Topics

16

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y14

« on: November 15, 2014, 06:49:17 AM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y14.

There are no new features being added to releases. This is the first "stable" release after a series of changes to improve the code base. It includes bug fixes to gameplay, both new ones, and others included in the unstable releases Y12/Y13.

Changes:

• Issue 129: Journal entries are now listed in order of most recent to oldest.  Level stats are put first, instead of last.  This is to put the most relevant information in the most accessible place.  Reported by golgepapaz, with patch.
• Issue 135: Lost symbols for wrapped messages.  This was observable through looking at monsters with lifesight cast.  Any wrapped text in the generated description would be overwritten in some cases.  Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 150: Making a chi strike did not explicitly take mana from the victim, and likely took it from the actor.  Reported by dck k.
• Issue 155: Gauntlets of Rust can be activated from the 'a'ctivate menu.  The description only addressed protection from rust, and not the 3x per day rusting grasp they can be used for.  The description has been amended.  Reported by dck k.
• Issue 167: More level generation fixes related to room weights.  If comparing a signed value stored in an unsigned variable, cast it before comparison, not after.  Also, if all room types were flagged as already used, they would then all be unflagged for reuse - however it was also necessary to reset the room weights and more.
• Issue 173: Knowledge domain does not grant scribe scroll spell as described.  Reported by Brett Olsen, with patch.
• Issue 176: Compilation warning fixes broke alignment checks, resulting in penalties and restrictions for the wrong alignments.  Reported by John Olender, with patch.
• Issue 177: Use menu was enacting the wrong effect, for selected innate abilities.  This was due to Y12 compiler warning fixes, where an argument to UseAbility was cast to uint8, and UseAbility had it typed as int16.  Reported by S M.

17

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y13 UNSTABLE

« on: October 27, 2014, 05:30:19 AM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y13.

There are no new features being added to releases.  If a release is marked as unstable and turns out to actually be unstable, please download the preceding release and use that instead.

Changes:

• Issue 167: Sometimes when level areas are being generated, the selection of room types failed, and a fatal error put allowed the player to win the game of failed level area generation.  This game is not about the player winning, so the relevant code has been altered to better handle problem situations.
• Issue 168: The tabbing between links in the help system causes crashes.  Legacy bug where code was looking for information using X as Y coordinate and Y as X coordinate.  Also a Y1 bug where looking up the character at a screen coordinate was incorrectly implemented.
• Issue 169: This fixes the dialog which appears in debug builds when leaked stati backrefs are found.  When an object is removed, it cleans up the stati which have it as a target.  To do this, it looks at the backref on itself, then to the stati on the originating object.  But certain kinds of stati when removed, are simply orphaned with the backref removed explicitly.  The only problem was that the backref removal passed in opposite values than which it needed to, failing to remove the backref.  Then the removed object would see the backref again when it moved on to it's next removal, and not be able to find the now-orphaned stati.  Cue dialog.
• Issue 170: Little known fact that objects get more difficult to unlock the deeper into the dungeon you get.  If a locked object in your inventory is examined, this fact combined with items in your inventory not being in the dungeon, results in a crash.
• Issue 170: A different issue relates to broken dungeon generation, which places stairs down to unsafe terrain.  Fixing that would fix the dungeon generation.  This issue and fix relates to instead adding a confirmation dialog to the taking of stairs down to unsafe terrain, under the provisio you should be able to step down carefully and choose to step back up.  There is a school of thought that these stairs to unsafe terrain are an interesting feature which should be retained, regardless of fixes to dungeon generation.

18

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y11

« on: June 10, 2014, 06:24:12 AM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y11.

There are no new features being added to releases.  If a release is unstable, please download the preceding release and use that instead.  I'd like to offer refunds to any purchasers of the problematic release, please proceed to the counter with your receipt.  Thank you, come again!

Changes:

• Issue 140: Fix bug where previous fix for scrolling position persisting in different windows that allow scrolling, broke scrolling in other locations.  Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 142: Fixed a crash bug where when a monster would look for nearby items to pick up, and the variable that pointed to that object was not set.  Reported by Charlie G.
• Issue 146: Fixed a bug where the error box would appear when a summoning creature reached it's time to go away, if it had items which were summoned with it.  A confluence of events would mean when an item was garbage collected, it would not find the back reference..  see the issue and linked changeset there-in for a detailed breakdown.   Reported by Hamel@Bay12.
• Issue 148: Lockup bug.  More than 255 stati in place on an object would cause a inner stati tracking loop to overflow it's index wrapping it back to 0 before it could hit the exit clause.  Reported by Hamel@Bay12.

