Alpha 5 - MOAR!...

...About the Undead Mode and Reincarnation.

UNDEAD MODE
You can pick all the standard undead models, except rats - skeletons are silly enough to play.
Keep in mind you have no skills and you can transform as NPC zombies do by killing people.

REINCARNATION - OPTIONS
You can set options related to how reincarnation.

Disabling rats reincarnation is handy, as there are a lot of rats and they are quite silly to play. So you won't get spammed with them as possible avatars.
Max numbers of reincarnations is a way to limit yourself or disable this altogether with setting it to zero.
Each reincarnation will decrease the difficulty used for computing for this character. Eg: your first life will be 100% difficulty, but if you reincarnate the next one will start at 0 points and score only 50% of base points. This is a way to avoid some stupid cheating, like using past lives to make the following ones easier and scoring big.

REINCARNATION - CHOOSING AN AVATAR
When you die you get a set of typical avatar selected for you to reincarnate in.
Here I played survivor Tony Austin. He got killed by a zombie, got zombified in the process and had a follower alive at that time.
So I get the full set of candidate avatars to choose from.

You can image fun play mode and challenges if you restrict yourself to a set of options:

• Succession game : take control of your followers as your band members die horribly one by one.
• Killer game : take control of your killer.
• Till the Last Survivor : take control of a survivor, you loose the game if there are no one available, which could happen.
• The Equalizer : take control of the opposite side and try to do your best for them.

Just ideas ;)

I intended to allow the player to reincarnate anywhere in the world but it is not practical. I would have to simulate the whole world which would not be a sane thing to do. So instead it is just limited to the district you were in.

End of post.

Alpha 5 - the other big new feature

UPDATE: mmh the screens weren't clear enough it seems so let me detail this feature.

REINCARNATION
When you die...

• You get the choice to reincarnate or not.
• Your dead character still gets its post mortem etc... and for all intent and purpose you can consider the game lost.
• You then control a random existing NPC in the current game world (= you take control of a previously AI controlled character). You have almost no control over this process, so you first character is still the most important one for you.
• Your score is resetted, you loose your memory etc...
• Continue playing in the game world as you left it.
• So you can in theory continue to play indefinitly in the same game world.   
• Reincarnation in a living body is limited to civilians.
• You can get funny reincarnations as a zombie rat, as the Sewers Thing (if lucky!)...

I think the ability to continue playing in the same world if you want to is nice : visit old places, take revenge, switch sides...
You can still die normally of course.
Play as a classic roguelike  with permadeath (and noreload) or explore the world through various characters...
Its new, its fun. You can use it or not.

End of post.

Alpha 5 - big new feature

If screens > words Then Post(screens); 

BRAINZ! (1)

 

RAGE @ CARZ :X (2)

HI! BRAINZ? :) (3)

ME WANT FRIEND U! (4)

FRIEND NOW :) (5)

HI! ME COM WIF FRIENDZ! (6)

Translations:

1.  Start a new game as undead.
2. Remember, some undeads can't jump, open doors etc... The red "glows" are scents, as undead you can smell living scents and zombie masters scents. The freshers the scent, the more visible.
3. Bash doors, run after people to try to eat them. Great fun.
4. Followed some poor girl in a basement thanks to the scents. I plan on turning her in...
5. ...and it works. Maybe she will follow me.
6. My little horder breaking into a CHAR Office.

PLANS FOR THIS FEATURE
I have just started developing this feature. Thanks to the design it was quite easy to implement, a couple of hours of work. Lots of bugs lurking probably.

One thing I can say for sure, it radically changes the gameplay. Its like having another game altogether!

I don't plan on making the player undead special. You are just one of the undeads and have to "survive".
Its really frustrating fun to get randomly killed early by cops :p

Rogue Survivor will still focus on the living survivor gameplay and this mode is meant mostly for fun or a new challenge.

End of post.

Alpha 4.3 progress & release date

Video & Sound config
Added SFML as audio engine, and No Sound just for safety.
The game should now be playable on all Windows systems and configs... Right!?
If GDI+ is a pain in the ass I'll see if I can get an OpenGL rendering engine implemented.

