Rogue Effect (now at v1.0)

[getter77]

http://dowhilecompiling.blogspot.com/p/rogue-effect.html

Disclaimer: This is a not-for-profit project that has no affiliation with either BioWare or EA whose Mass Effect universe it is set in.

Rogue Effect is a sci-fi themed 2D ASCII* roguelike based on Mass Effect 3 by BioWare/EA and -- more specifically -- its multiplayer component. (Though Rogue Effect is solely a singleplayer experience.)

You play as an N7 operative infiltrating a Cerberus base on planet Sanctum. Your goal is (or at least will be) to make it through 11 levels while fighting Cerberus forces and completing secondary objectives.

Rogue Effect is currently in early alpha and is still missing a lot of stuff. The full game will feature all the original classes, weapons, and other items the ME3 multiplayer had before its many DLCs.

Rogue Effect is programmed in C++ under libtcod aka The Doryen library.

v0.2

Four months since the initial release and the first level is still the only one Rogue Effect has. I can't say I'm happy with the progress. I have, however, enjoyed the time I have spent creating Mass Effect 3 style menus with libtcod. Quite satisfying.

But the actual full length game is not here yet. That will be the next version, I guess. Just thought I should put this out before the 7DRL -- which will hopefully end in success this year. (And hopefully stay as 7DRL, too, so that I can continue to work on this game.)

So, if you want to try your luck on the first level (again), here it is. Enemies no longer spawn infinitely, by the way. They now have a level budget that will eventually run out. And this is how it will also be once I get the rest of the enemy types and levels in.

A new title screen background, too. I realized that since the game is set on Sanctum, maybe it shouldn't have Earth in the title screen. So now there's some random, very blue planet. (Couldn't find a cool picture of Sanctum.)

I was going to release this yesterday actually but then happened to notice that -- for whatever reason -- if the game folder wasn't where the game was compiled, it would crash when trying to read/write a file. (Though libtcod seemed to have no trouble reading the font file and stuff.)

I have no idea what causes this but I was at least able to bypass it by having the Rogue Effect folder inside another Rogue Effect folder. Hopefully it now works for whoever decides to try it. Weird stuff.

Anyway, time to focus on the 7DRL. I'll probably start on Sunday.

New features:
 * Doors, weapon benches, and ammo boxes
 * Lots of shiny menu stuff, including an options menu and a manual
 * Moving the cursor now works as examine for map features/items when no enemy is targeted

 Enemy changes:
 * Some AI tweaks
 * Assault troopers and centurions now use grenades
 * Enemies can now vault over cover

 Misc changes:
 * Modding a weapon now requires standing next to a weapon bench
 * Crates can now be pulled (in addition to being pushable)
 * Crates can now be pushed into drops (the crate will disappear)
 * Adjusted loot drops in preparation for the full length game
 * The game now informs of an item on the floor after moving by vaulting or dodging
 * Thermal clips and grenades are now picked up automatically if there is room
 * Alliance Training evolution 6a now grants weapon reload speed instead of reducing weapon weight
 * Removed exp gains from the kill feed (will be shown as floating combat text in future)

 Fixes:
 * Weapon mods are now placed under the correct weapon type when picked up
 * Common rarity weapon mods weren't dropping from enemies
 * Items can now drop in the same cell with an entity
 * Fixed a cooldown display error in the character screen
 * Fixed a math error in calculating entity movement speed
 * Fixed various other minor bugs
 * Game turn logic wasn't working as intended
 * Exp gain wasn't stopping at character level 20
 * Character level 7 was only rewarding 3 points instead of 4
 * Killstreak medals should now be rewarded correctly

[Zireael]

This sounds like something worth checking out!

[Avagart]

New version doesn't work for me. Immediately after start the exe, application off. Version 0.10 works fine.

[getter77]

v0.3

I always feel like I've forgotten something I wanted to write on a release post. This time is no exception. But no matter; it probably wasn't anything too important. What is important, is that the new version of Rogue Effect is here. And finally a version one can call a game.

I have added all the missing enemies as well as floor progression, secondary objectives, and extraction on the final level. Thus the game is now winnable. At least if you can make it all the way to the floor 11. My best attempt so far has been floor 10. Didn't notice the gap in the wall and the Atlas sniped me...

