Messages

16

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.4.3

« on: April 13, 2016, 11:02:58 PM »

RogueBasin Page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League
Direct Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/brtysnhibliqaaz/Professional%20Adventurers%20League%20v0.4.3.jar?dl=0

New this edition:
Easy to see when a creature is charmed
Forest border not so square
Holy ground from scrolls of force is temporary
Wands of blasting and knockback hit barrels and chests
Black Powder Barrels (BOOM!)
Teleportation runes
Building interior level variant: prison
Fixed ghoul AI (they were closing to melee when they shouldn't have been)
Scrolls of forging are more common
Retracting spikes
New level type: Puzzle maps (very large, with multiple regions)

17

Design / Re: Conway's Spikes

« on: April 12, 2016, 03:50:42 PM »

Do link us to any publicly displayable progress when possible.

Sure, here you go: https://www.dropbox.com/s/28anug60aaenrt3/Spike%20Demo.jar?dl=0.
The spikes have a reset of 12 - 16 standard turns, and stay extended for half their reset time.  Stepping on an extend spike, or having a spike pop while you're standing on it deals damage.  You do not take damage for continuing to stand on a spike that is already extended.  There are some safe areas, marked by being a different color.  Only flying enemies who don't leave corpses are generated (and they can't pass through the gateways into the central area).  You need to flip switches in each area to access the next one, ultimately unlocking the stairs in the center of the central room.  This is a mod of the actual game (granted a mod that removes rather than adds), rather than strictly being a demo.

18

Design / Re: Item randomization

« on: March 31, 2016, 05:22:10 AM »

I am using a very basic system in Professional Adventurers' League.  Things that are randomly generated (monsters, items, item types) have a minimum level, a maximum level, and a weight.  The generator iterates through the list, making a separate list of entries that fall within the level parameters.  A random number is generated, from zero to the sum of all weights on the second list.  The generator then goes through the list; if the random number is less than the weight of the current object, that object is returned.  Otherwise, its weight is subtracted from the randomly generated number.

It is helpful that only elite enemies drop loot in PAL; the vast majority of treasure comes from chests, so I don't have to worry much about unrealistic drops.  And most of the enemies are humanoid, which also helps.

19

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League 0.4.2

« on: March 30, 2016, 03:47:49 AM »

Direct Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjmzk0p42sj0dt/Professional%20Adventurers%20League%20v0.4.2.jar?dl=0
RogueBasin page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

New this edition:
Floating skulls
Wands and scrolls of frost
Enemies who keep their distance wont back up into damaging terrain
Revenant AI fixed
Intelligent enemies step off of damaging terrain
Freeze bug fixed
No swamps until level 5
Temporary cells don't override important map cells (doors, switches, exits)
Exploding goats deal damage
Scroll of force creates barrier to enemies

20

Design / Re: Conway's Spikes

« on: March 28, 2016, 04:13:01 PM »

Update:  It works really well.  I had to play with the timers a bit (20 normal turns turned out to be about right), and I have the floor change color a few turns before the spikes pop as a warning to the player.  While I had initially given them all different reset timers lengths, I eventually found it was better just to give them all the same reset but start out at different increments (ie., each zone changes state every 20 turns, but is generated at countdown step random(1, 20)).  Then I just have to make sure that the only enemies generated in that area are appropriate (flying, don't leave a corpse because corpses obscure underlying terrain).

21

Design / Re: Conway's Spikes

« on: March 27, 2016, 08:28:59 PM »

In playtesting, it doesn't work real well. I just looks entirely random. So instead, I think I'm going to try out a vornoi map with each zone on a timer (different timers for different zones) and see how that works out.

22

Design / Conway's Spikes

« on: March 26, 2016, 07:40:16 PM »

So I'd like to have a type of large room that is filled with spikes, either retracted or extended.  The spikes extend and retract every x turns, according to a pattern that the player can figure out.

I was thinking of using Conway's Game of Life, but it seems like the grid eventually becomes very stable.  It could be quite a large number of turns before the player finds the spike room, so I don't want it to be a largely static situation when the player arrives.  I also don't want funky-looking patterns, like a bunch of glider guns.  Finally, I don't want to just trigger a bunch of spikes to shake things up, because the that's not a challenge that a sufficiently skilled player can overcome (ie., it's unfair).

I know ADOM uses CA for an herb level or something; any thoughts from the community?

23

Programming / Re: Monsters moving between levels

« on: March 24, 2016, 05:11:51 PM »

The only thought I had was when a monster is pathfinding to the player and the player goes down stairs, the game will register that that monster was x turns away from the stairs and once those x-turns are up it adds the monster to the new floor at the correct spot.

I believe this is how Brogue does it.

24

Programming / Re: working with AI library of sorts

« on: March 24, 2016, 05:07:31 PM »

I've been playing around with different AIs in my current project, Professional Adventurers' League.
To start with, actors are classified as either smart or dumb.  Smart actors use A* pathfinding and avoid dangerous terrain, while dumb ones check to see if the most direct step toward the nearest enemy is possible, then the two adjacent steps; if none of those, they stand still.  Dumb actors blindly charge through dangerous terrain.  Some enemies can use doors, some can't.

I keep too different 2D boolean arrays for pathfinding; one for walkers and one for flyers.  That way I don't have to recalculate anything and the actor just grabs the appropriate map.  The only exception to this is for enemies who burrow; they grab a copy of the appropriate map, then mark all nearby diggable cells as passable.  This stays reasonably efficient, as there there are never many burrowing enemies.

