Things which are hard to code

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Compilation by Kornel Kisielewicz of the thead on rgrd

Things which are harder to code than one might initially think

Antonie

  • Invisibility
  • Polymorph-self
  • Charm monster
  • Stacking objects
  • Friendly NPCs in the dungeon

The Sheep

  • Selling items
  • Timed events
  • Animation
  • Persistent levels
  • Monsters moving between levels
  • Monsters with FOV
  • Pets
  • Random artifacts
  • Random monster races
  • Doors with keys
  • Throwing items
  • Monster inventory
  • Running

Kornel Kisielewicz

  • Random Quests
  • Random Plot
  • Random Overworld
  • Adding content
  • Balancing
  • Polishing

stu

  • Balance
  • Sense of time
  • Food
  • Q&A, Testing, Documenting, Planning

konjin

  • Stealth

Ray Dillinger

  • Rope

Ancient

  • inter-monster fights

Stoolmaker

[Not part of Kornel's kompilation.] I think it depends on the whole framework of code. In my world, for instance, making critters invisible is a rather simple task because of how I've implemented Line of Sight. Making them dead is harder :) That said: I find that balancing everything is a delicate task. Randomizing quests, equipments, races etc. is also an interesting challenge. Regarding these, however, I think its possible to find some short cuts just by writing imaginative pieces of sentences/elements and combining them in unpredictably large structures (needn't be so huge). For example: put n kinds of "wandlikes" in a list (wands, lamps, bottles (uncork to release effect) etc.), have n kinds of "range models" (cones, rays, single adjacent/far points, zones (eg. fireball), clouds which start to drift and finally dissolve...), and n kinds of effects (elemental damage, teleport etc.). Already you'll have weird objects popping up: from the presumably predictable ("copper wand: ray of ice"), by means of the useful ("painted calabash: cloud of panic") and all the way to the outright silly ("ugly conjurers hat: rain of polymorph").