Land of Strangers #13 (One Crawled out of the Foxhole)

[AgingMinotaur]

LAND OF STRANGERS
alpha open weird wild west fantasy cowboy RL

Get yer downloads here!

Released: Version 11 (Mercury Bubblegum)

This is an interim release of LoSt, preceding a hefty rewrite of some of the systems. I wanted to start refactoring from a clean cut, so to speak, so I'm publishing what I have to date. In other words, LoSt is still in alpha. Compared to #10, this version contains some bug fixes and a bit of content. The most spectacular feature is perhaps that you can now gain followers by choosing the "Populist" shtick.

Comments are always appreciated, on appropriate forum threads, per email, or you can fill out the in-game survey that I added as an experimental feature in this version. It'll be interesting to see whether that garners any response, and if I can use it to guide and motivate further development.

As always,
Minotauros

CHANGELOG
BUG: Couldn't pick up lead slugs when pockets were full
BUG: Buggy inventory interface if pockets were empty
BUG: Critters turned invisible when spending props
BUG: Could see through walls at certain angles
BUG: (Serious) bug that made game pick invalid kits
BUG: Bug that printed nonexisting plants and obstacles
BUG: Spitting bush had forgot how to spit
BUG: Some instances of NPCs getting stuck repeating one action
BUG: Crashed because game tried to draw outside the screen
GAME: Player can now start with up to two shticks
GAME: Some props can be used directly from inventory (experimental)
GAME: Prompt to abort extended actions when hostiles enter line of sight
GAME: Commandline options to set world seed
GAME: Scrollable menus (needs polish, but should work
GAME: Cleaned up the log area a bit
GAME: Can save multiple characters in the same world
GAME: Default field of vision now set to 11
CONTENT: Renamed "derringer" as "pepperbox gun"
CONTENT: Fleshed out animal species a bit
CONTENT: Weapon prefixes
CONTENT: Added some skills, props, places and critters
CONTENT: Backstory generator now spits out terser texts
AI: Added more bias switches: annoy, please, exalt
AI: Action calculation for fields of battle plants should be quicker
AI: Gain followers (experimental)
AI: Most beings now set to stay at home or roam their native region
AI: Toolwielders now better at choosing their weapon
VAR: Added an in-game survey
VAR: Various tweaks and fixes

Edit: Download links

[Avagart]

Nice, congrats for new release! I didn't play LoSt for a longer while, so maybe I won't notice some changes... But OK, let's write some gameplay diary

- In the description of Dilettante there is "Guaranteed skills" written, without any other info; due to name of that background, I think taht Dillettante doesn't have any special skills? So this text seems unnecessary
- Placeholder for Swordfighter background includes TODO info
- Sometimes icons of keyboard shortcuts are displayed wrongly
- There are structures that really looks like buildings, yay!
- Working shops, yay!^2
- But sometimes the display of new kind of walls seems a bit glitcher. OK, it happens also for old structures, but - maybe due colors - is less conspicuous
- Using all skills takes whole turn to activate? It's strange in some cases, like sprinting. It's like, I can move away from that animal... But I can't run away! It's weird.
- Sometimes new layer of info overwrites the old one, without panel refresh
- Tumbleweeds are awesome!
- It's nice to see how shopkeeper that killed me, become dead due to bear attack
- some small typos in '?'help screen; some lines ends by dot, some not; on the third line, ',' should be placed after '.', not before; similar thing for the last line; comma after '9' (Quick choose from current menu) is unnecessary
- not sure about that, but it seems that enemies, unlike player, do not have to correct, uhm, line of sight to attack
- regarding to changelog: why rename derringer to pepperbox? Maybe it's worth to keep both?

In general, I'm content with that release, it's good to see new content and mechanics added. And, man, I'm sorry, I feel terrible when I'm reporting issues, it's like, don't know, sort of discouragement. I hope you don't feel it in that way

edit: I was trying to use in-game survey, but I encountered error. Don't know what, message didn't specify that. It happened when I pressed 'send answers' option. Could you add possibility to copy the comment to the clipboard?

[AgingMinotaur]

Yay, comments!

- In the description of Dilettante there is "Guaranteed skills" written

You're right. Removing it, as you suggest, is probably the simplest solution. It was meant to reflect (a bit jokingly) that dilettantes start with two completely random skills, in contrast to the other careers, who each has one guaranteed skill and another skill chosen randomly from the same area/skilltree.

Placeholder for Swordfighter background includes TODO info
Sometimes icons of keyboard shortcuts are displayed wrongly

Heh, my apologies. There's always some pieces that get left (more or less completely) unpolished Those PgUp/PgDn buttons turned out particularly badly because I was very clumsy inserting them into the existing UI. Hopefully fixed within a release or two (and surely with new, unpolished featured added).

sometimes the display of new kind of walls seems a bit glitcher. OK, it happens also for old structures, but - maybe due colors - is less conspicuous

This annoys the hell out of me, as well, and has been particularly frustrating to get working, because of two facts taken together: A. the player is allowed to scale to any resolution, and B. it's on a hexagonal grid. Making tiles that scale perfectly has just proven a bigger task than I can handle. On the long todo-list is to dump this feature and just offer several fixed resolutions (from tiny to huge), and have separate spritesheets for each resolution. That way, I would be able to make all angles fit perfectly, because it would be pregenerated as opposed to scaled during runtime.

Using all skills takes whole turn to activate? It's strange in some cases, like sprinting. It's like, I can move away from that animal... But I can't run away! It's weird.

Sprinting is particularly broken at the moment, nerfed into uselessness. You're right about skills taking a turn to use by default, and sprinting is obviously one thing that should be an exception to this rule. In general, I feel like the tactical system, initiative etc. isn't quite there yet. The underlying system intends to counteract some things like the "hack'n'back" strategy, but I'm stuck with other problems, like how biting animals can instakill (by successively paralyzing with critical hits), or how switching props in the middle of a melee fight is basically suicide. Some times I feel like resigning the underlying rules, but I may be better off finding what doesn't work and fix that.

not sure about that, but it seems that enemies, unlike player, do not have to correct, uhm, line of sight to attack

They shoot according to the same rules as the player, including that their shots can go wild. So they may hit you at an oblique angle if they are aiming next to you. (And in fact, there are techniques to wilfully increase your chance of wildfire, like fanning your gun at a tumbleweed surrounded by baddies. I was wondering about a boss template that trades accuracy for bullet hell by dual-wielding sawed off shotguns or something like that )

regarding to changelog: why rename derringer to pepperbox? Maybe it's worth to keep both?

I'll keep it in mind… The reason I removed the Derringer name, was because it was one of very few named references to Earth, where the other guns have descriptive names ("sixshooter" rather than "Colt"). If LoSt even plays on Earth, it's a quite different Terra than our own. Again, I'm still figuring out some of the basics of the setting, including to which degree I should reference Earth vs. generating lore from scratch all the time. I had an idea to maybe randomly generate spoofs off of famous gun brands, but never got around to doing it (yet). Something is definitely on the horizon in this department, though

In general, I'm content with that release, it's good to see new content and mechanics added. And, man, I'm sorry, I feel terrible when I'm reporting issues, it's like, don't know, sort of discouragement. I hope you don't feel it in that way

Quite the contrary! I think constructive criticism is the highest of praise. Thanks also for typos etc.

I was trying to use in-game survey, but I encountered error. Don't know what, message didn't specify that. It happened when I pressed 'send answers' option. Could you add possibility to copy the comment to the clipboard?

Hm. That survey was a last-minute addition. Are you on Windows? I only properly tested it in Linux; now I feel quite stupid thinking about people who might be doing me the favor of filling out the form only to get their answers flushed. I should have my dusty old netbook with Windows around here somewhere, so I can hopefully make a quick fix.

Thank you for your continued support of the game, man

As always,
Minotauros

[Avagart]

It was meant to reflect (a bit jokingly) that dilettantes start with two completely random skills, in contrast to the other careers, who each has one guaranteed skill and another skill chosen randomly from the same area/skilltree.

Probably you could make it just more clear. For me, as I'm aware that LoSt is still in early stage of development, it looked like placeholder. Or some sort of error handling.

