Messages

16

Early Dev / Re: Prospector public Beta-Beta

« on: September 10, 2010, 07:10:11 PM »

Thank you!
Some wierd things you are telling me there, and I will have to look into them.
(Got a suspicion what causes the invisible critters)
But no idea what that error was.
Did it crash right after generating the ship?
Did you afterwards make another game?
Did it manage to make a savegame, after the crash?
If yes: do you still have it, and could I take a look at it?

(matthias.mennel at gmail.com would be a good place to send it to if you still have it.)

Also: do you have a german keyboard?

Anyway I suspect a lot of bugs lurking in space combat.
Thanks for the help!

edit to add:
Ahhh...
Of course!
That caused the crash & error message
Thank you very much for your help!
Don't need the save game anymore, found an as good as fixed.

17

Other Announcements / Re: Acquiring feedback for your roguelike project

« on: September 09, 2010, 08:03:24 PM »

On originality:
I sometimes get accused of being original, in this very thread even! Yet i stole 90% of the gameplay from Starfight, and the remaining 10% from Traveller!

The thing is "Orcs & Dragons != Original game" is a rather superficial way of looking at it.
If your "Purple furry man eating Mango" is something that wants to kill you, has no special abilites and is of low to medium danger, it is an Orc in a Mango Suit.
But it has a disadvantage over the Orc: As a new player I have no Idea what it does. For the first few games It will be all exciting and new, but soon i will learn PFMEM is another word for "Orc".
Its just a cheap thrill, no substance. Might as well call them orcs and benefit from the fact that the player already knows Ogres will be tougher.

Now when it comes to generate interest, i will propably be more successful if I say "In my game you kill PFMEMs" than if i said "In my game you kill orcs" But only until the player found out its actually an orc in a mango suit.

You need to tell people what is unique. Frozen depth doesn't advertise "You get to kill Cave Kanagaroos". It says "No magic!" it says "You can die from cold exposure" It says "Get your custom items crafted"
Actually, i would enjoy FD more if I could kill orcs instead of cave kanagaroos (wouldnt they bump their head pretty often?) The name of the critter you kill really doesn't matter.

18

Early Dev / Prospector public Beta-Beta

« on: September 09, 2010, 06:38:31 PM »

The AARP is drawing near. So I decided to go a similiar road like Frozen Depths:

Release a Beta of the current prospector version, and ask people if they might want to help me testing.
Also: it really has tiles now, and they look like this:


So if you want to lend a hand
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/downloads/list
is the place to go.
It would be most appreciated.

19

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Prospector 0.1.12 released

« on: August 03, 2010, 07:47:35 PM »

http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/wiki/QuickStartGuide
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/wiki/FAQ

And of course:
http://prospector.freeforums.org/index.php
especially:
http://prospector.freeforums.org/how-do-i-f6.html

And of late:
http://prospector.wikia.com/wiki/Prospector_Wiki
Wich is slightly less on the how to do things side, and more on the "lets describe this stuff funny" side. FAQ and QSG are on there too.

Actually, you could also ask questions here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34943.0

And of course: ask me. Asking questions might actually help me to dampen that learning curve, I have heard people talk about so much.

20

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Prospector 0.1.12 released

« on: August 03, 2010, 10:53:28 AM »

Just a quick mention that 0.1.13 is ready.
Several bugfixes (most notably the ghost doctor and the "I land and get instakilled by superfast monsters"-bugs) and new alien civilisations.

21

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer 2DRL

« on: August 02, 2010, 10:30:37 PM »

Actually, the "Bloody mushrooms" went away a little when I found out what potions of strength do...
Still, not a big fan of the mushrooms. I think they add little to the game.
Maybe if they did something.
Hmm... they could spread? Cellular automata? The level starts with a 9+ patch somewhere, and that turns into a huge 1 field?
Or the hydras could eat them, having some effect on them.

22

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer 2DRL

« on: July 28, 2010, 12:50:11 PM »

Just died on level 2 after trying to kill a 6 headed chaos hydra with a -3 heads strongly chaotic weapon ... can you say "oops?"
Very impressive and (most importantly) fun for 2 days!
What i found slightly annoying was that you have to keep your 1 weapon, to get through mushrooms. But I only played one quick game right now, so maybe that goes away.