Two new sweet features
Implemented two new features. I keep them secret until release...
They are nothing revolutionary and they were easy to do but Rogue Survivor fans will like them I'm sure :)

Release Date & Plans
Expect a release in a few days.
Then, if all goes well,  5.0 on the horizon with something big.
I'll also try to update the site to make it better.

End of post.

Alpha 5.0 - Minor additions for the greater good

Minor stuff that improves the game.

IMPROVISED WEAPONS
In addition to dropping planks breaking wooden objects might allows you to scavange a couple of improvised weapons. They are inefficient and fragile but you'll find plenty of them.

PUSHING CARS
You can. But its very tiring as they are very heavy things. You can't push burning cars. And yes, fire is not handled yet but it will come sooner and later.

STA RULES CHANGE
STA can now go below 0, it has no lower bound.
This makes vomitting more annoying and pushing cars risky, as you will be tired for several turns.

RAPID FIRE
Fire twice in a turn but with horrid accuracy : 50% for the first shot, 30% for the second.
Yep, total is not 100% so potential damage is lower than a standard shot.
Careful not to waste ammunitions with that, use your brain while you still have it.
You'll have to look at tactical factors to make your decision.

COWARD FOLLOWERS
As if being dumb wasn't enough you can now turn your followers into cowards too.
The coward directive means they will always run away from the enemy.
So the directive can now be set to Coward, Cautious or Courageous.

ITEM MANAGEMENT WITH KEYBOARD
You don't need the mouse anymore to perform common items management actions : use/equip/unequip, take and drop.

End of post.

Alpha 5.0 - Stuff & modding clarification

DIE PARROT ADVISOR!
In 4.11 after the first couple of games the advisor is a pain in the ass. He keeps repeating all that you already know. So you likely end up disabling it alltogether....
It will now give you a hint only once, and won't give it again unless you reset it.
You can now also read all the hints at anytime.

THREAT INDICATOR
(Feature name might change. I'm not happy with it, if you guys have a better name for it...).
Players can have a hard time predicting when that zombie with speed 0.66 will move or not, and is safe to engage in melee or not.
There is now an option that does that for you. Off by default, since it makes the melee subgame much easier.

The game will display a colored indicator next to your enemies:
- green is safe : you will move again before the enemy does (unless you loose speed obviously).
- yellow is a dangerous: the enemy can act just after you do.

Here I'm next to the ZM and the light is green. It means I can hit him now and evade the next turn.
So I hit him...

The light is now yellow, he will move after I do. So I evade...

Most player already do that, the indicator just makes it easier (is that what you guys call "kiting"?).
As a nice side effect, I used this feature to improve civilians AI melee combat tactics. They are now much more effective at killing slow targets in melee, hitting and evading properly like you do.

FRAGILE MELEE WEAPONS
Melee weapons can now be tagged as "Fragile". They have x2 more chances to break.

ITEMS VARIANTS
Now that the basic items are working, I'm starting to add more items variations to give the player more choices in gear. Start with the existing items and create variants from them, with slight stats differences, giving other advantages and drawbacks.

4.11 had already the Kolt Revolver (more damage but less ammo than the pistol).
I've already added the Short Shovel (based on the Shovel; no STA penalty, but weaker and fragile) and the Iron Golf Club (based on the Golf Club; more damage and not fragile but STA penalty).
If you have any ideas of item variants, feel free to share!

TOTAL CONVERSION MODDING...
...Is not supported and will not be supported.
TC needs a game engine that is a completly moddable engine.
RS engine is NOT designed that way.
You can change stats and graphics, that's it.
Sorry, but that's the way this game works and was planned. It allows me to work much faster, focusing on gameplay and getting stuff done.

4.11 DOWNLOAD HOSTING
Mediafire did not work yesterday, so I added Rapidshare.

End of post.

