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[eigenbom]

Cool I signed up to to your twitch channel and I'll drop by if the time is right in my timezone. Personally I can't wait to see the different languages in-game, especially if they are simple enough that a layman can decipher them (with a bit of time and effort).

[Panurge]

Still following this keenly. I'm also particularly looking forward to seeing how the languages work in game.

[Cunnah]

I have been a long time lurker but I love the style of this game. Just an interesting point about the language with dots its an interesting one similar to Hebrew. Not sure if this helps but the dots in Hebrew were added later to represent vowel sounds and there placement or the lack of them in earlier texts made them "interesting" to read and led to many a mis-translation.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Cool I signed up to to your twitch channel and I'll drop by if the time is right in my timezone. Personally I can't wait to see the different languages in-game, especially if they are simple enough that a layman can decipher them (with a bit of time and effort).

Excellent move sir . My current intention is not actually that they can be deciphered "outside" the game, so to speak, but only with in-game items/skills, though I'm still working on the specifics. Currently they're just a pretty simple substitution cipher, but that'll be changing!

Still following this keenly. I'm also particularly looking forward to seeing how the languages work in game.

Glad you like it . Languages are almost certainly going to appear fully in 0.5.

I have been a long time lurker but I love the style of this game. Just an interesting point about the language with dots its an interesting one similar to Hebrew. Not sure if this helps but the dots in Hebrew were added later to represent vowel sounds and there placement or the lack of them in earlier texts made them "interesting" to read and led to many a mis-translation.

Many thanks - that's very interesting about Hebrew and dots. I actually vaguely considered letting languages evolve and change over time... but then another part of me caught myself thinking that, realized it would add basically no gameplay at the expense of a huge amount of coding and complexity, and decided that languages would remain stable (however slightly unrealistic that may be)!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I somehow got interviewed for Rock Paper Shotgun! Let me know what you think

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/18/interview-ultima-ratio-regum-a-generated-4x-roguelike/

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Here's this fortnight's update, cross-posted from my blog (www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk):

This fortnight’s update is a relatively short one, though a lot of work has been done. I’ve now enabled the ability to export the map grid you’re currently on into a .png file (much like you can currently export the various world map overlays by pressing ‘X’). More importantly, I’ve been redoing all the terrain generation, and have reduced the loading and saving times on all map grids by between 50% and 90%, depending on what’s on the map grid. Grids with buildings and interiors naturally take slightly longer to generate than other areas, but the reduction is very significant. All of those who say the game takes too long to load some segments (you are undoubtedly correct) can hopefully, now, rest easy that they won’t be waiting through the same kinds of load times. I’m also changing how the game stores data so that the save files will be less colossal; this is an ongoing process, but the save files for 0.4 will certainly be smaller than their titanic 0.3 brethren. The remaking of the terrain generation algorithm is perhaps 90% completed now, and one thing I’ve been doing is also adding more detail to the ziggurat regions. I felt they were looking a little sparse, so it seemed appropriate to do something to improve them a tad:



And a gif of these structures at dawn, day, dusk and night (note also the changing shading on the trees):



For the time being these extra structures are just decoration, but in the future they too will be fully explorable, and each ziggurat region on the world map will have a lot more content in it than it currently does. In line with some feedback I’ve got, I’ve decided that there are only going to be three ziggurat locations on the map – each one will contain a single large ziggurat that will contain a key fragment, and the other ziggurats will contain a number of other things in them. I’d like each map grid you end up exploring to be a significant thing, so each grid area (like the one above) is going to contain a far larger amount of content. I’m now switching back to finishing off throwing and projectiles once and for all – perhaps only a day’s work remains there – then I’ll be moving onto handling the health system. Next week we’ll have a summary of all the other developments over the last month and then follow that up with the start of health and injuries.

[gimymblert]

god this is looking amazing, provide hook for gfx replacement so we we can have a occulus rift 3D graphics plug in by sniffing the structure /jk

[Ouren]

This is madness.









it's beautiful.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

god this is looking amazing, provide hook for gfx replacement so we we can have a occulus rift 3D graphics plug in by sniffing the structure /jk

You imply this is not already in the works!

it's beautiful.

Thanks . Though I agree, it is also madness. Of the highest order.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Finally a (brief, I confess) update! The past two weeks have been very academia-heavy, and I haven’t been able to produce as much work on URR as I’d like. We’re still on for the end of the year for version 0.4, but this is going to be a short update on a few small aspects developed in the last fortnight. I’m currently working on finishing off my list of small fixes, bugs and improvements, and I aim to finish that off by the end of the week. There were around fifty things on the list, which is now down to about thirty, and constantly dropping. Some highlights of the past week:

- I’ve improved the way saving is handled, reducing the length of time it takes by around 40%, and I am confident I can take off at least another 10%, and possibly even enable multithreading so that saving (though not loading) can actually take place in the background.

- Fixed a large number of issues around throwing items indoors/outdoors, how they are rendered, and the messages they display upon impact, which can be dependent on whether you see the thing they hit, and/or the thing they land on. I believe every variation is now catered for, but this requires a little more testing.

- Having finished off all the procedural graphics that appear when you look at terrain, I’ve worked on the ones for trees. Each species of tree has a distinct colour for its bark and its leaves – in general these are true to life, though a few trees are slightly stylized in their choices of colours purely to aid in distinguishing them, rather than submit to absolute realism. The branches display at different angles based on what part of the tree you ‘l’ook at, and the leaves and branches are naturally procedurally placed, so here are some examples:



I’m pretty happy with them. Anyway – I’m tentatively going to estimate that 0.4 will be released either around the 20th, or if it takes a little longer, around the 29th/30th of December (or possibly even on New Year’s Day). I have a hefty amount of academic work that needs to be done, so it’ll all depend on how the two both play out. Either way, within two months, the next version will be out, and you’ll be able to set yourselves on fire and throw torches down darkened corridors to your heart’s content. Once we get closer to release blog updates will return to weekly, not fortnightly (as they always do), but I suspect we’ll only have one more update in November.

[gimymblert]

OUCH i'm running out of superlative to praise the art, so I will use random letter combination jzfu'zeshormiqp nizotb(uo !!!!! O.o'

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

OUCH i'm running out of superlative to praise the art, so I will use random letter combination jzfu'zeshormiqp nizotb(uo !!!!! O.o'

Haha, thank you! Glad you approve .

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

The "Traps" entry in the guidebook - not 100% finished, but has everything relevant to the next release:

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

The final few trap graphics are done. The mines 'splode good, too.

[happymonster]

Looks great, but I think the main font looks a bit too horizontally stretched. Have you tried something a bit less wide and perhaps a bit more like handwriting?

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Looks great, but I think the main font looks a bit too horizontally stretched. Have you tried something a bit less wide and perhaps a bit more like handwriting?

Thanks - the problem with the font is that the entire game is based on a grid, text included. I'd have to create a new font which should affect the entire game, not just text, if I wanted to make it narrower. I have considered it, but it isn't a priority at the moment, since I don't know how many graphics would have to be slightly reworked for, say, a 12x10 font, instead of 12x12.

[phi6]

It looks like more of a kerning issue rather than character width. But - I don't think perfectly kerned text would suit this game anyway, I rather like the old console look

[happymonster]

Ok, I was thinking of something more like this which is also a monospaced font:

[phi6]

Gotcha Yeah that would look great!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Ah, I see. Interesting. It can't get on the priority list for 0.4 since I want it released before the end of December, but once it's out I may look into widening the font a bit. I do see what you mean, that is a bit kinder on the eyes!