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Roguelike The Red Prison - 5e roguelike - free, early access

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
pW5xxsb.png


The Red Prison is a roguelike adaption of the Basic Rules for the 5th Edition of D&D that I've been working on since about October of last year. The game is, and always will be, free. I've been posting about it in a couple of places on the Codex and it was suggested that maybe it was worth making a thread for it, so here we are. I didn't know much at all about 5th Edition before starting this game and grew up reading the guidebooks for mostly 2nd Edition stuff, but the game's broad concept is to be the dream roguelike that I imagined as a kid where the computer would effectively DM for you.

It's available for download via steam or itch.io for those who don't want the overhead of steam. It's also open source and the (horrible) code is included with the game for anyone to do with as they want.

http://patjw.itch.io/theredprison
http://store.steampowered.com/app/1074040/The_Red_Prison/

The game features an auto-explore, detailed character creation and party selection. All classes and races are complete enough to be playable, although some are more developed than others. The user interface isn't the most friendly although a lot better than some of the older traditional roguelikes. The game is played exclusively by way of keyboard and a help menu with the full list of keybindings is available in-game by pressing '?'.

ZDsiMMo.gif


Current classes are: fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric and druid. I plan on adding barbarians and warlocks in the near future. Current races are: human, wood elf, high elf, mountain dwarf, hill dwarf, lightfoot halfing, stoutheart halfling, half-elf, half-orc, tiefling, aasimar, kobold and bugbear.

There is a real focus on party mechanics and you and your allies can be revived by others after being knocked unconscious if your team manage to win the battle before you die. These allies are really henchmen rather than player characters in their own right so they don't advance in level but you can order them to equip weapons and armour that you find throughout the dungeon and make use of magic items that your player character can't normally use in that way. That aspect of the game is still a work-in-progress and they can't adapt to using ranged weapons or consumables just yet, although that won't be far off.

MVjn6rd.jpg


You can meet and recruit other NPCs in the dungeon and there are a few different types with different skill sets to explore, particularly mages and priests who can be pretty effective support characters. These NPCs also follow the rules as written pretty closely with only a couple of exceptions - one important one is that guards have the protection fighting style, and because of that they are often a handy addition to any party at a pretty cheap cost. You can also run into organised groups of monsters with their own mages, priests and archers who can pose some really tough challenges for any party.

Another feature is a detailed lighting system combined with some races having darkvision and others going without. You will need to decide whether you use an offhand equipment slot for a torch or whether you explore in the dark and take advantage of the element of surprise or ask your allies to light their torches for you.

RJo1gzQ.jpg


The game initially followed the rules as closely as possible so the Basic Rules double as a quasi-manual. All of the various statistics about weapons, armour, monsters and spells are faithfully created in-game from those rules. They’re included with the game but available here for download: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules. I've expanded a bit beyond those rules by including other races and classes from the SRD and the Basic Rules also omit some things like feats. There's also a limitation with the SRD as to what archetypes are available, so that means that every fighter is a champion, every wizard is an evoker, etc.

Some features of 5e D&D don’t translate well to roguelikes, such as initiative, bonus actions, reactions and some other things but hopefully players will find that the game aims to be as accurate a conversion as possible. Wizards work differently because I didn't think it would be all that fun to strictly follow the rules when it comes to spell memorisation and there is no differentiation between long rests and short rests. The way that works is that you need food to rest and don't heal (outside of magic or potions) otherwise, and food is a relatively scarce resource. There is no hunger mechanic as per traditional roguelikes.

The general development goals from here are to keep adding the more complicated features, such as a more complicated speed system which will allow for longer actions to be specified (such as casting or shooting or moving stealthily), along with more spells, more items, more monsters, more detailed party interactions and a much more sophisticated encounter system where monster distribution makes more sense than just random placement of enemies in a random dungeon with the eventual implementation of a firm endgame to work towards. There's broader plans for the creation of an overworld, towns and multiple dungeons to explore, but that's in the distant future.

