Beta version of Warlocks Mountain

New release is out, but is a beta and still win32 only.

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Not much to say, but try it out.

Magic and Skills

Long time since I have posted. Instead of releasing a beta as promised I have worked on adding a spell and skill system.
I have implemented a magic system based on seven magic schools. I am yet to finalise how a magic character will choose its school but other that that it works well. The beta will only implement two of these schools, a defensive and an offensive school.
This should be enough to get the feel of it.

Skills are just the standard roguelike set, combat/weapons skills, thief skills, and magic skills. These represent how good you are at a certain weapon/magic school. The beta will allow the player to increase these upon levelling up.

My guess, about a week for the beta. I am just undergoing play testing now, and hopefully I will restrain from adding more features and content.

I am going further away from the Fighting Fantasy feel as I am spending much more time creating complex mechanics rather that game content. Hopefully this will make a great engine to base future games on as well as further develop WM. I have about half a dozen ideas for future games, but I am sure they will never see the light of day, or a dim lit bedroom for that matter. Once the mechanic are behind my I will continue developing the atmosphere of WM again (this has unfortunately taken a back seat)


BTW i have added some more screen shots here

Ascii bitmaps and skills

I am still working hard on a new release. I am adding new features and ideas all the time. I have recently added skills for characters and skill progression. Players can become better at weapons and armour as well as magic. Other skills like trap detection and disarming have yet to be added, but may make an appearance in the next version.
The ASCII version of the game now uses bitmaps instead of the freetype library. This give the graphics a much more standard roguelike look which I hope players will appreciate. I will post some new screen shots soon.
Also I forgot to thank Christopher Barrett for his efforts in creating some original tile graphics for the game. I am very pleased with these as they compliment the original set well.

Taps and more

I have added traps to give the game a more dungeon exploring feel. Players will now have to be more careful when negotiating passages and rooms. Some traps are put in obvious places to give the player something to look out other than just monsters and chests.

A thief class has been added and will give the player a chance to set traps for the orcs and their friends. Traps at this stage are basic but I have some more complex versions in mind. I have added a poison gas trap that works well.

Nearly there

Still coding, WM is near complete for a second release. I have made the mistake of rewriting small portions of the code for neatness sake. This slows down progress so I will try to reframe from fixing stuff until after my next release.
I have had the bonus of a great artist doing a few tiles for me, mostly the orcs, so be sure to check out that when I release the tiled version. I dont have the tiles with me, but I may show them here for my next post.

Work continues

Hmm a while since I posted. Work is still very much underway on the next version of Warlock. It will be much closer to what I want the game to be. I have rewritten some of the algorithms, i.e. path finding and targeting. These work well and are a big improvement for the game.
I have finally settled on the mechanics for the game, it will still reflect the fighting fantasy rules but now merges some of the basic dnd rules. I think this is a good combination, allowing for more strategy but still have a simple interface. Most of the dnd mechanics will remain hidden from the player though. Let me know what you think about that.

Some new features in the game include smarter AI, more items, i.e. food, potions etc, more dungeon types, traps and a tile based version in well underway. And you never know but the ever-handy Y-shaped stick might make an appearance as well. The player will have the choice of four initial character classes, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
Overall the game will have a much richer feel; hopefully without compromising the simple game play and atmosphere that I have tried to develop. Also this may all be released in the next couple of weeks. Also the more support I get the quicker the game will be released :-)

DemiseRL Blogged

Well here it is, the DemiseRL blog.
DemiseRL is a project I started out of boredom related to a hobby of mine, rogue-likes games. I have been playing rogue-likes for many years now, there is something addictive to their simple graphics, challenging game play and depth. I have now taken this hobby one step further and have created my own rogue-like, or more specifically my own rogue-like engine, DemiseRL. This blog is just a way of getting (hopefully) feedback for my games. Currently I have a couple of projects on the go, a Fighting Fantasy based game, Warlock's Mountain and some others yet to be announced.
I will post more later.
That said, time to update my site.