Wow, almost forgot about this site. Still seems like a pretty cool place and I'm still working on coming up with a decent game.
Lately I've been experimenting with libtcod a bunch. Naturally that means I've been making ascii-style games, but there's a pretty good reason for that. I feel like I know a lot more about graphical interfaces and effects than I do about actual game design. I can program all sorts of graphics engines without even breaking a sweat but I never seem to get around to implementing real gameplay.
So basically I have a bunch of neat-looking tech demos that never actually do anything.
So now I'm working with a library that does a very good job of implementing almost every graphical feature necessary for a complete roguelike game and I'm holding myself to that limit as far as graphics go. When you actually start to think carefully about the "limitations" of ascii-like graphics, you start to realize that almost any good game could be made this way. You could make an ascii version of Civilization 4 and it probably wouldn't detract from the actual gameplay. Real-time first-person games would probably need quite a bit of rethinking to fit the core gameplay concepts into an ascii display but I'm pretty sure you could pull it off.
Not that I've decided to reject graphics forever or anything. Well-done graphics are an important part of any good game. I'm just moving to an extreme so that I can focus on designing and implementing actual gameplay mechanics without the distraction of tweaking the ui or cleaning up the sprites.
Anyway, as I said before I'll probably post something as soon as I think it's "playable". I use the term loosely, but I do think a game should cover all the basics (atart point, end point, and some defined activity between them) before you start throwing it around the internet.
