Well you could also use the SoundRTS style system where you can move around and have each individual grid square described to you as well. For example if you're in E2 and press the left arrow it would move to and describe D2. Combined with a command to list important objects this can work, especially in a turn based game. Line of sight and range functions would indeed be interesting, especially if they were in the form of "Who can I see/can see me if I were stood in this square?" so you can plan a move and not be entirely shocked that a given enemy can see you.

I did not mean simply movement of the character, but movement of the viewpoint. For example.

Your character and viewpoint start in say again E2. You press left and your viewpoint moves while your character remains stationary, so you are now examining D2 without moving your character. If at this point the game announced something like "D2, lava" you would know not to move there. If however it announced something like "D2, bridge" you could then go ahead and make the movement happen with another key or some such.

In either case your character would remain in E2 unless or until you told the game to explicitly move the character. This is akin to visual games where you can move the view around the map without moving characters or units.

You could also borrow from Lone Wolf at www.gmagames.com. While being a submarine game it has a grid system where you have a high level grid like SoundRTS, then you have a 5 by 5 grid within each square for additional definition without using excessively high numbers.

As well as I suggested previously listing all the enemies which have los to your currently examined square, instead of having to type in the numbers. Perhaps the ability to put down one or two markers if you want to plan for predicted enemy movement? So you could also check for los to one or two markers where you think the enemy might move to, or if you wish to cover a particular area of ground such as a bottle neck type situation.

Thanks for the info / advice!

Well, I certainly like the sound of those list commands for the tactical curser (nice name), and can deffinately imagine how they'd be used. As far as relative coordinates go, I'd prefer most things to be absolute most of the time myself, sinse I find that easier to work with, ---- though the ability to get the coordinates of a selected tile relative to the character's position would be helpful, ---- say with r, ---- perhaps shift r could be a general togggle for relative coordinates for people who might want them?

I deffinately like the idea of the close vs full view in the list commands, and having that view adjustable, sinse that gives the player a lot of control over the information they get, and could speed things up, ---- eg, when passing through an area where movement is highly restricted, ---- such as a dungeon setting with small rooms and passageways, the player could set the commands to only list things in the room their character was currently occupying, which would make play a lot quicker.

For the speaking of coordinates, i'd suggest another toggle. I'd personally prefer the coordinates of each tyle to be spoken as I move the tactical curser onto it, though I imagine some players would find this to be annoying. So, as with the relative coordinates, how about making c speak the current tyle coordinates, and shift c a toggle to have coordinates spoken every time the curser moves.

for the lines of site and next to output, I'm wondering how precisely this would work? to give an example, you have a character on A1, an enemy on B5, and a boulder (ie cover), on B2.

You move the tactical curser to B1 and here only the coordinates of the tyle, or perhaps a terain description eg b1, grass. Moving upwards, you here B2, boulder. Up again you get B3, grass, l, then B4, grass, n, l.

If this is how things work, I deffinately like the idea. Having the lines of site marked on each tyle, you could even considder enemies and structures with more expanded lines of site than a single line of squares in the cardenal directions, ----- such as archery towers which could have a wider field of vision, ---- ie, more squares marked with l, and thus require more careful tactics, such as sneaking up through cover.

I'm also wondering if the N and L markers would be separate, ---- ie, if enemies can only look in one direction, ---- in the above case for example, moving the tactical curser to A5 would get a report like A5, n, indicating that this might be a good place to sneak up and attack the enemy on B5.

I certainly like the way things are sounding so far.

Ok, toggles sound like a good idea.

Yes, that's how it's supposed to work.

