next »

[st33d]

Early game content can now get thrown into deeper levels. You'll have to find other ways to identify things.

[st33d]

Update 390

poison is now called bleed, the status indicator for bleeding is blood coming out of you
there are now up and down headstones to magic portals to help new players figure out they're like stairways
weapons equipped to throw now have a "t" next to the "w" or "m".
basic multiplayer on the same keyboard (a la sonic and tails - multiplayer menu is in "options", you may want to bind another key for "summon" that player 1.5 can use)

[Geeze]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10351699/Kuvakaappaus%202012-06-19%2013%3A59%3A50.png
Pressed remap ai graph, menu stuck, closed menu, reopened, still stuck, closed again, pressed summon minion shortcut, opened menu, still stuck, took screenshot.

[st33d]

Looks like an old version, the menu isn't correct. I uploaded a new version this morning.

Thanks for letting me know though.

Small Update 391

small editor rendering fix
traps disarmed without searching for them first now say they have been "expertly disarmed" to reflect the extra experience points gained
small ai fix for pit traps
ai ground work for boss started

[st33d]

note to self: minor physics bug isolated - fix

[st33d]

Small Update 392

fixed minor physics bug
fixed game breaker when calculating boss AI

[st33d]

note to self: monsters having their feet touched should automatically to drop down to stun whatever is below - should solve monsters blocking ladders, stun only paralyses so it's not all bad.

Building the Balrog AI is quite interesting. Also just figured out the mythology behind the chaos walls; they grow out of walls that a chaos spell hits - which will make the chaos zone quite interesting with walls sprouting up as well as rolling back. And the player can use chaos runes to shut themselves in until they walk near them.

[st33d]

Compiling the list of elites here:

Balrog: The Balrog, can use stairs, the boss of the game that has the amulet of Yendor.
Drow: Crowley, regenerates health, all of my MMO characters are named after my Baldurs Gate evil-elf-cleric.
Kobold: Pun Pun, max kobold stats, named after the most powerful character ever.
Vampire: Edward, sparkles, yeah, enjoy killing him.
Goblin: Golfimbul, always suffers decapitation, after the lord of the rings character whose fate allegedly gave rise to the game of golf.
Troll: Forchan, level 20 regeneration - will prove difficult to kill. May have him call you a faggot.
Nymph: The Bitch, always succeeds every steal attempt.
Gorgon: Medusa, attack inflicts slow as well as stun.
Orc: Lurtz, always equipped with a high level bow. The orc that shot 3 arrows into Sean Bean.
Gnoll: Anubis, undead with undead enchanted armour.
Cactuar: Sabotenquid, confusion attack.
Werewolf: Roulette, polymorphs victim into a random race instead of a werewolf.
Mimic: Stair Master, hidden form appears to be the exit to the level.
Naga: Aapep, fear attack.
Umber Hulk: Khepri, has a random number of lives.
Golem: Frankenstein, made of blood instead of stone, regenerating health.
Banshee: Sadako, can walk thru walls.
Mind Flayer: Cthulu, simultaneous fear and confusion attack.
Rakshasa: Baihu, always equipped with a blessed weapon, does half damage travelling east and double damage travelling west.

Wraith: Ummm...

I think I will have a player friendly explosion when you kill an elite.

[st33d]

Update 394

ai targets now drawn in debug
fixed minion teleport sound
new debris explosion effects
chaos wall grow option in debug (called chaos wall invasion)
chaos runes and bolts are now capable of growing chaos walls out of other walls
enchanted missiles now glow and have the same rendering effects as their rune counterparts
light enchanted missiles now emit a strong light based on the level of enchantment

So there you go. That's where the chaos walls come from - chaos spells. Chaos wall growths won't move into map features or an occupied tile, but will keep growing until it can grow no more.

And you can now test the way ahead with a light enchanted dagger.

[st33d]

Update 395

many bug fixes (and perhaps some new ones) owing to all the special case logic required for champions and elites
equipped monsters are now champions with 2.5 x health
champions have a randomly chosen name
at the end of each zone there is an elite monster with 4 x health

Elite monsters have specially generated higher level weaponry and are also an experience level higher than the other monsters on the current level. There is one elite per race, each with its own additional special ability. They also explode when you kill them (the explosion harms other monsters).

Elites and champions yield more experience than a standard kill, but are much tougher.

note to self: physics bug still present outside of map collision code

[st33d]

Update 396

fixed bug entering underworld
disarm trap option now gives a penalty to xp when there is no trap to disarm (this combats running around spamming the disarm trap key to get the expert disarm bonus)
random decorative elements have been added to the backgrounds of all zones

My IGF feedback suggested some background decor, but the guy mentioned a suit of armour as an example. This always annoyed me in games. Why can't I wear the suit of armour?

