Demons of Dex (now available)

[getter77]

http://csdb.dk/release/index.php?id=150286  C64   
http://www.indieretronews.com/2016/09/demons-of-dex-brand-new-roguelike.html

Remember those first days at work? When you were asked to go and get a left handed hammer from the hardware store, or asked to use a computer where they've turned the background picture into a screenshot of the desktop... Well think yourself lucky you didn't go to Druid college, like poor Eino here, applying for the role of Arch Druid in Demons of Dex. A brand new roguelike dungeon crawler from Digital Monastery, the game development arm of Hokuto Force. He's been sent to fight the hell spawn, inhabiting the depths of dungeon Dex, with nothing but a robe and a rusty knife. I expect if you manage to survive the 30 levels, you'll meet one of your Druid colleagues, who'll tell you it was all one big joke.

You start the game with a melee weapon, able to attack enemies, and beat down doors, in an effort to find the steps leading to the next level. You'll encounter a variety of enemies from rats and bats, to undead, orcs, demons and even invisible stalkers and fast spawning slimes. You'll need to explore everywhere to find the powerups required to fight in the later tougher levels. Potions restore health, gems reveal the current level's layout, the staff offers a ranged lightning attack, useful to weaken enemies before engaging in melee. Invisibility cloaks can also be found, as well as the super powerful "Ankh" spell, which will kill all enemies nearby, but you won't be rewarded with XP for these kills.. which will cost you later when you find you're not a high enough level to kill the tougher demons.

This game is a fully featured, well executed roguelike, easily the best on the platform, and one of the best I've played on any platform, for many years. From the docs, to the extensive game mods and graphical options.. You can even play in old school ascii mode, for a more authentic rogue experience (it was originally a unix based game drawn entirely in ascii font). When you've finished the game you can try in extended mode with larger maps, or hard mode with more levels and demons. This game was built with love, and most importantly total respect for the platform's capabilities. An essential new release for your favourite 8bit.

[Legend]

This looks pretty rad. If only it were for the Speccy too!

[phvic]

Hi! I am the creator of Demons of Dex, a game I released for the vic-20 last year. Please note that this version endorsed by CSDb is an unauthorized version that was made behind my back and without permission. A C64 group who call themselves Hokuto Force took the "Copyright Petri Häkkinen. All rights reserved" tagged source code from Github added a few bells and whistles like the titlescreen, options and custom charset. The gameplay is identical to the vic20 version because they used the stolen source code as is (C64 and vic20 can run the same machine code). As you probably know for roguelikes gameplay is king and everything else is superfluous. They are now representing the c64 version of the game as their own creation and give me no credits on the CSDb page and the marketing material they are posting on the web.

I have asked the game and its page to be removed from CSDb but the admins of the site apparently do not care about copyright infringements and support Hokuto Force's illegal and immoral actions.

Full story here:
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7648

Petri Häkkinen
The creator of Demons of Dex

[SomeGuy]

Hi! I am the creator of Demons of Dex, a game I released for the vic-20 last year. Please note that this version endorsed by CSDb is an unauthorized version that was made behind my back and without permission. A C64 group who call themselves Hokuto Force took the "Copyright Petri Häkkinen. All rights reserved" tagged source code from Github added a few bells and whistles like the titlescreen, options and custom charset. The gameplay is identical to the vic20 version because they used the stolen source code as is (C64 and vic20 can run the same machine code). As you probably know for roguelikes gameplay is king and everything else is superfluous. They are now representing the c64 version of the game as their own creation and give me no credits on the CSDb page and the marketing material they are posting on the web.

I have asked the game and its page to be removed from CSDb but the admins of the site apparently do not care about copyright infringements and support Hokuto Force's illegal and immoral actions.

Full story here:
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7648

Petri Häkkinen
The creator of Demons of Dex

Sad news if you ask me.
I have the version downloaded from the Legend of Grimrock forums, announced by Petri (I guess, you, unless you are falsely impersonating him here).
I suppose that the "Grimrock" version is the actual original version. Right? .prg file 3,585 bytes.

[EDIT]

BTW, I just visited that "Hokuto Force" page, and I noticed this:



They are giving credit to you as the original developer. They just made a version of the game.

[phvic]

Yes, I am Petri on the Grimrock forums and the 3585 bytes version is the vic20 game I wrote.

[SomeGuy]

Yes, I am Petri on the Grimrock forums and the 3585 bytes version is the vic20 game I wrote.

Please, check my edited message just there up.

[phvic]

Yes I know they give me credits in the game but it really downplays my contribution and emphasizes their own. Even my surname is not shown in the titlescreen and my name should really be on the top just below the titlescreen. Moreover if you google up "Demons of Dex Hokuto Force" you can see that they clearly present the game as if it was their creation. I would not have approved the released of the c64 version in this form (whose source code is in large parts identical to the vic20 version) if I would have had the choice.

[TheCreator]

I would not have approved the released of the c64 version in this form (whose source code is in large parts identical to the vic20 version) if I would have had the choice.

It seems that those Hokuto Force guys have asked you directly for the permission, so unless I'm missing something you can only blame yourself for not responding to their request. Anyway, your decision to quit open source and give up exotic platforms is just what I would recommend to you if you don't accept the fact that somebody may pick up your code and use it to create their own variant.

[getter77]

What an odd situation to crop up---I thought I vaguely remembered something like this from the Grimrock camp as well quite some time ago but reckoned my memory was playing tricks.