Messages

31

Programming / Re: A peaceful dungeon exploration game

« on: January 12, 2010, 09:18:13 PM »

To be honest, most of my projects ended on some tech-demo level, and didn't become real games. I'm not a particularly skilled game designer, and I'll depend very much on help from other people with such.

Don't hide your light under a bushel: I still wonder how I managed to make my exams although I spent about 28 hours a day playing simutrans. That was 2003/4 and I liked it much more than Transport Tycoon.

32

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / NLarn 0.5.2 released

« on: January 11, 2010, 04:02:05 PM »

Hello everybody,

I have perpared a new release of NLarn to fix all troubles know to me with the last version and adds some nice features.
Read about what's new or simply download it and find out for yourself.

I'd love to hear from you and hope you enjoy the game.

-jaydg

33

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: ZAPM 0.8.1 beta (sci-fi theme)

« on: January 07, 2010, 08:51:07 PM »

Man I love this game. I just executed a buggy floppy disk of spam:

Beautiful Arcturian babes are waiting to meet you!
Transmitting 338 buckazoids through Zero-Click purchase plan...
Thank you for your order.  Please wait 4-6 orbit cycles for delivery.

The entire game is really brilliant; e.g. I got pregnant from an alien facehugger but could get rid of the embryo by drinking something toxic. The bionic implants are very cool, too.

34

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: ZAPM 0.8.1 beta (sci-fi theme)

« on: January 07, 2010, 02:39:41 PM »

I've updated the ZAPM page at RogueBasin.

35

Programming / Re: Ridiculous amount of links for hopeful gamedev aid

« on: December 05, 2009, 01:35:14 PM »

VirtualBox is definitely brilliant.

I use it every day on multiple boxes and cannot imagine how to work without it. It is definitely the best way for a windows guy to get in touch with Linux - definitely less hassle than booting all the time to switch the OS.

I usually configure the virtual machines with bridged networking and the guest OS to get an dynamic IP from my router - this way the VMs behave like real machines and you'll get the most out of them.

36

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / NLarn 0.5.1 released

« on: November 15, 2009, 04:49:47 PM »

I've prepared a new release to fix all problems I know of in version 0.5. A list of all changes shows what has been fixed. The files are available for download on sourceforge.

If you have installed NLarn 0.5 on Windows using the installer your can simply install the new version over the old one.

37

Programming / NLarn on MacOS X

« on: November 14, 2009, 03:54:24 PM »

I'm currently working on cleaning all the bug I know of from the current version and release a fixed version pretty soon.

If anyone is interested in playing NLarn on an Apple - no problem. A friend was able to build NLarn on MacOS X!
See building NLarn on MacOS X to learn how to do so.

38

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / NLarn 0.5 released

« on: November 02, 2009, 11:28:04 PM »

Here comes a new release of NLarn. Get it from Sourceforge.


New in this version:

• Save your game and continue playing later.
• The town level is now static and has a lake and lots of trees. Buildings can now be recognized as such.
• Shops debit the player's bank account for their services.
• It is now possible to save a memorial file for a deceased character. The obituary contains a list of vanquished creatures.
• Configuration file allows to preset autopickup and the like.
• Implemented a string input function.
• The caption in the get_count dialog can now be wrapped.
• Created a rpm spec file.
• Created an installer for Windows.
• More weapons and armour types. Raised weapon and armour prices.
• Monsters that can use weapons will use weapons - against you!
• Implemented taking things out of and putting things into containers.
• Added a chance of failure when casting a spell.
• Ability to display spell description in the spell selection dialog.
• Honour spell knowledge level when calculation spell damage/power.
• Added ability to examine any visible position. Enhanced the descriptions of a position.
• Monsters can use stairs or even enter the town to follow the player.
• Monsters can fall through trap doors and appear on the level below.
• Vastly lowered gem values.
• Re-enforce monsters on a map every now and then.

Bugs and features fixed in this version:

• Fixed stealth.
• Fixed a crash in the inventory dialog.
• A leprechaun who picked up a gem could cause a crash in the drawing code (this one took me hours to figure out. You got to love C!)
• A message is logged when no item has been discovered instead of showing an empty dialog box.
• Fixed a bug in auto-pickup code which would lead to a game freeze and 100% CPU usage.
• Fixed duplicate knowledge of spells.
• Move all _Spheres of Destruction_.
• Fixed the behavior of backspace key in the get_amount dialog.
• Fixed a game freeze when a fireball hit monsters.
• Books are used up upon successful learning.
• Corrected spell MP usage. Aborted spells no longer cost MPs.
• Corrected cloning of items with effects.
• When withdrawing large sums from the bank without being able to carry it the money was lost. This has been fixed.
• Fixed a hang at the end of the game.
• Fixed trap generation of traps: now trapdoors are generated, too.
• Nymphs can no longer steal cursed items that are equipped.

