v1.3.25
Bug fix - Creatures which multiplied could potentially duplicate certain quest items.
Bug fix - Certain status ailments were not persisting through saving and reloading. Fixed - does not affect old save files.
Bug fix - Ranged blades (throwing knives) should now sell and buy for a more reasonable price.
Bug fix - One of the puzzles could should no longer generate unreachable statues.
Balance change - Reduced the number of ranged attackers in the lower (more difficult) levels in relation to melee attackers.
v1.3.21
Base game complete! Yep, all the basic stuff needed to win (or lose) a game is now finished, including all the baseline features I wanted to include. I am hesitant to release this as a 'final' or 'gold' version (or whatever it should be called) as there is still quite a bit of stuff to be added and worked on (especially story stuff, NPCs including weapon crafting, a bunch of new dungeon features, and a lot more monsters. But, the main thing to take home from this statement is that the game is complete as far as playability. You can go from the top to the bottom, defeat the end boss, and escape (as opposed to not having complete objectives before.)
New command - (j)uggle - By pressing <j> you can juggle the items on a square, meaning that if there is mroe than one item at your feet, press <j> until you move the item you want to the top of the stack, and then pick it up. Juggling items works just like you would imagine juggling balls would - the items move circularly and sequentially. This should alleviate the tedium of picking up all the crap in a stack, and then having to drop what you dont want. I hate even having to ask the player to press a button to sort, but I can't imagine any system that will selectively pick up what you want with a single keypress, so this should suffice.
More new content courtesy Sunrise, not to be divulged! Discover at your own risk.
New bad-guys.
Bug fix - Scrolls of pain and amnesia now have the correct icon.
Bug fix - Warriors who start with the toughness stat now start at full HP.
Balance change - Incinerate damage has been increased.
Balance change - The drop rate for items inside of barrels has been more than doubled.
Balance change - With the addition of multiple types of status ailments beyond poisoning, Antidote has been upgraded to deal with most of them - as such, it has been renamed Curing Potion.
Balance change - The store no longer sells 'treasure' drops.
Bug fix - Loot (should) no longer appear on tiles occupied by statues.
Bug fix - Fixed an exploit where you could use the mouse to melee and get free attacks in.
Bug fix - Fixed a bug with the way explosion damage was being calculated (affecting both incinerate and exploding shot, but due to the nature of the bug, affecting exploding shot much more). You should now see normal results when using exploding shots.
Added a few new types of scrolls to make scroll use more...interesting.
Bug fix - Fixed an inssue with lightning (b)olt not triggering properly.
Bug fix - Added the correct 'un-id'd' names for the new scrolls.
Next version - Working on several requested changes and ideas from Sunrise!
v1.3.8
Keypress reassignment - A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to shuffle a couple of key assignments, and I am just getting to it on my TO DO list (sorry Sunrise!). Anyhow, lightning bolt (previously <l>) is not activated by pressing <b> (as in lightning (b)olt); similarly, chain (L)ightning is now simply activated by a lowercase L. This places the 3 ranged mage attacks close together, and eliminates the need for a shift in the case of chain lightning (in the spirit of keeping this game as close to 1 button = 1 action as possible.).
Inventory Overhaul - Looking at the long inventory list of items I had accrued, it became pretty obvious that having to scroll through a long list (especially if you play without a mouse) is a pain. Appropriate type of items now stack. Generally speaking, this includes food, potions, scrolls, ammo, and a few other mior items. I prefer not to have armor and weapons stack, even when identical, for a few reasons including identification, but if you would like these items to stack as well, then it's about 3 seconds of coding to change it. Dropping or selling an item will sell a single item where appropriate, not the whole stack (I dont think this aplies to arrows and bullets - not really sure why you'd wanna sell just one unless you really needed a gp bad.)
High Score list refinement - Now your cause of death (or life/escape) is recorded in the high score list. This will likely be the last functional change to how the highscore file is saved, so no more deleting your highscores after this version. Also, you might notice your high scores seem a bit higher than normal - I am now including the wealth you have on you when you die as part of your score (gold + item values).
