Messages

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Off-topic (Locked) / My Puerto Rico project

« on: October 23, 2007, 07:13:16 PM »

Hey everybody,

In an attempt to learn Adobe Flex, I decided to code up a multiplayer version of the board game Puerto Rico.  It's now in beta and open to anybody who wants to give it a go.  It plays in your browser using Flash player.  There are instructions on the site on how to play -- though it's a little complex the first time through.

You can find the game at Puerto Rico online board game

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Programming / Re: Worst bug you had?

« on: October 18, 2007, 05:27:26 AM »

For me, most of the worst bugs have been related to uninitialized variables.  They're one of the hardest kind of bugs to find, because they produce intermittent behavior, AND they act differently in the debugger (where they typically get initialized to 0) as opposed to release, which makes finding them super difficult.

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Other Announcements / I thought this was funny [pic]

« on: September 14, 2007, 10:38:33 PM »

I've recently been playing a bit of Crawl, and I ran across these scrolls.

I'm not sure whether I really want to read them or not.

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Subterrane v0.224 Alpha Released

« on: August 12, 2007, 09:11:16 PM »

One of the downsides of wearing armor is that it makes you slow.  If you're playing a warrior, that's why everything is faster than you.  Of course, you can always sprint around a corner and try to lose whatever is following you, but the danger is that you run into something else and have no energy.

That said, I agree the game is too hard right now, and that the healing potions don't do enough.  I'll continue to address this in future versions.

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Subterrane v0.224 Alpha Released

« on: August 12, 2007, 12:29:35 AM »

Wow, this is extremely difficult. I'm getting better, but my best dwarven warrior just died by starving to death, but there was no mention of me being hungry anywhere. No messages, no status icons. This seems a bit unfair...

Sounds like a bug to me.  Two things:
First, in the status area on the right side of the screen, there should be a status item called Food, which is rated x/24, where x is your current satiation level.  When this drops to 0/24 you're in danger of dying from starvation.

When your hunger level drops to hungry (which happens at about 6/24 or 5/24, I forget which), you should see a warning that says "hungry" in the status area on the far right side of the screen.  As you get more towards 0/24, the status should become increasingly dire until you hit "starving".

As a note, you can (p)repare corpses to turn them into food.  Don't carry food around in your inventory too long though, because it will start to rot and eating it will make you sick.   Eat while the eatin is good.

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Subterrane v0.224 Alpha Released

« on: August 10, 2007, 10:06:27 PM »

Great news and nice to be able to talk to you here Tarindel, thanks Slash. 
I liked 0.194b (btw I played that on Linux through wine  ) as it was very challenging and quite different from
other roguelikes, love the sprint ability for instance.
I'll be sure to try it out.

The new version won't be any less challenging.  I always liked the idea of a wizard who sprinted so hard to get away from a monster that he didn't have any breath left to cast spells.  Heh.

I'm always open to feedback, so by all means, let me know what works and what doesn't.

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Programming / Re: Should I continue to develop Subterrane?

« on: August 10, 2007, 02:18:25 AM »

Thanks for the feedback so far.  It's given me a lot to think about.

Subterrane 0.224 Alpha has been released.  Details here: http://subterrane.tarindel.com/?p=7

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Subterrane v0.224 Alpha Released

« on: August 10, 2007, 02:17:20 AM »

Major new features:

* New: The game now runs under Linux!  Probably other operating systems
   too, though I don't have any of those to try.
* New: Added magic items into the game!
* New: Added rings and necklaces to the game.
* New: Added scrolls.  You can (r)ead them.
* New: Cursed items have been implemented.
* New: You now get two bonuses when you pick your character's stats.
   Bonuses include: magic items, skills, talents, and racial enemies.
* New: Added non-physical damage types (previously, everything was
   treated as physical damage).

Full details can be found here: http://subterrane.tarindel.com/?p=7

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Programming / Re: Should I continue to develop Subterrane?

« on: August 09, 2007, 02:12:57 PM »

Thanks for the feedback, Adral.