The game is now easier than previously, mostly thanks to enemy damage scaling with your level. There are still some things that need to be tweaked, of course. To mention a few: Guardians and Atlases benefit from standing behind a low cover (this will be changed), Guardians' M-358 Talons are probably too deadly (they use the same version you can find), and Devices objective is hard as hell.

And then there are bugs to be fixed, things to be polished, and features to be added, etc. For the next release, I'm planning to add five more playable classes and a proper mission failure/success screen that lists your accomplishments. Floating combat text, too.

Also, the thing with the game not launching might still be there. I haven't found the cause for it, and it's unlikely that I've fixed it by accident. Running the game in compatibility mode may help, though.


Highlights:
 * Added floor progression (the game is now winnable)
 * Added three secondary objectives: Assassinate, Devices, and Hack (a random one appears on floors 3, 6, and 10)
 * Added six new enemy types: Nemesis, Guardian, Combat Engineer, Cerberus Turret, Phantom, and Atlas

 Shooting and combat in general:
 * Removed aiming mode to streamline gameplay
 * Changed how accuracy is calculated for headshots
 * The player now starts with 95-100 headshot range (increased from 100-100)
 * Shooting from cover now grants a 30% bonus to weapon stability
 * Projectiles now take a more favorable trajectory in order to hit a target
 * Reloading a weapon after firing it is now faster in game time (mostly noticeable with slow firing weapons)
 * Grenades are now less likely to stay on top of an obstacle they happen to land on
 * Doubled the speed of switching weapons
 * Melee damage bonuses were not working
 * Doubled the player's shield and health gate durations
 * Fixed a possible bug with shield gate
 * Explosions weren't applying power effects on targets (like Concussive Shot's knockback)
 * Fixed a bug causing a crash when grabbing an enemy

 Enemies:
 * Enemies now spawn farther away from the player
 * Hopefully fixed a bug that caused enemies to spawn in odd places
 * Enemy damage now scales with player level
 * Reduced enemy health and shields by ~30%
 * Increased enemy shield regeneration delay by ~20%
 * Made Assault Troopers and Centurions less aggressive
 * Decreased the movement speed of Assault Troopers and Centurions by 20%
 * Slightly increased Centurion's melee damage
 * Fixed various bugs in pathfinding and AI
 * Fixed a bug that caused unarmored enemies (and the player) to have damage reduction
 * Enemies now leave corpses and spray more blood around
 * Enemies now drop only grenades and thermal clips as loot
 * Mostly fixed couple bugs with entities vaulting over the same obstacle or into the same cell

 Items:
 * Scope mods now increase weapon accuracy by 15% (down from 35%)
 * Geth Plasma Shotgun's projectiles now home in when distance to the target is 15 or less
 * Weapon mods are now picked up automatically
 * Weapon bonus items now have a slightly different icon
 * Sniper Rifle Enhanced Scope now highlights enemies through smoke like it was supposed to
 * The Javelin now also highlights enemies through smoke as well as walls if the enemies are near enough
 * Fixed a bug that caused cover penetrating projectiles to lose all their damage
 * The Cobra Missile was using the previously wielded weapon's rate of fire when fired
 * The Cobra Missile now ignores enemy shield gate
 * Cyclonic Modulator's description had an incorrect value

 Map:
 * A set amount of loot now spawns on the floors without a secondary objective
 * Objectives reward loot upon completion (amount based on the speed the objective was completed)
 * Made ammo boxes rarer and randomized the amount of clips/grenades inside
 * Slightly increased the brightness of floor
 * Medals for surviving three, six, and ten floors are now being awarded
 * Walls and such can no longer be destroyed by pushing crates into them
 * Reduced the durability of walls by 80%

 UI:
 * Added action icon hints for possible grabs and vaults (can be disabled in the options menu)
 * Removed autotarget setting from the options menu (the in-game toggle remains)
 * Power cooldowns and durations are now shown in more accurate values in the power upgrade screen
 * Fixed a display error in Concussive Shot's recharge speed
 * Added a number in the inventory screen to indicate the amount of mods found for a weapon type
 * Keypresses are now stored in buffer off-turn to improve responsiveness

 Misc:
 * Fixed a bug causing the game to sometimes crash when returning to the main menu
 * The fade-in from the title screen no longer gets stuck if a new game is started before its completion

[getter77]

v0.4      Stealth ARRP Edition

People seem to have forgotten this year's Annual Roguelike Release Party. It should be this weekend as it's been six months from the 7DRL Challenge (or so I've been told). Maybe someone should've put up a page for it on Roguebasin. Maybe that someone should've been me. I was going to but never did. And now it feels a bit too late...