They shoot according to the same rules as the player, including that their shots can go wild.

OK, maybe I messed something, but - just tested. I can't hit a lyncher (orange one) in that position, but he can shot me. It's not big deal because turning PC is free action, but - still...

I'll keep it in mind… The reason I removed the Derringer name, was because it was one of very few named references to Earth, where the other guns have descriptive names ("sixshooter" rather than "Colt")

True that, but I think that these small references to our well known Wild West makes game more, say, 'rooted' in that atmosphere. But it's your game and your decision, I won't lobby that

Quite the contrary! I think constructive criticism is the highest of praise.

Well, I'm glad to hear / read that

That survey was a last-minute addition.

Yup, I'm on Windows. Didn't test it on Linux, although I could do it later.

Thank you for your continued support of the game, man

No problem, it's pleasure

Also, few new, bad things.

Just noticed that player sprite is not displayed when enters on hex that was occupied by tumbleweed in the moment of move. Nah, my English is messy, so grab next screenshot

OK, game just crashed. Didn't run it via terminal so I can't post traceback. I was testing some scenarios, then I quit game without saving. So, in main menu, I started new game - male unpromising duelist. Game crashed after I confirmed name of my character.  ...Shit, I didn't figure out that LoSt creates log, and that new log overwrites the old one... I'm unable to replicate that bug.

[AgingMinotaur]

Well, I think I fixed the problem with the survey, at least. A new exe has been uploaded, patched to always save a copy of the survey, not mention that it should now be able to actually send the data! Users who run from source/linux are not affected. Thanks again for the head up.

As always,
Minotauros

[AgingMinotaur]

By some ill-boding twist of fate (yet, ill-boding still unbeknownst to whom), you'd gleaned the location of an infamous fugitive. So you found yourself down at Arken Jailhouse, at least to ogle the Wanted-poster and count your options, as well as your leads …

Hello, bois and gyrls, it's story time again. I just put up a new version of LoSt on Dropbox. Get it here:

Download Land of Strangers #12

The development blog has a post about the release. It's a pretty big one, I guess. There are a lot of changes in relation to older versions. My personal favorite is probably that you can now rest at a (currently unique) saloon to heal long-term wounds. This costs cash, and you have to make sure that the saloon keeper stays alive. (If not, who is going to put chocolate on your pillow in the morning? Later versions will include several resting hubs in each game world, so a little bar brawl won't necessarily be a biggie.) The resting system is quite basic now, but opens up for some of the feature ideas I've been having for years.

The world still feels a bit uninhabited and samey, but I put in an obvious "mission". It's included to add a sense of purpose and to prototype some of the new systems (advanced players: play as mudfaced goons with populism and try to shoot the sheriff instead). My hope now is to work on adding more missions and other points of interest that can be randomized and mashed together for every new game to create some kind of unique "world lore" for each Land.

There are some bugs sticking in the release, of course. The graphics engine has some general issues, but I decided to leave a lot of that for now. Some last minute changes did introduce even more weirdnesses, however, so I hope the rendering doesn't get too confusing to look at. I'll try to add some quick fixes to make sure all actors are always visible, and that speech scrolls display in a more proper order; and perhaps save the much-needed refactoring for later Be that as it may, I'll just leave the changelog below.

As always,
Minotauros

CHANGELOG #12

* SYSTEM: Started work on travelogue mode (zoomed out overworld map)
* SYSTEM: Scaled everything up a bit in size (world generation and tactics)
* SYSTEM: Added base system for boons (quests and achievements)
* SYSTEM: Added long-term resting (incomplete)
* SYSTEM: Added individual reputation stat for Critters (incomplete)
* SYSTEM: Added system for dynamic nicknames (incomplete)
* SYSTEM: Placeholder system for experience and shtick acquisition (temporary)
* SYSTEM: Disabled sprinting (temporary)
* SYSTEM: Drop/pickup now works on adjacent tiles
* SYSTEM: Give items by dropping them onto an adjacent NPC
* SYSTEM: Replaced wound system with a flat "grit" meter of bruises/injuries
* SYSTEM: Interrupted attacks not blocked, but always graze/go wild
* SYSTEM: Increased inventory space
* SYSTEM: Flumadiddling (inventory handling) now counts as a free action
* SYSTEM: Flumadiddling with cocked guns can be dangerous
* SYSTEM: Better support for instantaneous events
* SYSTEM: Perks and skills merged to one category, shticks
* SYSTEM: Character generation changed to reflect new shtick system
* SYSTEM: (testing) Set all shtick costs to 1 point in character generation
* SYSTEM: Kits for unarmed combat moddable (like prefixed guns etc.)

