Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Alpha 3.1!

Get it.

Changes:

 Alpha 3.1 changes
-----------------

INSTALLER
New safe and easy to use installer.
Remember to uninstall your previous version with the old method (see Game FAQ on the blog if you have problems).

FIXED BUGS
- Graveyard shows correct starting skill.
- Can't give items to sleeping people anymore.
- Breaking a stackable weapon does not break the whole stack (eg: crowbars).
- Actors activity when moving to a bed was incorrectly set to "Sleeping".
- Order : barricading max was barricading only once.

GAMEPLAY
- Humans HP increased to 15.
- Loud noises can wake up nearby sleeping actors.
- People dying from starvation can turn into zombies (option).
- New skill : Light Sleeper, increase sensibility to loud noises.
- New items : Ammo items.
- New action : Reload weapons.
- New action : Shout, try to wake up nearby sleepers (default key S).
- New command : City Information, shows city layout (default key I).
- New command : Messages log, view more recent messages (default key Shift-M).
- New order : Guard (position).
- New order : Patrol (zone).
- Exhausted actors have a chance to collapse (forced sleep).
- 1 new ally.
- 3 new enemies - for middle and late game.
- Some undeads evolution slowed down.
- Disciple HP slightly weakened.
- Scents duration increased (undeads using smell tracking will chase longer).
- Trackers items now have batteries (eg: cellphones).
- Long wait interrupts more often.
- Starting Food and Sleep points of civilians randomized.
- Achievements.
- 1 Easter Egg to find.
- Rebalanced items Shotgun and Crossbows.
- Rebalanced skills Light Eater and Awake.
- Increasing civilians increase difficulty rating rather than decreasing it.
- More items variety in Parks.
- A rare but very useful item available in late game.
- Various minor changes.
- As a result of changes, early game is MUCH easier, difficulty is more progressive and fighting is more viable.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- Removed "pull" in "push/pull", some people expected to be able to pull on their own tile.
- Scoring and Difficulty shown in game.
- "Sunny" weather changed to "Clear".
- Batteries displayed as hours left.
- Player Sleep/Food points also displayed as hours left until Sleepy/Hungry.
- Graveyard shows options modified.
- Switch place command default key Control-S (S rebinded to the new Shout command).
- The game prevents you from wasting food and meds when you don't need them.
- Updated manual.

GRAPHICS & MUSIC
- 3 new musics.
- Access to graphics and music files - no "official" content modding support yet, this will come later.
  *** Warning : Looking at the resource files will spoil the game secrets for you ***

OPTIONS
Bunch of new options to control the gameplay.
- New option : Zombification rate, control chances of living victims zombification.
- New option : Starved Zombification, control chances of starved livings turning into zombies.
- New option : Reveal starting district, yes/no.
- New option : Simulate while sleeping, yes/no.
- New option : Allow undeads evolution, yes/no.
- New option : Day Zero percent of undeads.
- New option : Daily increase of zombie invasion.
- Max number of undeads limit raised to 300.
- Rebalanced default settings.
- Rebalanced difficulty computation.

AI
- Improved AI use of cellphones.
- Improved AI use of lights.
- AI make use of the Shout action to wake up nearby sleeping friends when seeing enemies (that includes your followers).
- Improved AI fight or flee logic (yes again).
- Improved AI item management (yes again).
- Changed Cautious vs Courageous directives effects.
- As a result of changes, Civilians should be more slightly competent in melee fighting and followers more useful as fighters/guards/mules.


Have fun!
And remember : die with a smile!

End of post.

27 comments:

  1. One of those new enemies is a little too unfair, you don't even get a chance to do anything and you die instantly even with good protection if you encounter more than one. Maybe a stealth skill would be nice for avoiding such situations.

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  2. They are supposed to be a real challenge in late game. I'll see if players can cope with them or not, if the frustration > the fun. Still, as the game is now, there are tactics to minimize the risks. You're on the right track in thinking about "stealth". You already have some tools to do that in the game. ;)

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  3. Added some hints in the Game FAQ. Good luck!

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  4. Awesome!!! Thank you very much for the editable tiles.

    Here're skeletons:
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/16/84/218416/skeleton.png
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/26/84/218426/red_eyed_skeleton.png
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/29/84/218429/red_skeleton.png

    I will make a terrain set and a creature pack now. I am so happy now :D.

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  5. Sorry, the red skeleton had too big glow, it's better now:
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/40/84/218440/red_skeleton.png


    I love your game and the fact that you develop it and make better and better.

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  6. And a zombie:

    http://i.piccy.info/i5/44/84/218444/zombie.png

    I can draw more if you like it :)

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  7. It would be really cool if you made the controls more laptop friendly. I know you can remap the buttons but one slip up on that and the whole control scheme is screwed.

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  8. It's great! I keep dying to either the guys with the level 2 armour or later on to the nimble disciples.

    Last game, however, I managed to see army squads, but the soldiers were so numerous nothing could stand in their way. That meant no fancy armour nor rifle for me. :P

    And Deon, very nice! Draw some more! Civilians will be tricky, though, given the modular system.

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  9. Nah, I am writing a multiplayer tile-based game and I have a lot of sprites for it while almost no code. It uses modular clothing/weapons system too so I have a lot of sprites. I just have to redraw them a bit but that's okay.

