Nethack

[semyaza]

I did play a port of Nethack on the GBA a couple of years back...in fact it is still on there. One of the best portable games I had.

I also loaded a text adventure game thingy and played Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy using the keyboard emulator that was on there. I cant remember how it worked but it worked really well, I thought.

It worked something like hold left shoulder and A (for example) to bring up QWERTY and then some other combos to select a letter . I actually got used to it....must have done to play text adventure games ;-) But I did think it worked really well. I cant remember how nethack worked. I'll fire it up later on the GBA and see. I think there's more buttons on the GP2X which may help anyway.

Thanks for doing this port.

 

[dockthepod]

I downloaded 0.5 last night. Brilliant! I really like the menu system.

The only problem that I had (and this might not be a real problem, I haven't played much nethack) was that I was walking around on level 2 when it teleported me to the other side of the level into a room without any doors! I'm screwed...

 

[Dzz]

I downloaded 0.5 last night. Brilliant! I really like the menu system.

The only problem that I had (and this might not be a real problem, I haven't played much nethack) was that I was walking around on level 2 when it teleported me to the other side of the level into a room without any doors! I'm screwed...

There's usually some way out of situations like that, but not always. Playing Nethack means accepting many senseless and frustrating deaths, either through careless action or the whims of the gods. Google "Nethack YASD" for more info

It could have been worse, you could have been on level 20 :lol:

 

[DavidBeoulve]

*snarfs download*

What this needs is a PDF manual so people like me can navigate butt-kick easily. I love these menus, they're just hard to remember. Too bad the only screenshot utility, fgrab? is timer-based, not "press a series of keys" based.

Oh, that's David for "I'd make a PDF manual if there was a good way to take screenshots" hint hint, nudge nudge, somebody link me

I was planning to take screenshots of all relevant situations and make some web-based documentation. If you'd like to use that as the basis for a PDF-based document, that would be great! I want to get a first version of that on the web this weekend, so you could grab that stuff then if you want.

That would rock! Web documents are even better, because they still print

 

[Dzz]

That would rock! Web documents are even better, because they still print

Actually, maybe I'll figure out how to use the wiki.gp2x.org thing so anybody can help add info.

 

[Kannibaal]

I downloaded 0.5 last night. Brilliant! I really like the menu system.

The only problem that I had (and this might not be a real problem, I haven't played much nethack) was that I was walking around on level 2 when it teleported me to the other side of the level into a room without any doors! I'm screwed...

Was it a room with 4 spaces containing a lot of gold coins? That means you are in a vault.

If you use joystick click to search then a door will appear and probably a guard who will ask your name. If you're not the person owning the gold, he will demand that you drop ALL your gold and follow him after which you will be free again. By the way the guard does not know the person firsthand so there could be a way to "cough" mislead "cough" him.

Nethack is hard, but for 99,9 procent the fault will be a user error, not something randomly generated to frustrate you with something you could not solve.

Marco

 

[dockthepod]

I downloaded 0.5 last night. Brilliant! I really like the menu system.

The only problem that I had (and this might not be a real problem, I haven't played much nethack) was that I was walking around on level 2 when it teleported me to the other side of the level into a room without any doors! I'm screwed...

Was it a room with 4 spaces containing a lot of gold coins? That means you are in a vault.

If you use joystick click to search then a door will appear and probably a guard who will ask your name. If you're not the person owning the gold, he will demand that you drop ALL your gold and follow him after which you will be free again. By the way the guard does not know the person firsthand so there could be a way to "cough" mislead "cough" him.

Nethack is hard, but for 99,9 procent the fault will be a user error, not something randomly generated to frustrate you with something you could not solve.

Marco

Nah. Actually, I could see a path on the other side of the wall because I had already expored over here. I tried kicking the wall and it broke and let me escape

 

[Kannibaal]

To anybody who tries this version who has also tried the previous versions:

For a public release, should i use an ABCDEF keyboard layout or the QWERTY layout?

I expected to like the QWERTY layout but I think I actually liked ABCDEF better.

I was jumping between two thoughts basically I was thinking that you would create a diagonal layout of a qwerty keyboard. Now that you have created your qwerty layout I see that you have placed them horizontal/vertical and after playing with it (typing some sentences instead of wishes) I feel very confident in using it. So my vote is: Keep qwerty.

Normally I play as a barbarian but for testpurposes i thought what the heck, I'll be a Knight. I died on the first tile trying to mount my pony.......

Marco

 

[Vynx]

To anybody who tries this version who has also tried the previous versions:

For a public release, should i use an ABCDEF keyboard layout or the QWERTY layout?

I expected to like the QWERTY layout but I think I actually liked ABCDEF better.

It depends how often it's going to be used - if it's just for the odd command, ABCDEF is fine, but if it's for lines of text, QWERTY would be quicker, shouldn't make a big difference if you're only entering in small stuff, so for that ABCD would be good.

 

[Rivroner]

¡0.5 is out great! This night I will not sleep

 

[semyaza]

Well it's my birthday. Opened up my pressie to find a gp2x....what a disappointing load of crap.....no sorry. It's great. First thing I put on was Nethack

You have done a great job with this. I like the way you have arranged the interface. Cant play as I'm at work though :-( so I havnt given it a good work out yet.

 

[Kannibaal]

Ok,

While playing in the train I ve noted some things down. Do with it what you like Dzz, I assume you still want these kind of reports.

