Hey There! Thanks a lot by doing an awesome job. Any plans for diagonal movement? This remains my most wanted feature since Alpha is out and it's the one that keeps me from playing for long. Even though I'm using a laptop with no numpad I still miss an ability to move my character around corners or even to move it in a straight diagonal line across an open space. It just feels less natural and feels like a downgrade from ADOM. Most of the other roguelike games I play nowadays have diagonal movement as well, hence I perceive this feature more as missing than deliberately not included. Yes, lack of diagonal movement might feel good by a 21st century person who might never played a game with ASCII graphics but for a roguelike veteran or even amatuerlack of it is noticeable right from the first steps.
I also do not believe that including diagonal movement must be a big challenge for a player.
- First of all, we're currently in age where smartphones and tablets are taking huge part of the market. Keyboards aren't usually there and for touchscreen controls diagonal movement shouldn't really matter.
- Secondly there's a mouse. I didn't do any analytics, but in an unknown environment I prefer to start with mouse if possible and later on learn to use keystores. Especially if you aren't a roguelike veteran and aren't used to learn lots of different keystrokes for every new game. As a bonus, mouse control in many applications allow you to control the environment with one hand (while the same can be done with keyboard, it is really designed for two hands). tl;dr, an auditory you're looking for at this stage might prefer mouse over keyboard anyway and hence diagonal movement might not be an issue.
- Finally you're not the first thinking of how to implement diagonal movement. Yes, there no ideal solution, but on the other hand, if all common ways are implemented and there's a "controls" section in options that allows to modify it, an experienced roguelike player who used to play on laptops must surely find a way he already used to while playing another game or might get used to a new one.
Please, consider this for some of the upcoming releases. Even in a hidden test mode. I cannot speak on behalf of everyone, but this feature is going to make me enjoy Ultimate ADOM much more than I possibly could enjoy it without diagonal movement ever.