Light and Noise, Part I

This will be another mini-series of posts about a reform in light and sound in the dungeon.

The Light Attribute Changes Name (again)

Now when monster attributes are fully visible, it makes sense to make all monster attributes matter in the same way as they do for the player. Previously the monsters’ noise and light attributes were only used to compute their chance to avoid traps (and before release #7 they weren’t used at all).

After introducing the new trap system in Release #7 it has became obvious to me that the light attribute is not about light at all, it is about how well your character can see (light sources helps with that of course). This became even more obvious when I decided that this attribute should matter for monsters as well. For that reason, the light attribute will from the next release be called “vision”. Other than that it works almost exactly like before, it is just a more accurate name for the attribute.

This is actually the second time this attribute changes, as ‘light’ replaced the old ‘range’ attribute before release #5. Although this time the function of the attribute doesn’t change as much. There are a few changes to the attribute explained below.

Monsters’ Vision and Noise Matters

The attributes ‘light’ and ‘noise’ that in the current release are only used to compute a monster’s chance to avoid traps will in the next release have more meaning.

Monsters’ Noise

Monsters will from the next release make noise just like the player does. This mean that you can hear monsters if you are close enough and they make enough noise. Similar to how your noise attribute works, you can hear a monster within ‘monster-noise’ non-walled squares. If you can hear but not see a monster, a ‘!’ will blink at the monsters position. That is, you will be able hear the monster, but you cannot hear what monster it is. This can help you plan ahead before entering a room etc. However, some monsters (such as worms) makes very little or no noise.

Monsters’ Vision

In the current release, monsters in your Field of Vision (FoV) can always see you, and monsters cannot see you if they are not in your FoV (unless they have infravision). This means that with a higher ‘light’ attribute, monsters can see you from farther away (and this made sense when the ‘light’ attribute was representing light).

From the next release this will no longer be the case; a monster will be able to see you if you are within the monster’s ‘vision’-attribute squares from it and there is a straight unblocked path between you and the monster. That is: it works exactly as it does for the player. This can give new interesting possibilities:

• A monster can see you, but you cannot see it (if the monster have a higher ‘vision’ attribute than you).
• You can see a monster, but it cannot see you (if the monster have a lower ‘vision’ attribute than you).

With the monster’s noise attribute we can also have the following situations:

• You can hear but not see a monster
• A monster can hear you but not see you (ok, this is possible even in #7).

This means that you can attack a monster that doesn’t see you, and it also means that monsters that you cannot see can attack you. The next post in the series will explore this further.