Balance Change - Mages seem to have a tough time, especially in the early game. I have increased the spell damage across the board for mages, and greatly improved the damage absorption of ice armor. In addition, I am looking at the other skills. Incinerate will probably get a damage buff, and I might change teleports functionality to be a short term hop rather than the 'port anywhere functionality it has now, though I am undecided. Opinion on this change?
Balance Change - Rewarded experience now scales with a comparison of your level and the defeated enemy's level. Experience reward is reduced for creatures much lower than you (to a minimum of 1xp per kill); conversely, defeating enemies much higher in level than you gives an xp bonus.
Bug fix - Removed an embarrasing ranged attack 'insta-death' bug associated with the addition of death track in the highscore list.
Bug(?) fix - Changed the way that incapacitating status effects are handled (such as fear/terror, stun, etc). I tried a short animation of you running away for fear, or time passing while you were stunned, which looked like it worked well on my computer, but some people reported they didn't like the forced pause. Changed it so that the turns passed instantly while you had no control of your character, but it was hard to tell what happened in the intervening turns (such as which way the attacker ran off.) So, I have reverted to an older form. Whenever you are stunned, or feared, the game will stop stop each turn for input - however, whatever you press will simply pass the turn frame by frame until the status effect is over. This lets you see exactly what occurs during the time period, and still takes control from you briefly.
Balance/Bug fix - Shopkeepers will now discard cursed items they inadvertantly buy from you (unidentified).
Balance change - Companions (meaning the wolf) will follow you through portals and down stairs, while creatures that you control, or are otherwise bound to you will break free of your control if you portal or move to another level (elementals, skeletons, dominated creatures).
Cleaned up the high score log a little bit; fixed some spacing errors. Added date recording.
Bug fix - A high level boss was summoning allies correctly...the problem was that the only creature of similar level to summon was himself, leading to a rapidly filling room of boss monsters - DOH! Anyways, the levels that he summons is now correct.
Bug fix - Reflected melee damage/spikes/thorns was being entered into the message log incorrectly.
New monster abilities
Note on development -
I have entered the hard-core play-testing/bug-fixing/balancing part of development. While there is still a huge list of features to be implemented (and I haven't abandoned any of the suggestions/ideas I have been sent, there are still due to be implemented), the basic mechanics are 95% complete - combat works, NPCs work, quests and puzzle work, monsters and their skills work, the item system works. Right now it's all about playing it over and over, seeing hard the difficulty is, tweaking skills to make them valuable, and keeping the levels coming at proper rates so it doesn't drag out. As such, the next few patches are going to be light on features and fluff, and you are going to see the basic difficulty curve start to solidify (it already seems to be there for the early and mid games - I feel like difficulty ramps fairly evenly at the moment). After I get worn out on bug hunting and balancing, I will return to adding features, and fluff. Generally speaking, with the game mechanics feeling solid, and the systems in place, it should be easy to add more content and bloat the game with new stuff. Most of my continued ideas can rely on the (hopefully) solid code in place. Thank you for taking the time to play!
B-
v1.2.92
New skill - Dual Wield - This skill replaces a skill I feel is redundant, and unwieldy to use - charge (up a) stun. The rest of the charge line will remain the same. Dual wield will be followed by charge attack (rush forward and stun a single target), and it by battle-cry(give the charge attack an area-of-effect component). The skill it fairly self explanatory and functions as you would expect. If you do not have a two-handed weapon equipped, or a shield, you gain an extra attack wielding the weapon in your back-up slot as a second weapon. The second attack has a slightly lower hit chance, and reduced damage. Dual hand damage and attack bonus are listed on the character sheet.
Skill change - Toughness - Now that all the skills are in place, I am going back skill by skill and rebalancing and reevaluating them. Toughness provided a static armor bonus. This skill seems redundant to me now that Phalanx is a skill. As such, I have changed toughness slightly to provide a similar, but not identical bonus, as before. I still want the skill to provide a passive benefit, so instead, toughness now increases your total hitpoints, as well as the hitpoints you gain each level (so instead of a 1 time purchase for a set amount of hitpoints, toughness scales with your level and constitution.) In the end, the net change is that your survivability is improved, but also against status ailments and magic damage, unlike the old toughness which really only helped with melee attacks.
