mah@ihuxx.UUCP (05/31/83)
I have once posted this to the net and have not received any sug- gestions or replies. Since the subject is arising again, here is my article for the second time. This letter is directed towards ANYONE in netland who either has opinions about my suggestions (hopefully good), a person in charge of up- dating old versions of rogue, or any interested roguer. I've noticed lately that there have been several suggestions con- cerning how the game of rogue could be changed making it more interesting or more exciting. I thought that I might as well voice an opinion about the game and either it might be put to use in a later version (presently, I am using Super Rogue 8.4. Is there any better one?) or just enlighten anyone interested. Now, my idea: Wouldn't it be great if someone playing rogue could, before the game started, input by himself which keyboard characters represented movements, commands, etc? For example, if someone didn't like the idea of having to press the '.' for resting, he could change the character that invoked that command to something that would suit his/her taste. Another good example could be a person who dislikes the keys (h,j,k,l) that are used to move about the dungeon. This person could, then, change the characters that are used for moving. The possibilities are ENDLESS. This would not need to be a mandatory thing to do. If some- one is satisfied with the present keys (surely some of us are), then he/she can still maintain using them. Also, a file could be set up to keep your characters that you wanted for every particular command and whenever you played rogue, rogue would read from that file and use your pre- determined characters. If anyone thinks that these ideas are reasonable, please contact the maker of rogue, if you know him, and ask if these can be made a part of the next version. I would also appreciate any of your suggestions or comments pertaining to mine. Waiting for replies or comments, J. Harpalani (ihuxx!mah) A Fellow Rouger
mark@cvl.UUCP (06/03/83)
I'm afraid I think that being able to customize the keys would add nothing to the game. After a few hundred games, your fingers know what to do whatever the key bindings.
dwe@ncsu.UUCP (06/04/83)
References: ihuxx.429 Wouldn't it be possible to use 'tr' to facilitate the command changes. For example, if for some strange reason, you like capital letters, the move commands could be changed by invoking rogue with this command line: cat - |tr HJKLYUBN hjklyubn |/usr/games/rogue Of course the original H, J, K, L, Y, U, B, and N commands would have to be assigned to other keys if they are to be used. I haven't tried it because games are no more on our system (sigh), but unless 'rogue' checks to make sure it's not reading from a pipe, it should work. David Easter N. C. State University