Kharne Alpha 1 Available

[Perdurabo]

(Edit: see below)

Shamed into action by the 7DRL folks, I've decided to release an alpha
version of the rewrite of Kharne this coming weekend or so.

Many features will be missing, and gameplay is non-existent yet (its
more of an interactive demo than anything else really), but it will give you an idea of what to expect when the game is finally finished (in the year 2112, probably).

Random screenshot:



It will be downloadable from the Kharne Devblog, http://kharne-rl.blogspot.com/ soon!

Feedback and criticism will be sought and most welcomed.

Best,
Dave

[makkE]

Will it run in fullscreen?

[Perdurabo]

Not at the moment. Eventually, I hope so.

Anyway, I've released an Alpha version, more of an interactive demo really, and you can get it from here:

http://kharne-rl.blogspot.com/2009/03/kharne-alpha-1-available-for-download.html

Enjoy!

[Perdurabo]

New version (Alpha 1b) available which fixes a few annoying bugs and boobs that people have had.

Get it via http://kharne-rl.blogspot.com/2009/03/kharne-alpha-1b-available.html

Best,
P.

[getter77]

Shaping up nifty so far...keep up the good work!   

_{oh how those colorful icons do trigger the instinct for tiles one day}

[Perdurabo]

http://kharne-rl.blogspot.com/2009/03/progress-report-9-ai-mutterings.html has a video showing the initial development on pathfinding and monster AI.

Best,
P.

[magellan]

I found this comment a little odd:

but for every monster that wants to move towards the @ (a later enhancement I'll add is moving them towards the last known position of the @) I need to recalculate the terrain costs of the entire level, and the only way for now to do that is to iterate through the entire level one tile at a time.

Is there any reason to do that more than once? preferably at level creation?

Otherwise this game looks like it will be really pretty cool!

[Perdurabo]

You know, you're right. I was being an idiot.

Originally I wanted to have terrain being given different costs depending on the monster type (for example, Ice-based creatures might treat elemental fire as unwalkable), but indeed, there is no need to recalculate terrain costs for every single monster regardless of whither it is needed or not.

For a group of 30 monsters, only recalculating pathing info once at the start of the processmonsters() routine (as opposed to recalculating it for every monster) reduces the refresh from ~100 ms back down to under 1 ms!

I can add in pathing recalculations for specific monsters that need it later. Cheers

[Perdurabo]

Anyway, Kharne Alpha Version 0.01d is now available from:

http://kharne-rl.blogspot.com/2009/03/kharne-alpha-001d-available.html

Changes in this refactoring and maintenance release:

- Spruced up some of the dungeons with additional terrain types and visual effects
- The Abyss is now a completely different map type.
- The Main Screen can now be resized and maximised.
- Clicking on the Main Screen is now handled more accurately.
- The colours of the Portals in the Nexus now correspond better to the Level Type
- Custom Fonts are now added to the system table using the non-blocking PostMessage API Call
- Fixed a bug in the Dungeon Generation code for the Mausoleum and the Keep that could lead to a morass of dead end passages in certain parts of the map.
- Smoothed the maps for the Elemental Plains to remove most freestanding isolated walls.
- Moved the Status Window to the bottom of the main panel.
- When waiting for a direction to dig in, a visual indicator will now be displayed
- You can no longer dig on the town level


Monster AI is actually mostly implemented, but has been switched off for now until I get combat working as well!

[Perdurabo]

Well, I've been fiddling about with a new UI, to cut down on all the extraneous windows where possible:



Yes, its very Crawl-ey. I know.

[getter77]

Hey, whatever works and is intuitive!   

[purpleflayer]

I like the "monster summary" in the bottom corner.  That is very interesting approach.  I do have a complaint though which is that, I could not remember what all the button syuymbols are.  Is it possible, you can add a little word beneath each to remind what they are?  Perhaps within the icon if you may not mix graphics and text on such controls.

Keep it up

[Perdurabo]

Oh, there's already a standard windows hint that comes up whenever you hover over it for a second or so, but I'll look into what you suggest!

[Perdurabo]

The new inventory GUI.

Full details at: http://kharne-rl.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-inventory.html

[Perdurabo]

A first stab at a revamped magic selection UI: