Infra Arcana, a horror/Lovecraft roguelike (now at v22.1.0!).

[Legend]

Finally got around to the new version. Very nice.

I like the title music and the sound effects are nice. Although missing melee attack sound effects. at least for sledgehammer. A simple swipe sound would be enough for all melee weapons. Or maybe more thuddy sounding ones for blunt weapons and the swipe for edged ones.

Would be nice if there was music in the game levels or an ambient track (the changelog says there is one, but I'm really not noticing anything).

I kinda miss the old healing system. The new one is interesting, but I rarely had wounds and never got an infection. I did get diseased though and could never figure how to undo it.

I like the new starting traits but was hoping to be able to build the character each level like before. 

Is it possible to play with the tiles in 8x12 mode?

Also, is it possible to have the nice tiles version title screen while actually playing in ascii mode?

Anyways, Very nice release. I look forward to the next one as usual.

EDIT*
HOw exactly does the current experience/trait system work? I didn't see it explained in the manual.  I understand the perks of what you pick at the beginning of the game, but when the character levels up, does eveything just upgrade randomly, or at set intervals, or according to what you use the most, etc?

Edit*
Bug? Noticed that the ambient tracks do indeed play but don't loop. So they just seem to play once, but not again. I also noticed that The title music only played the first time I started the game and has not played again since whenever I start the game.

p.s. will I ever see a spike mace? 

[NON]

Finally got around to the new version. Very nice.

Thumbs up.

I like the title music and the sound effects are nice. Although missing melee attack sound effects. at least for sledgehammer. A simple swipe sound would be enough for all melee weapons. Or maybe more thuddy sounding ones for blunt weapons and the swipe for edged ones.

Then you'll be happy to hear there will be melee attack sounds in the next version!

Would be nice if there was music in the game levels or an ambient track (the changelog says there is one, but I'm really not noticing anything).

I don't think I'm gonna put music in the game, as that might get repetitive, and it would be hard to find a decent number of consistently sounding tracks.
But - there *are* ambient noise in the current version already. There's 30 ambient sound effects. Most of them are around a minute, a few are even 2-4 minutes, and a few are just a couple seconds. At certain points (e.g. when descending the stairs)the game rolls the dice to decide if an ambient sound should be player. It also plays them at a random volume, but with preference towards low volumes, so usually it will be a bit subtle. My recommendation is to raise the volume of your computer to the maximum level for which the door smashing, shooting etc is the loudest you are comfortable with. Then you will hear even the subtle ambient sounds - especially if you use headphones.

I kinda miss the old healing system. The new one is interesting, but I rarely had wounds and never got an infection. I did get diseased though and could never figure how to undo it.

I think the old system was pretty annoying. Every minor scratch you took forced you to consider if it was worth healing or not (which was a hard decision, and not in a fun way IMO). Especially things like sprains from bashing doors was a big annoyance to me.
Wounds won't happen so much when fighting weak monsters on the early levels, but it plays a bigger role after the first couple levels.
Infections are very common when I play at least, you can get them from the clawing corpses and rats for example. I like the infection mechanic too, because it puts pressure on you to finish the fight quickly and find a safe place.

I like the new starting traits but was hoping to be able to build the character each level like before. 

Yeah I missed building a character over the course of the game too. So I added back the old traits again - from the changelog:
"The traits system has been changed back to how it was in v14 (i.e. you pick traits when gaining levels)  - many traits have been added in addition to the old ones."
"You now select a background when starting a new game, the choices are “Occultist” (magic), “Rogue” (stealth), and “Soldier” (fighter/firearms) - Your background determines which trait(s) and items you start with, there are also special background-specific abilities, and some traits have background prerequisites."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hK73-apyw5XbK9QjKyCMIj_w12RFxfPlmv0ipL4qAL0/

Is it possible to play with the tiles in 8x12 mode?

No, the tiles must be 16x24.

Also, is it possible to have the nice tiles version title screen while actually playing in ascii mode?

No it's not possible. And allowing this would be a problem, since the main menu logo would be bigger than the window for the smallest fonts.

Anyways, Very nice release. I look forward to the next one as usual.

Me too, the next one will be a much more polished and fun game.

EDIT*
HOw exactly does the current experience/trait system work? I didn't see it explained in the manual.  I understand the perks of what you pick at the beginning of the game, but when the character levels up, does eveything just upgrade randomly, or at set intervals, or according to what you use the most, etc?

IIRC you gain HP each level. Every third level you gain additional bonuses, such as increased attack skills. In the next version you will pick traits again when gaining levels (probably every second level).

Edit*
Bug? Noticed that the ambient tracks do indeed play but don't loop. So they just seem to play once, but not again. I also noticed that The title music only played the first time I started the game and has not played again since whenever I start the game.

The ambient sounds are not supposed to loop. They are just supposed to play occasionally to intensify the atmosphere. I think it would be repetitive and distracting if they played all the time.

p.s. will I ever see a spike mace? 

Okay then!

