Shadow of the Wyrm v1.7.2 "Michelagnolo Galilei"(formerly Savage Lands)

[jcd748]

The game looks really interesting, and I'm excited to see how it develops.

Am I correct in thinking that beserker's rings give +10 to damage? I found a couple of them in Siriath's dungeon with my thief, resulting in a 2-hit kill on Siriath. Do they have some sort of downside that I can't see?

Not really a bug, but... is there a more efficient way to travel over water? Having to carry a boat in my inventory seems to be a unnecessarily burden on the character. I'm afraid to ever drop it, for fear of losing it - especially in the dungeon on the island to the northeast.

As for bugs...

-In dungeon generation, I noticed that sometimes doors generate next to each other in odd formations. Groups of 4, and such.

-Holding a poisoned dagger in hand, picking up another poisoned dagger will stack them in my hand. I don't know if that's affecting my damage, but I'm assuming that's not intended. I was playing as a goblin thief, if that means anything.

- There was a fisherman in a town that I visited in the northwest, with no water on the town map. "Good fishing, today." Seems out of place.

- I've also had inventory issues - there aren't enough keys to be designated to items, I can't select some items in the drop screen, and some items (ivory pieces, to be exact) can't be picked up after they are dropped ("You cannot carry that many items.").

-Additionally, I can't leave the dungeon under the old castle northwest of the first town. To be specific, it's the northern dungeon behind the castle - I cannot ascend the < to get out. ("There is no exit in that direction.")

Thanks so much for playtesting the game!  It means a lot to me to get such great feedback so early on.

- Berserker rings are a straight up +10 to damage.  They're meant to help handle the scaling in creature HPs.  They're powerful, but they take a ring slot, and there are other good rings available as well, and hopefully many more in future (there are artifact rings, also).

- Door generation is a bit of an issue right now, more of an artifact of how halls are dug.  Something I want to look at in future, but not a huge deal right now.

- The pickup thing is a bug with huge creatures such as Ogres and Giants (see my post above for how to fix it in your local copy).

- Fishermen's chat text is static.

- The up-exit in the first basement of Wintersea Keep is a bug, and will be fixed in the next version.

- The stacking-items-that-aren't-ammo is a bug that will be fixed in the next version.

As for the inventory issues people have mentioned, are you able to page the inventory?  This is something that probably needs to be explained better, but the keys to use to page are in the message at the bottom of the inventory screen.  It should allow going back and forth between pages to allow you to select any inventory item.  Is this buggy as well?

[barrabus]

I've splatted my first character, and it only took me all of two minutes , so not much commentary on the gameplay yet.  I did notice that one reference to "Savage Lands" escaped renaming in the Races section of the Guide, though.

Edit: After a few more runs, I have some more things to report!

• My Dwarf Pugilist with brass knuckles had an attack speed of 0.  Indeed, it seemed that I could repeatedly punch my enemies in the face in an infinitely small amount of time, making me effectively invincible!  Alas, I was eventually defeated by the unescapable dungeon mentioned earlier.
• In (L)ook mode, 9/u does not move the cursor northeast.
• I also noticed the odd behaviour with dropping items.

I loved the detailed Bestiary descriptions for each monster, and the town history book in Isen Dun.  Perhaps items will eventually get a details screen with more interesting text I can read?

[Faladrit]

As for the inventory issues people have mentioned, are you able to page the inventory?  This is something that probably needs to be explained better, but the keys to use to page are in the message at the bottom of the inventory screen.  It should allow going back and forth between pages to allow you to select any inventory item.  Is this buggy as well?

I'm able to page through the inventory just fine, using [,] and [.]. However, attempting to select some items in the drop menu will turn the page instead of dropping the item. I can drop them (usually) if I filter which item type is to be displayed, though.

- The pickup thing is a bug with huge creatures such as Ogres and Giants (see my post above for how to fix it in your local copy).

Oh, I probably should have mentioned that the pickup issues I experienced were on a goblin. I was incapable of picking up large stacks of items - after dropping a stack of ~100 ivory pieces, I couldn't pick them up again. I could pick up other items in smaller stacks, however.

[jcd748]

I've splatted my first character, and it only took me all of two minutes , so not much commentary on the gameplay yet.  I did notice that one reference to "Savage Lands" escaped renaming in the Races section of the Guide, though.

Edit: After a few more runs, I have some more things to report!

• My Dwarf Pugilist with brass knuckles had an attack speed of 0.  Indeed, it seemed that I could repeatedly punch my enemies in the face in an infinitely small amount of time, making me effectively invincible!  Alas, I was eventually defeated by the unescapable dungeon mentioned earlier.
• In (L)ook mode, 9/u does not move the cursor northeast.
• I also noticed the odd behaviour with dropping items.

I loved the detailed Bestiary descriptions for each monster, and the town history book in Isen Dun.  Perhaps items will eventually get a details screen with more interesting text I can read?

Oops!  As awesome as that makes pugilists (and I wanted a bare-handed death-dealing class!), I think that makes them a little too awesome.  I'll fix the issues listed above and see if I can figure out what the bug is with the inventory code.

The town history book really has two purposes: to provide flavour, but also to provide hints about where to potentially go.  I've thought about adding item descriptions in the past.  It seems I'm not the only one who reads extended descriptions.  I'll add it to the backlog!

Also, the dungeon *is* escapable, the up-exit is just on one of the floor tiles adjacent to the staircase (I mis-specified it in the level's definition).  Not that that helps you now!

[jcd748]

As for the inventory issues people have mentioned, are you able to page the inventory?  This is something that probably needs to be explained better, but the keys to use to page are in the message at the bottom of the inventory screen.  It should allow going back and forth between pages to allow you to select any inventory item.  Is this buggy as well?

I'm able to page through the inventory just fine, using [,] and [.]. However, attempting to select some items in the drop menu will turn the page instead of dropping the item. I can drop them (usually) if I filter which item type is to be displayed, though.

- The pickup thing is a bug with huge creatures such as Ogres and Giants (see my post above for how to fix it in your local copy).

Oh, I probably should have mentioned that the pickup issues I experienced were on a goblin. I was incapable of picking up large stacks of items - after dropping a stack of ~100 ivory pieces, I couldn't pick them up again. I could pick up other items in smaller stacks, however.

Oh, perfect, both of these descriptions will really help me reproduce the issues.  Thanks again!

Edit: currency was being excluded when counting a creature's total items (the intention is you can carry as much money as you can lift), but was not being excluded in the "can the creature pick this item up?" check.  This is now fixed, as are all of barrabus' reported bugs.  I'll look into the inventory bug next.  I'd like to try to do an interim release this weekend with all the fixes so far, as all the issues you guys have reported will really help tighten things up!

[barrabus]

One more issue to report:

I loaded up my lightning-quick pugilist again and found the exit to the dungeon I was stuck in.  I explored around a bit more and went into what I assume was a random-generated dungeon on the world map.  The dungeon was a big open rectangle with rats, moles, and slimes, and on each tile on the edges of the room there was a pile of bones.  On the stairs down there was a (stone?) key, and in the center of the area there was another room all by itself with a locked door.  I picked up the key, and when I tried to enter the inner room, crash to desktop.


#####################
#.........<.........#
#...................#
#....###########....#
#....#         #....#
#....#         +....#
#....#         #....#
#....###########....#
#...................#
#...................#
#####################   (not to scale)

[jcd748]

One more issue to report:

I loaded up my lightning-quick pugilist again and found the exit to the dungeon I was stuck in.  I explored around a bit more and went into what I assume was a random-generated dungeon on the world map.  The dungeon was a big open rectangle with rats, moles, and slimes, and on each tile on the edges of the room there was a pile of bones.  On the stairs down there was a (stone?) key, and in the center of the area there was another room all by itself with a locked door.  I picked up the key, and when I tried to enter the inner room, crash to desktop.


#####################
#.........<.........#
#...................#
#....###########....#
#....#         #....#
#....#         +....#
#....#         #....#
#....###########....#
#...................#
#...................#
#####################   (not to scale)

Hmm.  Was it a red stair?  That's a crypt.  Thanks for the ascii drawing!  Sweet skills.

Do you know if a savefile was generated during the crash?  I've got some code in place so that the game tries to panic-save when it has enough time.  If there was a savefile, can you send it to me?

[barrabus]

Yeah, now that you mention it, I think it was a red stair from the world map.  There was nothing available when I went to Load Game afterwards, so I don't think it managed to write out the save?  Looks like savegames are .sws files in the root directory, right?  I didn't see one of those either.

[jcd748]

Yeah, now that you mention it, I think it was a red stair from the world map.  There was nothing available when I went to Load Game afterwards, so I don't think it managed to write out the save?  Looks like savegames are .sws files in the root directory, right?  I didn't see one of those either.

Aw, poop.  I'll see if I can figure out what's causing it.

[jcd748]

New version - 0.4.1

Windows build: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8dmb2rzaxto7rnz/ShadowOfTheWyrm-Win-0.4.1.zip?dl=0

Not much in the way of new features this version, but there's plenty of bugfixes.

Shadow of the Wyrm v0.4.1 "Torroba"
- Version declared September 1, 2015.  Version finalized September 12,
  2015.

- Pierce damage is now "X tears at Y" (AgingMinotaur).

- Added a file of suggestions to look at for each release.

- Adjusted a few more creatures to not have 'w' for a symbol: woodsman,
  high wizard, dire wolf, witch king.

- In character creation, name has been moved to the end of the process
  at the request of quite a few people.

- Stopped automovement when stepping on an item.  Prevented the
  item-related message from getting cleared from the message buffer by
  the command processing code.

- Automovement also halts when the number of available directions is
  reduced from the number available from the previous step.