"Line of sight" usually does not mean "single lines of squares in the cardinal directions", and that's not what I meant  either. There is a "line of sight" between point A and point B if you can draw a line between the points and there are no sight blocking obstacles (like walls) on the line. These lines do not have to go straight into a cardinal direction e.g. 0,0 - 1,1 - 2,1 - 3,2 would be a perfectly valid line. That  would look strange on paper, but on a PC screen where the world is divided into relatively big rectangles that actually looks like a straight line.
A character can see ANY tile to which a line of sight can be drawn. The sum of these tiles is usually called "field of view". In most RPGs/roguelikes which us a top-down viewpoint the player can usually see the entire field of view (i.e. his character seems to have 360 degree vision), or even the entire world from a god-like perspective (the field of view is only used to determine things like whether your character can hit something for example). I use the second approach (god-like player perspective) in my game, because I like it best.

You can usually expect that things in the game world have at least the same field of vision you would except in the real world. That's the whole point of calculating visibility using lines of sight.

Would be possible, but my game uses the traditional 360 degree vision for characters i.e. sneaking up like that won't work. This was a conscious decision. It is much easier to handle this way and the game I am currently working on does not need this complexity. I am working on a small test game called "Jungle Adventure" right now to test the concept. I really want to finish a project at least once. I have abandoned my old primary project (Warp Rogue) because I eventually became tired of it (after 6 years  of development and more than 30000 downloads). I also suffer from a serious lack of time for these things, so keeping things simple is important.

I hope to release "Jungle Adventure" at the end of this month or maybe next month. No guarantees however, hobby game development is horribly unpredictable.

Hmmm, you are certainly right that a list of navigational points such as doors, teleporters, stairs etc would be another necessary command, and your also very right that the game would need a command to give a general list of all objects, ----- especially a general list of all objects relatively close to the player (such a command could very much speed up navigation).

but I don't much like to the idea of bundling all the list commands on one key, and having to toggle which object type is vieweD, SINSE IT STRIKES ME THAT THE PLAYER WOULD BE DOING A LOT OF TOGGLING. SAY FOR EXAMPLE, i WAS PLANNING MY MOVE AND HAD FORGOTTEN WHERE SOME ENEMIES MOVED, i'D DEFFINATELY PREFER AN INSTANT WAY TO GET THAT SORT OF INFORMATION, THAN HAVING TO GOGGLE A LIST COMMAND ON, READ THROUGH A LIST, THEN TOGGLE IT OFF AGAIN, ----- EVEN IF i DID HAVE TO REMEMBER SEVERAL KEYS. iF THERE WAS A GENERAL LIST COMMAND, PEOPLE WHO WERE JUST STARTING THE GAME AND GETTING USED TO THINGS COULD JUST STICK TO USING THAT AND NOT BOTHERE WITH OTHER LISTS UNTIL THEY BECAME MORE EXPERIENCED. i THEREFORE certainly don't think the idea of several list commands in the tactical curser would make the Ui too complex at all.

remember, that even using a screen reader requires someone to use and remember a large number of commands in the Ui, ---- often with multiple navigation modes, and this is equally true in audio games.

In my screen reader, Hal for example, I have various commands to speak what I am writing, read line, read word, read status bar, continuous read from curser position etc. I can then press numberpad pluss to enter virtual focus mode, which allows me to wander around the screen with the curser keys, perform mouse clicks with the keyboard and do various things, ---- it even has several list commands such as list links on a web page with capslock 1). there are the specific commands for the vf, such as route vf to curser position etc. These are all also customizable!

then, other audio games have fairly extensive command LISTS FOR NAVIGATION AND INFORMATION, AND REALLY, many commands in an audio game are not a problem at all!

Myself, I would suggest the following:

Tab: Enter/exit tactical curser mode, alternatively, you could use tab for switching the tactical curser betwene a number of controllable player characters, with presssing enter on each character to begin control of that character, and end to switch back to tactical curser mode.

Arrow keys: move tactical curser when active, or move character, Hal uses the number pad, and I'd personally be more comfortable using the arrows myself unless there's a good reason for the numberpad, eg, movement northeast, sounthwest corresponding to numbpad 7, 9 etc.

I'd also suggest having the up and down arrows move through and speak each item in the various list commands to speed up navigation.

