Making a good description for ToME4 and T-Engine

[darkgod]

Hello

One of you people that can write good english (that is, unlike me!) could do a nice description the game that could be used on websites and such to promote it ?
And the same for the engine.

Thanks

[Canderel]

Do we assume they know what a roguelike/angband is? If they do, do they know who Darkgod is?

ie. Darkgod's 4th generation engine is a fresh take at roguelikes, simplifying the user interface, SDL input/output and hardware accelerated graphical effects.

The ToME module introduces difficulty settings, unlockable races and classes, rich atmospheric dungeons, talent trees and much, much more!

[darkgod]

No, but no need to explain it, explain what ToME is, being a roguelike is just a "coincidence"

[greycat]

The bare facts: it's a single-player turn-based fantasy role playing game. There are 5 races to play, 7 classes to start with (and X more can be unlocked), and 4 difficulty settings.

A bit more colorful: Explore a world full of monsters, treasures, and legendary magic. Set in the fourth age of Middle Earth, Tales of Middle Earth lets you build your chosen character to defeat hostile forces, discover lost artifacts, and just possibly save the world all over again.

[Frumple]

Issue with that is trying to explain what a roguelike is without using the word 'roguelike'... eats up a lot of words. In-development 2D top-down procedural content centered hack and slash turn-based single-player RPG based on the works of Tolkien? Oi. It's do-able, but makes things a bit more complicated, heh.

Actually, drumming up a good description could involve a lot of variables... how long, how detailed, tone (Professional, academic, one of the multitudinous types of informal, etc, etc, etc.), intended audience (Some folks would care about code base, ferex. Most people wouldn't, but most people don't play roguelikes, either, heh.), intended place of distribution, and more.

In context entrance blurb (Innit there some sorta' generic intro text sitting in the game files, somewhere? Could probably excerpt that, work it into it.), followed by a meta general overview, list of core and innovative features, and a bit on the development state would probably be a start.

I can give it some thought, I suppose. Need some sleep, first. Gimme' a more specific list of what should definitely be included in the description (and possibly a general ballpark for word count, hah.) and I'd have an easier time of whipping something up. I'd definitely be happy to help iron out and finalize a promotion piece, though, if someone else writes up a draft; I'm arguably better at editing than writing, most days.

[Gwai]

One attempt to avoid needing the word rogue-like and using much of what greycat said:

Explore a world full of monsters, treasures, and legendary magic. Set in the fourth age of Middle Earth, Tales of Middle Earth lets you build your chosen character to defeat hostile forces, discover lost artifacts, and just possibly save the world all over again.

Simple graphics belie an extremely complex game, and one that is being updated constantly. A single-player turn-based fantasy role playing game; there are 5 races to play, 7 classes to start with (and X more can be unlocked), and 4 difficulty settings.

[LordBucket]

T4 isn't a roguelike. It's a standard top-view RPG along the lines of elona, phantasy star, the ultima series, and hundreds of others.

Don't bother trying to explain what a roguelike is. T4 isn't one.

[darkgod]

What is a roguelike has always been fuzy
ToME has random levels, perma death, ASCII mode taht alone makes it a RL
But it also tries to be nice to players (in the interface) that's utterly un-RLish

[Frumple]

I'm kinda' surprised you don't think T4's an RL, LB, but I understand the whole 'what is a roguelike' thing can be kinda' prickly for members of the community. I definitely use it as more of a catch-all than most of the defs I've seen pandered around; Dwarf Fortress is as much a roguelike to me as Angband is, ferex. That bein' said, if T4 and Elona are not roguelikes, then neither is ADOM, which is a strange claim to make. Possibly justified, but odd to me.

Anyone with a casual knowledge of roguelikes is definitely going to consider t4 one, but that's probably irrelevant to the topic itself; any attempt to describe roguelike without using the word is going to include 'top view RPG' anyway, heh. Could you give us your bottom line definition of what T4 is? It'd help with the project at hand.

[Nerdanel]

I think ToME 4 is still a roguelike, but it definitely isn't an Angband variant anymore, not even spiritually...

[Vanguard]

T4 isn't a roguelike.

What? Yes it is. In what way is it not a roguelike?

With that said, though, "top-view turn-based tactical RPG" is an okay way to describe it to someone who's never heard of a roguelike before.

I think the most important thing for writing a description of the game is knowing what parts of it you want to emphasize, DG.

[darkgod]

Hum

Not sure, I like all of tome, what do you think are the best "selling" points ?
Obviously the nature of the game (being an "action RPG" I guess; top down view, turn based; complex character development; unlockables, achievements, ......)
Replayability through random procedural level generation (procedural is a buzzword nowadays!)
The (I hope) good interface
The great musics (yes yes; just wait for next beta, you'll be blown away! Toto, I've a feeling we're not in kansas anymore!)

