Elderlore

Source: Nolithius.com » roguelike

Announcing the Dance of Death v0.5.102 release, playable in your browser at www.nolithius.com/dod!

This development cycle was focused towards introducing an animation system and tidying up some loose ends with ranged combat and other recently added features.

The following to-do items from the goals were completed:

1. Added animation system for ranged combat.
2. When targeting, the color of the targeting trajectory now shows whether a shot is clear (green), unknown (yellow), or blocked (red).
3. When entering targeting mode, the last target, or the closest monster in your FOV is selected.
4. Saving now occurs at a slower rate (once every 10 seconds), as well as upon starting a new game, or changing levels. You may also explicitly [s]ave.
5. Corrected language when stepping over a stack of items: “are lying here” instead of “is lying here”.
6. Picking up a new stack of an item already in the inventory now merges stacks.
7. When keybinding, the system checks if the newly entered key is already bound. If so, it displays a message by the existing binding.
8. If an item with a long name is equipped, the equipment slot descriptors are shortened to allow for longer item names.
9. If a missile hits an obstacle or does not hit a target, it is automatically dropped on the ground. If it hits/misses an opponent, there is a chance it will be consumed.
10. Graveyard menu added, where old dead characters are listed.
11. Hall of Fame menu added, where characters that beat the game are listed.
12. The Continue screen now shows more character information (race/class/location).
13. Quick Character Creation has been further streamlined to only require the selection of gender, archetype, and name. Archetypes include race, optimal stats, and skillset.
14. Help panel now reflects the proper keys that have been bound in the options panel.
15. Output messages are now saved.
16. Bug fix: Looked into reported crashes or character misplacements after creating a character after a game has been won or lost. Was unable to replicate, will continue to monitor.

I also threw in the following in response to feedback, as bug fixes, and to add a bit more to this fairly light release:

1. Ranged animation polished to execute the ranged attack on the last frame.
2. The arrow animation uses the appropriate | – \ / characters, depending on the slope of the trajectory.
3. The input system now checks if there are animations running, if so, and the animations are “cancelable”, it forces them to complete and proceeds with the input. Otherwise, it blocks the input. All animations are currently cancelable.
4. Equipping a stackable item over an already equipped stack will automatically merge the stacks.
5. Starting equipment added, based on selected Skills and Techniques.
6. Maces added.
7. Male characters now receive stat bonuses, and female characters no longer receive stat penalties.
8. New monsters added.
9. Monster generator now generates more monsters per level.
10. Visible dungeon tiles have a bit more color now.
11. Saves from old versions are automatically removed to avoid conflicts.
12. Bug fix: The Continue menu is now properly disabled after a playthrough where the last active character dies or wins the game.
13. Bug fix: Arrows are now used up properly (1 per shot), they were being used 1 per tile for every shot.
14. Bug fix: Output buffer from the previous game is now cleared after a death/win.

I have got my work cut out for me in the next version, but nevertheless, please continue to send in your invaluable feedback!

Source: Nolithius.com » roguelike

The iterative development process has been a real blessing for the health of Dance of Death. Releasing early and often has allowed me to keep the project’s momentum going, as well as make tough decisions about what gets done for each section, and how.

One of these such decisions has been to move what was once the #1 item on this list, wilderness generation, to the next release after 0.5.

After having played UnReal World recently, I immediately knew that I wanted to take Dance of Death into a more wilderness-survival style of gameplay. Because of this, and because the list of changes for version 0.5 is already extensive, I plan on focusing the entirety of the next version release (v0.6) on implementing the wilderness and the goodies that come with it: an overworld map and its generator; outdoor area maps and their generator(s); moving into and out of areas and into the map; moving from one area to another through area edges and map stitching to support it; new monsters, items, and tiles; and a more colorful palette! I also have to rethink the main quest and deliver it in a way that works well with an open space as opposed to a closed-off dungeon.

The following is the list of goals for the version that is in the works at the moment, 0.5:

1. Animation system for ranged combat.
2. When targeting, change the color of the targeting trajectory to show whether a shot is clear (green), unknown (yellow), or blocked (red).
3. When entering targeting mode, select either the last target, or the closest monster in your FOV.
4. Saving no longer to be on-going in the background, but manually through a [S]ave or [Q]uit command.
5. Correct language when stepping over a stack of items: “are lying here” instead of “is lying here”.
6. Picking up a new stack of an item already in the inventory should merge stacks.
7. When keybinding, check if newly entered key is already bound. If so, unbind old binding and display message.
8. If an item with a long name is equipped, switch the equipment slot descriptors to shorter versions.
9. If a missile hits an obstacle or misses, drop it on the ground.
10. Graveyard menu, where old dead characters are listed.
11. Hall of Fame menu, where characters that beat the game are listed.
12. Show more character information on the Continue screen (race/class/location).
13. Streamline Quick Character Creation: gender, archetype, name. Archetype includes race, optimal stats, and skillset.
14. Help panel should reflect the proper keys that have been bound in the options panel.
15. Save output messages.
16. Bug fix: Look into reported crashes or character misplacements after creating a character after a game has been won or lost.