Keep in mind that because it's pretty early in the development cycle and an everchanging codebase, there are bound to be rough edges and bugs. I try and fix these as quickly as I find out about them and release new versions regularly to do so, but there is a very realistic chance of crashes. There's also a lack of in-game documentation, but that's a deliberate decision to not tackle that side of things yet until I get the bulk of the content done. Those not familiar with D&D will probably be lost, although if you have a fair idea of the rules, hopefully things are understandable.
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
This thread didn't get much love but I'll try my luck with one more update... the game has moved closer towards being a more complete RPG experience with the addition of an overworld and a heap of dungeons and friendly towns and villages to explore:

3CaX3zX.png


Normally I would remove the old version from itch.io and upload all new versions to Steam straightaway but I haven't had the chance to test this as much as I would like although it feels pretty stable to me. So at the moment I've got two different version for download - one of them is the stable(ish) single dungeon crawl and the other is the experimental version with the full overworld and other features enabled.

You can expect to find 9 dungeons to explore, each with a different theme, enemy types, dangerous bosses with powerful artifacts to be discovered. There are also 5 friendly settlements around the map, some containing unique NPCs to interact with. A lot of this is just a skeleton to be filled out with future updates but it should give you a good feel for how the game is progressing and the direction I'm heading in.

A word of warning though, some of the dungeons might be quite deadly - especially as you go deeper and deeper and I'll definitely rebalance them as time goes on. I intend on directing the player to the easier dungeons through various quests so that they don't accidentally stumble into the hardest dungeon on the map. For now, my advice is to start with the Warrens, and then look for the Bandit Keep and the Ancient Shrine. And if you want to explore the old dungeon layout, it still exists at the far south-west of the map.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
If you have the time you should post more regular updates. Users seem to like that the most from reading threads with dev posters.
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
I'm more than happy to keep everyone here updated with it but I also don't want to make a pest of myself if people aren't all that interested.
 

d1nolore

Savant
Joined
May 31, 2017
Messages
662
Looks interesting, post updates once in awhile. How do items and the inventory work?
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
Items and inventory work in the traditional roguelike fashion - pressing 'i' pulls up the inventory menu and then you just press whichever letter corresponds to the item you want to use and it'll be used in the appropriate way. There isn't a graphical menu for it and everything is keyboard driven, but once you figure it out, I think it's a pretty efficient system.

You can also order your allies to equip or carry items that you find but which don't fit your character build.
 

d1nolore

Savant
Joined
May 31, 2017
Messages
662
Items and inventory work in the traditional roguelike fashion - pressing 'i' pulls up the inventory menu and then you just press whichever letter corresponds to the item you want to use and it'll be used in the appropriate way. There isn't a graphical menu for it and everything is keyboard driven, but once you figure it out, I think it's a pretty efficient system.

You can also order your allies to equip or carry items that you find but which don't fit your character build.

How do you equip your party members?
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
Press 't' to talk to them and then choose inventory management. The first option in that submenu allows for you to give them an item to equip. That process is a little bit fiddly but it's a fairly rare thing to actually do in-game.
 

Stormcrowfleet

Aeon & Star Interactive
Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
1,020
I am not a huge fan of rogue-like but I played this couple of weeks ago on Steam and had lots of fun. Having a party is very D&D-like (hirelings) and so it's very cool. I look forward to having the overworld on Steam to play again.
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
I am not a huge fan of rogue-like but I played this couple of weeks ago on Steam and had lots of fun. Having a party is very D&D-like (hirelings) and so it's very cool. I look forward to having the overworld on Steam to play again.
Hopefully I'll have it up on Steam within the next few days. My only reservation with doing it immediately is that players won't get a choice as to whether they're using the experimental features or not and sometimes the Steam audience is less understanding than the audience I typically reach through other download sources.

And that's really cool to hear that you liked it! I suspect that if you like RPGs but not roguelikes, you'll prefer the way in which development has been changing the game recently for sure. It's effectively turning into a standard D&D CRPG but with randomised dungoens.
 

flushfire

Augur
Joined
Jun 10, 2006
Messages
772
Not a fan of roguelikes either (and IMO there's so much out there already), just wanted to say that art you used as background for the title is amazing.
 

