Author Topic: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)  (Read 11016 times)

espectra

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Hey everybody, Voyage to Farland is my labor of love project to introduce the Japanese console roguelike sub-genre to a wider audience. Well, sure - everybody knows the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, but not so many have played the harder Shiren the Wanderer games.

Voyage is now on Desura for $2.99. It's also available on the Peculiar Games website for a bit less than that ($2.50), selling "direct" via Sellbox. And there are free demos for Windows and Linux on the website, too. You can try out pretty much everything in the game, including rescues, but there IS a levelup cap of 5.

Voyage is also part of the Rugged Rogues bundle along with ToME and Man in a Maze. And there's a Bundle+ option which adds in Obludia and Dungeon Prospector.


New stuff in version 2.2.5 of Voyage:
  • rescue codes (get a friend to rescue you or be a good samaritan and rescue a wanderer in need - yes, I stole this idea from Shiren DS)
  • fullscreen support, including a wider cell display area compared to the mobile Android version
  • a new bonus dungeon and NPC with a pretty interesting persistent levelup mechanic that is sort of questy, collectible, achievement-ish (well I like it anyway)



Finally, here's a youtube playlist with Let's Plays I and BrianDaGod made.

Happy wandering :)

getter77

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2013, 07:08:50 PM »
Nicely done---keep at it!   8)
Brian Emre Jeffears
Aspiring Designer/Programmer/Composer
In Training

espectra

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2013, 07:28:56 PM »
Thanks! I'll keep at it -- this game keeps pulling me back to work on it every time I try to escape.

AgingMinotaur

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2013, 11:06:50 AM »
Cool. I've been curious about this game for some years. Now that there's a Linux demo, I'll check it out one of these days.

As always,
Minotauros
This matir, as laborintus, Dedalus hous, hath many halkes and hurnes ... wyndynges and wrynkelynges.

espectra

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2013, 02:33:37 PM »
Cool. I've been curious about this game for some years. Now that there's a Linux demo, I'll check it out one of these days.

As always,
Minotauros

Yes, please give it a try. I made the Linux builds from a pendrive Ubuntu install, which is kind of wacky but cool.

I think I've noted on the download page that the game requires Java, so you'll need one of the openjdk jre or jdk (6 or 7) packages installed.

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2013, 07:34:54 AM »
Hey, I just read your article on Gamasutra. Inspiring stuff – I agree that Shiren is The Good Stuff, and I had to laugh at the concept of Obatarian (is the O- in this case an honorary prefix? that would make it even more hilarious).

Less exalting is the fact that Voyage crashes on my Eee PC netbook (running Debian "wheezy"). With Sun's java (version 6), I get no display at all. With openjdk (version 7u25-2.3.10-1~deb7u1), I get a small window that plays some music and displays a few logos, before cutting to a forest scene, that I only get a glimpse of before the application crashes. I'll paste the error message below, in its entirety.

I've got an old Mac sitting at home with Debian on it as well, so I'll see if I won't get the opportunity to try it on that machine during the weekend or something.