[Gwai]

I would say some of the good points of T4 besides replayability particularly include the tactical complexity. Other high points partly depend on what you are comparing it to. I think rogue-like players will be struck by the graphics, I certainly was. Players who tend to play more commercial games will probably be struck by the finality of death and the amount of effort spent on playability (as opposed to the uber-flashy graphics or special effects.) Both sorts of players will appreciate the presence of active developer(s) who read the forums and pay attention to the player-base. Commercial games never have this level of interaction and rogue-likes regularly die when the dev-team gets bored. (Insert ode to my first love, NetHack here.)

[LordBucket]

In what way is it not a roguelike?

In my mind, being non-ascii by default disqualifies it as a roguelike. T4 not only is graphical by default, it features vector-based spell effects.

If "turn based dungeon delving" is all you need to qualify as a roguelike, then is Eye of the Beholder a roguelike? I would say no. Why? Because it has a mock-3d graphical visual interface. To me, graphical interface = not a roguelike.

Does it need to have permadeath to be a roguelike? Ok, then does that mean if you play T2 with "Allow player to avoid death" enabled, does that make it no longer a roguelike? Or what about Diablo 2? That's a dungeon delving game, and it has a permadeath mode. Is Diablo 2 a roguelike? Again I say no, because it's graphical.

Or if visual interface is irrelevant, but it needs to not only have permadeath, but also be turn based...then is chess a roguelike? Is checkers a roguelike?

In my mind, a "rogue-like" is a game that is like Rogue. Interface is a qualifier. A fully graphical game with vectored spell effects is much more like Questron, Ultima, Dragonwarrior, and other RPG's.

[Frumple]

In my mind, being non-ascii by default disqualifies it as a roguelike. T4 not only is graphical by default, it features vector-based spell effects.

If "turn based dungeon delving" is all you need to qualify as a roguelike, then is Eye of the Beholder a roguelike? I would say no. Why? Because it has a mock-3d graphical visual interface. To me, graphical interface = not a roguelike.

An' honestly, this just seems strange to me; if graphics is an instant disqualifier, does that not mean Slash'Em isn't a roguelike? It's not even really a game, per-se, just a graphical skin for a roguelike. What about BRogue? It has fairly advanced graphics; ASCII based, yes, but lighting, explosion displays? Ragnarok is tiled by default, last I checked. Alphaman used a non-ASCII interface. Castle of the Winds doesn't even have an ASCII mode! Angband itself would be disqualified by that standard; it has a graphics mode included in the default package. Gearhead and its sequel are as roguelike as anything, but the default download is isometric. POWDER! There's a tiled version of Stone Soup; is that version somehow not-a-roguelike? The list goes on, and it's a fairly long one.

Actually going back and looking at it, that ol' Berlin Interpretation is probably what I'd lay my stakes behind; it's got most of the salient points of what's going on, though the exact balance of having and not-having that qualifies a game as or as not a roguelike, well, varies. And that's fine, really. The roguelike -- not as a 'like-rogue', but as a genre just happening to bear a related name -- is still growing.

In my mind, a "rogue-like" is a game that is like Rogue. Interface is a qualifier. A fully graphical game with vectored spell effects is much more like Questron, Ultima, Dragonwarrior, and other RPG's.

All that being said, I can see where you're coming from, though I'd say interface is a qualifier, not the qualifier; procedural content is considerably more important, ferex. I've always seen it as a case of graphical efficiency more than anything else: ASCII -- abstract symbolism in general, honestly -- is just more efficient than full out graphics; you can say more with a green 'D' or 'd' than you can with a little fire-breathing lizard tile, with less effort. You're welcome to disagree, though, just expect it to strike folks (well, me, at least) as strange for a roguelike enthusiast to care about graphics, whether it's frontwards or backwards Gameplay uber alles, et al. Though it wouldn't be a bad thing if you were here (well, playing roguelikes in general) more for the ASCII than the game; I've definitely picked up a heavy appreciation for the aesthetic since I started mucking about with RLs.

Ultimately though, I'd say my real issue is that, without 'roguelike', what the blazes do we call all these games that descended, largely, from the influence of Rogue and Moria? Is T4 an ADOM-like? The gameplay is certainly closer to ADOM than it is to mainstream J/CRPGS. Though... calling T4 like DQ was almost cruel, brah. The Dragon Quest series innit' exactly known for its mechanical depth, especially th'first one.

Ah well, I said my piece, I guess. Now I actually have to write up a description for T4, to make up for all th'yapping. I'll have somethin' by friday (11:59 pm, -6 GMT ^^), heh.