    Here's some work on the landscape:
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/88/84/218488/screenshot_004.png


    And I have all the critters now:
    http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=58580.400

    (I hope it's ok to post a link to forums? That's the thread where we discuss this awesome game)

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  10. For some reason I cannot hear the music. Can you help me with that? I can play mp3 files outside of the game just fine.

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  11. Very fun. I hope there is going to be some way to win. A few things I'd like to see: larger objects drop more planks, planks can be used as makeshift weapons, sleeping bags which act as portable beds, infected corpses turn into zombies 24 hours after death. Great job.

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  12. It would be fun to have zombies to come back to life unless they are burned (we need burning weapons :)).

    Here's my work on female tiles:
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/91/87/218791/now.png

    And more spraypaint colors would be nice :D.

    And of course more posters. Just 2 is not really cool, you see them on every corner. 10 or 15 would be great, I would draw all of them :D.

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  13. Yeah, incendiary weapons would be cool. Nice work with the custom tiles, looks like your going to have one of the first custom tile packs.

    Also, I really wanted a bed for my HQ/base and after a bit of pushing and killing...
    http://i47.tinypic.com/24d076h.png
    feels like home :D

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  14. I've noticed a bug, and I don't know if it's a display glitch or not.

    In both the high scores and individual postmortems, the difficulty rating is stuck at 100% even though I've tweked options enough to make it 115%.

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  15. Yep it's a bug and it's been for a while.

    I woke up and I will work on male sprites now. I will make a custom pack in a few hours.

    I hope to see others doing the same. I tried not to go too far from the original author's style, just to make it more "detailed", but someone could make a total graphical conversion, and I am sure it would be fun to play with all the different looking creatures and cities.

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  16. I've made male sprites:
    http://i.piccy.info/i5/35/03/220335/screenshot_009.png

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  17. Here's my tileset: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=2529

    I hope someone likes it and will use it :).

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  18. This looks pretty cool, really. Wish I could play.

    Unfortunately when I tried, it crashed on startup, and when I followed the instructions in the FAQ for dealing with that, it messed things up so bad I had to do a system restore.

    Bad luck, I guess.

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  19. Apologies, I meant the instructions in the readme text that comes with the download, not the FAQ.
    The stuff about which other things to download and install and such.

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  20. Matthew, can you mail me more details:
    - what crashed, the setup or the game?
    - your OS, and 32bits/64 bits
    - laptop or desktop
    - desktop resolution
    - gfx card model
    I don't understand how installing .NET or DirectX could force you to do a system restore.

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  21. It was the .NET thing's install, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that as such either; it seemed more like a typical random out-of-nowhere Microsoft glitch. I suspect whatever went wrong happened in the 'must restart to complete the installation' phase of it.

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  22. Hey, I really love the game you've created so far. But the follower AI is getting me. I can not get my (Give) option to work and instead I have to waste turns trying to trade with them until they choose my extra food.

    It's hilarious how I can bump into my ally and completely waste a turn saying, "No I do not want to trade your own gun for bullets." And then get chomped on by something, my fault really.

    Overall if you could please improve survivor AI, I feel like I'm holding their hands through the end of the world.

    I absolutely love this game, even in it's alpha. Much luck to you.

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  23. Heey. Just adding that this is pretty cool. And while this is a bit early to ask are there plans to make the data externalized for modding? That would be cool.

    And While I really don't want to make a request... Can we name ourselves/pick a name and choose our sprite in a later version? I know it's a silly pointless nitpick but it's something I'd personally like. And something I think others would too.

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  24. In one game (which I got far on) keeps crashing every time I try to sleep.

    System.InvalidOperationException: AI attempted illegal action djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.Actions.ActionShout
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.HandleAiActor(Actor aiActor)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.AdvancePlay(Map map, Boolean isSimulating)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.SimulateNearbyDistricts(Map map)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.NextMapTurn(Map map)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.AdvancePlay(Map map, Boolean isSimulating)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.AdvancePlay(District district, Boolean isSimulating)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.GameLoop()
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.Run()
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.RogueForm.OnShown(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Form.CallShownEvent()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallbackDo(ThreadMethodEntry tme)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallbackHelper(Object obj)
    at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.runTryCode(Object userData)
    at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.ExecuteCodeWithGuaranteedCleanup(TryCode code, CleanupCode backoutCode, Object userData)
    at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
    at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallback(ThreadMethodEntry tme)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallbacks()

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  25. Also happens sometimes when I change districts.

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  26. Mike thanks a lot for the detailled bug report.
    Definetly an AI bug. I'll look into it.

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  27. No problem and keep up the awesome work! I find this game more entertaining than most freeware games I have ever played.

    Small recommendations would be maybe different weapons like mines, grenades and rocket launchers. Also basic traps like bell/can on a rope if anyone moves over the bell/can on a rope it creates a noise that could wake you and your allies up. Or in later game (I only got into two weeks so far) there could be violent soldiers with the purpose of "cleansing anything in the city" They could have equipment that is very effective against zombies like anti-zombie spray :P.

    If I get any more bugs I will be sure to send them to you :).

    ReplyDelete