Javelin 1.6

[javelinrl]

Hello veterans and rookies! Today Javelin 1.6 is being released! It’s a big one so let’s get to it!

For those new to the game you can find out all about it here https://javelinrl.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/hello-world/

You can download your copy of Javelin 1.6 right here https://github.com/tukkek/javelin/releases/download/1.6/javelin.zip

 If you have any sort of problem running the game check the link above for further instructions.

This release brings some changes to the early and late game, while also creating a new well-defined end-goal for each game. Besides a lot of new monsters for low level characters to duel against there are also new starting locations that will help you get the party started: the Adventurers Guild lets you apply starting kits to your units while the Training Hall provides an early challenge that also promises great rewards in a low-danger environment.

You will now find 7 temples scattered throughout the world map: each of them is a persistent, multi-level dungeon and holds a Relic on their deepest levels – each a powerful item on its own and now essential to winning the game, as you need to collect every relic to do so! Hopefully this will make each game feel more like a story while also providing interesting strategic decisions – should you rush towards each temple to reap the benefits from its Relic as soon as possible or level up enough to be able to face them with ease later on? Will your priority be vanquishing the forgotten temples or conquer the entire world map first?

There are new special locations too! The Summoning Circle lets your characters learn powerful summoning spells to bring forth allies during battle and the Pillar of Skulls, a macabre but powerful ally will accept several sorts of sacrifices and grant you fair boons for your trouble!

This release brings the full set of terrains predicted in the d20 rules – and with that also a system of seasons and natural hazards which you’ll discover while exploring the game world. Sail uncharted waters and try to find your way through massive sandstorms! This new system also makes world movement more dynamic and even lets you shape the world with your town workers – Civilization style!

The interface has been improved as well: you can now put your units under the control of the computer, activate quick combat (combat results are calculated automatically), edit your preferences and key settings via in-game screens and take notes with the new journal feature! The save system is faster, more robust and creates backups of your progress every time the game is started. A few bugs have been fixed too so if you had trouble losing progress on earlier versions please give this one a try! The AI now constantly monitors its own performance and suggests fixes if your configuration is less than optimal for the game. If and when an error occurs a lot more information is shown so you can submit it as a bug report.

And these are just a few of the new features! Check out the other highlights here:

    New locations: 7 temples, 11 mage guilds, troves and mines!
    New starting locations: Training Hall and Adventurers Guild!
    New unique locations: Summoning Circle and Pillar of Skulls!
    Around 50 new monsters!
    New end-game goal: bring the 7 Relics to Haxor!
    All game images can now be easily modified! (mod/skin support)
    New damage effects: poison, paralysis, fear
    Burrow movement
    New item type: wands
    New skills: use magic device and heal
    New transport: sailing ship
    More realistic, dynamic land movement
    Seasons, new terrains and terrain features
    Town workers let you build roads, settlements and more
    Player units can now be set to automatic (controlled by AI)
    New party option: strategic combat (skips random encounters)
    Preferences and command keys can now be edited in-game
    In-game journal for taking notes
    More information on errors, for easier bug reporting
    Improved save system, also creates automatic backups
    AI system now monitors thinking speed and corrects itself if slow
    183 monsters
    47 items, 12 artifacts
    63 upgrades, 49 spells, 13 skills
    22 battle maps

Full post with more screenshots and information https://javelinrl.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/javelin-1-6/

[getter77]

Congrats on yet another very robust release from the looks of it---each one of these only further loads the dice in your favor!   

[javelinrl]

I wonder why Javelin makes so little success here while it's generally well-received elsewhere (if not a huge hit either).

Anyways, like most open-source developers I'm just trying to make the game that I want to play, I'm just happy if others come along for the ride Thanks for the compliments once again!

[getter77]

U/I and Graphical polish will get there in time to "catch up" with the massive variety and depths of systems you've got going now that you've got some help on that front---that's one of the main things as far as juicing the lot of it up.  Might be able to draw in a fair bit first from the P&P communities side of things as more structure and narrative aspects get nailed down and polished in tun.  Possibly also good old fashioned Java Reticence, heh.

[Krice]

I wonder why Javelin makes so little success here

It is a roguelike, right?

