Rhye's Quest

Rhye's Quest
Developer	Fernando Aires Castello
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	The Legend Of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider
Status	Alpha
Released	Unreleased
Updated	-
Licensing	Closed Source, Freeware
P. Language	C++
Platforms	Windows
Interface	Graphical tiles, Keyboard
Game Length	Undetermined
Official site of Rhye's Quest

Rhye's Quest is a fantasy-themed roguelike in development. The game world editor has already been created and the maps/dungeons are currently being designed (unlike traditional roguelikes, dungeons are not procedurally generated). No playable demo has been released yet since the game engine is still under development.

Technical details

Essentially, Rhye's Quest is a structured program written in the C language, including some particular C++ features. It uses an external multimedia library called Allegro, which is used mostly in game development. The project is currently being developed by a single person (that is, by me and myself), compiled in Windows 7 with MinGW's G++ compiler through the Code::Blocks IDE. Development started roughly at December 31st, 2011 with the world editor, although some other development tools had been developed much earlier and the overall game concept is over 10 years old. The following image is a screenshot of the World Editor, a tool used to create the entire game world with its objects.

Graphics

Rhye's Quest is a bit different from traditional roguelikes in that there are graphics, rather than simple ASCII characters. Nonetheless, the graphical objects look quite retro and primitive since they are all 8x8 tiles magnified to 16x16 so that they appear pixelized. The following screenshots have been taken from the world editor, a tool which was developed for the purpose of creating the entire game world and everything:

A pretty island with a pond, a river, and a bridge...

The island shore, the sea, and a raft...

A desert isle with some cactuses and quicksand...

Blue submarine depths, algae and wildlife (some nasty jellyfish, god, I hate those)...

Sound

Most roguelikes I've seen so far have no music at all. Rhye's Quest is different in this sense, since there are sound effects and simple MIDI music.

Randomness

Another aspect of Rhye's Quest which makes it different from traditional roguelikes is its lack of randomly generated maps and dungeons. All game locations are predefined. There are some random features in the game though, such as those frequently found in RPGs like Final Fantasy.

Game Style

The game revolves mostly around adventure, exploration and solving puzzles, rather than killing tons of enemies. During the game the player can acquire a number of different skills in order to reach previously unreachable locations, such as pushing heavy objects, swimming, diving, digging, and even singing, among several other abilites. Apart from wild beasts, monsters and even ghosts, many natural dangers can hinder the player's progress, such as treacherous rivers, whirlpools, tornadoes, thunderbolts, lava, quicksand, freezing lakes, ancient traps, bottomless pits and complex underwater mazes, among others. Gameplay is supposed to be much simpler than most roguelikes, with just enough keystrokes for walking around, fighting, taking and using items and navigating menus.

Fighting system

There's no roguelike without fighting and battles as far as I know. The battle system in Rhye's Quest is just what you would expect from any roguelike: turn-based. The player and enemies take turns when moving around, but when attacking, it depends on whoever is faster. If you engage in a fight with an enemy, you will attack first if you have a higher speed, and visa-versa. There are only two kinds of weapon: swords and longbows. Terrain affects fighting skills and enemies and weapons may have special attributes (such as fire, ice, dark, holy, etc).

Game Environment

The game world is quite large, as it contains 1024 distinct defined locations. Each location appears on its own screen, since the movement is "flick-screen", just like some of the oldest videogames. The game world includes everything that you would expect from your favourite Zelda or Final Fantasy game. Plains, forests, mountains, caverns, palaces, deserts, glaciers, volcanoes, rivers, secret places, seemingly unreachable corners, besides some unique landscapes. Movement is turn-based as in any other roguelike, so you have unlimited time to think carefully and plan your every move. Just remember that on some kinds of terrain it's harder to move than on others.

Currency

There is no "currency" in the game world. Instead, the player relies in the trade of rare and valuable items. If you've found a rare artifact which is of no pratical use to you, you can trade it with someone who may be interested in the item, for something more useful, such as a weapon. There are many such objects in the game world that can be traded, but some of them aren't easily found.

Plot

It's a game, not a book, so the game plot can wait, I guess. In fact there is a plot, but it's so uninteresting that it's very likely to change overtime, so it's not worth talking about it right now.

What else?

Check out Rhye's Quest official blog for the latest news.