It’s coming soon…

A New Version

It’s been almost a year since Release #7 came out. A lot has happened to the game since then. In fact, there are so many and radical changes that I consider it to be a new version of the game. The first release of this new version of the game will have the incredibly exciting name v2.0! This means that Release #7 was the last release for the old version. Part of the reason for this new version is that I intend to introduce even more huge changes in the near future, but more about that in another post. The important thing right now is that, unless I find any major bug or problem, I plan to finally release it on 3rd of October!

The new title screen

Summary of Highlights in v2:

I will give a small overview and summary of the biggest changes in the game with links to blog posts where you can read more about them:

• You can now see all attributes and attacks of each monster (post)
• Monsters now have named attacks, their magic and ranged attacks now works like they do for the player (using Mp and ammo) (post)
• Monster can have several attacks instead of exactly just one (post, interesting consequences)
• Light in the dungeon is now explicit instead of implicit (braziers lit the dungeon) (post)
• There are now surprise attacks in the game (post)
• The “light” attribute is replaced by a “vision” attribute. Line of Sight is no longer symmetric with monsters. (post)
• You now have energy points as a new resource that restricts how much you can swap weapons, you can also use to identify things with (post)
• Enchanted equipment is now unknown when you find it, and there are cursed equipment in the dungeon (post)
• You can now hear nearby noisy monsters (post)
• There are a new category of items: tools (post)
• The game has a completely new tutorial and better tutorial system (post)
• You are either in “exploring” or “combat” mode, each mode have their own rules (post)
• Viewing maps now give an overview of notable features (post)

There are also some new interesting things that I haven’t blogged about:

• Almost all situations where you would be blocked by water or lava is gone. This should make the game much more fair to the point that I might remove the disclaimer in the FAQ.
• The drowning effect has been removed, as well as water breathing (bye sea-pearls…). The reasoning is that it was annoying and binary: water was either an extremely huge threat, or no threat except that it could rust equipment. There is still rusting in the game though… there are rust traps.
• There’s an option to change the colour theme of the panel frames. New default colours for v2 (it is possible to change back to the original colours for those who wish)!

Some Disclaimers

Despite having tested the game extensively together with a friend (and I plan to test even more before the release), I am not confident that v2.0 will be bug free. After the initial release I can imagine there might be a bug fix release from any reports I may receive.

I can also imagine that v2 is so different that some players would prefer the old release. I will keep Release #7 available for download for those who still wish to play that.

In order to not delay the release even further, the manual is going to remain outdated for a while. However, as resources you have a new improved tutorial (including tutorials that specifically teaches the new stuff in v2). Furthermore, the blog posts listed above can be used as detailed documentation. Finally, I am releasing a reference document for all the effects in the game. So whenever you find an effect you don’t know you can check there. I plan to eventually make this reference in-game. I also plan to gradually update the new manual, but it may take a while.

Anyway, I hope you are as excited as I am 🙂