Release #2 is Now Out!

As I posted earlier, I felt an urgency to release an update to TGGW since there is a fundamental gameplay element that was missing due to a bug: enchanted items! The most notable changes in this release are:

  • There are now enchanted items in the game!
  • You can quickly restart a new game in the same slot by pressing ‘r’ on game over.
  • The ‘rest’ option is now the first option in the menu instead of the second (you may have to retrain your muscle memory..).
  • There is a new option to fade messages in the messages window to increase readability of the last message.
  • If you like (and know what it is), you can control your character with the vi-keys.

There are also plenty of bug fixes and minor changes, as can be seen in the full changelog (contains very minor spoilers). I really hope you like the new release!

Note that a couple of changes broke save compatibility with Release #1. For this reason you should either unzip release #2 in its own directory or delete game.ini and the slot-files from your game directory before playing. You cannot play your previously saved games with Release #2.

Get the new release #2 right here!

 

 

Updated: July 12, 2014 at 15:17

Comments

  1. Woah. New version showed up so fast. And just when I wanted to discuss some bugs that I have found… Great job!
    But maybe it can still be useful.
    1. http://i.imgur.com/oDUCARG.png – I can’t get to exit. I’ve used teleberry and read all my scrolls, even visited every tile to find pit trap, it did not help. But it seems you fixed this problem.
    2. http://i.imgur.com/wrCR8Sy.png – Tailor tries upgrade bandana into bandana. Maybe it shall be upgraded into another item?
    3. What about Emerald Mask? I thought it shall give player See Invisible, but it does not. Does it work in a different way?
    4. I think Lesser Mana Potions don’t restore mana, do they?

    1. Hey, thank you!

      1. Yes, this has been fixed, it happened very rarely but for this version I tested generating around 3000 levels without any being disconnected so it should work now.

      2. Yes, this is a bug, thank you, will fix it for next version!

      3. Hmm.. for me it seems to work, did you equip it? Does it not show in your status panel that you have see invisble?

      4. Again, this seems to work for me. Remember that they only restore mana (the first digit in mp) but not maximum mana (for that you need to rest).

      1. 3. I have found a mask in new version, and it seems that it works all right, yes.
        4. Ok. Sorry, probably I had an iron item equiped.

        I think I have found something strange in new version too. I opened couple of crates and both had red potions inside. But it seems that they are different potions in fact. And it was like that:
         I opened first crate and red potion appeared on its place;
         Then I opened second crate and new red potion appeared on the ground;
         But the first one vanished at that moment;
         So I got to the tile where it was and pressed ‘Spacebar’;
         And I took that invisible potion.
        Now I have two kinds of red potions in the inventory – http://i.imgur.com/kbQv8Eo.png
        Is it normal?

        1. Ah… no, that’s not normal, and I think I have a good idea what caused it (a consequence from one of the bug fixes I did). Thank very you for reporting this!

        1. Ah yes! No, this is definitely a bug. I have fixed this now (for the next release). Thank you!

  2. Congratulations on the new (fast) release. I’ll let you have impressions.
    As a curiosity, after this (and subsequent, if necessary) “round” of bugfixing/polishing, have you got any further plans on TGGW?

    1. Thank you! Yes, I have plans, but I’ll save them for later announcements 🙂

  3. Quick bug report: while resting, an egg in my inventory hatched, but no chicken spawned. Not sure if this is intended behaviour or not.

    Also, I haven’t yet seen the new-colored sacks on sand, but on regular ground they are way better than before.

    1. About the egg, that’s weird. I tested it a few times and it seems to work for me. Could it be that it run away so quickly you didn’t get to see it? Do you remember if you got the message “the chicken wakes up” or not?

      Yes, my current quick solution is to not have sacks appear on sand that often since they are very hard to see there. My colour choices are unfortunately quite limited.

      1. No, the only message I got was that the egg had hatched. How could it have run away before I saw it, in a turn-based game?

        About sacks: workable solution. I’m assuming that the “brown” you’re using for sacks is the only brown you can use. Maybe you could have them appear in the old color on sand and in the new color everywhere else?

