Messages

46

Early Dev / Rogue Survivor Alpha 3.21

« on: June 05, 2010, 06:30:41 PM »

Rogue Survivor

alpha 3.2

More fun, less hassle.

Theme & Setting
Graphical zombie apocalypse urban survival game.


Screenshots & Videos
Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/roguedjack.
Blog: http://http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com

Environment
Windows, .NET and DirectX.
Don't be afraid of ".NET and DirectX". If you have Windows, you probably already have those installed.

Game Objective
Survive as long as you can and score points.

Features
(In bold new since last major version)

USER INTERFACE
- Redefine Keys.
- Game Options : customize game difficulty and size.
- Game Manual in game.
- Take screenshots in game.
- Scoring with difficulty rating.
- Post Mortem files to share your death with others.
- 9 Musics.
- Resizable game window : play in any desktop resolution.

GAMEPLAY
- Your goal : survive until tomorrow.
- Character creation.
- Undeads and Livings.
- Different AIs abilities and behaviors, watch them fool around.
- The undead menace gets stronger day by day.
- Weather.
- Night & Day cycle.
- Skills, level up each morning.
- Trade with people.
- Lead a party of Followers and send them directives and orders.
- Run or Fight.
- Stamina, Hunger and Sleep.
- Make or break barricades.
- Break stuff for wood.
- Push objects around for mobile barricading.
- Guns and Bows.
- Shoot through windows and glass doors.
- Cops.
- The National Guard.
- The mysterious CHAR Corporation.
- And some more baddies...
- City divided in Districts.
- Different Buildings : Houses, Shops, Offices and Parks.
- District Simulation : stuff happened when you were elsewhere.
- Tag the City with your victory symbol.
- Keep track of your Followers with a Cell Phone.

Download & Requierements
Alpha 3.21
<new version up, please see the Alpha 4 thread>

If you have problems, follow the technical help provided in the readme.

Instructions
readme.txt provided.
Remember to uninstall your previous version first!

Readme

ROGUE SURVIVOR
==============

> INSTALL
- Uninstall all previous versions.
- Run "rs setup.exe" to install the game.
- Launch via the desktop shortcut or the start menu.
- When you first run the game it will create a Rogue Survivor folder in your documents folder.
  Typically on Windows XP:
  "My Documents\Rogue Survivor\<game version>\"
  This folder will contains your saves, grave files, screenshots, configuration and manual.

> UNINSTALL
- To uninstall the game, launch "uninstall" from the start menu.
- You can then delete your Rogue Survivor game folder created during installation.


> PROBLEM : GAME DOESN'T START OR CRASHES EARLY!
If the game doesn't start or crash when you start a new game try the following steps one by one.
Restart your computer after each install.

1. Update your DirectX installation.
   Download "DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer" from Microsoft here:
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en
   
2. Update your .NET Framework.
   Download ".NET Compact Framework 3.5 Redistributable" from Microsoft there:
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e3821449-3c6b-42f1-9fd9-0041345b3385&displaylang=en
   
3. Update your .NET Frmakework part 2.   
   Download "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1" from Microsoft
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=AB99342F-5D1A-413D-8319-81DA479AB0D7&displaylang=en
   
4. Update your graphics card drivers.


> PROBLEM : I WAS AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER AND THE GAME CRASHED!
Disable your screensaver.


> OTHER BUGS
If you tried the previous solution the game still crashes it should show you a game log.
Please follow the instructions and send the log to the email below.
You can also send the last save file.
You can also contact me if you think you spotted a bug that didn't crash your game.


> CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS VERSION
Check the readme in the docs folder of your game installation for a detailled list of changes.


> FAQ
Game FAQ and other infos available the blog:
http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/


> CONTACT
roguedjack@yahoo.fr


> CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS VERSION
ALPHA 3.21 CHANGES
------------------
FIXED BUGS
- Bunch of random player skills upgrade. Nice but not intended.

ALPHA 3.2 CHANGES
-----------------
Bug/exploits fixes, gameplay and balance, noticeable AI improvements for acceptable CPU cost.