[javelinrl]

U/I and Graphical polish will get there in time to "catch up" with the massive variety and depths of systems you've got going

Yeah it's quite a lot of work rewriting quite possibly all of the UI. Honestly rewriting stuff is often harder than creating things from scratch - as you say there is a lot to rewrite  I"m not looking forward to doing it on my own, though with next release I'll see about adding basic mouse support. As you say it will probably help the game a lot to become and easier an more fun experience - though you'd imagine roguelike fans would feel at home with keyboard-only input...

more structure and narrative aspects get nailed down and polished in tun.

Let me know if you have any ideas!

[javelinrl]

It is a roguelike, right?

I've got some feedback that it's not but I see it as a roguelike-like, leaning towards being TBS and a "normal" RPG game. It's really between genres I believe but if you'll take a look at the Berlin interpretation it's clear most roguelike aspects are present http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation

[Aukustus]

What bothers me is the backgrounds of characters. I guess they are to differentiate them from background objects, but I don't like the look of solid color behind them. I guess the tiles are stackable? I suggest tinting the background instead.

[getter77]

Yeah, a lot of this comes down to "OK, what approaches are the Best In Class taking across the spectrum(of modern Roguelikes and cRPGs)?  Right, XYZ.  So, how to aim for at least parity on all fronts possible and then trying to slip ahead in the footrace here and there..."

Based on earlier reckonings and elsewhere, starting from the absolute default baseline of Snappy/Smooth Turns is probably another big thing as even in full on TBS fare the clock is still loudly ticking here in reality looking into the machine and even enthusiast folks have general expectations---folks only chill naturally when crazy generating and/or happenings are demonstrably going down as per 4X Illwinter CoE/Dominions, Dwarf Fortress, etc.

[javelinrl]

What bothers me is the backgrounds of characters. I guess they are to differentiate them from background objects, but I don't like the look of solid color behind them. I guess the tiles are stackable? I suggest tinting the background instead.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I've tried that but when I tint the background it loses the definition of the health indicator (color strength).  The transparency means that the contrast between the brighter full life and duller injured hues is too small to be of clear significance.

My top priority right now ts working on a new screen that will be faster to process (you won't believe how many speed hacks are in the current one - https://github.com/tukkek/javelin/blob/master/javelin/view/screen/BattleScreen.java). It should look roughly the same but allow mouse support and incremental rendering during battle and world exploration. I'll see what I can do about the monster's background, maybe just draw a footer instead of the whole tile. Let me know if you have other ideas since now would be the perfect time to try them out!

[javelinrl]

So, how to aim for at least parity on all fronts possible and then trying to slip ahead in the footrace here and there..."

I'll probably sound smug as fuck saying this but I don't think there is any free game that compares to Javelin in this genre. At least not when it comes to multi-platform open-source titles. To be honest if there was any I wouldn't even have bothered starting the project in the first place. To be honest I don't even think there are any open-source TBS out there that compare (in my personal opinion) - Wesnoth and UFO:AI are nice but they really don't hit that sweet spot for me, the likes really great games like Heroes of Might and Magic and Jagged Alliance achieve. Let me know if I'm missing any great games that do.

I haven't played any of the titles you mentioned except DF but even then I think Javelin is ahead in gameplay. Sure, I'm sounding smug again but for starters you don't need to wait half an hour for world generation and the game is a lot simpler while maintaining a comparable level of strategic complexity - there may be less individual nuts and bolts involved but I don't think micro-managing your nation's inventory down to the number of axes and hammers is what makes a game good.

As far as the other titles go, let me know where I'm lagging behind in parity since I'd love to catch up as much as time permits. No need to talk interface here though since I'm well aware that is a huge let down in Javelin - unfortunately this will need to wait a bit longer until a total UI overhaul.

[getter77]

Well, I was speaking in absolutes really---commercial or otherwise, even at this end of the crazy pool it is unavoidable that you'll be going up against others new and old in these accelerated times of indie and hobbyist games alongside the rest.  Nailing a distinctive style/feel/personality to the game is key atop a robustly functional interactive apparatus that enables and encourages such as opposed to bogging things down or obfuscating needlessly.   Heh, if you like the older HoMM games I'd probably say take a crack at Palm Kingdoms II(went free recently), and III when it happens, by iosoftware.

My examples were to do with constraints being factored into the flavor and appeal in such a way that they become part of the shared ritual, as it were.  If everything somehow loaded in DF so fast that you couldn't hope to read or get any sort of spectacle out of it, well, the game would actually lose some charm probably, heh.   Based on mass combat and D20 reckonings in 2D combat, I'd say definitely check out some videos at least of Conquest of Elysium IV as it is probably one of the nearest neighbors out there already in terms of the starting, albeit lo-fi, approach and availing with some transparency of at least DSomething dice rolls.  Granted, folks fuss about it amply for a host of other reasons, but it at least gives some food for thought and vicarious stress testing of ways and means.