As always,
Minotauros

Running openjdk-7 (just to be certain, I tried with openjdk-6, as well, and that exits similarly, with what seems to an identical error message):
Code: [Select]
simen@coupdepoudre:~/data/spill/voyage_to_farland$ ./voyage_launch.sh
------------------------------------------------------------------------
current DisplayMode is 1024x600
------------------------------------------------------------------------
can do 12x7 80 pixel cells at this resolution...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
limiting to 12x7 cells to enforce 16x10 max
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OVERRIDING PREFERRED DISPLAY MODE SETTINGS SINCE THEY ARE INVALID (ONE OR MORE = 0)
screen wid, hi -> 960,560
Scale X,Y -> 2.5,2.5
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current directory's canonical path: /home/simen/data/spill/voyage_to_farland
Current directory's absolute  path: /home/simen/data/spill/voyage_to_farland/.
**********************************************************
*****   STARTING THE GAME      ***************************
**********************************************************
 *** PREFERRED DISP MODE SEEMS TO BE UNSET - SETTING WIDTH TO 1024
 *** PREFERRED DISP MODE SEEMS TO BE UNSET - SETTING HEIGHT TO 600
Fri Aug 30 09:12:12 CEST 2013 INFO:Slick Build #274
DSBASEWIDTH, HEIGHT -> 256.0,192.0
winfactor -> 2.5
screen wid, hi -> 640,480
DRAW_ACROSS DRAW_DOWN -> 9,7
DOING BORDERS -> false
DRAW_SHIFT_X _Y -> 192,60
screen wid, hi -> 640,480
Scale X,Y -> 2.5,2.5
Fri Aug 30 09:12:13 CEST 2013 INFO:LWJGL Version: 2.8.4
Fri Aug 30 09:12:13 CEST 2013 INFO:OriginalDisplayMode: 1024 x 600 x 24 @60Hz
Fri Aug 30 09:12:13 CEST 2013 INFO:TargetDisplayMode: 640 x 480 x 0 @0Hz
Fri Aug 30 09:12:14 CEST 2013 INFO:Starting display 640x480
Fri Aug 30 09:12:14 CEST 2013 INFO:Use Java PNG Loader = true
Fri Aug 30 09:12:14 CEST 2013 INFO:Controllers not available
screen wid, hi -> 640,480
Scale X,Y -> 2.5,2.5
Fri Aug 30 09:12:15 CEST 2013 INFO:Initialising sounds..
Fri Aug 30 09:12:15 CEST 2013 INFO:- Sound works
Fri Aug 30 09:12:15 CEST 2013 INFO:- 64 OpenAL source available
Fri Aug 30 09:12:15 CEST 2013 INFO:- Sounds source generated
SFX LOADED ALL SOUND FX!
GT language is en
GT lib fullname from arch is libpecvoy32
GT os.name is linux
HARDWAREallocating 512 bytes for huddotsbuffer
HW ScaleX=2.5
HW ScaleY=2.5
GAMETHREADSkipIntro is false
Calling Pecvoy_main() with language=0x101
PA_AND_lib: *DEFAULT SIZE*
PA_AND_lib: SCREEN DIMENSIONS: 8 x 6 cells
PA_AND_lib:                OR: 256 x 192 pixels
PA_AND_lib:  language=101
PA_AND_lib: *DEMO*
PA_AND_lib:  language set to 1 in engine
PA_AND_lib:  autosave pref is FALSE
PA_AND_lib:  skipintro flag is FALSE
Pecvoy_main(): creating pthread for engine
RescuesSupported(): timestamp string is 2013-08-30 09:12:19.101

Pecvoy_main(): SUB thread for engine
ibxm alpha 45 (c)2006 mumart@gmail.com
--------------------------------------------------
master_font_factor for ttf font is 38.4
--------------------------------------------------
master_font_factor is 2.0
--------------------------------------------------
docslen is 145
screenwidth is 640
infox is 495.0
ibxm alpha 45 (c)2006 mumart@gmail.com
ibxm alpha 45 (c)2006 mumart@gmail.com
Fri Aug 30 09:12:43 CEST 2013 ERROR:Attempt to allocate a texture to big for the current hardware
java.io.IOException: Attempt to allocate a texture to big for the current hardware
at org.newdawn.slick.opengl.InternalTextureLoader.getTexture(InternalTextureLoader.java:293)
at org.newdawn.slick.opengl.InternalTextureLoader.getTexture(InternalTextureLoader.java:231)
at org.newdawn.slick.opengl.InternalTextureLoader.getTexture(InternalTextureLoader.java:171)
at org.newdawn.slick.Image.<init>(Image.java:196)
at org.newdawn.slick.Image.<init>(Image.java:170)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.FilterableImage.<init>(FilterableImage.java:21)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.SpriteBitmap.UseBitmap(SpriteBitmap.java:114)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.Hardware.ProcessRequest(Hardware.java:2068)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.update(GameTest.java:1236)
at org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer.updateAndRender(GameContainer.java:657)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.gameLoop(AppGameContainer.java:408)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.start(AppGameContainer.java:318)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.main(GameTest.java:1510)
org.newdawn.slick.SlickException: Failed to load image from: data/owllv2x.png
at org.newdawn.slick.Image.<init>(Image.java:199)
at org.newdawn.slick.Image.<init>(Image.java:170)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.FilterableImage.<init>(FilterableImage.java:21)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.SpriteBitmap.UseBitmap(SpriteBitmap.java:114)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.Hardware.ProcessRequest(Hardware.java:2068)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.update(GameTest.java:1236)
at org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer.updateAndRender(GameContainer.java:657)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.gameLoop(AppGameContainer.java:408)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.start(AppGameContainer.java:318)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.main(GameTest.java:1510)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Attempt to allocate a texture to big for the current hardware
at org.newdawn.slick.opengl.InternalTextureLoader.getTexture(InternalTextureLoader.java:293)
at org.newdawn.slick.opengl.InternalTextureLoader.getTexture(InternalTextureLoader.java:231)
at org.newdawn.slick.opengl.InternalTextureLoader.getTexture(InternalTextureLoader.java:171)
at org.newdawn.slick.Image.<init>(Image.java:196)
... 9 more
Fri Aug 30 09:12:43 CEST 2013 ERROR:null
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.SpriteBitmap.UseBitmap(SpriteBitmap.java:129)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.Hardware.ProcessRequest(Hardware.java:2068)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.update(GameTest.java:1236)
at org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer.updateAndRender(GameContainer.java:657)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.gameLoop(AppGameContainer.java:408)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.start(AppGameContainer.java:318)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.main(GameTest.java:1510)
Fri Aug 30 09:12:43 CEST 2013 ERROR:Game.update() failure - check the game code.
org.newdawn.slick.SlickException: Game.update() failure - check the game code.
at org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer.updateAndRender(GameContainer.java:663)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.gameLoop(AppGameContainer.java:408)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppGameContainer.start(AppGameContainer.java:318)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.main(GameTest.java:1510)
AL lib: FreeContext: (0x9676220) Deleting 64 Source(s)