FIXED BUGS
- Crash: Giving stackable items would crash the game in certain situations.
- Crash: CHAR Guard AI attempting Shout action while they weren't allowed to.
- Crash: Attempt to fix DirectX error D3DERR_DEVICELOST. A stab in the dark since I can't test the fix myself, tell me if it works.
- Correct difficulty rating in post mortem and hi scores.
- AI considered only the top item in item stacks.
- AI wasn't switching weapon when out of ammo and no reload available.
- AI now resets directives and orders when has no leader.
- AI sensors memory incorrectly used global game time rather than local map time (this affected simulation only).
- Sleeping now illegal if not enough sleep points spent (fixes exploit).
- Equipping an item with batteries now spend one energy unit as you turn it on (fixes exploit).
- Trackers out of batteries were still working.

GAMEPLAY
Followers
- Choose the upgrading skills for your followers.
- New order : Drop all items.
NPCs
- Civilians & Police have a 75% chance to upgrade on mornings on their own (player followers have 100% chance).
Food
- Food has a best-before date, nutrition value is divided by 3 when expired.
- Eating expired food can cause vomitting.
- Army rations no more stackable, but they last longer that groceries.
Dying
- Dead people don't drop all their items, some can be destroyed.
Items
- Dropping an useless item (tracker or light out of batteries) discard it (destroy it).
- Items with batteries are not automatically equipped.
- Ranged weapons can jam when you fire. <insert curses here>.
Undeads
- Undeads level progression back to 3.0 rate (faster).
- Invasion event will progressively spawn hi level undeads (if undead evolution option enabled).
- Zombie Lords now assault breakables too (like Neophytes and Disciples already do).
- Zombie Lords and Disciples will not appear before Day 7.
- Scents life time increased A LOT - Zombies will chase living a lot longer.
- Some undeads smell distance increased.
Breaking
- Breaking fences drop planks.
- Breaking stronger objects drop more planks.
Firing
- Firing accuracy penalty is now given if tired (big penalty) or stamina bar not full (light penalty) (was if running).
Other Bad Guys
- Rebalanced "those guys".
- 2 new items carried by "those guys", one of them is very useful against them.
- Can find two special items in CHAR Offices if lucky (one new, one old). Good reason to visit them.
National Guards
- National Guard leaders now bring one special item after a certain time (was previously carried by "those guys").
- National Guard only comes before Day 10 - no National Guard after that.
- National Guard squad size reduced.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- New actors icon when they have 3h or less left before becoming hungry/sleepy (green icons).
- Expired food has an icon in inventories.
- Removed cheat keys. Sorry guys.
- Changed some messages.
- Updated manual.

GRAPHICS & MUSIC
- A couple of new graphics (items, icons).

OPTIONS
- Increased default Starving Zombification.
- Increased default Invasion Daily Increase.
 
AI
- Several specific CivilianAI improvements :
  - New : Close door/window behind them.
  - New : Close doors and barricade windows near them before going to sleep.
  - New : Map exploration. 
  - Mod : Trade only for interesting items, but will still trade anything with the leader.
  - Restricted use of flashlights (again).           
  - Improved Firing logic when in contact with enemy.
- Fleeing AI try to close/barricade door/window between them and the enemy.
- Fleeing followers prefer to flee toward leader.
- NPCs leveling up try to choose usefull skills (they still have to choose from 3 random skills like you).
- AI only interested in ammo items compatible with carried weapons.
- AI only interested in expired food if lacking food.
- AI will use blue pills more often.
- CharGuardAI and SoldierAI now use Fight or Flee logic (less stupid melee deaths).
- Soldiers and Gangs explore the map too.
- All undeads -except Skeletons- explore the map.


Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

47

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 06:18:05 PM »

For CPU sakes, not every civilian could have plan for every day, but it would help to raise immersion if you meet a survivor from time to time and he would tell you, that he has a plan to move in this building and barricade it and he would actually do something similar to what he described. 

I have plans to have uniques NPCs (eg: special survivors or zombies). I could write special AI for them to do things like that.

Not so long ago i read a dev. diary about AI of Subversion (game from Introversion creators of Defcon and Darwinia). And the guy has solved some AI issues (too many unimportant AI plans that shuttered the cpu) by letting the unused CPU output work on the background on those not so important AIs. And since RS works in turns and sometimes you have to stop and think what to do now, couldnt the time be used to calculate some advanced AI actions? ...again, i have no idea what im talking about. 

I don't know about the article but for my game I see the same problem as with pre-planning. Those actions would be calculated from a specific game situation, and by the time it is the AI turn to act the situation has probably changed and the thinking done is probably useless.

BTW I wrote a blog entry about the AI in RS, you can find it here it you are interested : blog link.

