@Star Wars (now at v0.6a)

[roocey]

  This one shows quite a bit of promise. Early stage, surely, but neat.

  I especially like how you press 'f' and shoot at the closest guy. At least I think that's what's happening. Very quick and smooth. I like it.

That's exactly what happens. Glad you like it. You can also switch to mouse-targeting in the options menu (shift+O). In the next version I'm going to try and improve the general user experience. Relevant:

Most of the "shift+whatever" keys are being setup to work with or without holding down shift (2 will work as well as @ if you want to view the character sheet, for example).

EDIT: Apparently mouse-targeting doesn't work anymore. Whoops.

EDIT2: Looks like mouse-targeting works again. In tonight's trunk build you'll be able to use "f" to fire automatically and left-mouse-button to target manually. The improvement? No more clunky option management.

[roocey]

At long last, a new stable build!

http://www.caffeineoverdose.me/2012/11/05a-changelog-and-download.html

The rest of the 0.5 series is going to focus on mini-bosses and content in general. I'd like to have a valid win-state as part of the 0.6a release. One other thing I'm going to play with for the rest of the 0.5 series is "guaranteed appearance, random location" items. The best comparison I can think to make here is how a certain amount of food is guaranteed to be generated in Brogue. This will probably only apply to stimpacks initially, but there's definite room for expansion. Expect to see that and more in 0.5b.

[getter77]

Congrats on hitting another major milestone release----looks like the road to v0.6a is also a well reckoned one to boot.   

You watched Game Hunter's video test drive for the previous version right?

[roocey]

Congrats on hitting another major milestone release----looks like the road to v0.6a is also a well reckoned one to boot.   

You watched Game Hunter's video test drive for the previous version right?

I didn't know it existed until just now. I'm watching it now, though. Thanks for informing me!

[getter77]

No problem!  The changelog looked to touch upon some of the areas he covered with it, so I figured I'd do well to mention it juuust in case it was just a happy coincidence.   

[getter77]

v0.5b

    -Stimpacks now remove bleeding.
    -Improved the help page. I added a few more topics and, perhaps more importantly, removed some (all, hopefully) of the misinformation.
    -Reduced the quantity of "rage" death messages. Death should be fun, not piss you off!

[getter77]

v0.6a with radical gains!

The (long awaited?) release of the 0.6 series is set to occur within 48 hours. Below is a list of stuff I'm trying to squeeze in before the release. After that, I'm going to talk about my plans for the rest of the 0.6 series.

Stuff to do before 0.6a:

    Add in a few new items, mostly boots & gloves.
    Make sure the balance is okay. While I don't expect the balance to be anywhere near perfect on this first release, I don't want too many unbeatable situations to be cropping up.

Stuff to do after 0.6a (but probably during the 0.6 series):

    -Experiment with dodge mechanics. The current mechanic (in 0.6a) is a "stagger" mechanic that replaces the critical/fumble system. I'm not overly satisfied with how it works in 0.6a, but it is a little more interesting than the old way.
    -More stuff to do and find. The base game is starting to reach a point where it contains most of the essential elements. I'd like to implement a few new floors and perhaps a secret or two before 0.7a gets underway.
    -Better species. Most of the species are still basic deviations of a formula (though they are a little better in 0.6a). I want to add in a couple of oddball species that make the game challenging in unusual ways.
    -Work out the differences between melee & ranged. In 0.6a, I've gone ahead and turned off melee Charging, because it wasn't documented anywhere and, more importantly, it wasn't very interesting. I'd like to find a sensible (non-gimmicky) way to make ranged combat a bit more challenging without just saying "it takes 1 or 2 extra turns to kill stuff because you're using a blaster".

Overall I'm pretty happy with how 0.6a has shaped up to be. I think the mechanical overhauls (e.g., wiping out the D6 system) have done the game a lot of good. The game still has a long way to go before a "1.0" can even be considered, but 2012 has been a rather productive year as far as @Star War goes and I believe 2013 will at least match it in terms of productivity.

