Sunday, July 18, 2010

Alpha 4 release!

THE WARNING
"Listen Alpha 4...
I swear if you are exploding on people face like your older brother 3.2 did I'll throw you out of my computer and release an Alpha 4.1. So don't mess with me ;(
...
I tested you right?
...
Thou Shall Work.
...
Please think of the children :]"

 
THE PITCH
More locations and buildings to explore : sewers, subway, basements, the police station.
Unique creature(s), item(s) and map(s) and the beginning of the plot.
If you reach the 8 achievements, you can pat yourself on the back and say "I've won".
Some of those achievements are obvious, some a bit less, and some you will have to find by yourself.

THE LOG
ALPHA 4 CHANGES
---------------
Previous version focussed on Bugs and AI, this version focus on adding new content and new gameplay.
You can consider having winning this version of the game when completing all the Achievements.

FIXED BUGS
- Melee weapon Stamina penalty was not used properly.
- AI tried to get items where an actor was standing.
- Fleeing AI standing still and getting hammered when escape blocked (they now turn to fight).

GAMEPLAY
Maps
- New map : Sewers.
- New map : Subways.
- New map : House Basements.
- New map : Shop Basements.
- New building : Sewers Maintenance.
- New building : Subway Station.
- New building : CHAR Agency.
- New unique building & maps : Police Station.
- Switch on the power in the subway stations to open the gates to the platform and turn the lights on.
- Sewers & Subways Undeads invade their maps frequently and you never know when it happens. It's always dangerous down there.
- More links between districts on surface.
- Districts more specialized.
- Tuned map generation to better fit new default map size.
- New secret unique map. Do stuff there for Achievements.
Leaving Maps
- Entering maps/districts is a free action for the player - much less instant-death when entering districts/maps.
- Followers can abandon you only when changing district - eg: they won't leave if they can't follow you in the sewers, subway etc...
Player
- Different possible start positions, not just in your bed.
Action
- New : Build small/large fortification - need Carpentry skill.
- Barricading also repair fortifications - no skill needed.
- New : Spray scent - add/erase odors, read the manual, use them sparringly.
Skills
- New Skill : Martial Arts - improves fighting when unarmed.
- Carpentry at level 3 allows you to use one less barricading material when building fortifications.
Undeads
- New undead : Zombie Rats, found in sewers.
- New 3rd tier zombie.
- New unique : A local urban legend about something that lives in the city sewers. Kill it for an Achievement.
Food
- Fresh, Expired (75% nutrition) and Spoiled (33% nutrition, vomitting chance) food.
Firing
- Rebalanced penalty when Firing respective to Stamina.
- Ranged weapons have more chances to jam under the rain.
Items
- New : 4 spraypaint colors to tag with.
- New : Unique item to find in the Subway.
- New : Police Jacket.
- New : Stench Killer, erase parts of your stinking tracks.
- Bolts Amo item increased to 30.
- Dropping empty spraypaint discard it.
- Rebalanced Huge Hammer STA cost (since it is now actually used).
Map Objects
- New : Power Generator, switch all them On to restore power to a map or activate something.
- New : Fortifications.
FoV
- Modified FoV shape.
- Increased minimal FoV.
Scents
- Faster decay in sewers.
Misc
- Eater Egg moved to one of the Sewers map...
Scoring
- There are 8 achievements possible.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- Actors description tells since when they are undead/still alive.
- Effects in Sewers.
- When an exit is blocked, tell who/what is the blocker.
- City Information shows notable known locations.
- Trackers display icons on map if spotted target not visible (in addition to minimap dots).
- Updated manual.

GRAPHICS & MUSIC
- New gfxs for new stuff.
- New eyes : Big nerdy glasses ^^
- 4 new musics.

OPTIONS
- Resized Maps down and decreased Populations.
- Simulate when Sleeping disabled by default - prevent "sleeping lags :(" complains, re-enable it if you change districts often.

AI
- New AI for new actors.
- Improved AI inventory handling of ranged weapons (no more insane stacking).
- Some AIs will use some exits (ladders, stairs...) when appropriate (wander, track, flee).
- Undead AIs can follow scents through the exits - they can track prey/master between maps.
- Zombie AI : fixed problem with using memorized smell sensors data - this improves their scent tracking ability a lot.
- CivilianAI and SoldierAI with carpentry skill : will sometimes build small fortifications on their own.
- AI not interested in Spray items.

KNOWN BUGS AND GLITCHES
- FoV is assymetric in some situations (eg: when standing along walls).


Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

THE DOWNLOAD
On the right.

THE BUGS
Report them.


Enf of post.