* CONTENT: Start game in Arken Town, a small settlement
* CONTENT: Basic bounty: Bring a wanted bandit to justice
* CONTENT: Changed intro text to reflect sample, soft "win condition"
* CONTENT: Simple rivers and mountains added as climate types
* CONTENT: Added some props: [redacted] and more
* CONTENT: New shticks: Muster, Circle blow, The breathing way, Leatherbrain
* CONTENT: Made bricks stackable and gave them stats as thrown weapons
* CONTENT: Derringers and pepperbox guns are now two separate types
* CONTENT: Changed effect of adrenaline syringe to: heal all bruises
* CONTENT: Changed effect of bleeding to: inflict all bruises as wounds
* CONTENT: Changed feel no pain to: always heal for 3 turns
* CONTENT: Changed war wound to: increase chance of wounds healing badly
* CONTENT: Changed tough as nails to: decrease chance of healing badly
* CONTENT: Removed Swordfighter career, added Barber instead

* UI: Started to implement mouse support (incomplete)
* UI: Configuration wizard for first-time players
* UI: Message log now oriented to center of the menu
* UI: Message log not flushed between turns
* UI: Added option to cancel character creation mid-process
* UI: Replaced dual-button system with main button (experimental)
* UI: Separate shortcut keys for inventory (default [F1-F10])
* UI: Shortcut [G] and [,] to get/give/drop command
* UI: Commands to zoom in/out on map
* UI: Menus reorganized to put option 0 on top
* UI: Scrolling menus are still ugly and buggy, but less buggy
* UI: Distinct animation for grazes and several other events/effects
* UI: Support for onomatopoeta (sound effects) on tactical map
* UI: Added colored messages (signals pleased/annoyed status)
* UI: Speech scrolls now take a few seconds to fade out when dismissed
* UI: Removed all non-free fonts from the game
* UI: Modified font (Linux Biolinum) for better unicode support
* UI: Redid the in-game character sheet a bit
* UI: Disabled player survey (at least for now)
* UI: Removed obsolete manual (temporarily)
* UI: (debug) print_me() to log/stdout when looking at beings slightly prettier
* UI: (debug) Game now makes a backup log when the game crashes

* WORLD GENERATION: Place templates can contain player's starting position
* WORLD GENERATION: Merged Region and Climate classes
* WORLD GENERATION: Added Superregion class (named region on the map)
* WORLD GENERATION: Region name generation takes climate etc. into account
* WORLD GENERATION: Lots(!) of small and big changes to how the world is built

* AI: States can be pure switches
* AI: State machine can remember several distinct targets at once
* AI: Can prompt the player to choose an alternative and react accordingly
* AI: Can test (simple) scripted conditions directly from the data files
* AI: Some tactical changes to reflect new combat systems (incomplete)

* BUG: Time system with simultaneous actions wasn't simultaneous
* BUG: Shtick descriptions weren't displayed during character generation
* BUG: Sometimes crashed when critter ai had no target
* BUG: Game crashed with manually inputed world seeds
* BUG: Trying to draw off screen crashed (hopefully fixed)
* BUG: Various other small bugs that would crash for no reason
* BUG: Post mortem "screensaver mode" sometimes hung
* BUG: Impossible to demolish house walls
* BUG: Certain places didn't spawn at all
* BUG: Savescumming may have been buggy, should now be more fool proof
* BUG: Help screen didn't print command keys properly
* BUG: Game window sometimes started maximized when it should not
* BUG: Reset some attributes when patching beings with certain kits
* BUG: Some speech scrolls were rendered twice (fixed, but reappeared )-:
* BUG: Some speech scrolls didn't get painted to the map
* BUG: Speech scrolls flickered for a split second between turns
* BUG: Sprites disappear when several gets drawn to the same hex
* BUG: Certain "steppable" objects, like thorns, didn't work properly
* BUG: Random characters always started with "animal friend" shtick
* BUG: Character sheet listed inventory's kit names instead of prop titles
* BUG: Typo in /kits/desert_life/brains.yug made tool wielders unable to attack
* BUG: Dilettante sometimes got same skill twice
* BUG: Attack forms without crit effects did no damage on crit hit
* BUG: Typos: "pilarist", "omniscinet", "likelyhood", and a few more ...

