Messages

31

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.3.0

« on: March 06, 2016, 12:48:37 AM »

Direct link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/flfr2v7v8qp631a/ProfessionalAdventurersLeague_0_3_0.jar?dl=0
RogueBasin page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

New this version:
Necromancers who raise corpses to fight again
Carnimancers who enchant creatures to violently explode upon death
Devourers who consume their weakened allies to recover
Some weapons destroy enemies, leaving no corpse
Some monsters (and allies) follow a leader
Monster zoos
Fixed knockback bug where you could go through walls
Knockback into a wall deals damage
Acid
Wand of Domination
Wand of Purity
You can hack corpses to bits, denying the enemy the opportunity to use them
Hold control button to view corpses and underlying terrain
Explosions destroy chests and doors
Simulacrum have more health
Enemies don't normally spawn within two squares of you when the level is first generated
Using potions and scrolls from the ground works now
Teleporting an enemy away causes them to forget your location
Extended time to register killing sprees
New unique weapons
More unique weapons can be enchanted
Change the proc effect for the vampire family of enemies
Vampire family of enemies always regenerate
Scrolls of forging improve proc chance too
Improved wand mastery weapons
Ghouls are cowardly unless buffed
Ghoul buff doesn't last as long

32

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.2.6

« on: February 29, 2016, 05:12:02 PM »

Direct download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mxoi0qep6g2qqw/ProfessionalAdventurersLeague_0_2_6.jar?dl=0
RogueBasin page: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

New this release:
Ghouls eat corpses for a buff
New enemy: revenants.  Disembodied spirits who posses corpses
New enemy: exploding zombies!
The mummy's curse . . .
The audience gets excited when you're about to die
Simulacrum scroll.  Inspired by the inflatable clown in Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
Inappropriate enemies can no longer be promoted to elites
New forest map variant (swamp)
New sponsor
Squashed a crash bug
Minor interface changes (labels for map screen, preferences accessible from splash screen)
Charms can have additional bonuses
Adjustments for some status effects, unique items, and elite types

33

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurers' League v0.2.3

« on: February 24, 2016, 10:00:59 PM »

My bad!

A minor change made things occasionally screw up.  I fixed it in 0.2.4, available for download.

34

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.2.3

« on: February 24, 2016, 09:09:10 PM »

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

New this update:
Improved slow weapons
Plate mail penalty changed from speed to dodge
Can use potions and scrolls from the ground
Uncommon scrolls improved
Updated help screen with more commands
Improved the vampire family of enemies
Wands no longer proc weapon effects
Several map types have a ruined variant
Can heal/poison more than one health per tick
A number of minor bug fixes, and two game-ending bugs

35

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurers' League v0.2.0

« on: February 16, 2016, 07:18:41 PM »

I should really keep a list of changes, 'cause I don't remember 100% of what I've added.

Two more monsters, difficulty balancing (later monsters are harder, you start finding better loot sooner), a final stage, more stats tracked, killing sprees, bad stuff happens if the audience gets bored, new item abilities, behavior changes for the vampire family of enemies, crash bug fixed, and a lot of little things.

I'm keeping a current link on the RogueBasin page, so I'll just link there.

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

36

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurer's League v0.1.0

« on: February 13, 2016, 11:30:17 PM »

Actually, just last night a friend commented that the message panel was backwards for him, too.  In the next update I'll include the option to flip it.

The reason it kicks you out of the inventory screen every time you equip something, is because it takes a turn.  I'm not sure of a better way to communicate this, other than that it's mentioned in the help panel.  But you're right, it can make it a bit more cumbersome, especially when you're unequipping a charm to equip a different one.  It just worked better than any alternative.

37

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurer's League v0.1.0

« on: February 13, 2016, 12:20:14 AM »

Though in thinking about it, a straight-up adaptation of SmashTV could be amazing.

38

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurer's League v0.1.0

« on: February 12, 2016, 11:36:38 PM »

@ekolis: I went with PAL because I was thinking of it more from a golf perspective, rather than a team sport.  And PAL works as a nice little acronym. 

