game offer a lot more options.

IV. A Real City

I have a love-hate relationship (well, kinda) with open-ended games such as GTA. They usually do a great job at simulating a city, until you turn around by 180°... Then you realize it's all a lie. NPC spawn and despawn in your field of vision, they aren't real. That's definitively the point i want to correct in GRA. The city will be populated with thousands of real NPC, living their own lives: office workers will work at the office; factory workers will produce goods that will be sold in the various shops; couriers will deliver merchandises from the factories to the various shops in town. And so on. Of course, a lot of NPC will be generated 'on the fly' to fill the streets, but the important part is that the real backbone of the city will be generated by persistent NPC.

This (important) design choice has consequences. Let's take an example: If the player decide to raid a weapon factory to get some free stuff, he'll probably have to kill a bunch of workers there, and as a result, when trying to buy ammunition for his new gun, he may not find any in the stores because the factory can't produce any until a new batch of workers has spawned. See, that's something you won't find in any open ended game :)