Your feedback has been invaluable in both helping to prioritize next steps and in keeping the development motivation strong. Please do keep it coming!

Source: Nolithius.com » roguelike

Announcing the release of Dance of Death v0.4.89!

Among the features for this version you’ll find custom keyboard mapping, international keyboard support, ranged combat, and game saving and loading. The following is a complete list of new features and updates:

From the goals:

1. Game is now automatically saved and subsequently available from the new “Continue” option in the main menu.
2. Options screen has been added, which allows for custom keybinding (saved automatically).
3. Input system was reworked to correct problem with international keyboard support.
4. Item icons are now shown in inventory, equipment, drop, and look boxes.
5. Item, monster, and terrain icons are shown in look boxes.
6. Basic ranged combat implemented.
7. Monsters now have their own skills and techs where relevant.
8. Monsters now deal different amounts of damage.
9. Monsters now have different amounts of energy they use to attack and move.
10. Quest text edited.
11. Journal and quest panels now scroll.
12. Health, Stamina, and Mana bars are now scaled according to their values (largest is 100%, the others scaled respectively).

The following features were also implemented:

1. Keybindings can be reset to default in the Options screen.
2. New skill/technique for ranged combat added: Bows/Straightshot.
3. Bows now have their own equipment slot: Missile Weapon.
4. Quiver equipment slot renamed to “Missiles”.
5. Basic item stacking implemented.
6. Character creation: Names are now validated vs. the global save list to prevent multiple characters with the same name.
7. Chance of generating a secret door halved.
8. Modified monster pathfinding to make them less aggressive. You now will be greeted by a monster less often after opening a door.
9. Additional quest text added for main quest.
10. Pressing [Space] on the main menu regenerates background.
11. Bug fix: When generating/loading a new area, the previous area’s list of valid floor tiles was not being cleared, leading to some odd monster/item placements.
12. Bug fix: Dice algorithm was fixed to be uniformly distributed. Previously, the first and last number in the roll had 50% less odds of being rolled.

As always, feedback is much appreciated!

Source: Nolithius.com » roguelike

In the past few months, Dance of Death has seen rocky progress. Development momentum came to a crawl while I took a brief break after work got particularly busy with an Oracle/Ironman 2 project that completely tapped my AS3 mana reserves for a few weeks.

Recently, however, I’ve made slow but steady progress, and am down to the last two features for version 0.4! They are: saving/loading game state and ranged combat.

As far as saving/loading goes, I implemented options saving/loading firsthand to get a taste of how I would structure the SharedObject-based system. In AS3, the SharedObject class allows you to save data locally to the user’s computer, although, unfortunately, all classes are stripped from the saved objects, which are restored as vanilla Objects that must be recreated as their original object types manually, since casting is of little help.

After having gone through the motions with the saving/loading of the Options (keybindings only at this point), I foresee the rest of the permanence implementation will be time consuming— since there are so many moving parts, player, dungeon, monsters, items, etc.— but not difficult. I will tackle this feature last.

I haven’t given the ranged combat implementation much thought, to be honest, but I will be fleshing it out in the coming days as I start working on it. At a quick glance, there are a few prerequisite features, such as item stacking in the inventory (for arrows), that may be required to get ranged combat going. Although, to be honest, that is the only one I can think of! I’ve already got routines for drawing lines and a [L]ook system that I can replicate as a targeting system…

…ah yes, animations!

That will have to wait.

Stay tuned for 0.4, tentatively scheduled for this week!

Source: Nolithius.com » roguelike

Now that Dance of Death has moved into alpha stage, some critical features need to be tied up. Save/Load, world permanence, custom keybindings, ranged combat, international keyboard support, and a few interface changes are among the items which I’ll be working on for version 0.4.

The 0.4 development cycle should be shorter than the last iteration, v0.3.60. Here are the goal items:

1. World and player permanence across sessions (Save/Load).
2. ‘Continue’ command from main menu.
3. Custom keybindings.
4. Look into international keyboard problems with >.
5. Show item icon in inventory, equipment, drop, and look boxes.
6. Show terrain and monster icon in look boxes.
7. Implement bows and ranged combat.
8. Add ability to specify monster techs.
9. Add ability to specify monster damage.
10. Add ability to specify monster energy.
11. Edit errors in quest text.
12. Implement scrolling in Journal and Quest subpanels.
13. Scale Health, Stamina, and Mana bars according to their values.

As an added bonus, I am also considering implementing a generalized [u]se key that uses any feature present on the current tile, as well as making [>] and [<] both ascend and descend stairs.