High Score List - It's a bit rudimentary at the moment, but the game will now record your high scores, including turns passed, name, class, score, and level died/max reached. I plan on adding the cause of death in the future, but the way I have player death coded at the moment does not pass the cause of death, and it looks like a considerable amount of work!
Skill point change - In order to give a little more character to the classes (no pun intended), but still allow you to customize your character, I have made a slight change to skill points. Buying a skill from your own tree costs 1 point, as before. However, buying a skill from another class tree will now cost 2 points. Eg, if you are a fighter, and you wish to learn to heal, or stealth, it will costs you 2 points, while toughness would still only be 1. Plan ahead!! Note that for the Adventurer class all skills cost 2 points - a significant drawback given their flexibility. However, they start with 4 skill points - enough to buy any 2 skills, giving them a little more early game flexibility in addition to their significant armor and weapon selection.
General UI Improvement - Help file updated with all the new info. Press ? in-game to get info on any commands, skills, or classes.
General UI Improvement - Destroying all the summoning obelisks is considered one of your primary goals as part of the stemming of the tide of monsters. As such , details of this objective (and others) are now tracked on the player screen. More info will follow.
General UI Improvement - The game will autoload your last saved game based on the name you enter at the start-up screen. You can still load games the traditional way if you change you mind about what you want to play later on.
General UI Improvment - Arrows and Bullets will consolidate in your inventory now, rather than having 3 stacks of Arrows (11), Arrows (5), Arrows (13), etc.
Graphics tweaked throughout - Slight spell animations and environment graphics improvements.
Balance change - Adventurers can no longer use 2 handed weapons; this is now exclusive to fighters.
Balance change - Evil clerics can summon a maximum of 3 skeletons at a time. In addition, the stats of these pets have been tweaked a bit. This leads to a general maximum of 5 pets at a time (1 Fire Elemental, 1 Wolf, 3 Skeletons). This is purely a balance issue, and, so far, it looks like it doesn't impact performance to increase the number of skeletons you can have. However, from a play perspective, my personal experience is than you can spam a huge army and roll through the game. Finally, the rate at which you gain the ability to summon these extra skeletons has been slowed a bit.
Balance change - Loot rates have been lowered a bit now that barrels can drop loot as well.
Balance change - The effect of Willpower as defense against magic has been increased.
New monster ability - Certain creatures are now covered in spikes, and you will hurt yourself trying to melee them. Pay attention, and fight safely from a distance!
Bug fix - Corrected a minor error with image compression as resolutions lower than maximum.
Bug fix - Some damage animations were showing up while blind - fixed.
Bug fix - Summoned skeletons were dropping loot - fixed.
Bug fix - One of the puzzles was not revealing the stairs correctly - fixed. Bug fix - Fixed a reload error with the malfunctioning puzzle.
B-
v1.2.76
Note on bugs - Just want to say I'm sorry up front for the bugs which are introduced each version. No excuse, but I will say the code is at 15-20k lines at this point, and theres a lot going on, so there are bound to be bugs with myself doing 100% of all the coding. That being said, I will do my best to correct these mistakes in the very next version whenever you send me bug info. Thank you for your time and diligence (especially Sunrise, Theron Seckington, and Tormod Haugen). On to the (ever-growing) list of bug fixes...
Store Update - Made extensive changes to the way the town/store works today, which potentially will drastically alter the game. First, the store no longer has unlimited amounts of anything, even food. Once you buy something, it is depleted, and will take time to replenish. This makes food more than an annoyance now, you no longer have an unlimited supply. Not to be too terribly harsh, food tends to replenish quite often in the store, but there is a finite amount and quality available - you simply have to progress and find more to eat. Second, the store wll now allow you to buy back items you accidentally/intentionally sell. I have accidentally sold the wrong item myself a few times, so this helps a bit. You still will make a loss of 50% (standard store markup) but you can make up for a potentially devastating error. Finally, with the change to supplies, I have re-enabled the store to sell certain rare items that affect game balance (such as stat increase potions and the like), although the likelihood of the store selling magic items in general has been decreased.