19

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y10

« on: June 01, 2014, 03:29:26 AM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y10.

Changes:

• Issue 11: Fix spelling mistakes ('breech'->'breach', 'percieve'->'perceive', 'inherant'->'inherent').
• Issue 19: In system options menu, when switching to the 'macro bindings' page, the options description was leaked from the previous page.
• Issue 27: Fix crash bugs which happen when dipping an item into a fountain.  The first case was where the dipped item transforms into a hostile monster at the location of the target of the dipping action, only dipping actions do not have a target but rather a first item (the dipped item) and a second item (the fountain).  The second case was where the item gets teleported somewhere on the map - only the map is larger than the bounds of the Roll() function, so a bounds error would be hit.
• Issue 106: Fix a bug where potion of mending could be applied to anything regardless of that anything being a valid target.
• Issue 106: Fix a bug where trying to apply something to an inventory items would crash when there were no items suitable to apply it to.
• Issue 111: If you summon a phantom steed and it does not like you, it would go away.  But the message to tell you that, was muted because of a previous message output muting in the spell script which hadn't been correspondingly unmuted in this case.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 125: The scroll position is now cleared when the scroll area is cleared, which means that where things are scrolled to is no longer the same even if something different was displayed in the scroll area. Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 131: The Lifesight priest spell affects natural living creatures, otherwise known codewise as MA_NLIVING.  There was no type name defined for this value, so when looked up it would print as 'Undefined 91'.  Now it is mapped to 'Natural Living Creature'.  Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 133: The Forestation druid spell changes the terrain type, but turned allies hostile.  This is a general reaction that happens to friendlies who are affected by an effect with EP_CURSE purpose.  Forestation now has an additional purpose of EP_FIX_TROUBLE which ensures allies do not become hostile when affected by this.  Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 137: Add libtcod credit animation to the startup screen.  Add some donation text to accompany it.
• Issue 138: 'Change terrain type' in wizard menu implemented, replacing stub implementation which just put a 'wall of flame' tile down.
• Issue 139: When the god Semirath gets angry, he tries to move things to random map locations, but causes a crash instead.  This is another case of bounds being exceeded, and crashing ensuing.

20

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y8

« on: May 06, 2014, 07:36:42 AM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y8.

Changes:

• Issue 91: When an object was removed (and deleted), it would remove all fields (e.g. modify objects within range) it had created which moved with it.  This would leak the non-moving fields, which would get removed later with a hack, but because the creating object no longer existed the effects of the field could not be unapplied so it didn't bother.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 94: Creatures who see their friends get killed could have gotten afraid.  Now mindless creatures in general are excluded from this.  Reported by Joseph Kerr.
• Issue 96: Made 'Augment Summoning' an official metamagic feat. Note that if the only metamagic you have is this one, the spell manager will simply say 'Au[g]ment Spell' in the metamagic listing; this is not a compound noun, but a verb phrase.  Players are expected to be able to reconcile this to their 'Augment Summoning' feat.  View the line with multiple metamagic feats, to see the pattern.  Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 97: Refreshing the spell manager rebuilt the feat list, which added onto the last time it was rebuilt, showing a more extended mangled doubled list each refresh.  Reported by Karagy.
• Issue 104: It is no longer possible to mount something which is asleep.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 109: Prevent mounting on a tile where it would not be possible to move to when mounted anyway.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 110: Logic in the encounter generation badly checked if there was an actor involved.  I do not understand this game system, but this code is obviously bad.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 116: Using static variables for inventory enumeration state means that if the logic in the loop which is enumerating the inventory calls something which in turn reenumerates the inventory before returning, then the inventory enumeration state will be at it's end and the loop will prematurely exit.
• Issue 117: Could not use the escape key to exit the y key use menu.  The code supported handling an escape press already, but the flag to pay attention to escape at a lower level was not passed.
• Issue 119: Trying to talk to something that was not a creature, or could not talk, would tell you they couldn't talk.  Unless they were a creature who could not talk, where you could order them if they were friendly to you.  Or if they were not a creature, when it went to see if they were friendly, it would just crash.
• Issue 123: Bad code prevented the faster than the eye feat from allowing a player to put an item in a container and have it take no time.
• Turned on compilation warnings and found truncated values which would affect things like alignment changing when eating appropriate food, greeting people and encounter generation in unknown ways I have not bothered to identify.
• Fixed a crash where writing text left the cursor off the side of the screen, and the next time it blinked libtcod moaned about things being out of bounds.