Some of my ranged actors will prioritize staying at range over attacking an enemy; one particularly family of actors uses Dijkstra maps to flee around the player when cornered, while the others just back directly away and switch to attacking if cornered.

Ghouls will move near, but not adjacent to, an enemy.  They will attack the enemy if it moves adjacent to them (they don't run), they are hasted (they can self-buff by eating a corpse), or there is an ally adjacent to the enemy.

Revenants will prioritize moving to a corpse so they can possess it, and if one is not available and they don't have a host will flee from the enemy.

25

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.4.1

« on: March 23, 2016, 06:11:08 PM »

Minor update this time.  I fixed some saving issues, squashed a freeze bug, and now you can light trees on fire.

RogueBasin page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League
Direct link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2m9ymygtrwxuar/Professional%20Adventurers%20League%20v0.4.1.jar?dl=0

26

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurers' League v0.4.0

« on: March 20, 2016, 03:56:13 PM »

I forgot to document saving.  Press 's' while standing on the exit to suspend the game.

27

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.4.0

« on: March 19, 2016, 11:14:46 PM »

Roguebasin Page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League#Download
Direct Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/luismgp6fap4srd/Professional%20Adventurers%20League%20v0.4.0.jar?dl=0


New this version:
Running
If you play long enough, you just might run into some familiar faces . . .
No wisps or burning skulls in vaults
Grass isn’t quite so flammable
Wood burns longer
Stackable status effects have diminishing returns
Adding more instances of nonstackable status effects increases duration (except stun)
Show duration for status effects
New uniques, and tweaks to existing ones
Smart fleeing behavior for the necromancer family of enemies
Mummies and zombies dodge much less
the first level can’t be an arena
Game remembers preferences
Changing gold character is immediately implemented
FoV issues fixed (flicker, random square outside of view)
Town fountain, livestock, crops
Grass for forest floor and village
More monsters at the beginning of the game
When increasing minimum threat due to boredom, increase is linear rather not exponential
Charm status effect wears off if struck
No armor proc at range
Cleaned up tiles around vaults
Tracks total stats over all games played
Sand arenas only levels 10+, level 1 can't be an arena
Level 1 can't be a swamp
Knockback into breakable objects breaks them (and causes damage)
Enemies that want to stay at range take player attack range into account and ignore non-hostile creatures
Invisibility

28

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.3.4 (Now with less freezing!)

« on: March 13, 2016, 03:54:43 AM »

While normally I'd like to add a lot more between releases, a buddy was playing and found a bug which froze the game upon entry into a level.  He actually found it twice, which was super impressive, considering in hunting it down I found it occurred about once in every 1000 - 2000 iterations.

Direct Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yo8402xa8ns928h/Professional%20Adventurers%20League%20v0.3.4.jar?dl=0
RogueBasin Page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

New this version:
Tall grass, which blocks line of sight (as well any items or corpses on that tile)
Fires spread
New arena map type variant
Animal pens, crops, and fountains for villages
Goats.  The magically summoned ones explode.  While they're normally cowardly, if you're clever you can unleash a horde of exploding rage-goats upon your enemies.  Which is every bit as enjoyable as you'd think.

29

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurers' League v0.3.3

« on: March 12, 2016, 05:32:44 PM »

Thank you for playing, and for your feedback!

The difficulty definitely spikes after the fourth floor.  I want to make sure the player has the opportunity to get some resources, but with this releases' increasing the chests on the first floor it might be good to make it more challenging sooner.  Or at least more tactically varied.

Saving was about half-coded at the time of this release.  It's something I've been planning on implementing in the same way as DoorRL (only on the stairs down).  The same function will also allow me to save defeated adventurers to be brought back in later games as reanimated enemies.

30

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.3.3

« on: March 11, 2016, 07:27:41 PM »

Direct Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4b425ormzu3uxh9/ProfessionalAdventurersLeague_0_3_3.jar?dl=0
RogueBasin Link: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

New this version:
Ossimancers: evil sorcerers who specialize in bone magic
Burning Skulls: Floating, flaming skulls who leave a trail of flame
More chests on the first floor to reduce getting item-screwed from the start
Fire
Fixed corner case where ghouls would inappropriately approach
Changed the symbol of potions to "+"
Small changes to some existing uniques
Added charms and potions that grant fire and acid immunity
New unique weapons, armors, and charms
Scroll of Gomorrah
Wand of Grappling
Wand of Entombment
Wand of Fire
Wand of Purity
Renamed Wand of Firebolt to to Wand of Blasting avoid confusion about fire immunity
Fixed bug where Wands of Immobilization spawned as Wands of Blasting
Combined Healing and Purity scrolls (Wands of Purity made Purity scrolls a lot less attractive)
Scroll of Teleportation now applies to enemies (Wands of Teleportation made Scrolls of Teleportation totally unattractive)
Dialed down the minimum monster population of zoos a little, and the exit is always right next to the entrance . . . in a cage that doesn't open for a set amount of time
Will-o-Wisps no longer spawn in zoos
Negative effects on charms now stack properly
Fixed following behavior
Added visual effects and color changes to make it a bit easier to tell what's going on
Multiple status effects of the same type displayed more cleanly
Changed look mode, help screen text, and bump against wall message to make it possible to check if a wall is breakable . . . really important once the ossimancers start showing up
Wand of Digging digs through up to three tiles in a row
Adding minions to the ossimancer, necromancer, carnimancer, and devourer no longer freezes the game (kind of an important update)