Kookooligit is a volcano in Alaska. It has nothing to do with this project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kookooligit_Mountains

Following http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=How_to_Write_a_Roguelike_in_15_Steps here's the initial master TODO list:

• 1 - Decide to write a game (Completed 2013-03-15)

• 2 - Provision an environment and write Hello World (Completed 2013-03-16)

• 3 - "@" walking around demo, screen layout, keyboard input, message printing (Completed 2013-03-24)

• 4 - Map display, wall detection, look command

  • 4.1 - Basic map generation

  • 4.2 - Infinite (non-persistent) map

  • 4.3 - Smooth map scrolling

• 5 - Saving & Loading, read map from a file, config files

  • 5.1 - Convert to SDL 2

  • 5.2 - Sprite system

  • 5.3 - Read key mappings from a file

  • 5.4 - Show commands for current mode

  • 5.5 - Clean up message list stuff (cap size, use utlist)

  • 5.6 - Basic player object - Turn counter & distance counter

  • 5.7 - Show something in the status window in normal mode

  • 5.8 - Isolate SDL logic - basically, there should be no .h files that import it

  • 5.9 - Save file. For now, just save the player object (turns & distance)

• 6 - Monsters & Time, one monster moving around, dumb AI, turns, time

  • 6.1 - Creature type model

  • 6.2 - Creature instance model

  • 6.3 - Creatures showing up on the map

  • 6.4 - Player can't walk through creatures, combat hooks, etc

  • 6.5 - Placeholder for combat, death handlers for creatures

  • 6.6 - Death handler for player, multiple game exit routes (save, quit, die)

  • 6.7 - Deal with cleaning up unreachable (off dead map sections) creatures

  • 6.8 - Creature info shows up on look mode (and not tile info)

  • 6.9 - Creatures move

• 7 - Interaction, stats, basic combat, Pac-man level AI (move towards the player)

• 8 - Data files for creatures, maps, etc

• 9 - Items, item stats, inventory system, stacking, containers

• 10 - Magic, item effects, monster specials, etc

• 11 - Simple hard coded game, playtest, show it to people

• 12 - Levels, map generation, saving inactive levels, monster & item placement

• 13 - Experience, character classes, skills, races, advancement

• 14 - Citizens, NPCs, shops, non-combat interactions

• 15 - Cool and unique features, congratulations you have a game

Kookooligit is a sci-fi (or perhaps more accurately space opera - there's technology is the point) rougelike. The idea is very roughly inspired by Greg Bear's novel Eon, which (Spoiler Alert from 1985) involves a space-time anomaly in the form of an infinitely long corridor some kilometers wide extending off beyond the end of the universe in some as yet unnamed direction. I'm doing a bad job of describing it; if catstrophic cold war politcs aren't a trigger point for you, go read the novel, it's good.

That said, in Kookooligit, the player has entered such a corridor at a random place. It twists and winds away in either direction in some non-euclidian way. For our purposes, that means the player can't backtrack very far, which we're modeling by capping how many "frames" of map are saved at a given time. As of this point, there's no reason for why the player is in this situation or what their objective is. I have a few directions I might go in with that, but I'm waiting till I get further in before making a decision. For now, it's a pure exploration motive.

I want to emphisize ranged combat, and in particular not limit the player to eight directional fire for weapons. I'm imagining something where the player picks a specific enemy to fire at, or potentially just a random point on the map. When I get to step 6 on the above list, I'll prototype that and hopefully it'll be clearer.

The other centeral concept is the skill system. Rather than being attribute focused like, e.g., nethack, I want to focus on skills the PC learns during the game. These should impact lots of things - e.g. instead of having an identify spell, you id things based on how skilled you are with the relevant technology. There will need to be a good system for defaulting or failing over a skill you don't have to one you do. I'm also thinking auto-leveling through use. I might include some kind of "perks system" for players to have something to pick as they level, to give a bit more direction.

language Classic C, like God intended

operating system OS X for now, since that's what I have. Cross compliers later.

source control Git & github

doucmentation Currently, basically just inline comments. Eventually - RST via Sphinx, probably need doxygen & possibly breathe later http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11246637/using-sphinx-apidoc-to-generate-documentation-from-c-code

other libraries

• SDL, SDL_ttf http://www.libsdl.org/index.php http://www.sdltutorials.com/sdl-ttf
• lib_fov
• mtwist - http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/mtwist.html

compiler clang, make, etc

task tracking flat file for now (you're looking at it)

I've decided to embrace the random map design. This is in part a technical choice, so I don't need to deal with saving maps (they can get pretty big!) and partly a design choice. It fits with the feel of the setting, such as it is.