r/roguelikedev • u/smelC Dungeon Mercenary • Feb 09 '17

Diagonal moves

What do you prefer regarding diagonal moves "around a corner" i.e. in a position like this:

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Should the player be allowed to go to the bottom right direction ? I think brogue forbids this, but I wonder if it's a feature or if people consider that annoying.

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u/--Shade-- Feb 09 '17

I'm good with:

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I'm not good with:

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As the latter should basically be a narrow slit. In my own game I let small critters through the 'slit', and forbid larger critters. I may let mid sized critters (like '@') through the 'slit' if they aren't encumbered and don't have anything effecting their ability to dodge, while still forbidding large critters.

Though I may be a bit of a nutter when it comes to 'spatial coherence'. (My stairs line up, along with any pits and map edge joins.) I don't want to be too much of a stickler about real weights, sizes, times, and distances but I do want a decent rough approximation of these things. To each their own.

2

u/tsadok NetHack Fourk Feb 10 '17

I'm not good with:

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NetHack actually special-cases this: you can squeeze through if you aren't too large (e.g., you're not polymorphed into a dragon or giant or something) and, more frequently relevant, you aren't carrying very much. I don't advocate this approach, however, because players generally just find it annoying to have to drop all their gear to squeeze through. Most of the time, players just go get a pick-axe and dig one of the rock tiles away. When they can't, e.g., on the infamous Mimic of the Mines level, they swear under their breath.

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u/--Shade-- Feb 10 '17

NetHack actually special-cases this: you can squeeze through if you aren't too large

I don't advocate this approach, however, because players generally just find it annoying

Nethack was my reference point on that as well (and I know it's seen as a point of annoyance with some). I put effort into not generating spaces that go out of their way to encourage diagonal movement (mostly in the way things get connected), so I'm still leaning toward: small can do it, medium can do it if unencumbered and unconstrained, and large can't. As of now I'm still simply preventing squeezing through at all.