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[Ed]

I'm following this! The dungeon walls and the UI panels are especially classy. Also the controls sound very slick, which is good to see in a RL (and because I'm a big usability geek)
I think you said it was a "coffee break" roguelike. What makes it fit in a coffeebreak? Desktop Dungeons-style small chunked levels?

[happymonster]

Looks great! It is going to be turn based and point and click based movement / combat?

I would have a look at making the colours of the background more saturated and leave the items / enemies the same colours. They would stand out more and I think it would look a bit better overall.

I'm not such a fan of the half-wall height tiles, have you tried normal ones?

[Oddball]

@Ed: I'd say what make it a coffee break roguelike is that you can play the game casually as well as seriously. The way the controls work means you control almost all the gameplay by clicking the game field. That means if you're playing casually, i.e. not being too strategic, then you can whiz through a few games in no time.

That said, there is a lot of depth for those that want it. The limited inventory means that picking up or dropping items become very important decisions. Add to that the effects of item synergy and there is quite a bit of strategic depth. But like I said you can ignore all that and have a very satisfying game without it.

@happymonster: The game is turn based, and completely point and click. I may add hotkeys eventually but I'm concentrating on mouse controls for now. I know the pseudo-oblique game view isn't everyones cup of tea, but I kinda like it. I may have to do something about highlighting the grid better though as it can be a little confusing at first.

[simono]

just discovered this! I like how it looks!

if office is quiet in afternoon i'll give it a try

[Oddball]

Procedural item gen continued
I actually finished magic/special item gen the other day but personal stuff stopped me posting a devlog entry. I'm very happy with the results, getting a pair of winged boots that speeded up my character was one highlight. Another was when I found a magical pork chop in a barrel, I don't remember what it did when I ate it but who cares what it did it was a magical pork chop!!! The gameplay is almost feature complete now. I just have one more feature to add then I'll be moving onto content and adding all those lovely bells and whistle. To celebrate this I'm moving the progress bar to 30%. Woot!

Here's a shot showing a trail of items I've left behind before getting ambushed by a gang of Goblin Ragers

[Helmeted]

This looks better and better. Magical pork chops!

[happymonster]

Oh don't get me wrong, I like the oblique view.. I'm just used to full height walls such as in Laser-Squad / Chaos Engine, etc..

[Popeye]

I think it looks awesome, I love this minimalistic style and also the palette really works for me. Itching to play this.

[Oddball]

Not had much chance to work on this. My fiancée was rushed to hospital last week so I've spent most of my time visiting her. However, I have been working on a few of the more mundane aspects of the game to take my mind off things. I put in a basic front end. It's only a simple title screen, but it'll do for now. I put in the graphical effects for the quest 'briefing' and quest completion. I've provisionally put in some new playable characters. Nothings balanced yet so they're still subject to change, but I fancied a change from playing as the Archer all the time while testing. Eventually I'm hoping to have between 16-32 playable characters.

I also had a little break through with the games structure. I managed to throw out a huge chunk of my to do list by replacing it with a simpler more elegant solution. This means the project might be further along than I thought. Not getting too excited about it yet. Gonna wait until the dust settles and make sure I've not broken anything first.

[Pocketninja]

I'm loving the way this is looking, and you seem to be progressing quite fast.

I'm sorry to hear about your fiancée  I hope she gets well soon!

Good to hear your still truckin' on. Keep it comin!

[Pemanent]

As a community we should send your fiancée a get well soon card!

[eclectocrat]

I am watching this closely. I love the graphics and am eagerly anticipating the mouse UI. If you feel like sharing details I'm really interested in how the UI works. I've been obsessing over the touch interface in my game and trying hard to simplify without losing any capability. Maybe we can share interface tricks? Regardless, best of luck. Can't wait to play!
PS. Hope your girl is well.

[AlexMdle]

Oh god this looks sexy...

[lapsus]

ive never really given any roguelike game a chance.. but this game so far looks great enough to convince me to try - i love the style!

[Oddball]

Thanks to those that wished my fiancée well. She's not quite 100% yet, but she is recovering well. That means I'm back working on this, and I'm going a little into crunch mode to try and get something out there for people to have a go with.

Resource management
The big addition since my last log is a dynamic asset loader, which can handle realtime alterations to the games resources. The realtime aspect won't really come into play outside of my testing, but does mean the game is more than capable of handling post release asset updates, additions and changes. This also nails down the games file structure/handling ready for creating releasable versions for testing. The other changes to the game are mainly internal optimisations and general code tidying. Hmm. This isn't the most exciting DevLog post.

On the subject of releasing a test build, the first round of testing will probably be organised through my Twitter account(@OddballDave), so keep an eye out there if you're interested in getting in on the the first public build.