[Vanguard]

I think the old system was pretty annoying. Every minor scratch you took forced you to consider if it was worth healing or not (which was a hard decision, and not in a fun way IMO). Especially things like sprains from bashing doors was a big annoyance to me.
Wounds won't happen so much when fighting weak monsters on the early levels, but it plays a bigger role after the first couple levels.
Infections are very common when I play at least, you can get them from the clawing corpses and rats for example. I like the infection mechanic too, because it puts pressure on you to finish the fight quickly and find a safe place.

What the?  You removed that awesome healing system?

[NON]

What the?  You removed that awesome healing system?

The new healing system is effectively just a more detailed version of the old system. You still have to find a secluded place and spend many turns to heal. The difference is that now you don't have to do it for every little paper cut. In the new version, wounds are a serious problem, but losing a few HP is not something that requires active treatment.

A wound is caused if you take more than 4 damage from a single attack.

Because of this, you will never take a wound from fighting rats for example. And I think that is as it should be. In previous versions, fighting rats were damn annoying to me, because they always managed to gnaw of a couple of HP, and I could never resist the urge to heal it even if it was a strategically bad choice. So even the most trivial encounters felt like a big speed bump to me.

Now, rats can be mowed down without slowing you down so much. Except if you get infected of course, but that's ok.

[getter77]

For perk/leveling concerns:  I humbly beseech you to mess around with Triangle Wizard as it does much with it and surely has stuff that can be built upon/stolen wholesale as far as methods and implications.   

[Vanguard]

Now, rats can be mowed down without slowing you down so much. Except if you get infected of course, but that's ok.

I probably shouldn't say anything until I try the new version, but imo enemies you can mow down without thinking shouldn't be in the game at all.

[NON]

Now, rats can be mowed down without slowing you down so much. Except if you get infected of course, but that's ok.

I probably shouldn't say anything until I try the new version, but imo enemies you can mow down without thinking shouldn't be in the game at all.

It's not like you fight thousands of them like in Angband. And like I said,  there is the infection mechanic,  which makes them non-trivial.

[Legend]

I know the tiles must currently be in 16x24 font. But I meant would it ever be possible that they could work in 8x12 font or to make them display larger in the future?  They look really nice and I would like to play with them, but I simply can't play with them cause the 16x24 font appears far too small to really recognize thing (for me and my shoddy eyes anyways). I can only play in 8x12 font cause the characters actually appear larger.

I see your point with the music. I think the ambient sounds could play at slightly more often intervals. I could have sworn there was intro title music that played the first time II fired up the game, but for some reason has not played since.

[NON]

I know the tiles must currently be in 16x24 font. But I meant would it ever be possible that they could work in 8x12 font or to make them display larger in the future?  They look really nice and I would like to play with them, but I simply can't play with them cause the 16x24 font appears far too small to really recognize thing (for me and my shoddy eyes anyways). I can only play in 8x12 font cause the characters actually appear larger.

I'm not sure what you mean. You want to scale them down to 8x12, then scale that up again (losing a lot of detail)?

I did an attempt one time to scale up the tiles to double size, and implemented scrolling. But with the map being much wider than tall, it turned out that the map (mostly) just scrolled in the horizontal direction - I thought it looked a bit ridiculous.

I see your point with the music. I think the ambient sounds could play at slightly more often intervals. I could have sworn there was intro title music that played the first time II fired up the game, but for some reason has not played since.

The intro music should play every time you start the game. Although I think if you go into the options menu and disable sounds, then enable them again, when you go back to the main menu the music will not play - but it will play again if you restart the game.

[Legend]

I know the tiles must currently be in 16x24 font. But I meant would it ever be possible that they could work in 8x12 font or to make them display larger in the future?  They look really nice and I would like to play with them, but I simply can't play with them cause the 16x24 font appears far too small to really recognize thing (for me and my shoddy eyes anyways). I can only play in 8x12 font cause the characters actually appear larger.

I'm not sure what you mean. You want to scale them down to 8x12, then scale that up again (losing a lot of detail)?

I did an attempt one time to scale up the tiles to double size, and implemented scrolling. But with the map being much wider than tall, it turned out that the map (mostly) just scrolled in the horizontal direction - I thought it looked a bit ridiculous.

Baswically, I just wanted to use tiles but have them display more like the 8x12 font so that they are larger and easier to see. As it is, I just really can't use the tiles cause they simply appear too small and I can't distinguish anything. Even the ascii mode with 16x24 is too small for me to tell most things apart. 8x12 is really the only way I can play and see comfortably. (I have fairly poor eye sight in case I hadn't explained).

The scrolling doesn't sound too ridiculous. You mean the map simply scrolled horizontally more than it did vertically? If you have a test build of that, I would be happy to check it out.

[NON]

I see. It seems the only solution then would be to provide an option for tiles scaled to 32x48. I might give this a shot again after next release is out. It's too big project to do for now though. At the moment I'm only implementing minor things and doing balancing, trying to finish the next version soon.

[Legend]

A few things.

I encountered this in one of my plays that I started in a room with deep mud. Zombies seemed to appear out of nowhere right next tom as if they came out of the mud. Is this intentional? I never made it out of that first room.