Lagi

Savant
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
726
Location
Desert
I play experimental ver, in no particular order:
  1. can you disable capslock in game? I accidentally turn on capslock and keyboard stop respond in expected way.
  2. no manual or readme. pls add
  3. talking to NPC (not party members, but in city), there is game response: "there is no one there to talk to". I thought its because I need to press few keys (t for talk, direction, enter), and game count it as time pass, and by this time NPC move. I spend like 10 min trying to corner trap npc. Apparently the chat was successful, just the NPC has nothing to say. There should be other game output like : "Guard dont want to talk with you", "Villager complain about weather".
  4. why do i have to confirm which creature I want to talk to, if there is in 99% only one creature (or there is decoration NPC who have nothing to say) abut me?
  5. Accidental esc take me directly to the pretty main menu screen. Please add some confirmation here.
  6. NumEnter doesn't work ! (i check with/out NumLock, but it should work either way)
  7. why moving on friendly NPC trigger prompt if I want to attack friendly NPC? 99% i dont want to do that.
  8. If I hold the key. The game stack all command and execute them till the buffer is clear, during this time Im out of control. Its mostly disturbing during moving and resting. Its a game breaker for me - im not gonna play red prison again because of that
  9. I would like to have right panel with all keys (menu '?') displayed all the time, until I remember them all, and have an option to turn the key list off.
  10. keybind - I always change all the keys close to me left hand. f.ex pressing i - for inventory is an annoyance.
  11. inventory should be quickly visible - also for party members. I have to dig through multiple menus to check what item i or my buddy have.
  12. f3 - change avatar. default selector position should be on my current avatar.
  13. add item stat examination - what each item do? I spend not funny time, checking how much particular items boost my AC.
  14. inventory - i was trying to manage party items, i press single time esc, and go out from the menu completely, which is fine. But there is no back 1 level in menu option.
  15. The dungeon (warren in my case) is a random generated maze, without any logic. I enjoy handcrafted level (dungeons) like in Helherron (or vogel games) where each map, with each item and monsters are place in sensible location. Make sens. There is some concept, history, progress, decoration etc. "but every randomized game is different! there is infinite amount of possibilities" - yeah... fuck that mediocrity.
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
Not a fan of roguelikes either (and IMO there's so much out there already), just wanted to say that art you used as background for the title is amazing.
Thanks, I think it's really cool as well to be honest, I almost can't believe how well it came out. It's not my work of course but I commissioned an artist to do it for me and you can find more of his work here: https://www.deviantart.com/bobann/
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
I play experimental ver, in no particular order:
  1. can you disable capslock in game? I accidentally turn on capslock and keyboard stop respond in expected way.
  2. no manual or readme. pls add
  3. talking to NPC (not party members, but in city), there is game response: "there is no one there to talk to". I thought its because I need to press few keys (t for talk, direction, enter), and game count it as time pass, and by this time NPC move. I spend like 10 min trying to corner trap npc. Apparently the chat was successful, just the NPC has nothing to say. There should be other game output like : "Guard dont want to talk with you", "Villager complain about weather".
  4. why do i have to confirm which creature I want to talk to, if there is in 99% only one creature (or there is decoration NPC who have nothing to say) abut me?
  5. Accidental esc take me directly to the pretty main menu screen. Please add some confirmation here.
  6. NumEnter doesn't work ! (i check with/out NumLock, but it should work either way)
  7. why moving on friendly NPC trigger prompt if I want to attack friendly NPC? 99% i dont want to do that.
  8. If I hold the key. The game stack all command and execute them till the buffer is clear, during this time Im out of control. Its mostly disturbing during moving and resting. Its a game breaker for me - im not gonna play red prison again because of that
  9. I would like to have right panel with all keys (menu '?') displayed all the time, until I remember them all, and have an option to turn the key list off.
  10. keybind - I always change all the keys close to me left hand. f.ex pressing i - for inventory is an annoyance.
  11. inventory should be quickly visible - also for party members. I have to dig through multiple menus to check what item i or my buddy have.
  12. f3 - change avatar. default selector position should be on my current avatar.
  13. add item stat examination - what each item do? I spend not funny time, checking how much particular items boost my AC.
  14. inventory - i was trying to manage party items, i press single time esc, and go out from the menu completely, which is fine. But there is no back 1 level in menu option.
  15. The dungeon (warren in my case) is a random generated maze, without any logic. I enjoy handcrafted level (dungeons) like in Helherron (or vogel games) where each map, with each item and monsters are place in sensible location. Make sens. There is some concept, history, progress, decoration etc. "but every randomized game is different! there is infinite amount of possibilities" - yeah... fuck that mediocrity.
Thanks so much for this feedback, it's always great to hear about how the UI works (or doesn't work) for new players because that's a big barrier for entry and it's difficult to recreate from the developer's perspective. Things like a manual are in the works, but the game is always developing and changing and I'm always focused on spending my time on new and better features rather than documenting old ones, at least for the short-term although that'll eventually change.

