next »

[JoeHonkie]

So I've been messing with the BlitzMax demo and I rewrote a side project from a few months ago.  It's a sort of solitaire fantasy game based on minesweeper and the Ti-99/4a version of Hunt the Wumpus.  It's not incredible, but give it a go (although you might want to read the following directions first):
Mac Version (up to date)
PC Version (up to date)

It's still an early build, so there's no little sounds, it's ugly as hell, and there's no high score.  Because of the design, the game is extremely random, but you have at least some control over the game as you figure it out.  It's a solitaire game, that's my pitiful excuse for the randomness.  I'm not sure I will spend too much time cleaning this up as I'm not overfond of Blitz and I could always redo it in C# someday.



INSTRUCTIONS FOLLOW!

[JoeHonkie]

Some quick instructions:
Basically you start with a blank map.  Click anywhere to explore your first room.  From then on you can click any spot adjacent to any explored rooms to explore them.  Each turn (each time you explore a room) you get 1 gold for each gold vein you have found.  Then you get any goodies in the room you have explored, and then you fight any monsters in there.  Combat either kills you or hurts you.  Then you heal 1 health up to your current max (if you aren't dead).  That's it.  Retarded simple.

The graphics:

is a normal room.  Yay.

is a caved-in room.  You cannot explore new rooms off of this, but you can explore around it.

is a gold vein.  Each one of these you find increases your income.

is the dragon.  He will pretty much kill you if you find him unless you have the sword and health upgrades.

is a blood spatter.  These warn you that you are one room away from the dragon so you don't just get yourself killed.

is a rat.  They will kill you if you run into enough in a row.

is a berzerker gnome.  Right now they end up being the same as rats but when I take the time to rebalance everything they will probably be more dangerous or something.

is an axe.  It gives you a tiny attack bonus.

is a sword.  It gives you a huge attack bonus.

is the elfin font.  It's not made by elves (that would be elven), but it is really small.  Also it gives you a maximum health bonus.

is a gas pocket.  You die.  You won't even get to see it unless you die.

are fumes.  They warn you when you are one room away from the gas pocket.  I guess they don't show up on this white forum.  Maybe highlight the graphic.  It's three white squiggles.

is dynamite.  You can use it to clear a caved-in room and move through it.


You finish the game when you die, retire (which you can do anytime after you earn 100 gold), or explore all but the 2 poison gas rooms on the map.  Or if you get trapped in a situation where none of those is possible, I guess just close the window...  I'm working on it!

[Shade Jackrabbit]

It's an interesting game, and I like the combination of RPG mechanics and Minesweeper. It would be great to see it cleaned up a bit, especially the graphics as right now it seems a bit cluttered between all the dead rats and important symbols.

It would also be nice if there was a away to block off or mark room which are known to have dragons/gas.

[JoeHonkie]

It's an interesting game, and I like the combination of RPG mechanics and Minesweeper. It would be great to see it cleaned up a bit, especially the graphics as right now it seems a bit cluttered between all the dead rats and important symbols.

Yeah, I want all the graphics to be visible, though so you can see what was in each room.  I should probably at least have the corpses look like corpses and maybe had a larger icon pop up for any enemy that kills you.  I was also thinking of moving the fumes down a bit so you can have an icon of your dwarf in the last room you explored, but that obviously wouldn't make things look any LESS cluttered.

My inspiration for the graphics was this version of Hunt the Wumpus on Mac:
http://codenautics.com/wumpus/
EDIT: And a little bit the TI-99/4a Hunt the Wumpus and this Java clone of it:
http://www.dreamcodex.com/wumpus.php

It would also be nice if there was a away to block off or mark room which are known to have dragons/gas.

I don't know, I think that part of the game is already pretty easy to work around.  I mean, there's only three of those rooms, and the grid isn't that big.  Were you really having trouble remembering which rooms were gassed?  It wouldn't be hard to add, I guess.  EDIT: Yeah, I will probably try and throw that in next time I have time to work on this.

[bicilotti]

A very, very interesting game! I found the idea very interesting without being pretentious, mechanics were clear and easy to grasp (I played it without looking at the instructions' post and I had no problem); graphics, albeit simple, did their job!

I'm looking forward to Dwarf's mine v2!

[Nitro Crate]

I got stuck after having explored all the unblocked rooms (avoiding all the insta ko rooms obviously) I started to dynamite the blocked rooms but ran out and came to a stalemate.

Idk, maybe you wanted that, but it felt kind of lame.

[JoeHonkie]

I got stuck after having explored all the unblocked rooms (avoiding all the insta ko rooms obviously) I started to dynamite the blocked rooms but ran out and came to a stalemate.

Idk, maybe you wanted that, but it felt kind of lame.

I didn't.  In my old version I had an option to "retire" after you earned 100G, and a 50G bonus if you explored 62 rooms.  So I'm working on that.  Sorry 'bout that.

Or if you get trapped in a situation where neither is possible, I guess just close the window...  I'm working on it!

[JoeHonkie]

I updated the Mac build with a bugfix, some ugly graphical buttons, and the "retire" function in case y'all get stuck.  I have to do the PC build later, but it should be up tonight.

EDIT: PC version also updated now.

@Bilcotti, thanks for the praise.  My aim for now is to produce something clean and playable before my BlitzMax demo runs out (not sure I want to pay for it, when I have other better languages I can use for free).  Hopefully someday I will make a more complex sequel.

@Shade, definitely going to try to put the marker option in now that I think about it.  No guarantees, though.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Yeah, the problem was just that I had 3 gassed rooms diagonally next to eachother, and only two of them guaranteed to be gassed. But every time I looked at it I had to go through the logic again to make sure I wasn't screwing up.

Not really that important, it would just be nice. 

[JoeHonkie]

So I updated this (only a little) and am planning on adding some more stuff.  I mostly only tweaked the way the endgame looks, and I changed a "bug" where you would get warning messages when you opened a room with a collapse in it (which makes the game slightly easier if allowed).

I'm hoping to add a persistent high score list and the bad room marker that Shade recommended soon.