Nonetheless, party or no, I decided to throw out a release since I didn't do so last year. I planned to get version 0.4 of Rogue Effect ready last weekend but it unexpectedly took me two days to get one new player class in. And thus so I sort of got only halfway through the features I planned for this release. I guess the next version will be out sooner then.

The highlights of this release are the two new player classes -- Human Adept and Engineer -- and floating combat text, which is on the Sparse setting by default. On Verbose, it gets quite spammy with all the damage numbers. The feature can also be turned completely off.

There are some notable bugs in this version I didn't get to fix yet. One of them game-stopping; the game sometimes goes into an infinite loop when the hacking objective is about to complete. May be related to the reward loot dropping and not finding an empty spots or something. The devices objective's timer (and probably assassination's as well) doesn't seem to work either.

And the game's still quite hard. I had a really promising run with the olde human soldier (Indra and Geth Plasma Shotgun as weapons). But then on floor 10 I found the spawnlimits weren't working correctly (fixed now) and I faced three Atlases at once. Which was too much to handle.

New features:
 * Two new player classes: Human Adept, Human Engineer
 * Floating combat text (adjustable via the options menu)

 Changes:
 * Medi-gel, shield packs, and missiles rewarded from completing a secondary objective are now added directly into the player's inventory
 * Moved the announcer's lines from the message log to the unused row above the map
 * Guardians' M-358 Talons have been replaced with M-5 Phalanxes
 * Nemeses now take shots less often (it should no longer be possible to get killed by a single Nemesis)
 * Atlases, Cerberus Turrets, and Guardians (with riot shields) no longer benefit from low cover
 * Decreased Atlases' movement speed by 50%
 * Halved the energy cost for disable device action (should make the devices objective bit easier)
 * Human Soldier's melee now does 75% of normal damage against armor (down from 100%)
 * Guardians now change color (to gray from white) when their riot shields are removed
 * Reduced the damage of power combos by 25%

 Fixes:
 * Enemy spawnlimits were not working correctly on floor 10
 * Fixed a bug in checking if an entity has shields
 * Correct enemy armor value is now used against melee attacks
 * Fixed a bug that prevented Guardians getting movement speed increase when their riot shields were removed
 * Guardians were incorrectly blocking shots fired at their backs
 * Frag Grenade was using Concussive Shot's rank for determining the strength of combo detonations
 * Tech Burst's animation wasn't using the correct characters
 * Fixed a cooldown bonus display error in the inventory screen

[getter77]

v0.5

It's time for a release again. It's long overdue and the next one will probably take just as long. So don't hold your breath. I do plan to get Rogue Effect to 1.0 during the next year, though. And I sure do hope I succeed 'cause I'd really like to work on something else for a change.

The highlights of this release are the three Human classes: Sentinel, Infiltrator, and Vanguard. There's a cool death/victory screen to recap your run now as well. I also made the game easier by removing enemy damage scaling with player level. And thanks to that, I managed to actually beat the game for the first time! I might reintroduce the scaling later on as hard (impossible) mode or something.

The main things I will add in future versions are 12 new player classes (3 per release) and a small achievement/challenge system for the final 1.0.

A word of warning: While testing this release on my netbook just minutes ago, I noticed that spawning Engineer's Combat Drone might crash the game. I tried to fix a bug yesterday and apparently made it worse. Unfortunately I also made it the default power for the class earlier. I will probably do a stealth release (v0.5.1) soon, but in the mean time I'd suggest avoiding the Human Engineer.