Alpha 5.0 - Actors Modding

SO?
Implemented. I hate coding parsers and stuff like that. But its done.
The game now reads the actor model data from a CSV file, rather than hardcoded values.
You can change most game values of the actors.

EXAMPLE: MODDING SKELETON.
The result:

Drawed the ghost and changed the stats in 30 seconds.
How?
1 change the stats in GameActors.csv.
2 change the graphic file.

The stat line went from this:

"skeleton","skeletons",100,5,99,8,2,3,0,6,0,0,10,"Quite annoying. Like a fly."

to this:

"blue ghost","blue ghosts",125,5,99,10,1,5,0,8,0,0,25,"Gobble Gobble."

The vanilla GameActors.csv file now looks like this in Open Office:

I CAN HAZ NEW ACTOR MODELS? CHANGE ABILITIES?
No sorry. Only changing basic stats. Same with items.

End of post.

4.1 Followers

Two new orders for followers.

Order : build small/large fortifications
Kinda obvious. It is now useful to give carpentry skill to your followers. Works like the other orders.

Order : report events
You can ask your followers to tell you about enemies, items, soldier or events they recently saw/heard.

Useful when you wake up or come back from a supplies raid and want to know what the hell happened.
This is basically a use of the civilians tips system so it was very easy to do.

Other stuff
Added two new tips about soldiers and events (raids, supplies drop etc...). Civilians are very talkative now.
And a few new stuff I didn't talk about, some of which are requests or suggestions by players. I don't want to spoil all 4.1 novelties, so I'll keep these a secret :-}
Hopefuly you'll found out soon when you get the game in a few days.

STOP!
Again I have to stop the feature creep if I want to respect my deadlines.
Alpha 4.1 is starting to think it is Alpha 5 ;(

End of post.

4.1 Grenades

Grenades are done.
Still have to do the AI for handling them and spawn them in the game world.

Grenades...What are they?
Throwable anti-personal explosives.
You can throw them up to a certain range, the skill Strong helps you throwing farther.
You throw them at a tile, not a target.
They have a very short fuse and a blast radius. You basically have one turn to run away after throwing them.
Can't "cook" grenades sorry, but you can take them back if you are insane enough.

Grenades... How do they work?
Like this.
Equip and fire.
You can throw/lob grenades over most things, including other people.
You do not need to view the target tile, so you can usually throw farther than you can see.
They do not bounce on things though.

Grenades... Do they kill?
Yes.

I know what you are thinking and the answer is : yes, you can indirectly kill other survivors with that :)
The blast is blocked by stuff, so you can image tactics like opening a door, throwing the grenade in a packed room and closing the door, if done properly the door will absord the damage of the blast.

Grenades... Do they destroy things too?
Yes, but only breakable objects. They are not for demolition (C4 will come later) and not very good for breaking resistant objects. They are meant to kill people.

Grenades... I like them!
Me too.

End of post.

Player videos aar & 4.1

LET'S PLAY
PlumpHelmetPunk is making Rogue Survivor gameplay videos.
He has also tons of videos for fun little games.
PlumpHelmetPunk youtube channel

4.1
Not much to report. Still doing the advisor hints. There are 26 hints now covering the basics and there is a few more to add to cover fortification and leadership. It's hard to explain enough to get the player started without turning the hint system into a manual-bis.

The Hospital is completed. Lots of healing goodies there, but it could be a deathtrap if you're too late or unprepared.

I still have to:

• add the first "throwable bomb" weapons : dynamite/grenades and/or molotovs.
• add the new ally.
• expand the plot a bit, with something happening "down there" once you have done the achievement.
• the "build stuff" order.
• fix the remaining bugs/glitches.
• minor things.

End of post.

Alpha 4.1 : Advisor hints.

A nice new feature to help clueless new players who don't know the basic controls.
I also noticed that a significant number of players seems to ignore the existance of some features (using exits, pushing objects...)