        1. Hahaha… well, what I meant is that they are fast and may have moved up to two squares before you got to act and may have got around a corner. But then it seems something else is wrong, I will have a look! Do you remember if there were any other special circumstances?

          Yes, I’ve been thinking about having sacks appear in different colours on different floors. Maybe in the next release.

  4. Hey, the new version is great. I like it more the more I play it. I love all the different stuff and room and level types. Also the way confusion works is awesome (never seen that before). This is my favorite game right now.
    I got a few comments:
    I’d love a way to walk around faster, e.g., shift and arrowkey to go until an obstacle.
    I experienced a deadend level. I would have had to travel across three deep water which meant certain death no matter how you got there. Not sure if that possibility is intended or not.

    1. Awesome, really glad you like it 🙂

      Yeah, I guess you are aware of the corridor running already (just press space in corridors). Other than that, I’ll think about it, shift + direction is not a bad idea.

      The possibilities for that kind of dead end is intentional, see the FAQ for an explanation/justification. Basically you cannot count on that all games are winnable, but there might be ways to get by the water without dying in most cases.

      1. ok, cool.
        Another thing that happened to me:
        I somehow ended up with a “Melee” of 0, despite the character screen telling me that i have a base melee of 1 and 1 melee from my weapon, no other effects in place. So I should have had 2 melee. Unfortunately, I dont have a save game and already died.

        1. hmm.. that’s really strange and I haven’t seen that come up before. Let me know if it happens again and if you know under which circumstances. Thanks for reporting!

          1. That isn’t strange. He probably wielded shortspear while stood in open ground.
            I’ve found some weird bugs. But I think this is not really right place for feedback, is it? Shall I send it on bugs@thegroundgivesway.com instead?

            1. Yes, I think you might be right.
              It would be cool, if such effects are somehow visible in the character screen imo.

            2. Ah yes, of course. I didn’t think of that either.

              It is fine to leave feedback here, but if you have a list of bugs, yeah, send them to the address you mentioned, thanks!

              1. Oops, forgot about that confusing bug. So I got a wooden club as ranged weapon somehow – http://i.imgur.com/eUnI3wL.png 🙂
                And I have some questions if you don’t mind:
                1. I feel that items work weird sometimes.
                Mostly there are minor bugs that happen after rest or when I have duplicate items in my backpack. I collect all stuff on my path, and when I have full inventory I pile unnecessary items in one room. Once I had 2 rapiers and wanted to drop both separately. I dropped one rapier and dropped another right next to it, and it disappeared. But I could still pick it up. So I repeated this again and the rapier was visible that time. But after I did it one more time, it became invisible again, etc. Finally I left it on the ground and went to lower level, and when I came back it was just one rapier there, and I could not pick up another. It is not critical at all but kinda strange, just like with those red potions. Maybe there is a flaw somewhere in the collecting system.
                And I think once my equipped fencing gloves became ordinary leather gloves after rest. But I have no evidence to prove it.
                2. I had read a couple of scrolls once, and could sense humanoids and animals. And there was a lot of them on the level. I have used a bow, and it was really annoying to select targets, because it kept selecting the furthest target first each time, the one that I could not even see normally, because it was in a distant closed room. Do you have plans to optimize targeting system, make it remember the last target maybe?
                3. In some cases character attributes don’t change automatically. When you clean your equipped gear from rust, your Armour stat does not update automatically, you need to take it off and wear manually to see increased Armour stat. When chef makes new sandwiches for you, they don’t add to existed sandwiches in your backpack, you need to drop and pick up them again.
                4. I thought all wands deplete mana when used. But some wands which have ‘beneficial’ effect (like wand of Armour, wand of Blood, wand of Health and other maybe) don’t use mana first time when they are unidentified and you select foe as target. So it is like: you have 5MP; you zap unidentified wand at target; it appears to be Wand of Armour: you grant additional +15% of armour to foe, and can also grant +15% of armour to yourself. Is it intended?
                (Sorry for my poor English)

                1. Thank you very much for all this, I really appreciate it!

                  First, the club in the launcher slot is very very strange… it must be related to 1.