48

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 05:10:23 PM »

But could you make it for district simulation? I.e. when you're in a district, it shouldn't load your CPU too much because of that, but when you enter districts and already wait for a significant amount of time, why not to simulate some safehouses being built and survivors gathered inside with stuff and guns?

Full simulation is already too slow and that is with doing the AIs as it is now. Alpha 2.1 has partial simulation (skip AI frames) to speed up simulation.
I guess I could do these things you describe when simulating, but I don't like the idea of making special stuff happen out of the player reach.
Scripted events like this are possible, I can find a way to make them happen in the same map as the player with no additional AI, but with some sort of "cheating".

Actually I once I saw a guy barricaded in a gun shop with a bunch of food, but it could be random.

Yes random. Its like the monkeys writing hamlet on typewriters thing 

49

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 02:52:48 PM »

Just one thing to the AI planing. (i have no idea how coding works so this will be probably rubbish) Wouldn't it be possible to do the whole planing not every turn but only once per day? Like try to move to this house or baricade this room and then leave the rest to your directive AI that would gravitate to this objective (more move directives or more baricade directives) but no more AI calculation would be needed?

You dont have to reply its most likely nonsense. 

It ain't nonsense at all. 
Some sort of high level planning (do this today) then leave the details to low level AI (orders etc...).
The kind of planning you describe works well in a static environement (eg: if the map wouldn't change much during a day) but doesn't work well in a dynamic environement (eg: the map changes a lot during the day, because of broken doors, new enemies, people dying etc...).
The risk is the AI persisting in what would appear dumb behaviors during a whole day (eg: keep trying to barricade this zombie infested house).
I could add AI triggers to re-check the plan during the day, but then that would defeat the whole purpose of the pre-planning optimization.

50

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: June 04, 2010, 01:46:05 PM »

Hello!

One bug i found:
When you drop stackable items and the ground is full they will vanish.

Will be fixed.

Couple of ideas of things i would like to see in the feature:

1. I like how followers have their own mind, but some orders would be great. When to sleep, when to eat, when to run, when to barricade...

Alpha 2.1 has directives (eg: do/dont take items, sleep/don't sleep...) and orders (only "barricade this door/window" for now).
Players will have to test if the way I do directives/order is ok to use before adding more.

2. Ammo. Guns should be really scarce, ammo should be more common ...yet still pretty scarce.

Ammo items will be done in later versions. Good idea about balancing them.

3. Im not sure, but the stuff in shops seems like its geting respawned. If yes, in options to be able to set how often and how much should respawns or not respaw at all.

Items don't respawn. What you think is new is probably dead people inventory.

4. Its too easy to kitte zombies-  Most zombies have a speed of .66.  That means that they miss every third move.  So move back and forth a space from them until they move twice in a row, moving next to you on the second move.  Attack them then move away.  Repeat. (credits to mainiac) ...perhaps add some randomness to the speed.

Alpha 2.1 has fast enemies.

5. Zombie and human population moving between districts- humans fleeing from zombie horde zombies follow them. (levels of zombie infestation differs and changes from district to district resulting in districts deserted and some infested or safe)

There is already populations variation with refugees/invasions, I'm not sure more is necessary or would be a good thing.

6. Encumberence to have impact on speed and stamina.

You really need items, I don't want to penalize the player for carrying stuff.

7. Not sure if this is possible but i would like to see humans and groups of humans buiding safehouses and going for scavengeruns and returning to safehouse to get some sleep. Ai works fine btw but lacks some long time planning.  ...on the other side im playing with max population and the game is very quick, congrats on that.

That's the problem. Better AI = more CPU time. I can do planning. But I prefer to keep a lot if simple AIs than a few clever AI that the player will probably never notice anyway. Also the game should be playable on low end CPU like mine 
Also the advantage of simple AIs is that each type of actor has a very recognizable behaviors, rather than a generic clever one, which imho is good for gameplay.

8.Aiming, a round spending aiming could raise chance to hit. Possible only when not hungry sleepy and out of breath.
9.In options a chance to get infected when hp gets low. -antidote in CHAR buildings.

Good ideas.

Thanks for the feedback.

51

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: May 20, 2010, 03:47:00 PM »

I prefer to keep the player and the survivors as the "good guys" and the only practical reason I see to attack other survivors would be to get their items. You can't now, but later I'll add "gangs" which will be basically "evil" survivors which you can attack and will attack others as well. The game support a factions concept so maybe I'll add the ability to join the evil guys.