I wanted to quickly note that I'm going to release the in-development version as-is -- it seems to be in good shape and has quite a number of new features, including a framework for magic/cursed items, scrolls, character creation bonuses, jewelry, and probably a few other things I've forgotten.

I am hoping I'll be able to get it out tonight once I get home from work (if compiling the Linux version goes well).  If not, then ASAP.  So if you're thinking about taking another look, wait for the new version.  It'll be version 225 or so.

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Programming / Should I continue to develop Subterrane?

« on: August 09, 2007, 04:45:51 AM »

Subterrane rolls up on it's first birthday in a little over a week, and I realized today that I haven't done any real development work on it in about two months.  There are a variety of reasons for this:

1) My work schedule has been busier than usual.
2) I'm in the last semester of my MBA program and it's eating up more time.
3) I've gotten distracted by maintaining a web site and other side projects.
4) Development on Subterrane is slow, because it's a big project, and it's complex.
5) The reception to Subterrane really hasn't been as good as I had hoped.
6) The roguelike field has really been coming to life lately, and the world isn't exactly hurting for new roguelikes like it used to be.

So... answer the poll.  Be honest.  I won't be offended.

Just trying to figure out what I should do with the project: let it die, put it on hiatus, resurrect it, pass it off to somebody else, find someone to co-develop with, etc...  Any and all thoughts appreciated.

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Incusion 0.6 Public released!

« on: August 05, 2007, 03:45:29 PM »

Finally got a chance to try Incursion yesterday for the first time.  The game seems like it has a lot of promise and depth, but it certainly didn't grab me, I think mainly because I found the UI to be clunky and the letters were really small and hard to read.  I also didn't like that it took me so long to actually create my character.  Spending 5 minutes creating a character is fine for a game you are going to play for hours, but in a roguelike, your characters often die within minutes -- one shouldn't spend longer creating their character than playing it!

I liked the dungeon descriptions and the different rooms, though it didn't seem to have much effect other than flavor.  I also thought it strange that I killed a monster in the water and it didn't wash away, but as soon as I picked something up off the corpse and accidentally dropped it, it seemed to be gone forever.

I definitely need to give this one more time, but my initial impression is that despite it's complexity and lengthy development time, it still needs a lot of work, particularly on the UI end.

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Other Announcements / Re: A roguelike programming contest

« on: July 17, 2007, 09:11:28 PM »

Icey! cool generator.... /me loves it!

Tarindel, a small comment about the forums... in my web experience I think it is much better to start with a smaller number of forums instead of spreading attention that much. Only create new forums as needed, when the forum is getting overcrowded... starting with 30 forums means people will be less likely to collide and increase interaction.

I am thinking you are correct.  The forums just look empty, and I think that drives people away!  I guess I'll go ahead and consolidate for now.  Thanks for the advice.

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Off-topic (Locked) / Re: What do you do for a living?

« on: July 06, 2007, 10:53:46 PM »

I'm a computer programmer.  I work on a piece of CAD design software used in the woodworking industry.  I'm also currently pursuing an MBA degree, which isn't leaving me as much time to pursue other things as I would like.  I would like to go into project management or some sort of tech-related business position when I graduate.

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Other Announcements / Re: A roguelike programming contest

« on: July 06, 2007, 12:45:57 AM »

Hi Anvil.  Thanks for your thoughts.  I don't think that "decentralization" as you put it is all that bad, especially for something as niche as roguelike development.  Any time we can introduce new people to the genre, it's a good thing for the genre as a whole.

I look forward to your entry!

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Other Announcements / A roguelike programming contest

« on: July 05, 2007, 12:59:30 AM »

To commemorate the opening of the programming forums on my website, I am hosting a Roguelike programming contest.  The objective: write a random dungeon generator in the language of your choice.

Sound easy?  It's as easy or as hard as you make it.  The point is to have fun, create some interesting new dungeon designs, give you a reason to try out that algorithm that's been in the back of your head, or even learn a new language.  Because all entries are output to HTML, no mucking with I/O libraries is needed.

Details can be found here.

Hope everyone here will consider making an entry!  The contest runs until midnight on August 5th, 2007.