Recent Posts

1

Programming / Re: Recommended Language/Development

« Last post by Krice on Today at 10:35:10 AM »

I recommend C# and Visual Studio or MonoDevelop, all free. C# is a nicely structured language and  very easy to learn.

C# is solving like 10% of the technical problems compared to C++ (something like memory management, strings and lists are easier in C#). It's just a language, it's not magic. One of less known problems in advanced languages is that they tend to be slower than C or C++. It's not a problem in small projects, but may become a surprising issue in large scale games.

2

Programming / Re: Help me find a better language than C++

« Last post by Krice on Today at 10:27:30 AM »

It just makes sense for a next generation game to be written in a next generation programming language

It is kind of funny that we still have to use programming languages that were developed mainly in 1970's when for example graphical displays were quite rare and everything was text and command line based. As in linux development style today. I really think we need something better than anything we have today, with new kind of thinking that would remove all those tedious procedures we have in programming. Most of my problems in programming are technical problems that could have been solved by using more advanced built-in algorithms than what we have.

3

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« Last post by jere on August 20, 2017, 09:56:59 PM »

OK, you're on the list. 

4

Announcements / Re: Infra Arcana, a horror/Lovecraft roguelike (now at v19.1!).

« Last post by getter77 on August 20, 2017, 06:25:13 PM »

Nice---another fairly potent update and so soon!  That good momentum~   

5

Announcements / Re: Infra Arcana, a horror/Lovecraft roguelike (now at v19.1!).

« Last post by NON on August 20, 2017, 05:52:57 PM »

Infra Arcana v19.1 released

Downloads:
https://sites.google.com/site/infraarcana/downloads

Changelog:

Gameplay
* Spells have basic/expert/master tiers instead of a skill percentage - higher tiers can be achieved by picking traits for various spell domains (e.g. "Lesser Invocation" to cast all attack spells at expert level)
* Reworked the spell skill bonuses for all spells
* Lowered the spirit cost for many spells
* The Occultist receives halved shock for casting spells (not just from using strange items)
* Spellcasting is now generally more powerful than before, and scales to be more useful by mid/late game
* Darkbolt and Azathoth's Wrath do random damage within a range, instead of a fixed number
* Being Blessed/Cursed affects the shock cost of casting spells, instead of the spirit cost
* The spell "Healing" is now also available for the player
* The potion "See Invisible" is now a spell instead
* Added spell "Transmutation" (convert items)
* Added spell "Subdue Weapons" - learned simultaneously as "Animate Weapons" (very cheap spell which drops all visible Animated Weapons)
* Added spell "Spell Shield" - grants spell resistance until a spell is blocked (same effect as the spirit traits)
* Removed Potion of Clairvoyance
* The Potion of Invisibility effect ends when attacking or casting spells, and has much shorter duration
* Removed the "Sacrifice Life"/"Spirit" spells
* The spell "Summon Creature" picks more sensible monsters when cast by the player (e.g. a Wolf will not appear when cast at Master level)
* Improved AI of player allied  monsters - they are now much more active in pursuing enemies
* Added trait "Stout Spirit" (before "Strong"/"Mighty Spirit")
* Added trait "Absorption" for Occultists - blocking a spell restores 1d6 Spirit
* Added trait "Resistant" - halved damage from fire and electricity
* Mind Eaters (now called Mind Leeches) can no longer paralyze the player
* The "snake emerge" and "wall crumbling" events are much rarer
* "Snake pit" rooms now contains much fewer monsters (instead of filling the whole room)
* Oozes have much shorter awareness duration and tend to spawn in smaller groups
* Keziah Mason starts together with Brown Jenkin, instead of spending a turn to summon it when she sees the player
* Monsters now attempt to detect the player by vision on standard turns, instead of on their own turns (to prevent very fast monsters from detecting the player too easily)
* Ravens, Bats, and Vampire Bats no longer actively moves towards the player, but will attack if adjacent
* Byakhees are slower
* Ghoul characters have +10% speed and +1 natural Armor Point
* "Infravision" has been changed to the ability to see in darkness instead (this means Ghoul characters can fully see in dark rooms)
* Adjusted Potion of Poison duration so that it's guaranteed to be non-lethal for any non-diseased player character with full hit points
* Poison damage is slower, but poisoning generally lasts longer
* XP gained from Monoliths increased from 15% to 20%
* Rod of Cloud Minds (which the Rogue starts with) now only requires 90 turns to recharge (or 45 with the Electrically Inclined trait)
* Unidentified Rods do not display their recharge countdown - attempting to use an unidentified Rod before it's recharged wastes a turn (with the same message as if the effect is unknown), but does not reset the countdown
* Removed the damage bonuses from the Marksman traits (it made ranged combat very overpowered)
* Removed Armor Points bonus from Tough/Rugged traits
* Added trait "Thick Skinned", which gives +1 Armor Point
* Each melee trait gives +5% chance to evade melee attacks
* The War Veteran starts with a Flak Jacket instead of a Leather Jacket
* The base chances for bashing doors open and pushing lids are higher
* Throwing knives do 2d3 damage (avg 4.0) instead of 1d6 (avg 3.5), and have +10% hit chance
* Rocks no longer have a hit chance bonus, and do less damage
* Increased backstab bonus for Daggers and for the Vicious trait
* The Imperceptible trait is only available for Rogues
* The Mi-go Electric Gun runs on Hit Points instead of Spirit, and does less damage
* The "auto move" command ("e") now also stops before hanging vines
* Greatly reduced the ability penalties for wearing Iron Suit, and slightly reduced the penalties for the other armors
* Putting on, taking off, or dropping armor now takes multiple turns
* Properties applied from monster attacks (such as paralyzation or blindness) have a certain percent chance to get applied - many attacks still have 100% chance to apply their effect, but some now have a lower chance (such as paralyzation from White Spider bites)
* Paralyzation can be re-applied while already active
* Paralyzed actors always have 100% speed, so that very fast monsters (such as  Bats) does not immediately start moving again
* Much higher chances that monsters become "wary" first, instead of immediately detecting the player
* When monsters detect the player due to sounds, they pause for one turn (just like they already did when detecing by vision)
* Burning no longer completely prevents reading manuscripts or casting spells - instead there is a 50% chance to fail (wasting the manuscript or spirit upon failure)
* Removed the regeneration aspect from the Orb of Life
* The Horn of Banishment now also works on Major Clapham Lee's summoned "Tomb Legions"
* Gas masks now also protects against gas explosion traps
* Insanity increments are higher than before, and randomized
* Shock from carrying disturbing items reduced to 0.05% shock per turn (from 0.1%)
* The Rogue background receives -25% passive shock (instead of -50%)
* Reduced the penalty for each wound to -5% melee hit chance (instead of -10%), -5% dodging (instead of -10%), and no penalty to ranged attacks (instead of -5%)
* The Survivalist trait completely removes the penalties to hit chance and dodging from wounds
* Being Frenzied allows waiting in place (with "5" or ".")
* Added some new mid/late game monsters
* Weakening now causes halved melee damage, instead of minimum melee damage
* Removed the Wolves from the intro level
* The Rejuvenator Device causes heavy shock when used
* Good properties no longer interrupt player actions when they are applied (e.g. using medical equipment is not interrupted by regaining spell resistance)