Zombies seem to always get back up after getting taken down the first time unless they are blown up. It would be nice if there was a chance at least that they would stay dead after the first time. I recall in Blood that they did tend to get back up, but not all the time. Otherwise, it would be nice if dynamite was a little more common to find.

Is there a way to remove the mouse cursor from the screen?

[NON]

I encountered this in one of my plays that I started in a room with deep mud. Zombies seemed to appear out of nowhere right next tom as if they came out of the mud. Is this intentional?

I did discover and fix a bug that could cause the player to descend too close to monsters. It seems this problem already existed in v15 then. It should be fixed in next version anyway.

Zombies seem to always get back up after getting taken down the first time unless they are blown up. It would be nice if there was a chance at least that they would stay dead after the first time. I recall in Blood that they did tend to get back up, but not all the time.

Currently, on the develop branch, I have made it so you can (b)ash corpses lying on the ground (you have 1/3 chance to succeed IIRC). This can be used for preventing zombies from rising again. What do you think of this feature? I haven't fully decided yet if I should include it in the release or not.

However, you can prevent them from rising again when you kill them the first time - if you deal enough damage. Sledgehammer and pitchfork tends to do that, probably also the pistol, and definitely shotguns. I'm pretty sure the axe and machete should do it occasionally too, but it could be rare.

Is there a way to remove the mouse cursor from the screen?

Not at the moment. I'll see if there's some SDL call to remove it. Otherwise you could just hide it in a corner?

[Legend]

Zombies seem to always get back up after getting taken down the first time unless they are blown up. It would be nice if there was a chance at least that they would stay dead after the first time. I recall in Blood that they did tend to get back up, but not all the time.

Currently, on the develop branch, I have made it so you can (b)ash corpses lying on the ground (you have 1/3 chance to succeed IIRC). This can be used for preventing zombies from rising again. What do you think of this feature? I haven't fully decided yet if I should include it in the release or not.

However, you can prevent them from rising again when you kill them the first time - if you deal enough damage. Sledgehammer and pitchfork tends to do that, probably also the pistol, and definitely shotguns. I'm pretty sure the axe and machete should do it occasionally too, but it could be rare.

Being able to bash the corpses on the ground to keep them from rising would definitely be a nice addition. Although, 2/3 or 1/2 chance to succeed might be a little more fair. Mostly considering that the player will likely be dealing with more than one zombie at a time so they will most likely take some hits while trying to bash the corpse on the ground. Would also need a way to confirm that you succeeded.

As for the weapons, are you saying that it currently works that way, or just in the dev branch? Cause after I noticed that they never seem to stay down at all, I stood and waited by everyone I took down, and every single one got back up. Even by shotgun blasts.

Shotguns and dynamite definitely make the most sense for this to happen. Sledge hammers as well. I think the axe and machete also make sense cause the player could decapitate the zombie and would be most likely out of the melee weapons to work. And a spiked mace of course could be used for a quick bash to the head. I could see it being the most effective melee weapon for keeping zombies down in the first kill because of the accuracy and nature of the blunt damage to the head.

I can see the spike gun having a chance of working as I imagine the spikes being rather large and being able to take out it's brain or head off if it got shot in the face.

Knifes, daggers, and in my opinion. the pitchfork would be least likely to put them down in one hit. I can see a pistol working assuming the player made a head-shot.

A way to keep a zombie down after the first kill would definitely be a nice addition. The major majority of my player deaths have been by becoming zombie kibble to a swarm of zombies. They are huge bullet sponges when ammo is pretty scarce already and can sometimes slow the game a little cause on the rare occasion I manage to kill a lone zombie or a small amount all go down in quick succession, I always end up waiting around the corpses so I can kill them again just so they down't sneak up on me down the hall.

p.s.  It would be nice if it were possible to throw potions without having to equip them first. Like maybe when you select them with the (e) command, the game could prompt you if you wanted to drink it or throw it. Or if when using the (t)hrow command, the game could prompt you if you want to throw your equipped throwing weapon or a potion if you have any.

[NON]

Would also need a way to confirm that you succeeded.

Yeah there's a text message, plus the corpse gets gibed.

As for the weapons, are you saying that it currently works that way, or just in the dev branch? Cause after I noticed that they never seem to stay down at all, I stood and waited by everyone I took down, and every single one got back up. Even by shotgun blasts.

It has worked that way since forever, if you kill them with enough damage they don't leave a corpse. They only rise again if they leave a corpse of course. How much damage is needed is determined by their max hp. IIRC the rule is something like if the damage from the killing blow is greater than MAX_HP / 3, they are gibed.

Try attacking low HP monsters like spiders and rats for example. They rarely/never(?) leave corpses since you deal a lot of damage compared to their max HP.

A way to keep a zombie down after the first kill would definitely be a nice addition.

Yes I'm considering having some melee trait have that effect (for melee attacks only then).

It would be nice if it were possible to throw potions without having to equip them first.

Yes it's a planned feature to be able to throw any item. Not for next version though.