[Tzan]

You need to remove the quotes on the link, it doesnt work now.

A Pillarist is a guy who makes pillars ?
A already know a Dentist is a guy who puts dents in things with a hammer.

[AgingMinotaur]

Thanks for the heads up. A pillarist is a guy who lives on a pillar (hermit), actually

As always,
Minotauros

[akeley]

Just tried on Win 10, does not work for me. A window opens and throws some messages, too fast to read though.

[AgingMinotaur]

Hmm. I got another Windows-centric bug that I managed to reproduce, so let's hope the best. That one was related to running the game fullscreen – default, I'm afraid – but really shouldn't prevent the game from starting.

The game may have left a crash log in a directory like \your_home\.LoSt\log\ If so, feel free to paste the ending here or send it to me or something (spam.minotaur.spam at googlemail)

Come to think of it, if you've had LoSt installed on the same computer earlier, the problem may be related to a lingering config file. If so, it might work to delete LoSt's folder and try again. Don't forget to backup the log first, tho' Thanks for the interest, it's much appreciated!

As always,
Minotauros

[akeley]

The log file is empty, this is from the cmd window:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages\PyInstaller\loader\rthooks\pyi_rth_pkgres.py", line 11, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "site-packages\pkg_resources\__init__.py", line 36, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\parser.py", line 12, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\feedparser.py", line 27, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\message.py", line 16, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\charset.py", line 13, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\base64mime.py", line 40, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\utils.py", line 32, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "email\_parseaddr.py", line 16, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "calendar.py", line 3, in <module>
  File "c:\users\simen\temp\pip-build-tpd5tu\pyinstaller\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 396, in load_module
  File "config.py", line 1110, in <module>
  File "config.py", line 909, in setup_assist
pygame.error: Couldn't open ../graphics/parchment.png
[7188] Failed to execute script pyi_rth_pkgres

There is the parchment.png file and I run the lost.exe as Admin with all permissions. It's the first install on this machine and since forever - of course I'm curious

[AgingMinotaur]

Okay, I managed to reproduce the bug and hopefully fix it. Maybe you can see if this works:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/40wkrn2k95je0k0/LoSt_12.1_win.zip?dl=1

As always,
Minotauros

[akeley]

Ok, it works now, well, sort of because I had some crashes (to desktop) in-game.
-one happened when  I tried to give something to an NPC with F10
-then I started next game and it crashed just after few moves for no particular reason

I'll send you contents of the log via pm, I can't figure how to attach it to a post.

Game looks great and snazzy so hopefully you can find out what's up and I will be able to play for real

EDIT: log too big for PM. Sent email instead, let me know if you got it coz these get lost in spams quite often nowadays

[AgingMinotaur]

So, I found the bug that can cause the game to crash when offering NPCs gifts. The other one is still a bit mysterious, but my hunch is that it's related to the game trying to draw outside of its window boundary, which turned out to be an issue for certain resolutions under Windows with this release. So I guess I'll tidy up the code that causes this, and try to put out a hopefully more stable release within the week or so.

As always,
Minotauros

[Tzan]

I was making a 2d tile game on the Atari ST in C, in the early 90's.
Everything was going great, it was playable, then I started getting graphics corrupted.
Turns out I had made the active unit flash on/off and when the screen scrolled away, it was flashing off screen in nearby memory.
Which was where all the tile images were sitting.
On that system you needed to manually allocate memory to load images and create the screen area.