Home: route tactical curser to closest character position.

w: where am I, speaks character's coordinates.

l: list which enemies (and possibly allies if you were considdering having them), have lines of site to currently selected tyle.

g: general list of all objects including enemies, items, navigational objects and hazards.

shift g: short range general list.

I: list items in tactical curser mode, open inventory in character control mode, ditto with any other character specific commands which might require the same keys as in the tactical curser), .

shift I: short list of items.

e: list enemies.

shift E: short list of enemies.

d: list doors and other navigational objects, stationary but non-dangerous objects which characters could interact with in some way such as switches, control panels, fountains, alters etc could also appear on this list.

shift d: short list of doors and other navigational objects.

h: list hazards, lava, roaling rocks etc.

shift h: short list of hazards.

pg up: increase range of all short lists.

pg down: decrease range of short lists.

escape: exit any list and return to tactical curser.

If you were thinking of allies or pets or some such, they could be accessible with a similar pair of commands tied to the A or P keys.

c: speak coordinates of current tactical curser position or selected item in list.

shift c: toggle auto speaking of coordinates in both the tactical curser and lists.

r: speak character relative coordinates of current tactical curser position or selected item in list.

shift R: toggle to auto speaking of relative coordinates.

x: examine currently selected object in either tactical curser or list command, eg, get both a textual description of the object and stat information, such as hp, level, condition of object etc.

shift X: get only stat information for object in tactical curser or list command, afterall once you've heard a long description of what an orc looks like several times, you'll only be interested in how tough it is, what weapons and item's it's got, it's range of attack etc.

f1: speak a list of character specific key commands I for inventory etc.

F2: speak a list of tactical curser specific key commands.

F3: general game help, including explanation of what los, enemies, hazards and navigational objects are and what absolute and relative coordinates mean.

Other help information such as game story or setting information could be tied to the other F keys.

I'd also suggest making commands to recieve character specific information such as hp, and reread any messages about what happened in the last turn be available in the tactical curser mode, so as to make planning out your next move easier, say M to repeat last status message such as "Enemy wizard moves from 1-14 to 4-17" and S to speak character's status, amount of hp, level, current attack and defence etc.

As a possible alternative to several list commands (which might be a pest to program), you could considder one single general short or long list as you originally thought, then using various keyboard commands to move through the items in that list, ---- for example arrow keys or tab and shift tab to move one by one, i to move forward through all the items in the list, shift i to move backwards, e to move through the enemies, shift e to move backwards, though imho you'll stil need the c, r, x and possibly shift x commands to work in this list as I said above. One other advantage of this mode would be no need for a separate tactical curser and navigation sinse the i, e, h, and d or other list movement commands would all only apply while the general list was open, ---- though of course either character movement or tactical curser movement would need to be tied to the numberpad to separate things out. I'm not sure if this would be easier to program sinse obviously you'd only be dealing with one list mode instead of several. ---- appologies if not, I just thought it was an interesting alternative method.

I'm sorry if this looks like a very impossible amount of work, I'm trying to think of a way that you could create a very flexible interface which would work in many games and situations, and to anticipate future troubles with it, ---- such as getting a really long list of things, but only wanting specific information of a couple of things in that list, ---- for example when navigating betwene lava pits to either side of your character, your only interested in the coordinates and damage potential of those! lava pits, not any other ones which might be around.

for a very complex game with a good Ui which outputs to sapi, i suggest you have a look at lone wolf, a submarine simulation game produced by gma games found at http://www.gmagames.com/

I hope this is useful, and I most deffinately and completely look forward to playing jungle adventure, or anything else you come up with sinse as I said, these sorts of games are very much not available at the moment.

@dark

Thanks for making me aware of the fact that audio gamers are used (and prefer) UIs with lots of commands. Such UIs are usually considered bad design in the sighted world and I got a lot of positive feedback for the UI of my previous game which was based on a reduced command set (compared to other roguelikes) that's why I thought I should follow a similar approach here. Based on your input I have modified the design again (see below).