21

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y7

« on: April 22, 2014, 02:10:10 AM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y7.

Changes:

• Issue 33: Fixed error message encountered when either creating a character, or reincarnating it, depending on whether 'Flooded Cavern' region is placed in the generated dungeon.  This region had 'aboleth, with slaves' defined as a possible encounter, but sadly we have no aboleth (with or without slaves).  Reported by holsety_s, but let's be honest we were all getting it and ignoring it.
• Issue 58: Attacking a door would calculate final damage before applying material hardness bonuses (i.e. wizlock).  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 62: If one weapon was ranged, all weapons would get the ranged tag in their description.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 65: Mobile fields from spells which were cancellable, could not be cancelled.  Mobile fields from spells could be stacked ad infinitum, now they are hard coded as non-stackable.  As each day passes, persistent effects should have been discarded, but a bug was modifying their duration and corrupted their identification as persistent.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 67: Moving while up a tree no longer has a chance of falling if the creature has the brachiation feat.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 71: Creatures attempting to move within a bad field (like a summoned swarm) would be unable to.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 76: Replace spell list for 'Shadow Magic' which had same list as 'Phantasmal Force', with Evocation spells as described.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 85: Fix a bug where if a creature had an innate ability and they rested, it would infinite loop trying to repeatedly remove it and failing because it shouldn't.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 86: Added 'Heightened Senses' to the 'Mortal Coil' spellbook.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 88: Change 'Chameleon Shifting' from an INFLICT (which has saving throws) to a GRANT (which has none).  Specify the hide skill bonus should be +10, not unspecified which is a +0.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 90: Fixed crash where attacker standing on magma dies from magma damage incurred by attack/strike action, before actual strike action starts.  Reported by Frumple.
• Issue 93: Ordering one summoned ally to return to their home plane resulted in all summoned allies returning to their home plane.
• Slipping on a pool of grease would incur some damage, and give a message that the acting entity fell.  However, whatever action was in progress would be allowed to proceed.  Now the action is aborted, in line with the acting entity falling over (and consistent with other slipping types).
• Pressing escape in character creation when selecting gender would cause a crash when the character was later reincarnated.  Now it is harmless.
• Using English instead of American spelling, because if they speak in English accents in Game of Thrones, it's how they must do it in all fantasy worlds.

22

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Write an article for Imaginary Realities volume 6, issue 2

« on: April 20, 2014, 11:33:32 PM »

Are you involved with text-based gaming?  If so, whether your involvement is in mudding, roguelikes, interactive fiction, gamebooks, browser games or maybe even something else, please consider writing an article for Imaginary Realities.

Imaginary Realities is an online journal which originally ran from September 1998 to December 2001, primarily focused on mudding.  It has been revived, and had published a new issue just recently, which you can find here:

http://journal.imaginary-realities.com/volume-06/issue-01/

If you’re interested in the older issues, you can also find them here:

http://imaginary-realities.disinterest.org

Find more details about suitable article topics here:

http://journal.imaginary-realities.com/volume-06/issue-01/request-for-content/index.html

Please email me before writing an article, to confirm that the topic you are interested in writing about, is both suitable and within our range of coverage at this email address:

richard.m.tew@gmail.com

Articles should be in the range of 1000-4000 words, and need to be received by May 31st, 2014.  Longer articles are possible for serialisation, with approval required.

23

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y6

« on: April 14, 2014, 11:07:28 PM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket: 0.6.9Y6.

The primary reasons for this update is the reduction in CPU use, and crash bug fixes. Thanks to everyone who reported bugs.

Changes:

• Issue 43: In past libtcod builds at least, when the game was waiting for input, the CPU would be at full usage.  Now, the idle input loop only checks for input when it has to.  From 100% to 2% CPU usage.
• Issue 48: The cursor blinking support was not implemented for libtcod.  Now it is, and the wonderous thing that it is can be viewed at various places like where you choose your gender in character creation.
• Issue 26: Fix crash where missiles land on terrain where they cannot be placed (e.g. magma, slime, deep water) and it was assumed they were placed successfully, and subsequent logic failed.  Reported with reproduction data by Frumple from Bay12 forums.
• Issue 49: Fix crash where monster moves over chasm or similar terrain where they fall, then die through damage acquired in doing so.  The logic did not check that the falling damage had killed the monster, and the logic crashed as a result.  Reported with reproduction data by Frumple from Bay12 forums.
• Issue 51: Fix use of control and alt in UI like the inventory.  The fixes for non-US keyboards broke this use case by accident.
• Issue 54: Casting a spell at a deep water tile was treated as casting a spell when standing on a deep water tile.
• Issue 52: Chests were not autolootable, because chests are a type of container, but chests are not specifically containers.  The scripting language only recognised containers as containers.  Now, anything checked to be a container, will be considered a container even if it is a chest.  This may introduce problems where only specifically containers are intended to be included, and now chests are also.