Running Sun's Java (version 6.26-3):
Code: [Select]
simen@coupdepoudre:~/data/spill/voyage_to_farland$ ./voyage_launch.sh
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /home/simen/data/spill/voyage_to_farland/lib/liblwjgl.so: /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/jre/bin/../lib/i386/libjawt.so: symbol awt_Unlock, version SUNWprivate_1.1 not defined in file libmawt.so with link time reference
at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary1(ClassLoader.java:1953)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1878)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1868)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:849)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1087)
at org.lwjgl.Sys$1.run(Sys.java:73)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.doLoadLibrary(Sys.java:66)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.loadLibrary(Sys.java:95)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.<clinit>(Sys.java:112)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.<clinit>(Display.java:132)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.DispMode.<init>(DispMode.java:98)
at com.peculiar_games.vtfpc.GameTest.main(GameTest.java:1345)
This matir, as laborintus, Dedalus hous, hath many halkes and hurnes ... wyndynges and wrynkelynges.

espectra

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2013, 10:07:46 AM »
Hey, I just read your article on Gamasutra. Inspiring stuff – I agree that Shiren is The Good Stuff, and I had to laugh at the concept of Obatarian (is the O- in this case an honorary prefix? that would make it even more hilarious).

Less exalting is the fact that Voyage crashes on my Eee PC netbook (running Debian "wheezy"). With Sun's java (version 6), I get no display at all. With openjdk (version 7u25-2.3.10-1~deb7u1), I get a small window that plays some music and displays a few logos, before cutting to a forest scene, that I only get a glimpse of before the application crashes. I'll paste the error message below, in its entirety.

I've got an old Mac sitting at home with Debian on it as well, so I'll see if I won't get the opportunity to try it on that machine during the weekend or something.

As always,
Minotauros


Hey Minotauros,

Sorry about all this! I've never seen this sort of thing on the machines I regularly test on.

Looks like SUN's Java may not be playing nice with the lwjgl library. I've only tested with openjdk -- I think the openjdk-6-jdk package in the Ubuntu software center to build, and openjdk-6-jre & openjdk-7-jre to run, although -jdk also has the runtime stuff, so either one should work I think. I've tested Linux mostly on my own notebook (HP dv4) from pendrive Linux Ubuntu 12.04 (I think), so after booting it seems to take a while for the Ubuntu software center to pick up the very latest openjdk packages from the "Universe" repository.

Anyway, that's just background info. The main problem in your error output seems to be the "Texture too big..." line. I guess either the graphics card (or chipset since it's a notebook) can't handle the owl sprite texture -- which isn't big at all.

I did a bit of googling and saw people saying to update lwjgl.so (Java OpenGL library), but the one I've included seems to be fairly recent (2.8.4). OK, just checked and there IS a newer version available from Sourceforge here. You could try dropping the linux lwjgl.so and lwjgl64.so into the lib directories for the Voyage installation, but it's a long shot whether that would fix the problem.

Also, fiddling with the graphics chipset settings may or may not help.

If your Mac with Debian has an Intel based CPU, you could try the game on that. Unfortunately, the whole Voyage for Linux build assumes Intel/x86 based CPUs for now.

