crashrun Code Sprint!

Last week I happened to pop by rec.games.roguelike.development and saw the announcement for the annual Seven Day Roguelike contest, which is going on this week. I gave some brief thought about participating, because I do have an idea for another roguelike game that has been floating around in my brain. But I decided that game idea would be far too big for a week's worth of coding.

I did decide, however, that it would be a good week to dust off crashRun's source, which had been sitting neglected on my hard drive for a year. In the spirit of the 7DRL game, I'm devoting as much of my spare time this week as I'm able to crashRun and I'm going to try to get everything done that I want to for 0.4.0.

It feels like a tall order, however. Here was the feature list I posted on crashRun's livejournal back in February 2009:

• configurable key commands (my friend Val asked for it)
  
• universal Use command (so you can "use" ammo, for instance instead of needing the reload command)
  
• monsters that won't necessarily be awake, active and hunting the player from the get-go. This allows some options for stealth. Need to design how noise will wake-up monsters (explosions, gun shots, eetc.) [In progress]
  
• EMP devices and effects (both on robots and the player's equipment)
  
• a few different kinds of beam and laser weapons
  
• tranq guns and tasers
  
• machine guns and ammo (A couple of handguns, too)
  
• Instant coffee
  
• a few other pieces of equipment and a couple new uses for existing items
  
• Ghosts-in-shell (dead characters may show up as monsters in cyberspace)
  
• A trap or two for meatspace
  
• varied character backgrounds, which will affect your starting skills
  
• Character will have two hands. You'll need to weild both your gun and your melee weapon (or flashlight if you want to use it) Maybe have duct tape that allows you to tape flashlight to your gun?
  
• A chance to shop and pick your equipment before you're sent into the game. Will keep a quick-play option for players who don't want that kind of detail.
  
• The next two levels of the complex.

On top of that there are a few new monsters and items I'd like to add.

Much of yesterday was spent testing and debugging (although I did get some new features implemented). After I was done coding for the day, I also uploaded crashRun's source to github.