39

Programming / Re: NLarn - a Larn remake

« on: November 02, 2009, 07:24:18 PM »

A little progress report: restoring saved games is finished.

Unfortunately I broke some things which have to repaired - this happens all the time. Next time I will use an object oriented language to hide all the object's attributes.

When I'm finished there will be another release.

Edit: Ok, that was easy. The release is there!
I would really like to hear from you about any bug. I dont like bugs, but I can't find them all alone. So please if you find any annoyance, post it here. I'll be glad to take care of it.

40

Programming / Re: NLarn - a Larn remake

« on: October 16, 2009, 05:53:26 PM »

I found a pretty nice library for JSON file handling and have already successfully implemented saving with this. The resulting file was ~800kb large, so I implemented to compress it with zlib, another brilliant library.

As soon I find time I will implement restoring the save file.

JSON is actually a pretty cool and very useful file format. Bindings exists for every language under the sun and it can be edited with any text editor.

41

Programming / Re: NLarn - a Larn remake

« on: October 10, 2009, 06:13:54 PM »

ah yes. save should be built from the beginning, its very hard to add later on

Not true. In fact saving is easiest to add when everything else is ready, because you don't have to adjust the save routine every time you add something.

That's excactly the reason why I started to think about saving so late. On the other hand it would have been very smart to think about saving in the beginning as stu said and just implement it now. Too late!

I now keep a hash for all of the game object types and register and unregister things I create or destroy there. All of these hashes use pointers as key. Glib offers black-magic macros to hide integers in pointers, thus allow me to use unsigned integers as object ids and store them where these objects are used.  When finished  (20% done) saving will be a piece of cake (I keep telling me).

@Slash: Many times I cursed my decision to use C and wished I had used something that offers handy high level functionality and does not waste so much time. Too late, as well.

42

Programming / Re: NLarn - a Larn remake

« on: October 09, 2009, 04:33:28 PM »

I will need a few more days till a new version as making the game structures saveable is such a gigantic change that almost everything is broken right now and the only thing I get when starting the game is a SIGSEGV. Thus I'll spend some days with my friend gdb.

43

Programming / Re: Map Generation / Tile definition?

« on: October 05, 2009, 01:29:39 PM »

Ohoh.... and i have been wondering:
Doors: Items or Tiles? Your arguments concerning the age old debate?

Like Hajo writes: a third category for stationary stuff. This is an integer value which is linked to a lookup table. In this table the attributes for the element as description, color, transparency and  "image" are stored.

In this category are also fountains, statues, building entrances and the like. A door is either a closed door or an open door. Both of them are represented by different ids, which makes them independent of each other. This approach allows to drop stuff in the opened door, which makes it impossible to close it. Or to blow the door away by simply setting the id of the third category to 0.

44

Programming / Re: NLarn - a Larn remake

« on: October 05, 2009, 01:11:03 PM »

the new town map looks very busy, remember its a town, not a complete wild wilderness.

I tried to separate the dungeon entrances and the regular part of the town, hence the forest.

did you use the larn 12.4 code or are you writing it from scratch?

I used only a few lines of the original Larn 12.3 code, e.g. the level generator, but almost all of the games data, such as monsters and spells.

If you compare the code of Larn and NLarn, you will find very little similarities.

45

Programming / Re: Map Generation / Tile definition?

« on: October 05, 2009, 09:52:31 AM »

I sometimes think it's not needed. The old roguelikes worked with one item per tile. It was a problems sometimes, but not too often. Lately I think the added development overhead for more then one item per tile is not worth the little gain in gameplay value.

Larn for example has this restriction. I found it so ridiculous that I started to reimplement it.
There some places in the Larn code where generated items get thrown away because no free place can be found. On the other hand it looks really funny when the loot dropped when a monster gets killed keeps flying around.

I needed an inventory for the player, thus I implemented it. The pile of items on the floor,  the monster inventories  and the player's inventory share 100% code. When I add a feature, all benefit. Thus I had no overhead by adding more advanced features.