I'll also google some more and see if I can find other ideas or fixes. Feel free to email me at the address on the download page (just below the Sellbox button) in the meantime.

Again, sorry about the problem! And stay tuned.

EDIT:

- if you try that latest lwjgl from Sourceforge, you should probably also copy lwjgl.jar (from jar/) into the Voyage jars directory (in addition to the native/linux/lwjgl.so & native/linux/lwjgl64.so into the Voyage lib directory)

- if you don't mind more experimentation, you could make a pendrive Ubuntu USB stick (4GB should be sufficient) with either YUMI or unetbootin to see if Ubuntu can run Voyage on your hardware. I've had success with Ubuntu 12.04_Live, but as I wrote above, you'll have to wait and otherwise convince the Software Center application to look for openjdk on the Universe repository - sometimes it won't find openjdk-7-jre initially, then does after a minute or two, then finds a newer version of it after another minute!?
« Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 11:23:19 AM by espectra »

espectra

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2013, 12:21:18 PM »
Hey, I just read your article on Gamasutra. Inspiring stuff – I agree that Shiren is The Good Stuff, and I had to laugh at the concept of Obatarian (is the O- in this case an honorary prefix? that would make it even more hilarious).


I got so freaked out that the game crashed on your machine, I forgot to answer your question about the Obatarian!

My Japanese isn't perfect, but my understanding was that Oba is used for a woman older than the speaker, but not necessarily elderly. So teenage kids would call a woman in her 30s Oba-san, or "aunt" -- not to be confused with Obaa-san (longer "ah" sound) or "grandmother". I think the "O" is an honorific, like Ocha for tea, Okane for money.

Anyway, they combine Oba with ba-ta-ri-an (battalion) into Obatarian.

There are lots of other funny combinations -- let's see if I can remember more:
kimo-kawa = kimoi + kawaii, roughly creepy but cute
puri-kura = purinto + kurabu (print + club from English, those little photobooth stickers
mukku = magajin + bukku (magazine + book)





AgingMinotaur

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2013, 10:37:33 PM »
Hey, just a tiny update: I get the same problem on my intel-based Mac Mini (running the same OS), so it seems this might be a software problem, as you say. I'll see if I get more success with the *.so-thingy from Sourceforge and/or booting Ubuntu (been thinking about putting Ubuntu on the old Mac, anyway) – and will come back with good news soon, I hope :)

As always,
Minotauros
This matir, as laborintus, Dedalus hous, hath many halkes and hurnes ... wyndynges and wrynkelynges.

espectra

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2013, 03:20:35 PM »
Hey, just a tiny update: I get the same problem on my intel-based Mac Mini (running the same OS), so it seems this might be a software problem, as you say. I'll see if I get more success with the *.so-thingy from Sourceforge and/or booting Ubuntu (been thinking about putting Ubuntu on the old Mac, anyway) – and will come back with good news soon, I hope :)

As always,
Minotauros

I hope you can get it working with your Mac Mini and Ubuntu! If not, it may mean I need to work more on the game code to have it run on a broader range of PCs and chipsets/gfx cards!

Keeping my fingers crossed.  :)

espectra

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Re: Voyage to Farland News (a Shiren-like rogue-like) $ (but free demo)
« Reply #10 on: September 22, 2013, 07:00:47 PM »

Less exalting is the fact that Voyage crashes on my Eee PC netbook (running Debian "wheezy"). With Sun's java (version 6), I get no display at all. With openjdk (version 7u25-2.3.10-1~deb7u1), I get a small window that plays some music and displays a few logos, before cutting to a forest scene, that I only get a glimpse of before the application crashes. I'll paste the error message below, in its entirety.

I've got an old Mac sitting at home with Debian on it as well, so I'll see if I won't get the opportunity to try it on that machine during the weekend or something.

As always,
Minotauros


Hi Minotauros,

I PMed you, but apparently the temple forum ate it!?

Anyway, I got another similar crash report and did some digging. Apparently, some older graphics chipsets have a stricter texture size limit.

I made a test build that falls back to lower resolution sprites when the spritesheet blows the chipset limit. The game was failing on a friend's HP ze4900 notebook with 82852/82855 GM/GME graphics chipset, but the test build now works with a couple of caveats:

- the game's pretty slow until you turn the map off (M key)
- the lower resolution sprites it substitutes (there are only a few) look pretty crappy (Toy Robot, Evilbot, etc.)

If you'd like to give it a spin, PM me and I'll give you the link!