24

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y5

« on: April 09, 2014, 08:00:29 PM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket.

This fixes a few residual keyboard problems, which in some circumstances might make the game unplayable.

Changes:

• Issue 41: Fix bug where numpad '.' key does not do rest action like normal '.' key.  This is because numpad is only supported when numlock is turned off, due to how we receive notification about key events from SDL2 via libtcod.
• Issue 42: Fix bug where space key sends two key presses for each actual press.  This was caused by the non-US keyboard fix.

25

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y4

« on: April 08, 2014, 09:52:59 PM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket.

The primary reason for this release is the tentative support for non-US keyboards, and ability to switch screen resolution/fullscreen/windowed at runtime.

Changes:

• Issue 39: Fix typo in cave entrance scripts, reported by Tuyen Tran.
• Issue 37: Fix bug where whips are unable to prevent enemies closing in with their reach, reported by Cranky_Corvids, fix provided by Carl Minden.
• Issue 38: Fix bug where when monsters died, they dropped their inventory.  But rather than clearing the flag on the item which marked the item as their property (and not something they could be ordered to give to the orderer), they cleared every other flag including as noted here the cursed flag.
• Issue 28: Extended knock spell description to refer to locked containers in general, and not just doors.
• Fix for resolution changing (via the options menu), and switching between full screen and windows (alt+enter).
• Preliminary fix for bug with some keyboards where people using non-US keyboard layouts find keys do not work as expected.  Please give feedback if this does not work for you, and how it is not working.

26

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y3

« on: April 04, 2014, 08:49:23 PM »

An updated download is available on bitbucket.

The primary reason for this updated binary, is the shift with keypresses bug. Thanks to everyone who reported bugs.

Changes:

• Issue 32: Fix bug where when items change their type, perhaps from a rod to a staff, they get multiplied in quantity.
• Issue 34: Fix shifted keys and various other keys not working. Not guaranteed to be correct, but is better than before.
• Issue 35: Spelling fixes in skill descriptions.

27

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y2

« on: March 28, 2014, 08:56:26 PM »

This is a Windows-only release of binaries for the 0.6.9Y2 release.

Changes:

• Fixed problem with save files not being found.  This was because libtcod's pattern matching only handles one asterisk.

Note that Google Breakpad is integrated, which when an error occurs, will dump minidump files.  So if either of:

• A red box is displayed saying "Error: ... [E]xit or [C]ontinue?"
• Incursion crashes and exits.

There will be minidump files located in the Incursion-0.6.9Y2 directory.  Remember what you were doing at the time, and upload them to bitbucket in whatever issue applies.

Download the Windows binaries here.

Report problems here.

28

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion (open source) 0.6.9Y

« on: March 25, 2014, 02:29:10 AM »

This is a Windows-only release of binaries for the previous 0.6.9H4 release, thanks to Incursion's author Julian Mensch who recently released the source code for that release.  It is intended to provide a supported playable (with known problems) version of Incursion.  Support is not provided for official previously released versions of Incursion.

I have also integrated Google Breakpad, which when an error occurs, will dump minidumps.  So if:

• A red box is displayed saying "Error: ... [E]xit or [C]ontinue?"
• Incursion crashes and exits.

There will be minidump files located in the Incursion-0.6.9Y directory.  Remember what you were doing at the time, and upload them to bitbucket in whatever issue applies.

Download the Windows binaries here.

Report problems here.

29

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Incursion source release is here!

« on: March 15, 2014, 09:25:27 PM »

See the Incursion news page.

Source code is available in bitbucket incursion-roguelike repo.

github repo deleted.

30

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Chaos Hack

« on: February 11, 2014, 08:16:54 PM »

I've seen some references to Dungeon Hack being a roguelike, here's a more modern version (of sorts).  Dungeon Strikes Back is a rewrite of a Dungeon Master / Chaos Strikes Back (games form the late 80's, early 90's) engine using the same graphics.  It uses Lua scripting, and dungeons written for it are implemented using Lua as well.  Chaos Hack is a randomising dungeon.