All the background decor has been done in my strict background palette and is clearly non-interactive. There's only just enough of it to add some flavour and make each zone feel more unique.

[ness io kain]

Many updates have happened since I last played; I loved seeing all the progress that you've made!
The sound really adds a lot. Other than that I don't have any specific comments, though.

[st33d]

Cheers!

Have an animation:

[Rumrusher]

'Wraith: Brad Lee, may turn into a crow vermin if low health. "Looks like he has a quest for you to do."' succeeding in the quest grants rogue the 'summon wraith' ability which will spawn the friendly wraith elite to her side.
To begin his quest you have to throw a heal rune at him. If rogue has @ identified before/after getting lee then you end up with both of them having idle chatter while you rest,go idle, found a Easter egg.

also Brad lee will explode if he dies and said explosion does player unfriendly damage.

[Paul Jeffries]

Hi Aaron, I'm always amazed every time I come back to this how much new stuff has been added - keep up the good work!

Possible bug: I went up to the overworld and was then unable to go back down again - pressing down in front of the dungeon entrance did nothing.  However, I found that if I clicked away from the window and back again (so that the 'Red Rogue - click to play' screen came up) this seemed to fix it.

Suggestion: The 'drop on enemies heads to stun them' mechanic is really cool but I think that it needs a bit more visual 'oomph' - at the moment landing on an enemy stuns them and shunts them off to one side slightly, which to me seems a little lackluster and it's not always instantly apparent whether you have actually hit them or not - it would be cool to see something like the Rogue bouncing off of them slightly mario-style (which could perhaps be used to land on another nearby enemy to also stun them...) or some other more obvious visual effect just to signify a hit.

Another suggestion: It would also be nice if there were a bit more signposting of when you or your minion are low on health - making the HP bar flash, beeping, tinting the screen red etc.  At the moment unless you're paying close and constant attention to the corner of the screen where your health bar is it's easy to die just because you haven't realised that your health is low.  I think it would be better to let the player focus their attention on the centre of the screen where the action is and not require them to keep checking the HUD to know that their life is in danger.

A query: How is searching supposed to work?  I was going to echo the comment I think somebody made before about there not being a lot of point to the search mechanic since you could just hit the search button once as soon as you entered the level and have all the traps revealed with no actual down-side to doing so.  However, it seemed that once I got down to the sewers, the searching became a bit less reliable, with traps not always being discovered through searching.  Does it now work only within a particular range or something?  Or is this a bug?

[st33d]

Can't reproduce the overworld bug. Sounds like you lost keyboard focus somehow. Perhaps you pressed tab? Did anything get outlined in yellow?

I think I decided against bouncing off heads a while ago and had a pretty good reason for it (also the physics engine prefers it). I could add an impact effect though.

I've been considering some sort of dramatic alert glow on the hp testicle, so a complaint about it confirms what I was thinking there.

Searching was criticised on the podcast I was on so I revised it. If you look at your minimap when you search (it flashes when you search to get you to look at it) you will see the search radius. Traps were changed to be partially visible so you can use deduction to figure out where they are and disarm them for double experience points. Disarming them when revealed gives standard experience and running around spamming disarm trap gives you no experience. Traps can also affect enemies, despite the fact that only you can trigger them - many players use them.

A Brandon Lee Wraith sounds a bit more interesting than the one I've currently got. Though just giving him regeneration sounds a bit cheap. And I'm not spending months coding quests for him...

[DustyDrake]

I've been considering some sort of dramatic alert glow on the hp testicle, so a complaint about it confirms what I was thinking there.

Hp testicle?
...huh?

[st33d]

It's modelled after Diablo's resource bollocks. For some reason a rounder health meter fits better for action RPGs. Men learn to protect round things.

[Paul Jeffries]

I don't think I lost keyboard focus - all the other keys seemed to still be working.  I'm not totally sure what it was that I did to cause it - I'll have a mess around on the surface and see if I can make it happen again.


One suggestion I have for making searching a bit more interesting would be to have searching only show the flashes on the minimap and perhaps reveal the traps themselves only if you're standing right next to them or have them fade out after a couple of seconds - that way it gives you a rough idea of where the traps are but you still have to tread carefully and keep your eyes open.  Another idea would be to have searching also reveal your position to all the monsters on the map and have them all try to rush you, just to give searching a more palpable downside and make the decision about whether to use it a bit more interesting.  I can see that being easily exploitable if you're not careful, though...

[st33d]

Fading the trap reveals turns it into a memory game. It's asking the player to write down on paper where all the traps are when the game could stop being such a dick and let them know what they already know.

I think the experience bonus from not searching is already powerful enough.