Some of those suggestions will definitely be implemented and I'll note them down for sure.

Some of those things, such as NPCs conversations, are still a work-in-progress. They actually only default to that non-response because originally all NPCs would either join your party or refuse to and not actually have any conversation. Because I didn't want the player to be able to recruit a whole bunch of low-tier NPCs in the towns, I just effectively turned off their conversations until that flavour text is written.

There's a couple of things which will probably be unfixable from your point of view though - the holding down the key and filling the buffer with commands is a bit unavoidable in a game like this and in fact, that pretty much comes from the territory with roguelikes (or at least games inspired by roguelikes). I've lost more characters than I can count in Nethack doing exactly that. And the same goes for the random dungeon generation - this game features a really high level of handcrafted content when compared to other roguelike games, but it is then placed randomly and stitched together into dungeon levels. The dungeon generator will develop over time I'm sure and I can't say that the current version is the final one, but I expect that there'll always be a lot of random content in this game alongside a lot of handcrafted content. The random content will eventually contain more handcrafted elements though, such as structured boss fights and special loot. That's probably one of the fundamental aspects of the game which is a bit late to change now, although interestingly, the game itself has become a quasi-engine for games with only fixed content and there's actually nothing stopping it from being used in that way with some relativey trivial changes.
 

Lagi

Savant
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
726
Location
Desert
the holding down the key and filling the buffer with commands is a bit unavoidable in a game like this and in fact, that pretty much comes from the territory with roguelikes (or at least games inspired by roguelikes).
launch Red prison go to warren and try to do: move right, hold right arrow, and try to change direction to the left in the middle of movement.
lunch adom(i try the ascii one): try do t/s
In adom you Avatar stop moving right as fast as you release the key (same is Nethack, I just try it)

not sure if I make my self clear -I have nothing against, game executing order as long as I keep the key pressed (I kill multiple character like that in ADOM too).
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
And of course I made some mistakes in that experimental version with item generation being completely out of kilter for testing purposes along with an incorrect graphical tile for villages. Fixed now with a new version uploaded.

Of course, if you want the game to gift you a game-breaking mountain of powerful magic items, you could always keep the old version...
 

BlackGoat

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
Messages
505
Keep posting about the game, man. I'm into it, but I forget about it for stretches at a time and neglect to check up on its progress. Lots of potential here
 

pat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
46
I've uploaded 'stable' versions of the game including the overworld to both Steam and itch now and I'm anxiously waiting for the bugs to be reported but it all seems good to me.

sq80HQQ.png


The new version includes quests, rewards and a bunch more work on the various dungeons so it's all starting to come together into a more coherent world. I'm spending a lot more time writing and doing the world-building necessary to frame some quests around and I feel like it's all coming together reasonably well although it's only early days. Currently, there's two formal quests - one from Odette in North Warren and the other from Cardinal Florian in Black Hollow.

The plan is to add more and more quests and interweave them so the player is forced to pick sides between various factions and make some choices which rule them out of completing other quest lines. It'll eventually build up to the point where there will be quests to assassinate or otherwise make hostile powerful faction leaders and you'll be forced out of certain towns and things like that. Like I said, early days, but most of the framework is in place to build that type of game and that's where it's headed from here.

I'm a bit worried about how a permadeath game fits with a detailed quest system like that, but if things get out of hand and players just want to do quests and not die repeatedly, then I can add a story mode which allows for reloading.
 

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