- Tanning will now have a chance to also add a portion of the corpse
  creature's original soak value to the piece of armour. (AgingMinotaur)

- Ivory pieces are now "free" in terms of their total number - they do
  not count at all against the total number of items a creature can
  carry (Faladrit).

- Enchanting skins can now add potential soak, that get converted to
  actual-soak when turning the skin into a piece of armour.

- Bug fixes:

  - CarryingCapacityCalculator was missing an entry for huge creatures,
    causing bugs related to maximum number of items (pat--).

  - Wreckers looked like flowers.  Changed their symbol to 'h'
    (AgingMinotaur).

  - Typo in a Lua function name meant Siriath's quest couldn't be
    completed (pat--).

  - Items can no longer be kicked into/through walls (AgingMinotaur).

  - Up exit from Wintersea Keep B1 was declared on the wrong tile
    (Faladrit).

  - Equipment merging was occurring for all slots, not just ammunition
    (Faladrit).

  - Documentation PDFs had a stray reference to "Savage Lands" (barrabus).

  - Brass knuckles and spiked gloves had 0 speed.  This was being treated
    by the engine as a free attack.  Changed the speed to 1 for each,
    and updated the engine to ensure that a valid attack is considered
    at least 1 in terms of speed (barrabus).

  - North-east tile selection wasn't being remapped properly (barrabus).

  - There was a bug in the screen paging so that if the number of lines
    was greater than the allowable number for a screen, the screen would
    not page correctly.  This caused the inventory screen to "jump around"
    (AgingMinotaur & others).

  - The option letters weren't being reset properly, so it was not
    possible to view all of a creature's items without filtering
    (AgingMinotaur & others).

[barrabus]

Hooray, new version!

Some more things I found from 0.4.0:

The crash bug might not be anything specific to crypts - I ran into it again just walking down a hallway at -500' in the dungeon on the starting island (unless this is a different crash-to-desktop bug...  ).  No savefile this time either, unfortunately.

I noticed that when tanning I could use a skin to make a hat, then tan the hat to make an armour, then make something else out of the armour, etc.  Not sure if that's intended or not.

I also saw I could resize the game window, but the screen isn't fully repainted after I do.  So if I was standing on an island like this:

#@#
###
###

and made the console one column wider, it'd look like this after (roughly):

  #@#
 ###
### 

And the statistics bar at the bottom would be gone, etc, but mostly reappear after you gained some xp or something else that updates it.  It seems to work itself out eventually if you move around a bit, or even better go from the overworld map to a dungeon or something.  This may just be a case of "don't resize the console window then, you dummy".

[jcd748]

Hooray, new version!

Some more things I found from 0.4.0:

The crash bug might not be anything specific to crypts - I ran into it again just walking down a hallway at -500' in the dungeon on the starting island (unless this is a different crash-to-desktop bug...  ).  No savefile this time either, unfortunately.

I noticed that when tanning I could use a skin to make a hat, then tan the hat to make an armour, then make something else out of the armour, etc.  Not sure if that's intended or not.

I also saw I could resize the game window, but the screen isn't fully repainted after I do.  So if I was standing on an island like this:

#@#
###
###

and made the console one column wider, it'd look like this after (roughly):

  #@#
 ###
### 

And the statistics bar at the bottom would be gone, etc, but mostly reappear after you gained some xp or something else that updates it.  It seems to work itself out eventually if you move around a bit, or even better go from the overworld map to a dungeon or something.  This may just be a case of "don't resize the console window then, you dummy".

Okay, good - it looks like the crash bug is (probably) something related to NPC decisions, which should make it easier to track down.

The skinning thing is definitely a bug - there's a property on items that says whether or not a generic item is a "skin", and it looks like that isn't being removed as part of the armour creation process.

As for resizing, I never really put any proper support in there for that.  I'll work at adding some code to fix sizes when resizing.  Eventually I'd like to have proper support for resizing console windows, etc, but that's not there right now.

[AgingMinotaur]

New version - 0.4.1

Sweet

As always,
Minotauros

[getter77]

Good stuff, onward!   

[Calandor]

At the risk of seeming obvious, I'm going to ask how to regain #-Spell-Points, (as opposed to AP: Arcane Points, or Mana).  Currently, they only appear to refill, on level-gain.

1. Through resting?  If so, what is the command to rest, (for longer than a moment)?
2. Eating?
3. Potions?
4. Through quest-rewards?
5. Through items eventually gained on the mainland?
6. Through praying?
7. Through praying at a shrine?
8. Is this feature not yet implemented?
9. Through a special Spellbook?  The character began with a Spellbook of Healing, but 3 attempts to read the spell, produced the following result:
a. Fizzle;
b. Learnt;
c. an attempt to Relearn, (namely, to gain a second #-Spell-Point for Heal), resulted in the book's exploding.

Sorry to ask, if this is a spoiler, but I don't want to advance the wrong skills for the caster, through failing to use spells to level up.

Other than this, it seems a fairly brilliant game, if a bit cumbersome in interface, for the moment.  Fewer capitals for command-shortcuts, could help a bit.