While in a shop, the pay option is added in the select menu, maybe #chat could also be added? (to ask shopkeeper for the price of things)

Pressing start twice would be nice (pressing start, first option is inventory which you have to select with B )

Auto-pickup for gold? Could save some joystick clicks.

Applying coins is not possible (is throwing them possible to toss the coins? I will find out in my lunchbreak)

If you go to the advanced, ammunition menu (should this not be the _ready_ menu?) you will not see all things you could ready (like rocks) so you have to select show more items. Really minor niggle I know.

While selecting multiple items, when you press B you will pick up the item which is targeted by the cursor.
This means that if you select one item and put the target cursor one down and then press B that you will pick up 2 items instead of one (the one selected with select and the one on which the cursor was standing)

I have had one problem with nethack hanging.

Playing as barbarian, in the gnomish mines:
Darts where readied in quiver
I ve picked up some rocks.
Went to select, advanced, ammunition
The rocks where not available in the list.
Selected the more items option,
System hangs....., reset was needed.

This looks like a lot but except for the last one they where no showstoppers.

The documentation webpage is looking very good
(small thing the / option works it is L-shift X and then clicking L-shift X again for the complete description instead of the name of the object)

For the rest, great work! Congratulations with releasing it in the wild

Marco

 

[Magnulus]

.51 freezes my unit. 0.41 worked, but this one garbled the screen and then froze the whole thing. It's a real shame, because I was looking forward to this.

One thing, though: Could the tilemap selection maybe include a picture of a monster or something so we'd get a quick preview of what it'll look like?

UPDATE:
Works now. I removed the previous version completely this time and just completely re-installed it. Works fine.

 

[Dzz]

Thanks everybody for the continued feedback! I'm going to take a break from the code for a week or two but then will get to work on version 0.6 so keep the suggestions and bug reports coming!

Kanibaal, if the problem you had happens again, could you zip up the 1lock.* files (the recovery files) from the install folder and send them to me?

 

[semyaza]

You well and truly deserve a break. I had a little play whilst, ahem, in the lavatory at work

I think the interface works really well and I have plenty of things to figure out on the gp2x yet anyway.

Thanks for doing this, it is really appreciated.

 

[gaterooze]

One thing, though: Could the tilemap selection maybe include a picture of a monster or something so we'd get a quick preview of what it'll look like?

Open the .pngs with a picture viewer either on your PC or the GP2X, then you can see exactly what everything will look like

 

[Dzz]

One thing, though: Could the tilemap selection maybe include a picture of a monster or something so we'd get a quick preview of what it'll look like?

Open the .pngs with a picture viewer either on your PC or the GP2X, then you can see exactly what everything will look like

If I have to open up all the files to grab data to draw the menu, bringing up that menu will take a long time. Still, with ten tilesets now it would be handy to have a preview. I'll think about it!

I think I still like the default best, though Abigaba, ClassicColor, and Geoduck are very playable too IMO.

 

[Kannibaal]

I think I still like the default best, though Abigaba, ClassicColor, and Geoduck are very playable too IMO.

Geoduck is my favorite now. Then classicWB, then the default one.

Geoduck made me smile a lot due to the little nice touches, (Gnome lord having a small crown for example)

The IBM colour character set in tiles would be the best I think.

Dzz, take your time having your well deserved rest from the project.

 

[Dzz]

I think I still like the default best, though Abigaba, ClassicColor, and Geoduck are very playable too IMO.

Geoduck is my favorite now. Then classicWB, then the default one.

Geoduck made me smile a lot due to the little nice touches, (Gnome lord having a small crown for example)

The IBM colour character set in tiles would be the best I think.

Dzz, take your time having your well deserved rest from the project.

Thanks!

If there's an artist out there with a serious desire to make a new tileset specifically aimed at the gp2x, I can help by producing a list of what exactly each tile should represent. I'd like serious interest only though, since it would probably take me a couple hours to put that together. There are over 1000 tiles so it is not a project to be undertaken lightly!

I'll look into a tileset using the IBM colour character set. It shouldn't be too difficult.

 

[Magnulus]

For the tilemap selection bit: Well, I was more thinking you'd extract one tile specific tile (Knight hero, for example) from each tilemap and put them in a single preview-map. I guess it would make it more annoying to add more tilesets, but how often do you really do that? They could be small 8x8 versions, or a 32x32 version could show itself in a little preview box on the side.

I wanted to say something I've been raving about to my nethack-savvy friends, and that is that your implementation of the menu systems works MUCH better than the keyboard-based setups I've tried in the past. I never got into Nethack on the PC, and stayed with ADOM. When I saw your port, I thought I might as well give it a go since ADOM was unlikely to be ported, seeing as it's not open-source and all. It surprised me how intuitive your user interface is, and you've really succeeded in making Nethack MUCH more accessible to the uninitiated.
If you ask me, Your port should be RE-ported back to PC.

Also, I enjoy the clarity of the colours and shapes in the default tilemap, but I wish it were actually 32x32. This means that I'm very interested in creating new tilemaps specific to the GP2X. I might do a "high-res" adaptation of the default file or an entirely new one, I'm not sure yet, but I'd like to make a new tilemap in any case.

Right now, though, I'm hard at work on Bork: In Your Pocket with nickspoon, so it'll have to be closer to the end of that or something to that effect. Maybe I'll work a little bit on it every now and then as I go. I could just take the tiles that are there and start replacing them, but I guess a description or name for what each of them represents would be a nice thing to have.

I'm just keen to help the GP2X community out in any way I can.