New features:
 * Three new player classes: Human Sentinel, Infiltrator, and Vanguard
 * A death/victory screen

 Changes and minor additions:
 * Added many stats to the character screen
 * Enemy damage no longer scales with player level
 * Most attacks have now a force value that may cause enemies/the player to stagger
 * Being flung back by powers now damages enemies
 * Melee attacks no longer ignore shield gate
 * Enemy melee attacks now generate a message
 * Human Engineer now starts with one point in Combat Drone instead of Overload
 * Non-consumable items and stairs to the next level are now shown on the radar when the current level is clear from enemies
 * Changed the color of weapon benches to red
 * Doubled the durability of weapon benches and counters
 * Tweaked the appearance of the main menu a bit

 Fixes:
 * Finally fixed all remaining display errors in the objective info (I hope)
 * Turn counter wasn't working properly (which caused all kinds of silliness)
 * Some of Frag Grenade's evolutions weren't applying their bonuses correctly
 * Combat Drone can no longer be spawned outside the player's field of vision
 * Many powers were displaying their recharge speed incorrectly if power recharge bonus was negative

[getter77]

v0.5.5 ARRP with more amply explicit company this time   

I got to working on this release only on last Friday and thus didn't quite get everything in I had planned. But I didn't want the Annual Roguelike Release Party go by without a release, especially since it's been so long since I have gotten anything out. So here's Rogue Effect v0.5.5.

I had evidently planned to do a stealth release of v0.5.2, too, but had forgotten about it. It's even dated the fifth of January and had a fix for Biotic Charge crashing the game. More new stuff for this release then, I guess.

This version adds a new class, Drell Adept, which has to be unlocked first. You can also see numerical weapon stats in the equipment screen now. A feature the Mass Effect games haven't had since the first...

While quickly playtesting this release, the game got into an infinite loop when going into the score screen. I didn't manage to duplicate it but I should probably try to fix it for the next one.

Also, Franklin Chen had left a comment on this blog (like ages ago... sorry) about Tactical Cloak possibly not working correctly. It is in fact not a bug and the power is working as intended. Enemies don't see you while invisible but they will remember where you were the last time they saw you. So if you cloak out in the open, you'll have to move a bit to avoid getting hit.

New features:
 * Player class: Drell Adept (unlocked by earning a 25 biotic kills medal)
 * Added numerical weapon stats to the equipment screen (toggled with alt)

 Fixes:
 * Fixed a bug caused by the previous Biotic Charge fix

 Other:
 * Hastened the game end fade a bit

v0.5.2 - 2015-01-05

 Fixes:
 * Biotic Charge should no longer sometimes crash the game (I hope)
 * The score screen had some minor problems
 * Armor-Piercing Rounds weren't affecting multi-projectile weapons (namely shotguns)
 * There was a slight confusion in what was considered a hostile attack/target for abilities
 * Enemies killed from being flung back is now counted for the cause type's kills (biotic etc.)

[getter77]

v0.9 ARRP 

Damn. It has actually been a full year since the last release of Rogue Effect. This version is a pretty good one, though -- almost feature-complete. I quite couldn't get saving/resuming in as I was trying to get rid of two major bugs that keep resurfacing: Biotic Charge crash and occasional infinite loop when going to score screen after game end.

The former I managed to fix. At least I did beat the game twice as Vanguard while using the power constantly. So the bug is either gone or has become extremely rare. The latter problem remains still unresolved, however. The game should save all class unlocks regardless if it crashes at the end fade or not, though. So you should only miss the gory details of the current character's run and such. I shall continue hunting for the bug and hopefully get it out for the next version.

Speaking of characters, the highlight of this release are the 11 remaining player classes that were missing from the previous one. They all need to be unlocked first but that shouldn't be too difficult. I also added 15 challenges to beat. And they are difficult. Nigh impossible even. But something to attempt if the game feels too easy.

Like Drakefire Chasm previously, I moved this project to Visual Studio as well. I forgot to target WinXP while compiling it -- which is evidently needed to have a program to work on the old Windows version -- but I'm running out of ARRP release window here so you all 12 people still on XP will have to wait until I feel like compiling, zipping, and uploading again. (Drakefire Chasm should be XP-compatible now, though.)


