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[Rumrusher]

A key is always spawned with a gate. It does not consider whether you have a key or not because there is no code to do such a thing. Keys and gates are placed before any other content in the level is. Key placement is an infinite loop that can only be broken out of by placing a key. If a key could not be placed then the entire game would crash.

Attacking up and down is a can of worms. It's basically going back to the drawing board because the combat code will have to be rewritten from the ground up as well as throwing and shooting. Then the AI will have to be rewritten as well. If someone else wants to write that game using my code, good for them.

Sleeping in a place where you can troll monsters is fine, so long as it doesn't happen to often. Nightmares are yet to go in.

So we get flaming black horses for mounts/enemies? Sweet also I only ran into the problem once and it was fixed by reloading the dungeon again by going back a floor.

[st33d]

That's no consolation to someone who plays the game for the first time and finds the exit to the level locked behind a gate with it taunting them about a key they can't find.

[st33d]

Update 372

Dreams now occur during sleep. These will be the rogue's muddled thoughts and musings.

From level 11 onwards nightmares may happen, caused by the antagonist reaching into the rogue's mind. A nasty surprise awaits those who wake from a nightmare.

The writing in the dreams and on the walls is still early drafts. I've more work to do on it.

[killozapit]

That's no consolation to someone who plays the game for the first time and finds the exit to the level locked behind a gate with it taunting them about a key they can't find.

We both found the problem by going back a floor, I just wonder if that actually would effect anything. Also do seeds actually effect where doors and keys would go on revisited levels? If we find a similar situation would a seed actually be useful? Oh well, I am not even sure if that problem still exists anymore, so I will just have to keep my eye out.

Also you could always ask other people to help with the wall/dream text. I still would like to see more lore options for them but...

Speaking of lore, Ever thought about lore book items that unlock new lore categories? Like needing to find a monster tomb before the race option appears in the lore list. Guess that is the kind of details to be worked out after saving is in though.

[st33d]

We both found the problem by going back a floor, I just wonder if that actually would effect anything. Also do seeds actually effect where doors and keys would go on revisited levels? If we find a similar situation would a seed actually be useful?

I tried visiting previous floors, using portals, etc. The bug was impossible to reproduce. There is nothing in the code to suggest there is an error in key placement. It is perhaps a different catastrophic bug whose symptom is hiding items.

The seed creates the entire game, it is used to generate more seeds that are used when revisiting levels.

[st33d]

Was invited to talk about Red Rogue on Roguelike Radio last night.

A few notes:

Thinking of adding some gas traps (like Catacomb Kid shrooms) on later zones.
May break up content into zones (except for level 1) instead of doling it out per level.
Could add a 180 attack to long weapons (split attack between monsters when attacked from front and behind).

A charge up attack was discussed, but after sleeping on it I'm against it now because the monsters would need horribly complex AI to manage it. I think more diverse combat should come out of different weapons (like the 180 idea) and the core mechanics should remain very simple.

I'll post a link to the podcast when it goes live.

[ifoundthebug]

I found your key+gate bug while diving into this game to see the new content after not having played since many revisions.

I think this is the smoking gun for the bug's existence -- I played through the first level of the dungeon and descended a floor to lvl 2. Spawned in a map with only one path open to the right, which was blocked by a gate. A few steps down that passage was the blocked gate. No keys anywhere (literally only one room explored). I tried going up and down between floors 1 and 2 repeatedly to see if the layout rearranged, but it didn't. Unopenable gate was still there. Is that because lvls 1 & 2 don't redraw by design? Maybe in later levels you can go back up the exit to work around a blocked gate? But if it shows up a few paces away from the first room in the second level, that is game-breaking :-(

Anyway, the random seed value was 909824983. I had to reroll a new game.

[st33d]

Confirmed.

Fucking awesome. Thanks a million for this. I owe you a beer.

I will fix this issue as soon as possible.

[ifoundthebug]

Not a problem. The improvements are really remarkable after not trying this for so long. Just in terms of UI/UX alone it is a lot more comfortable.