@getter77:  I've been toying with the idea of adding prizes, like in SmashTV.  It makes it less sports and more game show, and I need to decide how I feel about that; I don't want to dilute the theme, but I obviously want it to be as fun as possible.  The summary screen after each level of SmashTV is specifically why I included the same thing in PAL.

39

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Professional Adventurer's League v0.1.0

« on: February 11, 2016, 12:10:45 AM »

I definitely plan on reinforcing the sports theme; I'm kicking around ideas for how best to do so.  I'd like to include a between-level leaderboard, like on golf games, but have been having difficulty coming up with a fair way to determine the NPC scores.

Kill streaks, organizers spicing up boring performances, and contracts are all strong ideas.

While I don't want the player to level up in the traditional sense (they're supposed to be at the peak of their ability already), gaining additional sponsors for in-game achievements is a definite possibility.

I do plan on adding sponsor billboards and having an announce report to the message panel; both pretty simple but go a long way to reinforcing the theme.

40

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Professional Adventurer's League v0.1.0

« on: February 10, 2016, 03:14:51 AM »

Well, it's finally to a state where I'm comfortable releasing it to the community.  While a long way from finished, I'm ready for some player feedback!  I'm really excited about this game, and hope you enjoy it!

You can find the RogueBasin page here:
http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Professional_Adventurers_League

Or directly download it here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hbtwxifrdb1mvxn/ProfessionalAdventurersLeague_0_1_0.jar?dl=0

41

Design / Re: "Fun" Maps

« on: January 29, 2016, 11:03:04 PM »

I learned from my previous endeavor, and made sure each map has good connectivity.  An automapping feature also helps reduce frustration.

Due to the theme I've chosen, I can stretch the bounds of realism quite a bit; you're participating in an adventuring tournament where the dungeon is specifically constructed and populated for heroes to storm through.  Like professional golf, but with more swords.

42

Design / "Fun" Maps

« on: January 29, 2016, 08:26:31 PM »

So I'm making good progress on my current project, to the point where I can actually call it a game.  However, in playtesting I find that my levels feel very same-y, or at the very least mostly uninteresting.  I'm using six different level generators (village, forest, cave, BSP building interior, Rogue-style, and arena), and only the cave feels that different.  Granted, I only have limited dressing at the moment.

What have you found that makes exploration more enjoyable?  What makes for a "fun" map?  What monster behaviors support a fun map?

43

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Decoration

« on: May 08, 2015, 12:15:12 AM »

My desk at work was a bit empty; this should help.

44

Programming / Re: Programming graphical effects with delays

« on: March 19, 2015, 05:04:07 PM »

What has worked well for me previously is having two types of animation; locking and non-locking, each with their own list in the animation manager.  Animation can be set to create a new animation upon death (ie, the traveling fireball turns into a blast).

The engine does not iterate while there is anything on the locking list.  If an effect is registered by an actor, the actor waits to actually resolve the action until the locking list is clear.  Animations are processed regardless.

The only real downside is that you have to create a suspension mechanic for NPCs.  But that's easy enough; I move through my initiative list in a "while(true){. . .}" block, and if there's anything on the locking list at the start of an activation, the initiative loop reiterates without incrementing.  Just make sure you only do start of turn stuff once per actor.

45

Programming / Re: Storing Changes for Persistent Zones

« on: March 18, 2015, 04:48:32 PM »

Do you want to optimize the save file size and if so, for what reason? If there is no reason, you can simply save everything.

That was my immediate thought too; sure, 20 years ago file space was precious and it was worth putting in the extra work to keep them small, but these days the filesizes involved in saving the entire map are pretty insignificant.

It'd certainly be neater to save a bunch of diffs instead, and if you want the fun of that programming challenge then go for it - but every hour you spend coding something utterly internal like this is an hour lost on code that actually affects gameplay.

Those are both reasonable, despite how this itches at my brain; I'll just save everything.  If it winds up being a problem, I'll do something slicker.