23

Programming / Re: Resolution and Fonts

« on: July 14, 2010, 12:24:26 PM »

Huh?
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/
Has adjustable font sizes, and doesn't scroll (Ok, it scrolls in space, but that just proves that both things are possible)
Winx=fontwidth*notiles
Winy=Fontheight*notiles
Of course you cant offer different font sizes without changing window size without scrolling, but isn't offering different window sizes the point?

24

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Prospector 0.1.12 released

« on: June 04, 2010, 06:15:13 PM »

Fixed some bugs in 0.1.12:

Savegames not compatible with 0.1.12
+ prospector now checks for double bound keys in keybindings
+ merchants now have traderoutes avoiding anomalies & gasclouds
+ new possible action for critters
+ fixed bug with generated stranded ships
+ fixed some display glitches

http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/downloads/list

25

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Prospector 0.2.3 released - Joining ARRP

« on: May 24, 2010, 07:53:29 PM »

Hi guys...
remember me?

If you dont, then maybe you remember prospector, my science fiction roguelike?
New version out, with an incredibly short changelog, considering the time it took to implement it!

it is here
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/

and this is what happened:
    * customizable tile & textsizes, should fit even the most exotic display now
    * new retirement system
    * redid postmortem
    * a new anomaly type
    * new item: All-terrain landing gear
    * some attempts at balancing
    * some medium to major bugs squished
    * some UI improvements

26

Other Announcements / Re: 7DRL Challenge: How finished is finshed?

« on: March 11, 2010, 04:49:34 AM »

Yes, got that part.
rgrd if I fail, rgra if I succeed. (poor rgra mod...)
Just wondering if there are any rules of thumb for the borderline "I got 1 monster, and had to cut the magic system from my game about wizards" cases.

27

Other Announcements / Re: How I found Roguelikes

« on: March 10, 2010, 10:04:17 PM »

Yeah, ascii is constant in quality (though one must not underestimate the impact of color choice!) while tiles vary between indecipherable and hard to tell what it is supposed to be.
But let me tell you a little story, how I really got hooked on Roguelikes.
I had this very, very, very boring job, and started playing ADOM to pass the time. Some folks wondered why I always had a DOS window open, a good part saw a black window, having no idea what a DOS window is, or would look like.  Nobody ever suspected I was actually playing a Game, despite me, on numerous occassions shouting with Joy or Frustration, making heads turn in the whole office.
I think thats another advantage of ASCII over Tiles.

28

Other Announcements / 7DRL Challenge: How finished is finshed?

« on: March 10, 2010, 09:50:13 PM »

Things are going suprisingly well with "Generic Fantasy Thingy"!

But with halftime almost past, I start to think that I might not be able to put in everything I wanted to. So I ask myself: Are there any clear cut rules what constitutes a success?
Bugfree is propably impossible if you don't limit yourself very, very much (and/or use a lot of libraries)
Winnable? Propably should be there
Is dieable enough?
Any pointers on where I am supposed to post on saturday?

29

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Prospector 0.1.10

« on: January 26, 2010, 04:53:04 AM »

Word of mouth has peaked lately, so i need to save myself from embarassment  

Anyway this would be one of the new alien artifacts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ5NgJi9Ovw

30

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Prospector 0.1.10

« on: January 25, 2010, 09:33:53 PM »

Some bugfixes and some new stuff.

Changelog looks like this:

* 3 new alien artifacts
* 2 new ways to die
* 3 new goods to trade
* several new modules to add to your ship
* 1 new unique planet
* cosmetics:
Tiles that require jetpacks or hoverplatforms to pass get a background color
Reptiles are now L(izards) to distinguish them from R(obots)
Upper case Monsters have more HP, color depends on Armor, Red monsters have weapon>2

* Balancing:
Asteroid mining yields more resources,
Wormholes do less damage,
Live animals get a bonus
upped chance for gold/dark yellow monsters(still the strongest standard critters)

* Fixed 2 Unique Planets
* Stock market bugs fixed
* Pirate refit is now buyable and actually works
* some item bugs & typos fixed
* forgot to add descriptions for the 5 new unique planets
* 4 of the new uniques could cause wierdness on the map. Fixed
* if your ship lands on critters it hurts them
* found a bunch of tiles that should have been shootable yet were not
* managed to fight savegame bloat a little

http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/