text-based rpg game

[Masterassassin1398]

Hey guys I have this text-based game that I want to make incredibly in depth. Close to the Xbox 360 game Skyrim. But being an Indy game and my experience level I am not going with 3d graphics. Just simply text based. But I'm facing a problem. The game runs in the console. Which is slightly unattractive. I want to have a few 8-bit graphics images to depict what the player is doing or give some reference to skills or an inventory or whatever i want. Will I have to have an entire graphics library to do this? I mean the general aspect maybe have a screen where inventory is on the right in a column. Along with an equipped items section the images would appear on the left and probably occupy most of the window. And then text would appear at the bottom. I'm just throwing ideas out. What should I do? Is there any way I can change the look of the console and print words in different spots or what? Right now I am using sfml for a different game I'm working on but I came back to this and figured I would fix it up. Any suggestions would be appreciated =)

[Disch]

If you already have SFML then there's really no reason not to use it.

You can conceivably draw graphics to the console, however it has a few problems:

1) It is difficult without a lib (and if you're using a lib, you might as well use a graphic lib)

2) It's not portable without a lib

3) The [Windows] console is not capable of full color, AFAIK. You have a very small number of available colors

4) You do not have control over the user's font/window size/etc/etc ... all of that can be customized on each machine... so even if you get it looking the way you want, it might look different/bad when someone else runs it.



The list goes on, but I'll stop there. The console is a very poor choice for this kind of thing... especially if you want to add graphics.


Just use a graphic lib. It's easier, it's portable, and you can do more with it.

[Krisando]

+1 for SFML.

I must admit I was concerned when you mentioned incredibly indepth, Skyrim and text based.

[Masterassassin1398]

Ok thank you. Ya its a work in progress. Not as in depth as Skyrim but similar to it. I don't really have quests right now but I want a complex skill system and inventory system along with the freedom to basically free roam the game and play as whatever the character chooses whether it be an assassin, a pirate, a blacksmith or anything in between. Again the only downfall is that its text-based. That's why I was curious about the graphics because some graphics are visually appealing but I didn't want to use a whole library for it. Thank you though much appreciated.