ADVISOR HINTS
You can enable an Advisor (on by default).
The Advisor will monitor your situation and provide appropriate hints.
When the Advisor has a hint available, a little annoying popup appears and prompt the player to go read the hint. You can ignore it and keep playing, but because it's kinda intrusive you'll want to read it ;)
The hints are fired from the most basic ones (eg: how to move) to more complex ones (eg: how to fire a weapon), so it won't tell you the more advanced stuff until you have read all the simpler ones.

For example, as soon as you start a new game the Advisor wants to tell you how to move:

Later on the Advisor has a suspicious fetish for items and doors:

(missing H in Shelf)

I'll add enough hints to hopefully make the basic controls and gameplay clear.
Roguelike/RS veterans can safely disable the Advisor option.

CODING
Nothing special, but it's been quite a long time I didn't show some coding stuff so let's talk about the implementation.
Thanks to the way I've done the engine (go me!) and the wonderful world of C# lambdas, it was very easy and quick to implement.
For instance, to check if it's time to trigger the "Look! You can open a door" hint I just write a line like this:
                    return map.HasAnyAdjacentInMap(pos, (pt) =>
                        {
                            DoorWindow door = map.GetMapObjectAt(pt) as DoorWindow;
                            if (door == null)
                                return false;
                            return m_Rules.IsOpenableFor(m_Player, door);
                        });
(thanks for messing the formatting, Mr Blogger)

Then I just maintain a table of hints that were already fired, to ignore those.
The Advisor state is stored in the Session object, so it is saved with the game.

End of post.

Players Wiki & 4.1

PLAYERS WIKI
A group of Rogue Survivors has started a Wiki.
http://roguesurvivor.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
I'll add a link on the blog for great justice!

4.1
Reduced save and load time by 20-30% by:
- changing all byte and short types to int (!).
- changing some of Session class fields to Arrays instead of Dictionaries where appropriate (so it doesn't waste memory).
- customizing Map class serialization to save only primary fields and reconstruct auxiliary fields at deserialization.
Fixing bugs and glitches.
Started the Hospital.

End of post.

Alpha 4 progress - YOU STINK!

Sorry but it's true...

YOU STINK!
Survivors do stink.
So you can use a spray to clean the scent tracks. Helps cover your tracks, but don't expect the ultimate anti-chasing-zombie trick. Remember some Zombies have a visual memory as well as a smell sense, other just bash stuff randomly around, so don't cry if the Disciple STILL followed you :)

The migthy "Stench Killer" item, found at your local Pharmacy or girly men bedrooms :

 
I also did add the "zombies bashing the objects blocking the exits" thing I mentionned earlier. It makes basements much less safe, which is good :) A tip : spray some Stench Killer on the stairs/ladder...

Also as someone asked, of course you start knowing the location of the Police Station :

Later versions will get Airport, Fire station...



STOP!
The evil feature crawl.
I have to draw the line somewhere. I think there's enough new stuff to justify a major version release.
I didn't put Traps, Alarms and some follower stuff (A*, build orders) as planned, those will get in the next version, probably 4.1 or 4.2, depends on how much bugs there are to fix....

New stuff always means new bugs. I promise I'll try to not release a cheesy buggy version this time :)


TEST IT PLEASE!
That's right. I made the mistake of releasing a half-tested version last time (feature crawl...)
I did my usual "implement A-test A" routine this time.
And I will try to test everything properly for a few days.
Might catch few problems, might delay it for a few days.
And then release it.

UNOFFICIAL CHANGELOG
The changelog as it is now. Might still change a bit, but this should be pretty much final.

ALPHA 4 UNOFFICIAL 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.
- Following 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.
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!

End of post.

Alpha 4 progress - Building fortifications & other stuff

Good progress with a major gameplay feature almost done.

The Police Station.
It's done. There is one Police Station in the city.
There are 3 levels : the entry hall on the surface, the offices level and the jails level.
There are cops and "guests"...
Cops are way too busy with rioting zombies in town, so you can do whatever you want down there.
Won't show screens of the building maps, its more fun to find out what can happen there the first time you will play.

Trackers display improvement.
I thought it would be nice to have the tracker display information on the map as well on the minimap. This will also be helpfull for the no-minimap people.

