Introduction to WIP project Skyhack

SKYHACK is meant to be the next-level terminal roguelike, taking place in a skyscrapper dungeon in a futuristic world. Firearms, aliens, hacking, elevators... elements inspired from the works of scifi writer Peter F. Hamilton... as well as a comprehensive pannel of options and settings (like custom pseudorandom numbers generation) are planned or in the works. I hope I can put it out before Christmas!

What was born as a goofy side project has turned out to be so much fun indeed, that development is continuing.

There are so many possibilities to explore, in addition to the good feels of crafting a nice old terminal procedural dungeon. One might say that character-based games are limited, if they didn't play any such title, for fun and discoveries hide in the unique ways such games work, playing on symbols, on imagination, or on a natural kind of turn-based difficulty.

In the beginning, I had a lot of fun playing with dungeon generation and the looks this futuristic setting could get in the console. (Unfortunately, I didn't keep a screenshot of those tests...) Also, importantly, researching skyscrapper architecture, which might be the most difficult part to translate in an attractive way as a randomly generated dungeon. It might take an inspired interpretation, although I didn't want it to be entirely unrealistic and loose some of its flavor.

Gameplay was neglected in my first tries, but since I rebooted the project, I've leaned into more interactivity. Although even with daily attention, still a long way to go. Which is fine, because in this specific case the process is as fun as playing the game, through procedurally figuring out original details and ways to make it actually good.

I hope this catches you interest enough that you'd want to check the progress of the game every once in a while. You can always get or follow the project for free on github: https://github.com/hllcngn/skyhack (state of the project might fluctuate overnight)

Please feel welcome to share in the comments your suggestions, questions, critics, crazy ideas for picky details... or just say hi!

In any case, thank you so much for checking out the game, and stay tuned, as I hope to post again soon with visible improvements ;)

[Get even more updates on my ko-fi wall @ https://ko-fi.com/hllcngn !]

BONUS - Last functionality implemented: As an anonymous requested, the player can now choose between autosave or taking care of saving their game themselves. As noted, it might bring wider playability and possibilities.