Void Sanctum - [SUCCESS!] - v1.01 (new builds + MUCH smaller download!)

[jere]

I only got to play it for a few minutes during lunch, but the presentation, music, sounds, and text is very nice (what I expected from the vlogs, which were very cool). The combination of art+ascii (e.g. bushes) is interesting. I don't recall seeing that before.

The tool tips are a little finicky. A lot of times they liked to hang around off screen and the text is a little hard to read on the tips and on the inventory. It was bit annoying to have to drag the items to specific slots with no labels, though I don't know of that is actually implemented yet since there are no numerical descriptions (or perhaps that's a design choice). The combat appeared to be... dance around an enemy and make sure you get the first strike, but I could be wrong.

I'll try to get back to it later.

[Avagart]

It is very primising project, I like it. Graphics, music, all is nice... and nicer. I hope that you will continue development of Void Sanctum! However, I have a few, hmmm, cautions? I don't know if it's a good word.
First - please, make possibility to walk diagonal! Ability to move in only four directions in roguelike isn't a good idea imo.
Second - objects are spawned in blocked tiles (like walls) often.
Third - I have some problems with the mouse. When I click on the, for example, armor (trapped in the wall), then description window appears, disappears for a moment, then it appears, and so on.

After all - congrats! Good job, guys

[Samildanach]

I only got to play it for a few minutes during lunch, but the presentation, music, sounds, and text is very nice (what I expected from the vlogs, which were very cool). The combination of art+ascii (e.g. bushes) is interesting. I don't recall seeing that before.

The tool tips are a little finicky. A lot of times they liked to hang around off screen and the text is a little hard to read on the tips and on the inventory. It was bit annoying to have to drag the items to specific slots with no labels, though I don't know of that is actually implemented yet since there are no numerical descriptions (or perhaps that's a design choice). The combat appeared to be... dance around an enemy and make sure you get the first strike, but I could be wrong.

I'll try to get back to it later.

It's a bit buggy, it's true. Basically a result of events which got in the way of coding time. I had that same problem with dragging gear to the unlabelled slots but if you just drag it over the @ paperdoll thing, it should auto-equip to the right slot.

First - please, make possibility to walk diagonal! Ability to move in only four directions in roguelike isn't a good idea imo.
Second - objects are spawned in blocked tiles (like walls) often.

I agree, generally, about movement. I prefer 8-way to 4-way but there are plenty of roguelikes that use 4-way successfully. POWDER, for instance. I think the fact that we didn't implement the combat system we intended and it ended up being more about dancing around enemies shows up the restrictions of 4-way movement more than it would have if we'd got everything in that we wanted.

The objects-in-walls thing is one we were aware of but there wasn't time to fix it before release. The curse of 7DRLs!

Thanks for feedback, all!

[PTrefall]

Yeah, without the ability system and armor/low-health system we had planned in (there was simply not time to do these the way our week went), the combat mechanics aren't very interesting. I really hope to be able to continue work on this in my evenings after I have taken some time off, and get those systems in for the game we envisioned. The game is mostly about the presentation style, the MUD-influenced descriptions and horizon, and the exploration of the different areas of the game at this point.

[PTrefall]

Version 1.01 is now released, with (untested) deployments to Linux and Mac OSX. This is mainly a bugfix patch to the 7drl version, so no new features. The size of the pack is also optimized from 433mb to ~100mb.

Fixes for this version is:
– Items should no longer spawn inside of walls.
– Tooltip should now display correctly on screen.
– Background to equipment slots in character ui, and slightly more intuitive “drop to center to equip” text.
– Music is now compressed to Vorbis and streamed rather than loaded into memory.

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Void_Sanctum
Download here

[Avagart]

Good changes. Result of what changes is much less size of archive? Compressed music?

[PTrefall]

Yes, it's the music. I could get the file size even further down  if I spent more time on it, but I wanted to get thsee bug fixes out ASAP!

[Samildanach]

PTrefall has done some bug fixing, put together Linux and Mac OSX builds as well as Windows - and vastly reduced the download size! It's now down to ~100mb

[PTrefall]

Post-challenge analysis and dev play from Alan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO58VV0nClY

[Avagart]

It's little odd, but game freeze (but it isn't good word - explain later) when I go to some regions. For example, game always rebels when I try go to 'right', 'east' in first not-home location (ie first I go from 'brown' homenland up, then in forest region go right).

Why the 'freeze' word isn't best word to describe it? Because this is not crash. Game working all the time, I can exit to menu, but PC - when he is on '/' tile - is unresponsive, cannot move etc.

[Samildanach]

You shouldn't be able to exit that way because there's nothing there, but it shouldn't freeze. I just tried it and it doesn't freeze for me. PTrefall is the tech guy though.

[PTrefall]

Avagart: Hm, yeah, after having a quick look at the code that handles this, I have no idea how this could be possible. I fail to reproduce this myself also, so a strange one indeed!

In other news, our game was mentioned in PC Gamer's "Best free games of the week"!

[Avagart]

Hm, strange. I check it now and... doesn't freeze. Dunno.

But I have another report. Character is spawned without HP/mana often. Or... Almost always for me. I though that this is graphical bug, but probably not - one hit by everyone can kill me.

screenshot

And another questions...
What's about character sheet? Should I have 34006 HP? And how to drop items?

[Samildanach]

Hm, strange. I check it now and... doesn't freeze. Dunno.

But I have another report. Character is spawned without HP/mana often. Or... Almost always for me. I though that this is graphical bug, but probably not - one hit by everyone can kill me.

screenshot

And another questions...
What's about character sheet? Should I have 34006 HP? And how to drop items?

We didn't have time to implement combat as we hoped to thanks to real life stuff, so we fell back on a 1HP system. There's nothing in the game which uses mana, so that's removed as well.

Those are things which we'll put in if we return to the game for further development.

[PTrefall]

Crazed Naly did a let's play of our game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-q4jFJMnNQ