As for  , I'm more of a wine drinker. But you can thank me by putting something in the wall runes.

[Rumrusher]

Bugfix 371

Fixed game breaking bug caused by wearing undead enchanted armour.
Sliding tent feature removed.
Sleep now counts as an action in dogmatic mode.

  welp going to play red rogue as an insomniac now. Dang what a fun time I had with it.

[st33d]

Bugfix 373

Gate/key game breaker fixed (credited in one of Red's dreams). Pretty much caused by a hard to see typo, the logic was fine.
Up/Down headstones added to stairways (a playtester at London Indies couldn't parse what stairs down were, now I hope it's obvious).

[st33d]

Update 374

Fixed game breaker selecting new game.
Added mushroom traps (appear in sewers zone and later zones - some dart trap types have been replaced with mushroom traps, a heal trap is now in the chaos zone).
Light rune now emits maximum light when thrown.
Content progression shuffled by zone.

This last one is a big change. The first level still has kobolds, light runes, knives and flies. Every level afterwards the new race, armour, weapon and spell that is added is now random.  Not completely random, content is broken up by zone and then shuffled in each set.

This means there's still content type progression by zone, but progression within a zone is random.

You might get to level 2 and have to fight orcs or level 6 and fight werewolves. You might find shortbows on level 3. This should help introduce people to more of the game quicker and make it harder to guess what things are.

Here's the podcast I was on talking about Red Rogue:

http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/episode-34-red-rogue-with-creator-aaron.html

Not listened to it yet, been too busy fixing stuff, I'll check what made the cut later. Apologies in advance for any poor sound quality, my computer was fighting Skype.

[killozapit]

It's awesome you figured out that bug, I was kind of wondering if it would ever show up again. How do you debug flash games anyway? Can you add breakpoints and step through the logic?

Also, about having "more diverse combat": I think adding more runes rather then set effects on more weapons, though regarding the 180 attack thing, it seems like whips would be a good candidate for it, based on how whips tend to work in the Castlevania games, where swinging them causes you to hit a tiny bit behind you. Another possibility to spice up the combat is to add elemental runes with some special effects, like fire runes that cause enemies to be set on fire and run around for a while setting other enemies on fire, or ice runes that cause them to freeze in place for a bit and can possibly be used as platforms metroid style, or even lightning runes that cause quickening like bolts when you attack. Introducing elemental resistances could let runes attached to armor defend from some types of attacks, andgiving some monsters resistances and weaknesses may improve the strategy when fighting them, though it's something of a common trope in rpgs, though I don't think roguelikes do it that often. There could be a rune that let's melee weapons fire off a projectile attack using the shoot command if you aren't equipped with any throwing weapon, and you could always have rules for increasing the attack speed of weapons or your running speed for armor, and power rules which similarly increase attack/defense power.

Also also, just wondering, but what is your opinion of splitting up armor into head/body/accessory slots and let you wear one of each at once? Would that be too overpowered?

Edit: Just read about the new progression by zone, and I have to say it's a really awesome way to mix stuff up and not have the early levels be quite as predictable. Neat!

[st33d]

Update 375

room quantities revised yet again
fixed teleport darts not working
fixed minion not spawning from underworld portal
dart gun trap now has a visible gun on the ceiling (pit traps and monster traps still invisible - going with a partial visibility theme now to cut down on searching)
actions bound to hotkeys now show the keyboard key in their name - this is bound to have bugs but I'm sure it is a welcome feature.
game is now silent when paused (the music will return in the title menu)

[st33d]

Update 375

mimic rate increased to 1 in 5
fixes item going invisible from testing darkness of wrong tile
coloured xp/light/leech/chaos runes when thrown
xp thrown rune emits quickening (still turns into a grindstone anyway)
fixed leech rune cursing blood and leeches (not supposed to)
changed Effect transformations to conform to new content progression

Did fun bit of math the other day. For the rogue to reach level 20 by using the grindstone alone would require 44 consecutive days of playing.

Right - hopefully the game is stable for now. Most of the major bugs have been fixed. I'm off to play Diablo 3 for a while. Cheerio.