Heh, all I'll say on interface is that should the need for a fair number of ingame key presses be high even amidst your mouse support aims, you could definitely find an at least inspirational path for use and presentation in Knights of the Chalice as it handled it rather well even back in the old demo.      Anything that can be configured ingame at a main start menu and the like, probably should be versus any file hunting in the folder(s)~

[Krice]

It's really between genres I believe but if you'll take a look at the Berlin interpretation it's clear most roguelike aspects are present

What aspects? Can't you give a simple answer? When I read the description it was also hard to understand what kind of game we are talking about. You seem to mention roguelike often, but apparently the game is a D20 RPG.

[Aleksanderus]

Oh man, I didn't notice this thread... Gonna play the new version today!

[javelinrl]

Well, I was speaking in absolutes really---commercial or otherwise, even at this end of the crazy pool it is unavoidable that you'll be going up against others new and old in these accelerated times of indie and hobbyist games alongside the rest.  Nailing a distinctive style/feel/personality to the game is key atop a robustly functional interactive apparatus that enables and encourages such as opposed to bogging things down or obfuscating needlessly.   Heh, if you like the older HoMM games I'd probably say take a crack at Palm Kingdoms II(went free recently), and III when it happens, by iosoftware.

My examples were to do with constraints being factored into the flavor and appeal in such a way that they become part of the shared ritual, as it were.  If everything somehow loaded in DF so fast that you couldn't hope to read or get any sort of spectacle out of it, well, the game would actually lose some charm probably, heh.   Based on mass combat and D20 reckonings in 2D combat, I'd say definitely check out some videos at least of Conquest of Elysium IV as it is probably one of the nearest neighbors out there already in terms of the starting, albeit lo-fi, approach and availing with some transparency of at least DSomething dice rolls.  Granted, folks fuss about it amply for a host of other reasons, but it at least gives some food for thought and vicarious stress testing of ways and means.

Heh, all I'll say on interface is that should the need for a fair number of ingame key presses be high even amidst your mouse support aims, you could definitely find an at least inspirational path for use and presentation in Knights of the Chalice as it handled it rather well even back in the old demo.      Anything that can be configured ingame at a main start menu and the like, probably should be versus any file hunting in the folder(s)~

Looks like Palm Kingdoms classic is for Windows mobile only, unfortunately. Yes I know in absolutes I can't compete with commercial games - but that is fine, I'm in this for the freedom. The freedom to make my own thing, to cover a niche that I feel is empty in the current open-source strata, to give the players the freedom to alter their game (even the images are super-easy to change nowadays) like I've done (and contributed) to DCSS and other titles before with code and comments.

Conquest of Elysium IV is commercial and I have no interest in paying for games at this point - if you can link me a fair review from the top of your head I'd be happy to read/watch it. though  Again freedom is what drives much of the project for me - I've been using Linux at home, using it pretty much exclusive for work too and (humble) gaming and never paid a single cent for any of it. It comes a time right now when I feel like I can give back something of my own to the FOSS community. It's not all about money either - it's the things I've said above too plus that some commercial games won't run on older hardware and also the fact that undeniably most commercial games need to make concessions on their style to suit a larger audience, which bothers me when I don't have full access to modify the game. Of course there are here and there state-of-the-art games that bother none with such non-sense but I really don't want to or feel like I need to support the gaming industry right now when so many other causes deserve my money/time/energy much more.

Knights of the Chalice too is Windows-only so I can't try it atm.

> all I'll say on interface is that should the need for a fair number of ingame key presses be high even amidst your mouse support aims

Oh well that's d20 for you You'd roughly have to roll the same number of dies as you do clicks in the game right now when playing tabletop. I think the system is pretty fun and I think Paizo and the entire D&D 3.0-3.5 team would agree too, not to mention all the publishing companies for d20 and fans who still play the game today despite 4e and 5e being out for a while already. The battles certainly take seriously a lot less time than playing D&D for real or even playing wargames and hopefully the entertainment factor is not too different (even if it's no replacement to the real thing)! I guess I'm the one talking in absolutes now, but it's all in good faith Putting some units on automatic mode or making message delay/thinking time faster can help the impatient ones as well, as will mouse support help a bit!