I have decided to program the tactical cursor as a game independent library ("libraries" are things like Direct X, SAPI, etc.), so that other games can easily add tactical cursor support (mainly thinking about open source roguelikes here). If the tactical cursor concept turns out to work well, an existing library could also speed up the development of new games based on tactical maps. And last but not least I always try to turn as much as possible of a program into reuseable components, the program ends up being much easier to maintain / cleaner when built this way. So keep in mind that I am trying to keep this as generic as possible.

New design
=======

Movement
--------
arrow keys / number pad (y and x axis)
pgup, pgdown (z axis)
home = move cursor to the position of the currently selected actor (player character)

Movement Output
---------------
Every time the cursor is moved to a new tile it will output:
name of thing here, [coordinates,] [l]

The coordinates are optional (see Options).

'l' means: at least one hostile watcher has a line of sight to this tile.

The output may be a list of things when the cursor is used in games which allow more than one thing to be present on one and the same tile.

Basic Commands
--------------
tab = tactical cursor on / off

F1 = outputs tactical cursor command list

l = outputs a list of all watchers (with coordinates) who have a line of sight to the current cursor position.

c = outputs the coordinates of the cursor.

w = outputs the coordinates of the currently controlled actor (e.g. player character)

x = examines the thing at the current cursor position / the currently selected list item

X (shift + x) = same as above except that it includes non-vital details

enter = "select" - returns the current cursor position / the position of the currently selected list item
        to the main program. This allows the cursor to be used in targetting commands (e.g. which tile a spell should hit).

Detection Commands
------------------
d = outputs all things of interest within range (with coordinates)

D (shift + d) = outputs all things of interest (with coordinates).

e = outputs all enemies within range

E (shift + e) = same as above except no range limit

i = outputs all items within range

I (shift + i) = same as above except no range limit

h = outputs all hazards within range

H (shift + H) = same as above except no range limit

a = output all allies within range

A (shift + A) = same as above except no range limit

o = outputs all things of interest within range which are not enemies, allies, items, or hazards (e.g. doors, switches)

O (shift + o) = same as above except no range limit

The following commands determine the range of the dection commands. The default detection range is 3, you can modify it using

the following commands

+ = increase dection range
- = decrease dection range

Option Toggles
--------------
These toggles can be used to customize the behaviour of the cursor.

C (shift + c) = full coordinates mode (output coordinates every time the cursor is move)
R (shift + r) = relative coordinates mode (makes all commands output relative coordinates instead of absolute ones)

Output
------
Every time the word "output" was used above it did not mean rendering something on screen. Instead the tactical cursor "speaks" its output using a TTS system.

Output can be aborted by pressing Esc.

If the output is a list of items the program will read the list top to bottom, outputting "end of list" at the end. The program will not automatically close the list once it has finished reading it, instead it will wait for the user to press Esc. The user can take manual control of the output by pressing the scroll keys (arrow up, arrow down) to scroll through the list.

If the output consists of only one thing the program will continue immediately (i.e. no need to press Esc).

-------
Better?

Personally, I was thinking esc as a natural key to quit a list view, rather than of esc as a speech interupt, sinse it effectively stops displaying of the list and goes back to normal mode, ---- when I use the various list utilities in hal, escape is used to quit those,  ---- but this might jst be a matter of opinion, and either way will just require practice, ---- especially as sinse this would make the game self-voicing, no screen reader would be needed to play anyway.

I deffinately like the commands idea, and enter as a targit tyle command is a very nice idea sinse it would make ranged combat and spell casting very easy.

for the actual commands to play the game, I can see the advantage of a simpler ui with fewer commands, but in navigation as I said, the more specific information is quickly available to the player, the better.

I think a general way of making roguelikes self-voicing would be really welcome, as interpreting aski graphics with a screen reader isn't something I've ever found easy. But with the tactical curser working in a game, you'd only need to make the status messages and lists such as inventory, spell list etc output to a tts system, and perhaps add one or two extra messages for clarrification (such as those relating to enemey movement), and you've got an adaptive system which would make any roguelike a self-voicing accessible game I think, which would be a very good thing indeed.