Wizard's Quest

[Xecutor]

Hello fellow roguelikers.

Here is roguelike game I developed for almost two years in my spare time.
It's still in beta state, but most content is here.

Download page: http://wq.rlgclub.ru/downloads_eng.html

The game is about apprentice wizard who made his way
into trouble due to own stupidity. Now he need your
help to survive. Read manual for details please.

What you can find in this game:
1. Original light system. There is no such thing as permalit cells.
2. Original time system. Effect of most actions happen after
time is spent for this action. You start casting spell,
monsters can move or attack while you casting it,
and than you release it. Drinking potions is not instant too.
It is possible to evade ranged attacks.
3. 12 base magic elements. Any two base elements can be fused,
resulting in 66 possible extended elements.
Special effects of this 12+66 elements is what makes characters
variety in wq.
Don't take fusion system too seriously. It's not realistic sim or
something.
But there is still little logic behind fusion
4. The deeper you go, the more powerful items you will find.
Some items can significally change combat cycle/tactics.
5. There are a few minigames. I'll make more later.
6. There is minimal move/attack animations that make
things a little more clear even without looking into message log.
There is also floating minitext for damage/effects.
And colored glow around letters for effects.
7. There are 2 new monsters each level.
Some monsters are not too original, but some
have quite interesting abilities.
8. There is ultimate escape ability - controlled blink.
It's available right away. But you need to actually see
destination cell. i.e. it must be lit!

At first game may seem very difficult.
But once you get used to it, it's ... well, not easy, but
as long as you don't make mistakes you won't die. Too much

There are 3 difficulty levels.
Casual - damage taken by character is halved, there is no regeneration
limit on levels.
It is possible to load game on death.
Normal - normal damage. Regeneration energy is limited, but there is
plenty of it.
It is possible to load game on death.
Hardcore - normal rl difficulty Spend your mana/hp carefully.
Permadeath.


Preemptive FAQ:
Q1: Why can't I attack/cast spells in any direction, like monsters do?
A1: Monsters can only cast spells in 8 directions too.
As for attack - that's mostly balance issue.

Q2: How can I equip an item???
A2: It's mentioned in manual. Press tab to go to equipment section.
Press enter. Select compatible item. Press enter again.

Q3: Game isn't starting. Something about graphics mode.
A3: One person reported this to me. And didn't answer ony of my
questions.
Most likely this is because his desktop color depth was 16bit. Try
fullscreen mode.
And send your system details to me pls.

Q4: Game is sooo slow...
A4: Game is trying to repaint itself at constant 50FPS. Slowest CPU I
have is C2D 1.66Ghz.
It runs fine on it. I'm afraid I can't help much here.

Q5: Is game even winnable?
A5: Most likely yes

Q6: How many levels are there?
A6: Main villian is on 25th level.

[Krice]

Q4: Game is sooo slow...
A4: Game is trying to repaint itself at constant 50FPS. Slowest CPU I
have is C2D 1.66Ghz.
It runs fine on it. I'm afraid I can't help much here.

Yes you can do something you goof: you can make the game faster. It is slow and you make it slower by using that funny sliding movement and a gigantic resolution. Options are confusing. You can get more players just by changing from rar to zip. Whatever people think about which one of packers is the best, just use the fucking zip when releasing something.

[Xecutor]

What is your hardware where it is slow?
It works fine on slowest PC with celeron CPU I found (at least linux version).
I'm using desktop resolution as base, how it can be gigantic?
Sliding movement is here for a purpose. As well as floating numbers.
To give as much information as possible just from visuals.

Here is zipped version.
It's not that I'm big fan of rar, I just thought it's common enough this days...

For mac users - I'm afraid current version must be installed somewhere
with write permissions.

[purestrain]

I'm using desktop resolution as base, how it can be gigantic?

First:
I tried it a short time and at the first sight i like what i see. It feels not that slow; though i can't imagine why you need 50fps, even if nothing happens. Maybe you should focus on around 10fps with time based animations.

I give it a second shot at home where i've got a single desktop of 3360x1050; i hope it doesn't span across it :-)

If i encounter RAR i mostly think of a virus/illegal things - don't know why, maybe because of a dark past as child... :-)

Edit:
I guess you use some magic in you game for accessing keys. I've got a small program installed which intercepts keys and returns a different key (yes; windows has no included neo driver for key-layout).

This small utility works in almost every program and game, but not in most roguelikes and virtual machines.... If i type my name i get two characters, the original qwertz-based value and the remapped one. This results in:
michael = mmsircuhdafeel

Maybe roguelike devs can rethink their handling of keys? no direct scancodes, just plain input from the underlying operating system?

Greetings
Michael

[Krice]

What is your hardware where it is slow?

Sempron 1.80ghz.

I'm using desktop resolution as base, how it can be gigantic?

You need to learn some basics of resolution to understand. 1580x950 is a large resolution, it requires full HD or better display. You are excluding a lot of players with that kind of requirement, but hey, good luck with that.

Sliding movement is here for a purpose.

For what purpose?

