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[J. R. Hill]

FYI: I think the game freezes if you try to shoot but are a knight.

[PDF]

FYI: I think the game freezes if you try to shoot but are a knight.

Oops! I think this error was present even in the first demo; basically, when there were no enemies left in the room when you tried to shoot, the game would freeze (due to a single line of code). It's fixed now; thanks!

Oryx, I'm afraid I didn't know they were vertical walls   Well, I've added them right now, but it's possible there are times you'll see them bug - it's not that distracting. I've also changed the loot system. The game is hard now; it's challenging to survive after the sixth floor.

So, I've added some perks, did some balancing, improved the "feel" of the game. Download Link:

Download Build Six

[Skab]

wow this latest demo is really hard  sometimes i can't even make two steps inside
a dungeon without having three ennemies on me :D

[Arucard]

I actually found this build much easier, probably because of the level up perks. Some are probably a little overpowered, I was able to kill three goblin berserkers by running away from them. Also had a couple bug/issues:
got an error message when moving from one level to the next, ignoring allowed the game to continue however-
___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 2
of Destroy Event
for object o_enemy:

Error in code at line 2:
   

at position 15: Wrong type of arguments to +.

Other issues were; having a trap on top of the exit tile, when two chests are side-by-side, moving from one to the other displays only the firsts contents, also the red dungeon should probably just have the darker floor tiles, the others are a little confusing. All together I really like love this game.  Maybe still a little too many objects though, I was untouchable for most of the game. So much so that when I died, I did because I wasn't even paying attention to my health anymore.
Here's me dead:

Sorry for the long post, I will surely be back to check on the progress. 

Edit: One thing I meant to mention, about leveling up, it seems strange to generate a new dungeon after leveling. A few times I was disappointed because I left a bunch of stuff on the level I was at.

Another issue I'm not sure was intentional or not, when going down levels your health is always reset to 75, whether you had 200 or 1 previously.

[PDF]

Wow, thank you for all you've said! I've fixed every bug you told me about, save the one with health resets and the unintended power of Unnatural Vice perk (They are intentionally broken, I want to be able to test the game quickly). I've also added lots of stuff (like sneaking and stealth kills) and balanced the game. Still no shops or cities though; I fear I may not be able to find the time to add all I've wanted to add.

Download Build Seven

[Doodi]

I've been getting an error message every now and then whenever I'm trying to fight monsters:



There's another tiny problem, chests can only let me take items by pressing the 1-5 keys, if I try to put items in the 7th-9th slot I get a "0" item.

Anyway, the demo was fun and I liked it, keep it up.

[Arucard]

Doodi: 7,8,and 9 are for misc. items, you aren't supposed to be able to put equipment there. It will also make the item disappear if you are on top of something already in that slot (meaning standing on a potion and pushing a potion equipped slot will just make the potion disappear). I'll try the newest build, but had some ideas on balancing (as I'm sure you don't have enough on your plate  )

Edit: I really should have played the newest version first, a lot of this is fixed/tweaked in it.

-Enemies tend to flock toward you as soon as entering, a lower radius for them noticing you means more enemies when you try to explore the rest of the floor. The lower levels should also have much tougher enemies, they seem only marginally stronger than the previous.
-Equipment could be limited a bit without feeling cheated. My idea was having a limit of two weapons (one for each hand), and perhaps two clothing type armors (torso and pant, or robe/cloak over armor) and the third slot being accessories (rings, amulets, etc.) Accessories could have a very small enchantment like 10 or less, and armor should probably be limited to under 50.
-Traps could be enhanced by either doing more damage, say up to 10 or 20, or repeating (so stepping on the same space maybe 2 or 3 times still damages you) More trap types would be fun too, a set of spikes coming from underneath, a rock crushing from above?
-Finally, the amount of items should be lowered (again speaking of the 6th build) once towns are implemented around half of the life orbs should be changed to coins. Chests containing the most rare named items should only be on the lowest floor (Epic, Rare, and gold types)
I realize you are on a time limit and probably have ideas of your own you still want to get in there, just wanted to put a few of mine up too. I hope you will continue to work on this even after the contest ends, I know I'm being redundant here but I'm really enjoying this and looking forward to it's completion! 