                  1. yes, there must be something that doesn’t quite work with either dropping or picking up. I will have a look at it. It sounds like really strange bugs and nothing I heard about before. One thing though: when you rest things may move or disappear and that is intentional. But not just when you drop them.

                  2. Yes, there are some flaws with the targeting system, I plan to improve that.

                  3. Yep, I’m aware of those things, they will also be fixed ASAP!

                  4. This is intentional (or at least a consequence of how its implemented): “buffer wands” don’t consume mana directly, but temporary reduces max mp. This means that those are used “for free” on monsters when they are identified.

  5. Having a lot of fun with Release 2, and I’m not sure why but I now pretty much always have a weapon by level 5, whereas in Release 1 I pretty much never did. Must be dumb luck since you say nothing changed on that front :/

    Some notes from recent plays:

    Not sure how you’re handling plurals, but “2 wands of diseases” listed in the inventory should technically be “of disease”

    The weapon stat change preview values may not always be correct in some cases, such as when switching from a wooden spear (which has closed melee) to a knife (which doesn’t). The calculation doesn’t seem to take into account the fact that you’ll lose the closed melee (which may be active if switching in a corridor), instead taking the direct difference between the stats of the weapons and applying it to your current stats. To test it I switched back and forth several times and got some strange numbers. The final results are obviously fine after equipping, but the preview is not reliable in that case.

    Finally ran across an instance that let me learn what empty bottles are for. That’s nice.

    Died last night when the only path forward forced me to walk across a room filled with lava. I hate it when that happens. In this case just before the previous rest I’d drank a potion of levitation, so too bad I didn’t find the room before resting!

    1. Maybe it’s my luck too, but I keep finding unavoidable lakes of lava and water on early levels in new release. But do you know what? I like it, because this encourages me to think about unusual solutions.
      Last time I crossed a lake which looked deadly at first glance with… wand of Striking! 😉 It was really fun.

      1. That’s really creative, even I didn’t think of that!

        Good to hear that you like it, I like it too. A lot of people comment on this though, so I have written about it in the FAQ since this is quite unusual design. However, if many players find this annoying I may have to at least reduce the number of such situations.

      2. Wow, wand of striking on yourself. That’s a pretty cool idea! It’s still annoying when there really is no way forward and you have to just quit. The game is difficult enough already without having to quit simply because the path is blocked. Early on it’s not a big deal, but when you finally get a good run going it sucks to find something like that mid-game.

    2. Thanks for the bug reports! Yeah, the equipment comparison still have some flaws, like not counting open/closed melee combat effects, this is hard to fix in the way its currently implemented, but I will think about some workaround.

  6. Just found a bug: Check out this image, in which apparently the frostfly somehow assumed the color of the rogue (on the map, but not in the monsters list). To check I saved, exited, and reloaded and the frostfly’s map color returned to normal. When I first spotted what was in the room it confused me since I thought it was two rogues, though the list of monsters said otherwise 🙂

    1. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. 🙂
      It is kind of graphic effect. It has blinking colour like ice walls, lava, water treasures and other things.

      2. Ah thanks, hadn’t noticed that with frostflies before! (Nor did I move after noticing it in this case–still have that saved game from when I stopped last night.) I guess it was more obvious/confusing in this case because the dark blue color is really hard to see on pretty much any monitor, and there happened to be a rogue in the same room!

  7. The game is very addicting. I think it would be useful to see equipment stats when browsing upgrade services (e.g. blacksmith) rather than just compared stats to currently equipped. Also allow seeing stats for upgrades I cannot afford yet (e.g. magic sword).

    1. Thank you for your comments! Yeah, you are right, it should be possible to see the actual stats for upgrading, I will fix that. I will think about seeing stats of unaffordable items, right now the idea is that it should be some suspense in not knowing what it does before you can afford it, but maybe it would make it more exciting to know it.

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