Interface
* Weapon names show average damage instead of dice rolls - melee weapons also show their "plus" damage bonus (not including any damage bonus from traits), e.g. "Machete 9.0 {+2} +0%" - the exact dice rolls can be seen in the detailed item description when viewing the item in the inventory
* Brighter interface color scheme (some menus could be difficult to read before)
* The descriptions for armors and gas masks includes their exact ability penalty values
* Multiple monsters had a red "E" as symbol when playing in text mode, they now use different colors from each other
* "Ornate Tombs" are now colored cyan instead (they were hard to distinguish from normal tombs)
* When viewing monster descriptions ("v"), the monster's hit chances and properties are no longer displayed (only the player's chance to hit the monster)
* Fixed Fire Hound projectile animation in tiles mode (a small "blast" tile instead of a bunch of forward slashes)
* When walking through water or mud, more descriptive messages are printed ("I wade slowly through the knee high water") instead of "splash" or "glop" - this is to emphasise that they cost an extra turn to move through
* When not wearing armor, the armor icon is drawn slightly darker than before
* Ravens are brighter (they could be hard to see)
* The high score list now also shows player background
* A game summary text file is always stored after the game (there is no menu option for this)
* You now also go to the postmortem menu after winning the game, and a game summary file is written
* When browsing high scores, selecting an entry shows the game summary for that entry
* The game no longer pre-loads the ambient sound effects (they are now only loaded on demand) - vastly reducing the program load time (should be nearly instant on most systems) and initial memory usage
* Seeing fire on the map now interrupts actions such as waiting or using medical equipment

Bug fixes
* On some machines, the random number generator would have a fixed seed (apparently, the C++ std::random_device can silently fall back on this method if it cannot find a source of randomness...), resulting in deterministic map generation, etc - the RNG is now seeded with the current time instead
* Fixed a bug which prevented accessing the manual ("Tome of Wisdom") from the esc-menu during a game
* Fixed a bug which removed the Sentry Drone monster from the game - preventing both usage of the Sentry Drone device, and hostile Sentry Drones from spawning on the map
* When Mi-go commanders dropped their armor on death, this was treated as if the player tried to unequip the armor
* The "wall collapse" event could crash the game in some situations
* The descriptions of "fast" monsters said that they appear to move "slowly"
* Fixed some typos

6

Announcements / Re: Cogmind (now at Beta 2.1)

« Last post by Tzan on August 20, 2017, 04:05:32 PM »

Ah, I see.
I thought you were releasing as final + updates.

7

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« Last post by Avagart on August 20, 2017, 06:41:05 AM »

Count me in For Linux, at least.

8

Announcements / Re: Cogmind (now at Beta 2.1)

« Last post by Kyzrati on August 20, 2017, 01:15:13 AM »

Hehe, yep I do write a lot of words, though at least you get better at it over time and it becomes easier as a result

I plan to release to Steam as EA, and with that status comes the expectation of updates, so it's not like a 1.0 where there could technically be fewer updates, or a longer wait between them. No updates now is less of an issue with the reduced exposure.

9

Events and News / Re: Roguelike Radio podcast

« Last post by Darren Grey on August 20, 2017, 12:24:44 AM »

There is nothing good in the nethack direction. Anything as "complex" or more so than nethack is also going to be bad. The whole idea of nethack is bad.

Dwarf Fortress is a counter example. I agree with your point in general, but there's a definite audience for crazy complex games.

10

Events and News / Re: Roguelike Radio podcast

« Last post by jere on August 19, 2017, 11:09:56 PM »

There are innumerable problems with Nethack but the main one is that the design philosophy is "here's a reward for being a nerd".

The game is a big pat on the back for knowing trivia about ancient mythology, Tolkein, D&D, and Nethack itself. Anyone who doesn't want to spend a decade learning all that can go fly a kite. Count me out.