Graphical tweak - Shield (Ice armor and Divine Armor) now have a visual component that lets you know when they are about to fail, as well as a message. This gives the player a chance to refresh the shield if needed. Also, Prayer of Might now has a visual indicator as well.
New Hotkey - Pressing <E> (as in shift+E) will eat the first ration, or drink the first flask of water in your inventory list, rather than you having to go into your inventory and manually activating the item (though you can of course still do this.) In addition, you will receive a message as to your remaining supplies. Keep in mind that it is purposely coded NOT to warn you against over-eating/drinking, as it is up to you to monitor your hunger status (given that the status line turns red when you are hungry, and warns you when you are stuffed.)
UI change - Added a pop-up box for name entry, a la every other roguelike out there. I don't want it to be too intrusive, so you can just hit cancel or escape when it pops up and use the default names, but I found that without it, no one ever uses their own names, even though the option was available.
Bug fix - GAH!! I THINK I've finally nailed down the item identification bug error (after like 4 hours of staring at 15000 lines of code :P) Anyhow, this should improve several problems, including selling unidentified items in the shop, as well as items auto-id'ing in your inventory. After a few run-throughs, things initally look like they are working the way I want them to, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Note that I have corrected some otehr exploits, such as being able to tell what a scroll was by its selling price (same for other items like wands and potions, too.)
Bug Fix - Fixed an issue with backfiring wands not using a charge. Also fixed a related issue with cursed staus for wands in general.
Bug fix - Fixed an error with how the mana percentage was displayed.
Bug fix - Fixed a bug where characterwith low stats would not regenerate mana.
Bug fix - The skill Conjure Ammo was not resetting properly after a new game.
Bug fix - Fixed some spelling errors.
Bug fix - Ranged ammo was selling for an incorrect amount.
Bug fix - Fixed a really dumb error when drinking water.
Bug fix - Added missing descriptions for some of the recently added items and features (such as shift-clicking (looking) at statues or stumps).
Bug Fix - Ice Armor was incorrectly depleting the players mana when it failed. (Old code remnant).
Bug Fix - Keys are now not saved when you save and exit a game. This is to avoid an exploit with collecting keys, saving, and starting over.
Bug Fix - Wands should now have the proper chance to be generated cursed.
Bug Fix - Players can no longer enter and reenter a shop in order to refresh the stores inventory. Updates to the shop invnetory now occur on a more gradual basis (and representative of what the player can/should be using.)
Balance Change - In line with the new store changes, mana, health, and antidote potions, as well as town portal scrolls are in unlimited quantities. Food is still scarce.
Balance Change - Wizards starting stats have been slightly adjusted to reflect spells no longer 'missing'.
Balance Change - Stealth has been tweaked slightly. First, stealthing in smoke ALWAYS works. However, on the flip side, certain creatures (mindless, blind, etc) don't care whether you are stealthed or not, and as such, will attack you no matter what your stealth status is if you are right next to them (call it detecting your life force, scent, vibrations, whatever - the point being they don't have eyes, and thus aren't affected by steatlh.) Finally, while before you could never stealth in the visual presence of a monster before, you now can stealth if a) the monster has no eyes (blind, mindless, etc), or b) has not detected you yet.
Balance Change - As noted above in the stealth changes, smoke bombs give you 100% chance to stealth. If, however, you aren't stealthed, creatures which are right beside you still have a chance to detect and attack you (you are, after all, literally right beside them). Simply moving one square away in smoke is enough to confuse the monster (they cannot track your movements, only tell if you are right on top of them.)
Balance change - Altered how maximum hitpoints are calculated. You will start out with similar amount, but now you get less hitpoints for simply leveling, and more for increasing your constitution. At the end, you can have similar health totals, but it requires point allocation, making constituion more important.
New puzzles/quest
New monsters
New dungeon features
Balance change - Wow, is difficulty in a roguelike proving to be difficult. I sat down today for several hours, plotted the likely average physical and magical defenses, and then reset all the monsters damage values around these numbers, as well as how many hits a player should be able to survive at a given level. Hopefully, difficulty is a little less steep now, and the progression is more linear.
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