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[Blodyavenger]

It looks great so far and I really hope you released Mysterious Castle for PC soon after the release

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

It looks great so far and I really hope you released Mysterious Castle for PC soon after the release

Ditto to both statements! I'll definitely give it a look on Windows when possible.

[eclectocrat]

Restarting the devlog.

The game has come a long way since I started it last year, and am very happy with the reviews I've gotten from players. It seems to be a love it or hate it kind of game, with some people being truly ecstatic about it, putting it in their top-ten lists and other gushing and cooing and stuff. It's main drawback is the lack of Windows support, and it's many rough edges. So the devlog continues as I move towards version 1.8 and onwards.

Okay. So after a while I figured out that it's final fantasy tactics in a Moria setting.

I don't know what the movement pattern is though. I couldn't figure out whether I was allowed to move or attack or what the end of a turn was. I kept completing a turn early it seemed.

I think there needs to be more context sensitive information. So that I know where the hell I am in the "turn". Not a tutorial, just some more info if you really need it.

Done!

Well, was going to try the 1.4 version, but I get a message which says it's "not supported on this type of mac", even if I check the 32-bit mode... I have a 2010 Macbook Pro... could Lion be the problem?

Yeah, problems on Lion. Might be fixed in the next version, might not, I don't have a copy of Lion handy.

The main focus of the last few weeks have been bugfixes, UI improvements, and a total overhaul of the procedural level generation. It was turning into brutal spaghetti code and was reaching it's breaking point. I've moved a lot of code back to C++, and organized it so that it can grow and become more feature rich without turning into an unreadable chaotic mess. BTW, organizing procedural level generation needs to be formalized, because it's hairy. I've read through a lot of roguelike code, only to realize that no-one has a good grasp of how to make it clean and understandable. Maybe the 12 bay games guys know what to do...

Anyways. I hope to have 1.8 ready for November 1st, followed closely by a Windows port. I've said that before, but now that I've got some positive feedback from players, I have way more motivation to share it with more tactics/roguelike fans.

On a personal level, everytime I've gotten bug reports (only 3 e-mails so far), my heart skips a beat and I die a thousand times. I'm so emotionally attached to this little beast...

[eclectocrat]

Today I worked on decorating rooms and dungeons.

I started out by creating a series of patterns, each having a size, quality, and orientation property. There are patterns for bedrooms, storage, kitchen, hearth, library, and vault. I next took a room and randomly partitioned it, and randomly chose a pattern from each category to fill the partitions with. The results are pretty decent considering the simplicity of the implementation:



The two generated houses look reasonably different, and there is a combinatorial explosion of possibilities as I add more patterns to each category. Besides, when I get bored I can always just add more patterns.

[eclectocrat]

 

ZMARG!

Generating levels procedurally is so hard! What am I supposed to do?!

I just spent the better part of two weeks refactoring and honing the level generation code, because the previous incarnation was turning into a complete mess. Now I see that I'm probably going to need to refactor again in a few months, because I'll find ways of pushing this version to the limits.

I'm most engaged when I'm challenged by design problems that are not already solved. When I was working in realtime signal processing, lock-free algorithms were just beyond the horizon, and documentation and examples were so hard to come by. Now it's easy to find tons of tutorials and best practices all over the web. The same will happen to PCG... maybe? Will I be able to look up a tutorial and find a common pattern for level generation with organic and geometric layouts?

Regardless, the code that I've written has taught me a helluva lot, and I'll just keep updating and improving it until I feel that I can feed it a few parameters and it can poop out awesome levels.

[eclectocrat]

Since the game is under constant development, and bugs will undoubtedly be introduced, I've introduced a nice safety feature. Savegames can be reverted, or 'undo'd. The game keeps a stack of savefiles and if a bug ruins your current game, you can revert back to an older one repeatedly, until you get to a non broken game. It's obviously much better to never have broken save games, but since that's kind of impossible (considering the rate at which I'm adding features) this is a welcome backup.

[eobet]

That's a really nice feature.

How is the user interface coming along? That was the only major disappointment for me when I played one of your earlier versions (it was also a source of much confusion).

[eclectocrat]

That's a really nice feature.

How is the user interface coming along? That was the only major disappointment for me when I played one of your earlier versions (it was also a source of much confusion).

The interface is certainly much improved, in function if not appearance

Today I balanced a few spells, added pick-pocketing and lock picking, added elementals and angels, did a ton of playtesting and worked on a few minor bugs. Now comes the scary part. I'm backing up my system to 2 external disks + several redundant backups of critical source code and other creative efforts, wiping my macbook and installing OSX and Windows side by side.

then....

It looks great so far and I really hope you released Mysterious Castle for PC soon after the release

Time to port to Winblows.

[eclectocrat]

Download 1.8 for Windows, Mac, or iOS!

The windows version has some sound problems, so there is no music 

Please let me know how it runs on your systems, I've only tested on a Macbook and an AMD system, and the AMD system didn't run very well. I'm curious as to what the compatibilities are.

This is how some things look:

Demons and undead hate each other, so if you step out of the way, they're likely to destroy one another.


Chillin' out in the church.

[stef1a]

This looks super cool. The graphics are perfect. Reminds me of a game I used to play as a kid that was released in the late 90s/early 2000s by EA, I think.