36 comments:

  1. Awesome, earlier than expected.

    ...Somewhat less awesome, a crash on startup:

    Start of report.
    -----------------------------------------------
    EXCEPTION
    Error in the application.
    -2005530520 (D3DERR_DEVICELOST)
    at Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.Device..ctor(Int32 adapter, DeviceType deviceType, Control renderWindow, CreateFlags behaviorFlags, PresentParameters[] presentationParameters)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.UI.DXGameCanvas.InitDX()
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.UI.DXGameCanvas.OnCreateControl()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnParentVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnVisibleChanged(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.SetVisibleCore(Boolean value)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Form.SetVisibleCore(Boolean value)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.set_Visible(Boolean value)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoopInner(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoop(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form mainForm)
    at djack.RogueSurvivor.Program.Main()
    -----------------------------------------------
    LOG
    init main : starting program...
    init main : game version : alpha 4.
    init main : creating main form...
    init main : creating main form done.
    init gfx : creating device...
    -----------------------------------------------
    End of report.

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  2. (Didn't repeat itself. So that's good.)

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  3. Tell me if it happens again, what OS and laptop/desktop, and did you do something special for it to happen (like alt-tabbing, ctrl-alt-del or something).

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  4. How about a option to disable hunger? Coupled with the zombie damage its just another limiter.

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  5. Could you add options to attack fellow civilian NPCs? It's really annoying that I spend 8 turns breaking an object for the wood and on the 9th they stroll in, take the wood, and then offer it to me for my handgun.

    Also, regarding the barter system- could you make it so that I can specify the amount of an item I'm willing to trade to an NPC? It's somewhat annoying that if I have multiple items in a stack I have no choice but to trade all or none.

    Other than these small issues, it's a great game.

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  6. Oh yes, almost forgot. Can you improve the save/load times if possible? It doesn't really seem optimized at all, but keep up the good work.

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  7. I get an error on start up.

    The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application

    Running Xp S3

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  8. Everything is working great. Only issue I've had so far with Alpha 4 is when I gave a national guard member a medkit he refused to use it. It was kind of disappointing to see him die with the medkit I gave him when the zombies finally besieged the police station. Railway stations are a deathtrap. Zombies spawn a bit too much down there which can result in you getting surrounding very quickly. Defunct railroad cars on the tracks would be a great way to add scenery and help solve that problem.

    A few suggestions I have. More drawn out conversations for storylines. Maybe optional responses to create more storylines?

    Reusable worlds. Similar to Dwarf Fortress where can you can play multiple times on the same map and past decisions made will change what you experience for different characters later on.

    Great work so far. Hopefully I'll "beat" Alpha 4, halfway done at the moment.

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  9. NERF THE DAMN BIKERS FOR 4.1 PLOX.

    all my deaths are at the hands of bikers.

    at first it was LOL at seeing a large group of gordon freeman wannabes bumrushing me with crowbars, but now it is just getting old and retarded turning corners at night, not noticing the bikers on the screen, and promptly dieing (at full health, maxed out tough) within 3 turns, me not noticing. then multiplied by the fact i replaced the death music with "the gonk" from dawn of the dead.

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  10. Every time I load a game, the game does not respond, how do I fix this?

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  11. Wait a while. Possibly a long while. There appears to really be a quite astonishing amount of stuff to load, especially when you get a couple weeks in. (I was at day 49 or so when the latest release came out and ate my save.)

    If it just freezes up indefinitely, I'm out of ideas.

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  12. As for the bug I had earlier: man I am a terrible beta tester. :( Hasn't recurred, but fyi: Windows Vista, latest version (yeah, yeah, I know) running at the time with no compatibility modes (now using XP compatibility), laptop, and may have been looking at another window at the time; I pretty much always play it in windowed mode rather than fullscreen.

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  13. people picking up planks is fine with me ) you should watch out when you break stuff. also were bikers made more harsh? never had a problem with them. they were a source of early armor for me, so i liked them.

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  14. No weird bugs for now. Great creation you have here buddy ;)

    I'll be watching this Blog closely. Good luck with your work!

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  15. LOOOOOOOOONG LOADING TIME
    It's indeed an issue and its in the FAQ.
    Save files are not really big, the issue lies in the .NET feature I use (deserialization is suprisingly extremely slow, even binary). I'll work on that.

    BIKERS
    Bikers are the same and did not get boosted.
    If they are your deadly nemesis, just try to avoid them when you know they are in town.

    KILLING OTHER SURVIVORS
    Its often asked. Tihs will be possible in later versions. I'll FAQ that.

    SUBWAY
    Its the ultimate zombie experience for people who want to face a horde of low level zombies :) You can use the gates to crush them ;)
    In later verions there will be "bombs" type weapons to help handling cases like this.

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  16. Real bug rather than unrepeating bug:

    Shift-Q quit doesn't appear to be working. It offers the "yes/no" dialogue, says "Bye!" when I hit yes, and... nothing happens.

    It's not a big thing. I can just task-manager the game shut. But it's a thing.

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  17. Sarasti that's odd. Only reason I can think of is a process not finishing properly.
    Was the game playing music while you were trying to quit by any chance?

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  18. Got an error while playing with a reduced city size, since there was no business districts with offices (since i suppose it has to be related to the guy that isnt supposed to be there) the game crashed

    System.InvalidOperationException: world has no business districts with offices
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.CreateUniqueMap_CHARUndegroundFacility(World world)
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.GenerateWorld(Boolean isVerbose, Int32 size)
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.HandleNewGame()
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.HandleMainMenu()
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.GameLoop()
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.Engine.RogueGame.Run()
    en djack.RogueSurvivor.RogueForm.OnShown(EventArgs e)
    en System.Windows.Forms.Form.CallShownEvent()
    en System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallbackDo(ThreadMethodEntry tme)
    en System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallbackHelper(Object obj)
    en System.Threading.ExecutionContext.runTryCode(Object userData)
    en System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.ExecuteCodeWithGuaranteedCleanup(TryCode code, CleanupCode backoutCode, Object userData)
    en System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
    en System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
    en System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallback(ThreadMethodEntry tme)
    en System.Windows.Forms.Control.InvokeMarshaledCallbacks()

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  19. How about a option to disable hunger? Coupled with the zombie damage its just another limiter.

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  20. Roguedjack: Possibly. I just quit out normally a few minutes ago. I had to try to make a move after the quit for it to take, but I assume that's WAD - or at least Working As Expected.

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  21. out of question, have you thought about using containers in the game yet?

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  22. I have had issues with bump-grabbing items off of shelves. All other collision stuff works fine though.

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  23. yashal: hunger is an essential part of the gameplay, no option.

    alex: could get in, but not a priority. i'll faq it.

    john: what issues?

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  24. I know it is your game in all D; but like, i think having a no hunger option would be neat, because if you wanna play all serious and hard, you can play with hunger on, thus limiting your survival greatly D: But then like, if you want a bit of a fun run (wizard mode as such, like in many roguelikes these days) you could flick it off, and just focus on some good old fashioned zombie killing :D Maybe you could just make some kind of second mode with no hunger or sleep, where zombie killing is the main priority <.< and like you could be an army guy with a squad, and like select their skills and load out :> this game haz potential :]

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  25. Open inventory slots, standing next to a shelf trying to grab a groceries and nothing happens. It only happened with the first guy I made in 4.1 so it might have just compiled goofy or something.

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  26. Hey, has anyone had any success running this in Wine? I've tried with the latest version without changing any settings, but I can't seem to get it working- tough luck, or does anyone have a fix?

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  27. hey roguedjack, just ignore the "no hunger" trolls. if you keep answering them the trolls win, its the game development way of life.

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  28. John: If it happens again, could you take a screenshot? (shift-N ingame)
    ---
    The essential gameplay decisions will not change, hunger is one of them, but I understand the various queries. I'll faq that.

    Some people want this game to have everything, I take it as a compliment, but it can't and it won't, no game does. I have a precise idea on the gameplay I want to achieve and won't change that.

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  29. Well hunger option or not, i don't mind as i agree it's a core part of the game D; but if you're going for realism, it's a bit silly that they starve to death after two days :I Also, later in the game you kind of reach a point where it becomes stale, as new survivors spawning just become zombie fodder, and the zombies grow ever more powerful, where as you're left unrewarded for surviving even longer, so it just becomes a chore to bother holding them off still D; Also, i think making the k to break baricades into some form of kick attack would be neat, where in you can use it to break stuff, or knock a zombie back one space to free up an escape route or just get some breathing room, but have a stamina penalty or something akin for doing so, maybeh, it'd be a nice tactical element i guess <.<

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  30. made a wiki for you! http://roguesurvivor.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

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  31. It asked me to download .NET and update DirectX so I did. But it still doesn't work. Now I get the "The application failed to initialize" blabla.

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  32. This is exactly how a survival horror game should be!
    GREAT: there's really no place safe for more than a night ir two, and just if you are really really lucky. Your hard-earned friends can suddendly die and rise as zombies, out of starvation or sudden, gruesome violence. Enemies are uncountable, and everything degenerates constantly. Nonetheless, a constant, bold humor permeates every description...I ADMIRE YOU FOR THE SPIRIT OF YOUR WORK!

    What about the zombies, how exactly are they evolving? Simply trought time, or by killing humans? What about a brief description of those rare and misterious Neophites and Disciples?

    I completed all 8 achievements and explored all the locations:this game got me addicted for 1 whole day!! I'd love to see the next version of this game, congratulations!

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  33. Hi! great game!! Have a problem though...
    I am running the game on a laptop, and have issues with the music. The game only plays music when events happen or wen I enter the subway.
    There is no general in game music.
    Is it because I am running the game on a laptop?
    my laptop is HP compaq 6910p ^^

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  34. @anon 6:55PM
    No its normal.
    This post is very old, you should'nt have posted your comment here. See the front page instead, the bug page.
    http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/p/report-bugs_11.html

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  35. Alvise, zombies evolve by killing people and you should go in options and try my settings 200 max zombies 50 max civilians, permadeath=on largest city+district your survival won't be as easy ;)

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  36. I'm getting a "The application failed to initialized properly (0xc0000135) on WinXP 32bit SP3

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