   

-Added in the Quick and Slow species traits. These adjust movement speed positively and negatively, respectively.
    -Redesigned the majority of the species from the ground up, excluding the Sluissi, Human, and Zabrak species.
    -Changed the regeneration system. Under the old system, each fight would conclude with the player resting for 15-30 turns. Ideally that means the player would spend time exploring, but the risk was generally too substantial. The new system makes hit points into a tactical metric and, for the most part, removes their attempt to be a strategical one. Essentially: it should now be very easy to enter new combat scenarios with full hit points and spend very little to no down time just resting.
    -The player character symbol's color changes based on remaining hit points.
    -The player's damage accuracy, damage, dodge, and armor are displayed beneath your HP & XP now. Accuracy and damage are displayed as (0D+0,0D+0). Dodge and armor are displayed as [0D+0,0D+0].
    -Converted many things away from the D6 system and into whole numbers. Note that the game is not departing entirely from the D6 system, but rather just gaining a bit of freedom.
    -Added in a bit of fluff text.
    -Critical strikes now occur when you surpass the to-hit roll by 3 or more points. You can generate a total of 4 critical strikes on a single hit (12 or more excess). Each critical strike is represented by appending an additional "!". Critical strikes still add 1d6 damage per. In total, you can get an extra 4d6 (4 to 24) extra damage on a single attack with critical strikes.
    -Consolidated Blaster, Carbine, and Rifle skills into "Ranged".
    -Consolidated 1H Melee, Unarmed, and 2H Melee skills into "Melee".
    -Perception adds onto your Ranged and Stealth skills.
    -Reflexes adds onto your Melee and Dodge skills.
    -Strength is now the only attribute that grants additional hit points, but influences no skills. It adds 10 hit points per point now.
    -The average starting attribute score is 3. There is no hard cap.
    -Skills now level up a bit slower differently.
    -Added in new item slots: boots and gloves. Without special enhancements, these items will influence your movement speed and accuracy (respectively), negatively or positively. "Heavier" (i.e., higher armor value) versions will tend to incur more penalties, while low or no armor variants may provide a small bonus.
    -There are less overlapping weapons now thanks to the consolidated list of weapon skills. The goal is for every weapon to feel somehow unique, be it through interesting defensive bonuses, high accuracy, a neat ability, or strong damage.
    -Armor reduces (or improves) dodge now, instead of altering speed.
    -Increased the size of most menus by 20%~.
    -Removed the D6 system entirely. Many balance issues and the like are still being ironed out.
    -Remade the weapons from scratch. They are basically new weapons now and progress differently than before.
    -Most enemies have had their stats changed.
    -Across the board: most numbers are smaller.
    -Replaced the Critical/Fumble system with a Stagger system. An attack is Staggered when a defender's dodge beats an attacker's accuracy by at least 3. Staggers are tiered and reduce an attack's damage by up to 25% per tier.
    -Introduced the Armor skill. Every second point of Armor raises your AC value by 1. Armor depends on Strength.
    -Introduced the Constitution skill. Each point of Constitution raises your maximum hit points by 5. Constitution skill depends on Strength (and Strength no longer raises hit points independently).
    -Skills will no longer be practiced if the skill level is significantly higher than the dungeon level (more than +1). This is meant to help curb defensive skill grinding on the Stealth, Armor, Dodge, and Constitution skills, but will applied to all skills for the sake of consistency.
    -Base hit points are now 20, up from 10.
    -Experience gain and requirements now scale up in a relatively linear fashion. The linearity decreases over time for skills, based on the total number of skill points the player possesses.
    -Updated the help screen (?) again!

[roocey]

Thanks for posting the update, as always. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought it'd be cute to release on New Year's Eve.

I'm hoping to push out a 0.6b and 0.6c during January that implement more content and rework the dodge system (again). There will be other stuff too, but those are the two major points I'll be working on for the next week or two.

[getter77]

Sounds great---always nice to be able to leap out of the starting gate with a good burst.