[Xecutor]

First:
I tried it a short time and at the first sight i like what i see. It feels not that slow; though i can't imagine why you need 50fps, even if nothing happens. Maybe you should focus on around 10fps with time based animations.

Later on there are some visual effects that are bound to redrawing.
At 50fps continuous movement is smooth.
I tried 25fps at first, but things looks a little twitchy.

I give it a second shot at home where i've got a single desktop of 3360x1050; i hope it doesn't span across it :-)

If you mean two monitors with total horizontal resolution 3360, than it should be ok.
I have secondary monitor (actually plasma tv) at home, and it works fine there.

[Xecutor]

Sempron 1.80ghz.

Хм. Should be ok, CPU-wise. It consumes 100% CPU while running?
Probably it's not redrawing, but sleep...

I'm using desktop resolution as base, how it can be gigantic?

You need to learn some basics of resolution to understand. 1580x950 is a large resolution, it requires full HD or better display. You are excluding a lot of players with that kind of requirement, but hey, good luck with that.

I don't get you. You are running the game on your monitor.
In windowed mode the game, by default, is about 80% of size of desktop.
If letters are too small for you - increase size of fonts in options.
There is even switchable zoom mode. Explore zoomed out, combat zoomed in.

Sliding movement is here for a purpose.

For what purpose?

The purpose was in next sentence.
"To give as much information as possible just from visuals."
So you don't need to constantly read message log.

[Krice]

In windowed mode the game, by default, is about 80% of size of desktop.

Well, maybe you should mention that somewhere. Does it scale to all possible resolutions then?

"To give as much information as possible just from visuals."
So you don't need to constantly read message log.

What does the moving has to do with message log? Just moving around is annoying, because it's much slower to slide than move one tile instantly.

[Xecutor]

In windowed mode the game, by default, is about 80% of size of desktop.

Well, maybe you should mention that somewhere. Does it scale to all possible resolutions then?

It takes desktop resolution and lowers it a little.
So, yes, it scales.
But right now default values of fonts sizes are fixes.
Probably I need to add some scaling depending on desktop size.

"To give as much information as possible just from visuals."
So you don't need to constantly read message log.

What does the moving has to do with message log? Just moving around is annoying, because it's much slower to slide than move one tile instantly.

If you are next to two rats, and they both move for more than 1 tile during
palyer's turn, with instant move it's hard to tell which one goes where.
Ok, it's not message log, but you will need to e'x'amine which one is which.
Or at least invoke 'q'uick hp display, to finish damaged one.
There is little animation of melee attack of monster to distinguish attacks.

[5v3nd0ttg]

Fun and unique game. I particularly like the movement animation and pop-up animations. The scaling works great on my work computer (teehee) but is... out of control on my multi-monitor setup at home Keep up the hardwork!

oh, side note: I love how simple and clean your games homepage is. Straight to the point. Minimalistic = <3

[Xecutor]

Fun and unique game. I particularly like the movement animation and pop-up animations. The scaling works great on my work computer (teehee) but is... out of control on my multi-monitor setup at home Keep up the hardwork!

Thanks, I'm trying my best
Can you give me some details about "out of control" behaviour?

oh, side note: I love how simple and clean your games homepage is. Straight to the point. Minimalistic = <3

It's homepage of roguelike game, after all

To people who die to first monster they encounter: please read manual in docs/ directory
I'll add in-game tutorial later, but for now there is vital information in manual.

For mac (and probablty not only mac) users who experience game crash on start:
the game must have write permissions to logs, data and dump directories.
So do not install/copy it (for now) to /Programs files/ or /Applications/.

[purestrain]

I tried it now at home... it runs smooth though i burns my cpu - even patrician 2 within wine takes only 20-25% usage.

The screen spans both screens (single desktop, 3360x1050); its not wise to use the desktop as base for game resolution.

I like the animations too (maybe because i'm not a hardcore roguelike fan)

[Xecutor]

I tried it now at home... it runs smooth though i burns my cpu - even patrician 2 within wine takes only 20-25% usage.

It's software rendering after all. And if windows size is around 3200 width, it's a lot of work
On my home computer task manager reports 0% cpu consumption at 1280x1024.

The screen spans both screens (single desktop, 3360x1050); its not wise to use the desktop as base for game resolution.

From one point of view it's bad to make fixed default resolution.
In presense of wide screen laptops there can easily be something like 1280x600.
i.e. even 800x600 as default resolution wont work.
On windows allegro's getDesktopResolution returns only resolution of main desktop.
Probably on linux I need to use another method.
Or use some euristics to fix default size.

[Krice]

If you are next to two rats, and they both move for more than 1 tile during
palyer's turn, with instant move it's hard to tell which one goes where.

I can't see why that would be worse than slow gliding. Maybe you could make it optional? Those who don't care could turn off the gliding and switch to tile movement.

[Xecutor]

If you are next to two rats, and they both move for more than 1 tile during
palyer's turn, with instant move it's hard to tell which one goes where.

I can't see why that would be worse than slow gliding. Maybe you could make it optional? Those who don't care could turn off the gliding and switch to tile movement.

Movement animation is 200ms. I seriously doubt that you can press keys 5 times a second.
But yes, I can make it optional...