Exalt

Exalt
Talkie-Talkie Project
Developer	Jake Keel
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	Angband, Dungeon Crawl, NetHack, Diablo II, Dungeon Siege II
Licensing	GPL
P. Language	C
Platforms	Windows
Interface	ASCII,Keyboard
Game Length	Varied
Official site of Exalt

Exalt, formerly known as RogueRunner is a roguelike game currently under development by Jake Keel. The game is being built in C++ using Win32 to draw ASCII tiles. The game is pre-alpha but in active development as of July, 2010, with an alpha release hopefully coming soon. It has not been updated since 2010.

What Exalt aspires to accomplish

Game vs. Engine

My favorite games are ones where I can create my own content for it. I am building Exalt as an engine that accepts as input the definition of a game. As your character moves around their world, the content is generated randomly based on rules defining whatever it is that's being generated. These definitions can contain 'hard coded' parts and/or random parts, allowing for certain things to always be the same, always be different, or a mixture of both. Exalt will naturally have at least 1 world that comes with the engine and will be considered the standard world that everyone plays in common.

No Classes

Class systems force an early decision and then constrict play style based on that decision. In Exalt, any character should be able to do anything they please, and proficiency at any particular skill will be based on how often it is used. One's play style, items found, and combat decisions will eventually define what a character is.

Combat vs. Magic

I want Exalt to accommodate many different play styles, and to avoid one formulaic way of beating the game. Examples include specializing in melee, ranged, various magical schools, stealth, and most of the possible combinations of these skills as well.

Tactics vs. Grinding

Players should want to delve deeper into the game, but not with a "You die if you hang around too long" imminence hanging over their heads.

Resources should be limited in ways that force the player to make meaningful decisions, but not so much that they feel crippled.

If money is to play a part in the game, it should be valuable throughout the game, and not just desperately needed in the beginning, only to become useless in the end-game.

Immersion in the Game

I've never really liked the 'absolutely no back-story/you're just in some dungeon' aspect of some Roguelikes. I want Exalt to immerse the player in the world, like a console RPG, but play like a Roguelike. How heavy a storyline it has will probably fluctuate as development proceeds.

Open Source

Fully documented source code will hopefully inspire/help some other developer out there.