Some nice additions in this version too!

[PDF]

Thank you for your input, Arucard! And Doodi, it was the second bug you mentioned that was the source of the first bug, and it's fixed now!

Behold Build Eight! There are lots of additions... This may well be the final release before the last one; mainly I'll be adding the story, and some more content if I find enough time...

Download

Some Stats:

The source has,
*36 sprite sets,
*20 scripts,
*3 fonts,
*4 backgrounds,
*43 objects,
*17 rooms right now.

As for gameplay elements, there are:
*39 different enemies,
*+1000 item permutations,
*18 "legendary" items,
*11 misc. items with different uses,
*5 different food types,
*(Theoretically) infinitely many different rooms,
*5 different tilesets for the dungeons,
*And, finally, no music...

[Arucard]

The difficulty seems much more well-balanced in this version, where I was consistently owning after a few levels before, I find myself needing to move more slowly and consider what may lie ahead now, aka much more roguelike. I am getting a bug though when attempting to hunt. It only happens in the 2x resolution, which I normally play in, when entering the hunting ground the screen zooms up on the play area so the messages and inventory is gone. On the normal resolution everything seems to work fine, though I must beg of you to move the reset button to somewhere away from normal playing keys, (possibly an option when pressing esc.) I have unintentionally reset too many times. 
The additional stuff on the mainland is nice, and I really want to know what all the new items do. Okay, looking good, good, good. 

[PDF]

Arucard, thank you for pointing out some problems, again! Of course, they are all fixed now. I've also finished adding most of the game's contents; all I need to do is to make the game look good. This is what I have done so far:


It is a challenge to survive if you are not careful enough...


The player finds a strange item as he explores the dungeon...



Okay, this is not much of an update, as I don't have a build uploaded. Yet, I really need to know if the interface looks good enough.

So, how does it look?

[Arucard]

Looks nice, but like it better off the playing area. If you can use the windows off screen, or at the bottom would probably work well. Of course without playing it yet, I can't say for sure how much it would get in the way. 

[oryx]

Can you move the interface windows around? The placement is currently pretty strange - Also maybe you should color some windows differently like the text window, or the non-interactive windows be grey?

[PDF]

I made two potential alignment mock-ups:





I think the second one looks much, much better and is easier to read, so I'll be probably using it as the final interface; I think it won't look strange at all. The health bar is far from the corners because I want the player to always be able to see his health.

[Mocker]

The layout still seems kind of cluttered. Can you make the red backgrounds slightly transparent for some of those boxes?

or i like this one (with coins or other player detail stuff on the left)

[Arucard]

I don't know, I think I became particularly partial to the old-school info on the side style it had before. Though I assume you are trying to make the play area take up the whole screen, I still liked having the messages down below. What about using sprites for HP/coins/AC/BP, like a heart/coin/shield/sword? Would cut down some space at least, not much though I guess. If the windows could be shrunk a bit, the four corners would work since you rarely need to see anything there.

[JMickle]

i really like the style of this game (the reds and the message boxes)

[PDF]

Hats Update:





Still no test builds; I don't think there will be any before the final release. You can see that I've taken your suggestions into account to create a final interface scheme. I think it looks quite solid now. I've also finished adding sound effects and music; I'll be using stevobread's midi music, which I find to be quite beautiful.

I may still add an option for a message box, but I'm pretty sure the box will just be redundant now (you can see the damage you and your enemies deal when they hit you, so there is no information loss).

And that's all for this update...

[oryx]

just a quick suggestion - lining up the top left containers a bit



OR if you wanted to keep the coin/sword/shield container vertical, line it up on the right and just make the level container fill up the space.

[Mocker]

looks good to me. Looking forward to trying it

[Geeze]

There seems to be a bug in build 8 when i play 2x scaled version. If I try to attack an village or go hunting it scales to something 10x and HUD can't be seen.

(does not occur when playing non-scaled version)