Dungeonmans!

[ido]

I think both sides were a bit overly sceptical and sensible

I think "sensitive" is the word you are looking for (sensible mean "sinnvoll").

Blasted false friends

[mariodonick]

Ido, you're right. Thank you.

[getter77]

Upon a quick check, apparently the game does work on my PC.   Somehow it ended...either a crash or I hit the wrong key.

Anyhow, at a glance, the "not able to equip" red text in the weapon shop overlaps with the descriptions of a 2 handed maul and other such thing.   Also recall an instance of the text going outside the white box/black background border.  Message dialog box gets in the way pretty badly in terms of the dungeon view, unless I missed the way to disable it if no noteworthy actions are taking place.  Would do well to have a listing of feats in order of acquisition for skill points spent, or at least what the next level in it would bring to the table---once such matters actually get nailed down that is.

false friends?  noo~!   

[dungeonmans]

The log is indeed getting in the way, so here's a sneak peek at the updated UI currently running on my build at home:

http://www.dungeonmans.com/images/new_ui_layout.png

I've centralized the hero so he can at all times see 4 tiles above and below him, and move his HP (and new Stamina) vitals down to the lower part of the screen.

[getter77]

That looks like a nice improvement dungeonmans---keep 'em coming!   

[Krice]

Installing was less painful than I thought, but the game refuses to work. It stops responding when run. Hardware should be ok, OS is Windows 7.

[dungeonmans]

@Krice: Argh, I'm sorry to hear that. Mainly this is my fault for not writing a proper installer and relying on what XNA gives me. What I can suggest is this:

- uninstall the game via the control panel
- grab latest build from the site (it has some UI fixes, which is nice)
- install it by running setup.exe first, if you run the dungeonmans.application first it won't work.

I will try to have a better method of installing for Alpha 4.

[Chex Warrior]

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2009/06/12/9740290.aspx

Use this guide to install XNA 3.0, it solved all my Dungeonmans problems.

[mariodonick]

Thanks for the link, Chex Warrior, might help for now. However, I still like dungeonmans plans to provide a conveniant installer.

People who just want to play a game developed in XNA shouldn't need to download and install the whole development stuff

[dungeonmans]

People who just want to play a game developed in XNA shouldn't need to download and install the whole development stuff

I agree! You should just people to run Setup.exe and it will do the rest of the work. But that isn't working for everyone, and it makes me want to stick my head in a dryer.

[mariodonick]

Well, it's not your fault, I think ...

[getter77]

The only other thing I can think of, pie in the sky as it is, would be to achieve the whole C# and .NET/mono/whatever magic in the future via porting the game to Unity3D---especially given their looming Unity 3 release should also have xbox 360 support along with just about all else under the sun.

http://unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/unity-3

It seems to be functional in 2D situations as well, ArcEn games is shifting all their future efforts to it starting with a rather nice puzzle game called Tidalis.

[Krice]

- install it by running setup.exe first, if you run the dungeonmans.application first it won't work.

I did run setup.exe first. I remember when XNA was advertised as revolution in game development. Well, here we are..

[Etinarg]

It makes development easy, and deployment difficult. The usual MS trap, lure people into it, and once used to it, they do not want to try something else again - this case is pretty evil even, since the installation problems happen to the other people, not the developer. The developer just gets to know when he is ready with his project to be published. Until then it's all fine and dandy.

[ido]

It makes development easy, and deployment difficult.

If not for that reason I would be developing in python (with pygame or pyglet).

Awesome for the developer, not so great for the user.