Developer preview: Incavead (Diggr continuation; open-source, pure ASCII)

[itkachev]

Hello all.

I'd like to announce "Infinite Cave Adventure", a new roguelike and a continuation of 'Diggr'.

Currently it is a polished and playtested game, but not long or fleshed-out enough to be a complete, winnable game.

If you have a Unixy system and a desire to compile stuff, I invite you to play the developer preview.

You can get it here: http://code.google.com/p/incavead/, by cloning the git repository and building the game yourself. (Don't worry, I tried to keep the process as simple as possible.)

What makes this game different:

* Pure old-school ASCII: no tilesets, no 3D, no full-color windows, playable with any Telnet client.
* Optimized code and no dependencies.
* Minimal system dependencies, maximum portability.
* Very different and interesting gameplay process. (No AD&D, no grind!)

Thank you, I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

[getter77]

Ah, congrats on the arrival of the fine return!      It shall be very interesting to see how this develops in the long term once the time for a general public release arrives, considering Diggr and how time has marched onward since then.

[itkachev]

Hello again.

I've buckled down and put up a public telnet server. (It turns out that's not so hard after all.)

You can now play the game by pointing any telnet client to host diggr.name, port 20020.

(Try also connecting directly to IP address 176.58.105.18, since the DNS changes might not have propagated everywhere yet.)

Thanks!

[itkachev]

Bumping with news again.

I've put up a website for the game at dungeon.name. (Features news, highscores and a short explanation of the game.)

There's also some changes on the public server:

• You can access the public telnet server at the new address, host dungeon.name, port 20020.
• A machine-generated highscore table is on the site. Playing on the public server will automatically enter your score.
• Dead player characters will leave gravestones, visible to any other player character on the public server.
• I've implemented a monetary system for the game. Money has no useful in-game function, but will feature on gravestones and highscore entries, for bragging rights.

Thank you.

P.S. Looking for a good public-domain logo for the game, if you have any tips, let me know.

[Chex Warrior]

Awesome! I was wondering when you'd release your next game, just played it and I'm already very excited for the full version. Will definitely be watching this!

Also, could you explain how Karma and the (what I assume to be) god statues work?

[itkachev]

Also, could you explain how Karma and the (what I assume to be) god statues work?

The statues grant magic spells if you have enough positive or negative karma. There's no 'mana' cost for casting spells, but if need to keep your karma low/high or else you'll lose the ability to cast spells.

[deepshock]

Thanks for this! I like these ideas.

[getter77]

2013-06-24:

Lots of new levels, lots of balance fixes! The game now has 15 full, original, filler-free dungeon levels. (Still no victory condition; stay tuned, that's coming soon and will be a surprise, I guarantee.)