Release highlights:
 * 11 new player classes
 * 15 challenges for more difficult playthroughs

 Minor new features:
 * A brief intro text when starting a new game
 * Added objective and enemy entries to the in-game manual
 * Added couple new stats to the numerical item info (and made it more readable)
 * Added weapon burst length to the character screen

 Tweaks:
 * Activating Adrenaline Rush now reloads current weapon if it's empty
 * Cluster Grenade missing an enemy now explodes with a delay (like Frag Grenade)
 * Overload now stops target's shield regeneration for 8 turns
 * Increased Frag Grenade's base force
 * Increased Pull's base force
 * Pull's initial damage and force are now affected by power bonuses
 * Slightly increased Sticky Grenade's base force
 * Slightly increased Reave's base force
 * Reduced Incinerate's base force
 * Biotic Charge now does 300% damage on frozen targets
 * Biotic Charge now grants 50% damage reduction for 4 turns
 * Throw now does 200% damage to frozen targets
 * Throw and Pull now gain 10% of their force as bonus damage
 * The force of pushback causing powers is now increased by 50% against targets that are lifted off the ground
 * Warp Rounds now increase weapon damage on barriers by 100%
 * Tech Armor's cooldown is no longer triggered by other powers
 * Tech Armor can no longer be detonated to shorten the cooldown of other powers
 * Doubled the duration of explosion visuals
 * Power damage bonus now affects Combat Drone's damage
 * Changed Combat Drone's Shock damage to 100 (down from 130)
 * Guardians can now be staggered by the force of projectiles hitting their riot shield

 Fixes:
 * Adrenaline Rush's cooldown was being calculated incorrectly
 * Cryo Blast's slow effect was being calculated incorrectly
 * Incinerate's direct damage was higher than intended
 * One of Frag Grenade's damage evolutions wasn't applying its bonus
 * Combat Drone still had its old, shorter cooldown
 * All classes were getting Drell movement speed bonus
 * Human Vanguard wasn't getting power damage bonuses from Alliance Training
 * Alliance Training was granting slightly higher power damage bonus than intended
 * Drell Veteran was granting slightly lower power damage bonus than intended
 * Warp Rounds debuff was possibly not applying correctly
 * Phantoms weren't using protective bubble to block all blockable powers
 * Fixed a possible bug in Guardians' movement
 * Pressing S wasn't switching back to your weapon when Cobra Missile was in use
 * Level exit dialogue now stops other actions
 * Items can no longer get stuck inside doors
 * Weapon stability wasn't being shown on the character screen
 * Fixed some minor display bugs in power descriptions

[Stone Dog]

Latest version is not working for me: when I try to open the .exe, an error stating that I'm missing MSVCP110D.dll pops up.

After a bit of digging, the internet tells me that it's a file that comes with the Visual Studio 2010 redistributable.

I installed it, but the problem is still there.

[Avagart]

It works well now. Uploaded version was debug instead of release - 'd' in MS...D.dll stands for 'debug', and these libraries are not shipped with standard redistributable packages. But just few hours after announcing post, Tanthie recompiled Rogue Effect and uploaded proper, release version - so you can re-download file and enjoy Really good coffebreak roguelike, finally mostly finished.

[Stone Dog]

Awesome. I really like it.

[getter77]

v1.0   

This year's Annual Roguelike Release Party managed to sneak up on me and I didn't quite manage to get a new release out for it. I rescheduled for the next (the past) weekend and missed that deadline too as I ended up going for a double release and debugging two games is twice as much work. Especially if one has an unexplainable bug.

Rogue Effect

Rogue Effect v1.0 release is not as grand as it maybe could be. The big stuff was in v0.9 already and the remaining "0.1" I reserved just for the saving/resuming feature which I predicted to be a considerable amount of work the way I planned to do it. (And it was.)

Nonetheless, the game is now feature complete and I don't plan to work on it anymore unless a big bug turns up or sudden inspiration strikes me. Rogue Effect was originally started as a seven day roguelike and the sort of 7DRL mentality kind of continued through the whole project: its 21.7k lines of code are full of hacks and getting things done as fast as possible disregarding how it would be later to change or add something.

Since it's compiled in Visual Studio, the game requires MS Visual C++ (2010) redistributables to run. I probably should have mentioned this in the previous release(s) but I'll add the links to those now to Rogue Effect's (and Drakefire Chasm's) page.

New features:
 * Saving & resuming
 * Pressing shift or ctrl highlights cover from the cursor's position

 Fixes:
 * Biotic Charge should no longer sometimes crash the game
 * Corrected some power evolution descriptions

[Avagart]

1.0 release of Rogue Effect is what I was waiting for a long time

[Samildanach]

Well that's unexpected!