52

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: May 20, 2010, 12:27:33 PM »

Any chance that you can attempt to give orders to your followers? You could make them barricade, break furniture, etc, etc.

Secondly, have you considered adding some sort of weather system? Fighting zombies in a snowstorm sounds awesome.

Ordering followers & weather are planned feature. 

One small bug I found so far: When trying to pick up an item and all inventory slots are used, the game regards the inventory as full, even if the item can be put on an existing stack (like planks).

EDIT: And a NPC just built a barricade on the tile I was standing on

Nice spotting, will fix in 2.1.

Thanks both of you for the usefull comments!

53

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: May 19, 2010, 09:22:13 AM »

Hmm, I typed the code, clicked download, a new page opened and... nothing happens 

According to the feature list the game is awesome, but can't download it.

Forgot to add you must click "Commencer le téléchargement..." (Begin downloading)
Sorry about that.

---
If people have problems downloading tell me, I'm not 100% confident about this file hosting site.

54

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor alpha 1

« on: May 18, 2010, 09:56:06 PM »

New "major minor" version up : Alpha 2.
Hope admins won't mind a new thread for this.

55

Early Dev / Rogue Survivor Alpha 2

« on: May 18, 2010, 09:54:30 PM »

Please see Alpha 3 thread instead.

56

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: My first simple roguelike:Sepulchre of the Serpent King

« on: May 11, 2010, 07:18:17 PM »

Gave it a try.
The gfx style is nice and very "dungeonish".
Some problems I spotted.

Setup
- Width and Height seems sometimes reversed.
Eg I have to choose 1050x1680 for my 1680x1050 desktop.
If I choose "1680x1050" the screen behaves like it is rotated 90deg to the left.

Input
- Problems with an AZERTY keyboard : WASD movement in game works but in the character selection screen my 'M' doesnt work, I have to press where the qwerty M is located.

GFX
- When alt-tabbing to desktop and returning to game the textures are messed. The text is not affected.
- Some monsters are hard to see (gray vs gray background).

Gameplay
- Steal in a shop, got caught, a monster is spawned but also a group of shops buildings are spawned (!!).
- I should be able to move on a tile without grabbing the item.
- Dropping items destroys them? (Fn keys).

Interface
- Confusion between what keyboard does and what mouse does.
- In the inventory you should be able to click anywhere on the name of the item rather than just a small spot.
- Items and equipment should stand out more vs interface text.

Hope I make sense 

57

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Dungeonmans Alpha 4!

« on: May 11, 2010, 06:28:29 PM »

Install/uninstall works fine but got a crash as soon as I start the game.
The usual win crash report:

EventType : clr20r3     P1 : dungeonmans.exe     P2 : 0.2.0.0     P3 : 4be88452
P4 : mscorlib     P5 : 2.0.0.0     P6 : 4a7cd8f7     P7 : c42     P8 : 59     
P9 : system.formatexception     


My config:
WinXP SP 3, 32bits.
.NET 3.5 SP1.
XNA 3.1 already installed.

UPDATE:
Forgot to mention my OS in a non-US culture, the system.formatexception might have to do with C# parsing floats in my OS culture while trying to read English floats.
(Eg "1,00" vs "1.00")
This is a common problem for .NET programs running in different languages.
In my program I force the culture to Invariant.

Code: [Select]

            Application.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;  // avoids nasty "," vs "." format confusion.

Hope this helps.

58

Early Dev / Re: Rogue Survivor alpha 1

« on: May 08, 2010, 04:46:13 PM »

New version up in 1st post.

Alpha 0.1.2
--------------
Improved user friendliness:
- Redefine keys : laptop people rejoice; use your favorite vi setting.
- Options : turn the damn music off  ; change number of people on the map.
- Game Manual : 1st draft, pdf and txt.

Fixes:
- DirectX texture allocation bug on some gfx cards : thanks to Chex Warrior for testing.

Music:
- One more annoying music : Post Mortem. Just don't die and you won't hear it 

59

Programming / Re: map generator

« on: May 07, 2010, 01:15:29 PM »

My mouse refuse to click on the exe link 
Could you post screens or the basic idea?

60

Programming / Re: C# Point Class code

« on: May 07, 2010, 01:12:17 PM »

I agree with purestrain. I use the System.Drawing.Point struct. You can always extend it if needed with C# static extensions : you can add new operators etc...