It’s time for the NDS to have a roguelike. I’m starting a moderately simple one for fun.

So, I’ve been thinking about it. I played the Palm Pilot port of UMoria for a long time, despite the rudimentary nature of the game compared to modern Roguelikes, and despite how painful it was on the platform. One of the endearing parts of the game, though, was the way in which the touchpad made many things easier to do – particularly on-map selection.

Thing is, the DS can fix most of the problems in the Palm Pilot version. Of major importance is the number of extra screens and dialogs you need in roguelikes, which are seriously cumbersome on most machines; the DS’ second screen makes that far, far less painful. Similarly, the larger available amount of storage space and video horsepower have some interesting possibilities. Yes, of course the primary mode should be text mode; still, it’d be nice if on the upper screen you were able to see the items, monsters, et cetera. Also compelling is the desire to write a rulesystem for a crowd that likes deep rules from the ground up. There’s a lot I remember from pencil-and-paper RPGs that never made it into the world of Roguelikes, which would be well-seen in that crowd; the class system from the Warhammer RPG and a fixed version of the point system from 4th ed Shadowrun both come to mind.

Anyway, I started on a codebase today. Going by the schedule of my private projects and how much time I’m investing into my company, I should be ready by about 2024.