Talk:Complete Roguelike Tutorial, using python+libtcod, part 11

Just returned after a half year hiatus to find more parts of this excellent tutorial!

A minor bug/suggestion regarding stairs: Since the stairs are added last in make_map(), the < will always be drawn last (except for the player). This means that when monsters step on top of it, they "disappear".

A quick fix (avoiding introducing general z-levels) is to simply extend the special handling of the players to all fighters. In render_all() substitute the lines:

    #draw all objects in the list, except the player. we want it to
    #always appear over all other objects! so it's drawn later.
    for object in objects:
        if object != player:
            object.draw()
    player.draw()

for

    #draw all objects in the list, except the fighters (monsters and player).
    #we want those to always appear over all other objects! So they're drawn later.
    fighters = []
    for object in objects:
        if object.fighter is None:
            object.draw()
        else:
            fighters.append(object)
    for fighter in fighters:
        fighter.draw()

Cheers, Dontroel (talk) 01:03, 24 February 2013 (CET)

Thanks for the encouragement, and the suggestion! That's a very elegant solution. However, we can simply use the send_to_back() function, which is a bit more brittle; I just fixed it in the tutorial. In the long run I may change to your solution though, for now this will do as it's a much smaller change! Jotaf (talk) 06:01, 26 February 2013 (CET)

You're welcome! That seems very sensible to do for now. But yes, the send_to_back() function is a nice and simple solution, but it does become a bit unmanageable, if one wants a bit more control over how several objects in a single tile are rendered. Dontroel (talk) 22:32, 26 February 2013 (CET)

Syntax for handling '<' and '>' style input seems to have changed. Described here: https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod/issues/39/proposed-sdl2-unknown-pressed-character I had to use this style to correctly handle the up stairs command (<)

...
        elif key.vk == libtcod.KEY_TEXT: # some character is pressed
            ch = key.text
            if ch == "<":
                #go down stairs, if the player is on them
                if stairs.x == player.x and stairs.y == player.y:
                    next_level()    
...