It looks like this, for all the 3 kinds of trackers (the cell phone, the Z-Tracker and "the other one" for "those guys"). Those trackers are already in Alpha 3.21 btw.

The Z-tracker, here used in the sewers. Some maps are always in darkness, so this could prove handy.

The Cell phone with my follower.

And finally, the "other tracker" for "those guys", here called "Pink Bunnies".

Building Fortifications.
With the Carpentry skill, you can build simple fortifications of two kinds, Small or Large.
Basically pushable speed bumps ("Small") and big walls ("Large").
It eats quite a lot of planks, so you can't really abuse it when fleeing. Its more meant as a mean of building... forts... When you reach 3-Carpentry building those will cost you one less plank.

Here's how it works and how it looks like.
I improvised a little fort to protect the Police Station. I made use of the cover provided by the very strong park fences and the cars.

Fortifications are not very resistant, I don't want the player to abuse them. After all, they are just hastily assembled pieces of wood.
You can see through both kinds of fortifications, but can only move (jump) through the small ones.

You will be able to repair fortifications (with the barricading action) , and order your followers to build ones.
I still have to work on these two features.

AI and Exits.
I did not mention that, but most actors can and will use the ladders and stairs just like you.
Expect annoying people disturbing you in your secret basement if you don't block the stairs.
And yes, Zombies too.
Zombie do yet not bash objects blocking the exits,  I stil have to implement that.


End of post.

Alpha 4 progress - Subway & other stuff

Subway
Worked on subways to make them more interesting.
You can open/close gates and lit/unlit the subway by switching the power on/off...

...Closing the gates on someone will crush them instantly. Quite dangerous those gates.
(Yes there is a typo about turning "on off")

I might add a wrecked wagon somewhere I have the time.

City Information
Improved the City Information screen.

 
Basements
Some houses have basements. There is not much down there, but it might provide a safe shelter... or not.

The stairs here lead to the basement. Notice the Sewers Maintenance and Subway Station buildings on the bottom left of the minimap.

Surface Map
By now you should have noted that the default map size is smaller (50x50 vs 75x75). I had to resize the maps down, because of the new maps for each district (sewers, subways, basements). I kept the same population per map tile ratio. Small maps have some nice side effects on the gameplay I quite like.
I also specialized districts more to counterbalance the small maps (eg about 80% of shops in a shopping district on average).

Music
Did new musics, including ambient musics for some maps (sewers, subway). One or two themes for each song, a simple structure with repeats, some arrangement between repeats and voilà. I could always try to improve them later, but I'm not a good musician.

That's Guitar Pro 6. It's great for guitar based music -hence the name-, but most of the other instruments are horrible or sound badly tuned. It's cheap for what it can do.


Graphics
Trying not to abuse the gradiant tool in Paint.NET, but it makes lighting much easier. Funny I hated doing graphics before and now I'm learning and I like it.


Police Station
What Police Station? You mean the one where that guy is jailed? I still have to do it...

End of post.

Alpha 4 progress - Stuff I can't tell about

Alpha 4 features more content, and actual "things" to do if you want to. 

Stuff I can't tell about
There stuff are "secrets" to be found by the player, so I can' t tell or show much about it.

There is that one huge map you'll have to find by yourself, and do something here. Its a unique map, only one per game. Find it and do something for two achievements (later will be part of the plot and win conditions).

There is that creature that lives in the sewers. Its a unique creature, only one per game. Kill it for an achievement.


Those parts are done.

The player wil also have the possibility to meet a certain "someone", in a specific "place" and will get the choice to give help to this "someone" in exhange for "avoiding some kind of trouble", but that will put you into "some other kind of trouble". Eh.

That is not done yet.

Stuff I can
There are several new things, major or minor, to look for in this screen...

Polished sewers maps.

What you can't see is the sewers water animated and the junk thing floating up and down. Useless but fun graphics improvements.
Not much new about subways I'll try to make them a bit more interesting.

Hey, I wasn't supposed to show that one...

End of post.