[eclectocrat]

[jotapeh]

Haven't been able to download the latest update yet, but this one looks promising.

[eclectocrat]

In game editor is coming along... I've got big plans for it.

[RCIX]

Is this for iPad? I can't quite tell from the app page

[eclectocrat]

Is this for iPad? I can't quite tell from the app page

It's not a universal app, but it will be upgraded to one when I get my hands on an iPad. So feel free to pay me now A lot of people tell me it plays well on an ipad.

[JimmyJ]

This looks super cool. The graphics are perfect. Reminds me of a game I used to play as a kid that was released in the late 90s/early 2000s by EA, I think.

Ultima?

I plan to try the game later today, as a Windows user! I may have some feedback to post if I can get around to it (I literally slept all day yesterday).

[st33d]

Tried on iPad and I have a few serious issues with the game play:

I have to press every button twice. Why is that? It's like I'm selecting and then pressing it. The selection is redundant. Of course I wanted to press that. Why do I have to keep pressing until it works? Is that a bug?

I still don't know how to play. I don't know what the structure of a turn is, or who comes next in a turn. Outside of a battle I've got everyone following the leader, and then when I get dumped into a battle my formation is a bit screwed.

Attack and movement is intuitive, so that's okay (apart from hammering the buttons till they work). But it's not clear how a turn is structured or in what order a turn is processed, so I just end up getting killed because I can't plan for anything.

I don't know why I can't do anything with a character any more. Am I supposed to be allowed to move them around to my heart's content? Or am I making a mistake by clicking on wait? Sometimes it seems I can keep performing actions and sometimes I can't, I don't understand what constitutes as an action or how many actions you get.

In other tactics games it boots you out of a character's turn once you have performed all actions or at least makes it clear what you are capable of and when before you pass to the next character.

As it stands I've either missed some critical tutorial or it needs a more rigid structure to make the game play more implicit (action, move, pass - not do what you feel like). I don't know how to play it. I can't play it.

[eclectocrat]

Tried on iPad and I have a few serious issues with the game play:

I have to press every button twice. Why is that? It's like I'm selecting and then pressing it. The selection is redundant. Of course I wanted to press that. Why do I have to keep pressing until it works? Is that a bug?

That's the standard input, so as to avoid mis-presses, if you don't like it, you can change it in the options pane: swipe down until the pane sides in and then choose the 'select action' button. The 'select+confirm action' button should unhighlight. Now you don't have to press everything twice.

I still don't know how to play. I don't know what the structure of a turn is, or who comes next in a turn. Outside of a battle I've got everyone following the leader, and then when I get dumped into a battle my formation is a bit screwed.

The turn order is intentionally hidden, I might add some icons to show you which party member acts next, but you can't automatically predict which enemy goes next. In terms of the formation, when combat begins all characters stop wherever they are and get ready to fight. Usually the followers are a space or two behind their leader.

Attack and movement is intuitive, so that's okay (apart from hammering the buttons till they work). But it's not clear how a turn is structured or in what order a turn is processed, so I just end up getting killed because I can't plan for anything.

I don't know why I can't do anything with a character any more. Am I supposed to be allowed to move them around to my heart's content? Or am I making a mistake by clicking on wait? Sometimes it seems I can keep performing actions and sometimes I can't, I don't understand what constitutes as an action or how many actions you get.

In other tactics games it boots you out of a character's turn once you have performed all actions or at least makes it clear what you are capable of and when before you pass to the next character.

There is a meter in the bottom left corner of the screen. This meter will go down for every step you take. While the meter is green you can do 'standard actions', like shoot a bow or cast most spells. When the meter reaches zero it resets to full but is now red. Now you can only move the character and do 'free actions' like drop your weapon and cast some particular spells. When the red meter reaches zero the turn automatically ends. Because of the tactical importance of high-ground and cover, you have to specifically select wait in order to end a characters round. it's usually a good idea to do some post attack movement to better your position.

In the next version, this action meter hovers over the currently acting character, cus' that's what you're looking at.

As it stands I've either missed some critical tutorial or it needs a more rigid structure to make the game play more implicit (action, move, pass - not do what you feel like). I don't know how to play it. I can't play it.

The system is based loosely on D&D 3.5, and I make no effort to explain it. Yeah I know thats lame. The turn structure will stay roughly the same, because of the tactical implications, but I'll certainly put some effort into explaining what is going on.

So to summarize, you don't know how to play or what is happening, so you won't play. That's about right eh?

Thanks for the feedback. I hope that you can enjoy a future version when I add a tutorial to explain things.

[Ashkin]

Oho, what's this? Why has this wonderful-looking game been hiding from me all this time? This looks very tempting!

[st33d]

So to summarize, you don't know how to play or what is happening, so you won't play. That's about right eh?

Won't play is not the same as can't play. I played it, I couldn't understand it. I just kept getting killed. I wasn't having any fun. I had the same experience on the desktop version.

I'll try again with your instructions. Maybe just a text window accessible from the menu would help. I understand the colossal pain in the arse that building tutorials is.

Double pressing buttons in the game I think makes sense - I didn't notice it in game, but having it in the title menu is just plain weird. No other title menu on any other iOS app does it so it's pretty jarring and makes it seem like its a bit broken. Its like your interface design is saying that touchscreens are fundamentally broken. That's not the experience I've had with some other apps.