Author Topic: NLarn 0.5.4 released  (Read 9687 times)

jaydg

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NLarn 0.5.4 released
« on: April 30, 2010, 07:40:51 AM »
Hallo everybody,

I am happy to announce a new release of NLarn!

This release does not only feature tons of bug fixes, but also enormous interface improvements. Among the new features are fast movement and different speeds. Johanna Ploog, also known as jpeg, has contributed a lot of code and many brilliant ideas! Thank you, Johanna!

Read the full log of changes (rather lenghty this time)and  get your copy today!

I hope you enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed coding it.

-jaydg


For the unaware: NLarn is a remake of the classic from the eighties: Larn.

Krice

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2010, 08:32:51 AM »
When you pick up items from list it could be nice to get them with Return/Enter key also. Where the save file is placed?

getter77

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2010, 11:39:48 AM »
Congrats on another big step forward release!   8)
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Skeletor

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2010, 12:10:43 PM »
What a nice game! It reminds me the wonderful Adom, don't ask me why.


When you pick up items from list it could be nice to get them with Return/Enter key also.

Ditto.. having to press "g" after pressing "," is a little ankward and unintuitive.
What I enjoy the most in roguelikes: Anti-Farming and Mac Givering my way out. Kind of what I also enjoy in life.

dungeonmans

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2010, 03:14:53 PM »
Hey there! This is pretty good! I played twice, the first time I walked through the town and went into what I thought was where I was supposed to go, but that turns out to be the Volcanic Shaft and I was crushed by the first thing I came across.

The second time I found the dungeon in the NE and got a few levels down before being completely smoked by a Gnome King who appeared out of nowhere. I don't see why he was so angry, I was just cleaning his throne for him...

I will add to the chorus asking you to remove "g" from the pick up item menu. Picking up gold from a pile is "," then "g" then "enter", grah.

A couple of other things:

* You should be able to (e)quip an item when you already have one equipped, the game should know to try and take the current item off. For example, when I walked over a spear and picked it up, I pressed "e" and the game said "you have nothing you can equip" which made me think maybe I wasn't spear proficient. But it turns out, the game just won't let you try and equip weapons if you've already got one equipped. That seems a little strict.

* You have ? for descriptions of items, but you have enough space on your screen that you could always display that dialog. If you moved the inventory list to the left just a smidge, you'd have enough room on your right hand side to always display that box with the weight and other properties of the item.

* When I stand over an item, I'd like to see some description of it like "You see an Orcish Short Sword" or what have you in the message log. If someone isn't familiar with all the symbology of the game, they might walk over a pile of sapphires without realizing it. Over and over again. And, again, it's one less keypress.

I had fun for sure! It's neat to round a bend and see a rainbow of monsters pouring in from hallways around you. Keep it up!
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Skeletor

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2010, 09:10:00 AM »
I agree with Dungeonmans!

Some questions and suggestions:
- what's the point of marble statues and mirrors? pressing D I see they are memorized as landmarks.. but what's the use of this?
- is it me or fountains effects are almost always bad?
- when quasits, giant ants, centipedes bites, you lose strenght, dext, etc; is there a way to take back the lost points? I guess there is, because the affected attribute become red
- turning autopickup on on every kind of item request some time.. and this have to be done everytime the game is loaded; I suggest for the next release to make the game memorize players' autopickup settings.
- btw, actually the game crashed two time with me (win xp, decent hardware) with autopickup turned on, so I stopped using it and the game didn't crashed anymore (EDIT: no, it still crashes :-()

« Last Edit: May 02, 2010, 06:28:04 AM by Skeletor »
What I enjoy the most in roguelikes: Anti-Farming and Mac Givering my way out. Kind of what I also enjoy in life.

jaydg

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #6 on: May 02, 2010, 06:40:58 PM »
Thanks for all the feedback!

When you pick up items from list it could be nice to get them with Return/Enter key also.

Usually it's no problem to press 'g' as all the stuff you really want gets picked up by autopickup. You can configure it with '@' or by defining it in the ini file.

Where the save file is placed?

Have a look at README.txt. The save file is stored where the ini file has to be placed.

* You should be able to (e)quip an item when you already have one equipped, the game should know to try and take the current item off. For example, when I walked over a spear and picked it up, I pressed "e" and the game said "you have nothing you can equip" which made me think maybe I wasn't spear proficient. But it turns out, the game just won't let you try and equip weapons if you've already got one equipped. That seems a little strict.

I'll think about it.

* You have ? for descriptions of items, but you have enough space on your screen that you could always display that dialog. If you moved the inventory list to the left just a smidge, you'd have enough room on your right hand side to always display that box with the weight and other properties of the item.

I intend to change the inventory dialog and have a permanent status line at the bottom, where the item's attributes can be shown. That should be much more intuitive and handy.

* When I stand over an item, I'd like to see some description of it like "You see an Orcish Short Sword" or what have you in the message log. If someone isn't familiar with all the symbology of the game, they might walk over a pile of sapphires without realizing it. Over and over again. And, again, it's one less keypress.

You mean like when walking over a throne or similar? I thought about it, too, and as you say it makes sense I think it makes sense  ;D

- what's the point of marble statues and mirrors? pressing D I see they are memorized as landmarks.. but what's the use of this?

If you vaporize statues a book will appear instead. Mirrors are less interesting, the just reflesct spells and vampires won't walk over them. So they are more a red herring than anything else.

- is it me or fountains effects are almost always bad?

There are some positive effects, but bad occur with much higher probability. I think that should be more balanced to make the fountain more interesting.

- when quasits, giant ants, centipedes bites, you lose strenght, dext, etc; is there a way to take back the lost points? I guess there is, because the affected attribute become red

That is only a temporary effect, the stats will return to the normal value after some time.

- turning autopickup on on every kind of item request some time.. and this have to be done everytime the game is loaded; I suggest for the next release to make the game memorize players' autopickup settings.

I will definitely do that. Meanwhile, if you configure autopickup with the configuration file, these settings will be used every time the game is started.

- btw, actually the game crashed two time with me (win xp, decent hardware) with autopickup turned on, so I stopped using it and the game didn't crashed anymore (EDIT: no, it still crashes :-()

Thanks for the report, I'll investigate that. I use Linux most of the time for development, so the windows version is by far not extensively tested.

Krice

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Re: NLarn 0.5.4 released
« Reply #7 on: May 02, 2010, 07:01:44 PM »
The save file is stored where the ini file has to be placed.

Well they could be in the same directory I guess. Hate when program adds files to somewhere randomly.