Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Hello, World!

Enough people have asked about it, so I finally caved and decided to start a devblog for Cataclysm.  If you're not familiar with it, Cataclysm is a roguelike with a near-future, post-apocalypse setting.  Unlike most roguelikes, which are a vertical descent into a dungeon with relatively small floors, Cataclysm is set on the surface of the earth, in rural New England.  The world is truly unbounded; exploration in any direction will generate more areas to explore.  The map is also dotted with small dungeons, similar to what you might see in Nethack or Crawl, for the player to explore.

At this point, Cataclysm has recently had its first public alpha released.  Being in alpha state means that it is riddled with bugs, has no long-term goals outside of survival.  Right now, what I'm working on the most is NPC behavior; most of the crashes or freeze-ups are caused by NPCs, and usefulness is not fully fleshed out.  They can be traded with, recruited to join you as an easily-confused ally, or fought.  On occasion they can be found wandering the world; others stay put in their shops in settlements.  Soon, they'll be able to assign missions to the player.

1 comment: