The Indie Ocean's Top 10 Roguelikes

The Indie Ocean has posted his top 10 roguelikes ever (so far) on YouTube. The list features my HyperRogue and Vapors of Insanity, as well as NotEye (as used by PRIME). Also several good, original, and less known roguelikes are covered, such as The Slimy Lichmummy (which I have tried already) or TraumaRL (which I still have to try). Watching recommended. Have fun!

HyperRogue for iOS, and NotEye status

HyperRogue is now available for iOS! However, I am not willing to submit to Apple's rules, so it is not available on the AppStore. It is available on the HyperRogue website, and also on the ModMyi Cydia repository. Have fun!

NotEye is not dead either -- NotEye 8.0 has been moved to SDL2, and the last closed prereleases of ADOM already use the new version. This makes NotEye work much faster, however, it breaks the compatibility with libtcod (which still uses SDL1), and some of the other games (for a yet unknown reason). So there is some work required to release NotEye 8.0 officially, and I am quite busy now, so this needs to wait. Maybe I will port Vapors of Insanity to NotEye, we will see. In the meantime, please try the new version of PRIME (although it still uses NotEye 7.8). Stay tuned!

interview and ADOM pre20

Rather old news, but there has been an interview with me on the Roguelike Radio!

Also, ADOM prerelease 20 is available (for everyone). It includes a newer version of NotEye than the one available on the official NotEye's website. But I am going to wait a bit before releasing the new version officially.

Stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

Roguelike of the Year 2012 Poll has ended!

Hydra Slayer got 13 votes. It got 11 votes in 2011, and 14 votes in 2010... the numbers are quite consistent :) Although the gameplay has not changed much, Hydra Slayer has received some interface improvements due to its involvement in the Roguelike Incubator. I hope that these numbers say that the game has improved a lot through 2011 and 2012 :)

By the way, Game Hunter is now running a Let's Play on Hydra Slayer. Go watch it! (It seems there are some problems with screens disappearing right away... strange, it never happened for me)

HyperRogue III got 23 votes, plus 5 votes for the 7DRL version (HyperRogue II). I see that the draft from the last year (Hyperbolic Rogue) received 11 votes. Anyway, I am very happy about the success of this weird mathematical experiment.

Vapors of Insanity have received 6 votes (the same number as last year). Not a good score, but I have not worked much on it...

ADOM has received a second place with 1445 votes. It had a great crowdfunding campaign, and I am very proud to be a part of it. I hope that NotEye integration will help it to win ROTY 2013 :)

Thanks for everyone who voted!

What about the next year? Probably NotEye will continue getting improvements. Maybe Vapors of Insanity too, although I feel that it is more effective to spend time on other projects (HyperRogue seems the most popular of my games, and I spent the least amount of time on it). I have no plans about any major further changes to HS or HR, but if I invent something new, or get some cool suggestion, I will happily work on it. I have no good idea for a new game... If I had, I would probably execute it right away, instead of waiting for the 7DRL challenge (just like I did with Hydra Slayer and the Hyperbolic Rogue draft). But the year is long... hopefully I will have something new :)

I wish you happy adventuring in the New Year!

ADOM gets NotEye support and tiles!

I should have written about this earlier, but now, we know that it is true: ADOM gets NotEye support and tiles!.

There are only 36 hours left, so you can still make ADOM even better!

Maybe I should start a crowdfunding campaign on my own, for NotEye (or for Vapors of Insanity)? Just wondering.

Potions

For the next version of Vapors of Insanity, I am considering changing how the potions work. I have a feeling that they do not work well in the most games I know.

Potions (and other similar items, like scrolls and wands) can be roughly divided into two types: permanent and temporary ones. Permanent ones have effects which last for the rest of the game, and temporary ones help in one battle (or another short amount of time). This division is not very exact, it is rather intuitive (if you use a temporary potion to avoid death, then it has a permanent effect, in some sense). But it is mostly temporary potions which cause problems.

Let's see how potions work in several games.

• Diablo has its health/mana potions which you have an infinite supply of (from the shops). You can win difficult fights by drinking lots of these potions. It seems that most people who consider this think that this is mindless and badly designed.
• Dungeon Crawl has several important permanent potions (cure mutation), and several powerful temporary items (potions of heal wounds, powerful offensive wands). These temporary items are important; I think that most Crawl players run into situations where they need to use a temporary power, but the difference between winners and losers is that for winners the use rate is simply lower than the finding rate. On the other hand, weak wands and potions are mostly useless.
• In ADOM, there are several important permanent potions, and lots of temporary potions and wands. I use the spenseweed for healing (since there is an unlimited supply of it), but other items are simply collected and never used. The only wands I use in ADOM are wishing and cold, for their permanent effects (cold is used for freezing ice).
• Dungeons of Dredmor seems to have some potions and mushrooms which have weak temporary effects. Since the inventory is limited, it is not even worth it to carry them. But even if the inventory was not limited, they would probably end up just like in ADOM.
• Hydra Slayer has four permanent potions and scrolls (Power Juice, Life, Big Stick, Reforging) and several runes/potions/scrolls with temporary effect. I am quite happy with all of them, but the reason is that in some sense, everything is permanent in Hydra Slayer. That is caused by the fact that health does not regenerate (and thus it is a permanent). Even though the visible effect of, say, Potion of Ambidexterity is temporary, it also has a permanent effect of saving you several HP.
• I have heard that ToME gets rid of temporary items in general. A good move, I think.

So, in summary: the only potions/wands which make sense are those whose effect is either permanent or very noticeable. Vapors of Insanity already got rid of the usual wands, and now it is time for potions.

The other thing that bugged me about liquids in VoI is that they are supposed to be not discrete: you can drink half of the potion and get a partial effect. This makes identification work strangely (you can identify potions by just tasting them, so why the need to identify them at all?) Also you are able to create liquids magically via Rune of Creation. But I find it very hard to explain why you can create, say, poison, but only use it immediately, and not fill a bottle with it.

The planned design is as follows. Temporary potions and herbs expire, so you can no longer carry them in your backpack for a long time. If you find a herb, you can either use it immediately (for a powerful effect) or ignore it. Alchemist huts will have cauldrons which magically generate powerful temporary potions; you can drink them, coat your weapons with them, or fill your bottles (but they will stay there for a very short time only). There will be also a portable version: wands which generate liquids with temporary effects when zapped or rubbed. As with other VoI wands, they will need a contact to a living body to work, so you can use only a limited number of them in a given time.

Vapors of Insanity 0.56 (bugfix)

It has been brought to my attention that the current version of Vapors of Insanity crashes quite frequently. I have checked it, and found it out to be true... I don't know how this escaped my attention, and why it did not get reported for three months. Please report problems earlier next time :)

Anyway, hopefully this release fixes this. This is mostly a bugfix release, there are almost no new features (I have been working on HyperRogue and stuff not related to roguelikes recently).

• You now get more helpful lines when trying to move up/down in the hex mode.
• You can now move more conveniently on laptops, by pressing Shift/Ctrl together with Left/Right (but WEADZX is even more convenient).
• Fixed the WASD movement scheme: wear/wield and worldmap are moved from "w" to "W".
• Also fixed some targetting keys in WASD/VI movement schemes.
• Removed the conflict for shift+S (shift+S saves, shift+T takes sector screenshots).
• The executables are no longer UPX'ed, as this apparently caused malware reports.
• Now compiles without warnings in gcc 4.6.3 (warnings were related to buffer overflows, and missing error checking for input routines; these errors have been fixed).
• Fixed some bugs reported by valgrind (spaces in the font files, uninitialized variables, delete/delete[] bug).
• Improved how the ASCII version looks a bit (but I am concentrating my efforts on the graphical version, so I don't care about the ASCII version much).
• Removed some lines shown during startup.

Get Version 0.56 here!

Vapors of Insanity version 0.55

Time for a new release!

The previous release had several incomplete features and bugs. Some mouse movements which had an intuitive interpretation did not work, or worked not intuitively. This release polishes these, and of course contains many new improvements, for example, it has an improved keyboard interface too.

Mouse interface improvements:

Some clicks and draggings which did not work intuitively do now.

A 'pick up' button.

The big map now shows location names, and also can be used to view the World Map.

You can now see the names of objects when scanning the map with the mouse.

Shift/Ctrl-clicking the map for special meanings (shift+LMB for pick up, shift+RMB to automatically travel to a location).

Windows now display XP/Mana as numbers.

Mousewheel can now be used to scroll long texts and menus, and it no longer shows underlying 'windows'.

Keyboard interface improvements:

The biggest change is that when pressing, e.g., 'e' to eat, you get a list of all matching objects nearby (potions and food, in this case); the same works for many other commands. This is faster and more consistent with other roguelikes.

Replaced 'w' to mean wear and 'W' to mean wield; since there are some people who think that these should be the same command, this is configurable as an option.

More convenient firing (for example, 'f'iring an unloaded crossbow results in an option to load it), and the 'L'oad command can now be used to put things into containers, zappers, sheathes etc.

The '?' key no longer shows a huge and hard to browse list of commands, since it has been split into several subcategories.

General interface improvements:

Non-missile offensive spells are now cast on a nearby enemy/door/wall by default.

You can now configure how direction keys work (turn-or-move, turn-and-move, or relative to facing direction).

Action runes (and their auras) now have colors depending on whether they are powered.

Quivers you find will come pre-configured (which also makes you immediately know the contents).

Added some more formulae explaining calculations if requested.

Improved and fixed armor/weapon replacement menus.

Hashing icons for faster graphics.

Gameplay:

Hybrid villages. These are filled by a unique randomly generated race.

Everything can now be used by wielding it (previously you had to wear armor to use its special powers, and now you can also wield it, sacrificing the ability to wield a weapon; I think this increases the depth a bit).

You can now play with the stuff of paralyzed beings.

Fixed the power of some armor enchantments. Weapons of phasing (DAM/2, huge WC bonus). Strengthened some Protective enchantments. Randarts can have these powers now.

Runes of strength/dexterity are now more likely and more powerful on armors.

Amulets of the hand and mounted horses delayed to later levels.

Only humanoids can mount now. Not items made for humanoids.

Other improvements:

Improved the Manual, which is now also available as a file, and online.

As usual, some other texts and icons have been improved too.

VaporGS improvements: a convenient system for creating methods depending on several objects. Improvements in the priority system (we can now write A < B < C).

Fixed lots of bugs (tutorial, menus, useless question when looking at targetting help, memorizing books, mounted, some usages, forget confirmation).

And lots of minor improvements!

Get it here and have fun. Good luck!

Vapors of Insanity 0.54

Vapors of Insanity 0.54 has been released!

The focus of this release is to try to become a bit more friendly to newbies. The right side of the main screen has been reworked, and it contains icons, which can be clicked to perform some action. You can also right click on objects to open an extra window about the given objects, which show actions available and contents for the given object. Also most common uses can be executed by simply dragging one object to another. As always, this is still a work of progress, but I want to release a version before Christmas to show what is being worked on.

As for more changes...

• You can now choose from several modes of movement input. There is still a VI mode for hardcore roguelike and VI fans, but you can also select two simpler modes.
  
• A 'Rogue' specialization is added. Rogues are good at hiding in shadow, striking from the back, and they know a simple teleportation spell. Overall, the facing mechanics used by VoI are supposed to allow a nice stealth-based game, and Rogues exploit that. (Although it seems it is quite hard to actually perform a backstab.)
  
• Mouse navigation of the main menu.
  
• Tooltips are shown when you are trying to use the mouse in an in-game menu, so you no longer need to guess what a click does. Anyway, when playing with a mouse, you probably won't need to use menus that much especially item selection menus).
  
• Widemap now covers fullscreen (and can be navigated with the mouse, of course).
  
• Spells obtained via concatenation now have icons which present what they do.
  
• Some new icons. Armor icons are mirrored now.
  
• Players no longer start with hooded cloaks (since they restrict vision, and I don't want to give bad impressions about FOV).
  
• Fixes with AI (to make backstabbing more playable).
  
• "Power of sight" can now be used to see the FOV of another creature.
  
• Items in the backpack no longer lose color (unless you want this).
  
• Some other minor bugfixes.
  
• Tutorial now has two modes, for keyboard and mouse users.
  
• "Spells" now shows mana, and "skills" shows XP and free XP pool.
  

So, not many gameplay chnages, but I have not had much time recently. And of course... there is not much time left, but fans are recommended to vote for Vapors of Insanity and my other games on Roguelike of the Year. Happy Holidays :)

Vapors of Insanity 0.53

Version 0.53 of Vapors of Insanity is hereby released!

Unfortunately I have not worked much on VoI recently, due to lack of time (I have worked a bit on my other roguelike projects though, Necklace of the Eye + Hydra Slayer, and Hyperbolic Rogue which seems to have turned out to be much more popular than I expected). Still, I have made some progress, and since there is currently a discussion on Bay 12 Games Forum about VoI, I have decided that I should release what I have instead of waiting until I have time to develop more. I am quite tired now, but I hope nothing is seriously broken.

OK, so the changelog for Version 0.53 follows...

• When you try to start a new game, you are told that you should try the tutorial, and how.
  
• You can now have several saved games, and see a list of them. Also this works in a more logical manner now.
  Playerfiles (*.apf) are now correctly linked to saved games (universe files, *.auh): their names now include universe names (to avoid collision) and are deleted together with them.
  
• Four directional movement works now.
  
• You can now select geometry (four-directional, hex, eight-directional) from the main menu.
  
• Input is now configurable. Currently you can switch to VI keys, and have more or less confirmations.
  
• Provided icons for vortices, vests and armors, skills, usages, actions, potions and elements, etc.
  
• Rune of Draining, which allows you to cast spells from sources other than your own mana.
  
• Spell of Charging, Spell of Zap.
  
• Rune of Anchoring has been renamed to Spell of Tagging, and is now a spell that can be cast at enemies (but also resisted).
  
• Improved the balance for the "spray" spell.
  
• Diaries are more frequent now, and they have a random thing/monster picture on their covers.
  
• The ordering in the list of actions ('?') is better now.
  
• Runes no longer work on non-spells.
  
• Fixed bug with melting doors with locks.
  
• Fixed missing parameters for some potions.
  
• Sponge spell now can steal potions from inside vials and dragon breath.
  
• Fixed designs. Fixed chasm arrows.
  
• Fixed a bug with stacking target signs which caused stack overflow.
  

Technical:

• Priority assigner in VaporGS. For now, used for initializer scripts, but all method priorities are planned to use it.
  
• Shift+F2 thoroughly analyzes icons now.
  
• Internal icon names are more standarized now.
  
• Wishing cheat improved. Can generate specific books, or bottles and cauldrons with specific potions now.
  
• Asking for a VaporGS symbol (mQSymbol) improved.
  
• Books are now methplexes as everything else.
  

Small update to VoI

A small update: hex mode looks great but the eight-directional mode was not displayed correctly, this is fixed now.

Vapors of Insanity 0.52 (third preview)

The time of ARRP 2011 has come, and time to release a new version. Thus, a new version of Vapors of Insanity is released!

As you can see on the screenshot, the game now correctly displays hexes (as hexes, not as bricks), this is prettier and hopefully less confusing. Also a small icon shows health state and facing of all creatures (well, in this particular screenshot, only the player character). As for more changes...

• Reworked the 'use' command. It now includes relevant usages which were previously considered usages of different objects. It also returns automatically after performing an use. Thus, if you are robbing a body and want to search the backpack, wield its weapon and wear its armor yourself, read the map, drink the potion right away,  pick up or pocket some other items, then the 'use' command will allow you to do it more comfortably. Icons are added for some usages. Right clicking on the map now performs 'use'.
• Wands: Fixed some wands. Pocketed wands now recharge mana.
• Removed the copy of vapors.ini from config subdirectory (only the one in the main directory is used, which was confusing).
• Pressing up/down (or diagonals in the 4-directional mode) does more reasonable things now.
• Mutations: Changed probabilities of mutations. Mutagen potion. Mutant monsters now can be found randomly. Some mutations need to be identified.
• A spell with a big object bound now has as a big missile (thus it always hits creatures and cannot be shot through windows).
• Introduction story now mentions that you should go Southeast.
• Staves: there were some problems with enchanted staves, these are fixed. Runes of elemental brand.
• AI now can shoot through terrain features which block movement (but it still cannot go around them).
• Gems can contain enchantments now (as they were supposed to). The verb 'rub' is now used for touching with items (not with your body) instead.
• Display: Your damage is now displayed in the classical way (100/100 means full health). Damage percentage is displayed for other beings.
• Monsters: less cats, giant crabs appear, greater chance of weaker races to appear (especially for humanoids). Harpies are humanoids now as they were supposed to be. Melissans now start with a skill in stinging (similar for other races with interesting body attacks). Floating eyes now come in different flavors, which have shuffled colors.
• Map generation: Wells now contain some monsters and items (also going down them has been fixed), some minor treasures appear in beast lairs too. Fixed some huts generating inaccessible furniture. Materials for floors, walls, furniture, and roofs are now chosen with different distributions; also theme-dependant. Honeydew appears in formican farmers' inventories and farms. Potions more frequent. All floor runes are named 'floor rune' now. Hybrids now appear (they were implemented, but had no chance to appear). Featured hybrids: five randomly generated monsters which appear commonly. Some fixes and better icons. Furniture now has more reasonable weights (and hit methods).
• Fields a bit more interesting: they block vision, (slightly) missiles, and movement (although wielding a relevant weapon helps here).
• Books: different colors and images on covers. Updated the final chapters (which were not consistent with the game). Skills learned from books now work correctly right away without reloading. Other fixes.
• Many fixes with attacking, font is centered, 3D renderer, display, engine, descriptions. 

Get it here!

I expect the development rate will drop now... But as always, if you have any ideas for improvements, please send them to me, this will probably make the next include the suggestion, and be released faster :)

Vapors 0.51

A new version of Vapors of Insanity (0.51) is released!

Most focus went into making the development tools available, so players can see how VoI has been created, and (in future) create mods. Again, this is just a preview, as it is not documented very well yet.

I have also considered all the comments I have seen so far. Almost all ideas for improvements have been implemented (some have been implemented only partially, like improving the interface). So if you don't like something, please post a comment, I'll try to fix it in in the next version, after three weeks. :)

Many people don't like the interface. I have made some improvements, and improved the tutorial, so it is much better now (hopefully). But surely it needs much more work.

Other visible changes... well, the most visible one is that you can now see wielded weapons. ;) Also trees are more interesting now.

For a more complete change log:

- refactoring
- you are told how to quit after you die
- improved Elftown design
- you can now target spells in other directions by "rotating" the staff
- fixed wells
- big hammers as a starting weapon for blacksmiths (there was no good blunt weapon of suitable power)
- fixed learning designs from books
- you can now tell your allies to stay in place (and golems to stay in the forge)
- smiths start with some basic designs
- greatly improved the smithing interface (just go into a forge or furnace)
- fixed a bug with recognizing cells inside a room (which caused weird mixed-material huts)
- chimneys; you have to explicitly ask for it if you want to go down a well/chimney
- trees now have many different shapes (and some fixes added); the list of types has been extended
- some monsters are able to climb trees
- added some icons in menus
- dead beings no longer block or dodge
- roads and tunnels are now less twisty (the straightening algorithm was already there, but not active)
- you can  now 'talk to all'
- graphics: you can see weapons, shields, and helmets now
- target life now can target upwards or downwards
- lizards now able to climb chasms and dunes
- a much better tutorial
- Aiming (Archery skill) now reduces encumberance.
- some balance improvements
- decoration added for cells next to roads; roads work better on beaches (and ocean)
- some other minor modifications

Have fun :) And please submit comments, I need them to improve things.

Vapors of Insanity preview

This is the first release of my big roguelike, named Vapors of Insanity. It is intended to be a major roguelike. It already has lots of features, but probably also lots of bugs, imbalances, and other bad stuff. Check it out at your own risk! :)

Vapors of Insanity is a roguelike game set on a paradise island of Fortarica, where the common Humans, mighty Dwarves and Orcs, insect-like Melissans and Formicans, and many more people lived in peace and harmony... until now. One day, you wake up, and see magical fog everywhere around you, and every man and beast around seems to become a mindless machine, wanting only to kill you! The only way to find the source of the problem is to fight the crazy beasts, hoping that you will find a way to remove the vapors, and the beasts will be sane again... Will you be able to win?

Vapors of Insanity features:

• A big three-dimensional world, consisting of a big variety of outdoor, building, and underground locations.
• You can play both in hex and orthogonal mode.
• An original spell system, where you can build complicated spells using simpler spells as components.
• Also original skill/experience and fighting systems.
• Many hopefully interesting magical gadgets that can be found.
• A variety of creatures and items to find: about 150 types of items, 150 species of monsters and plants, 150 materials (including potions), 150 types of magical runes, 80 skills and spells; some of them are parametrized. These include both the standard high fantasy stuff and more original ideas.
• Graphics that are supposed to not only have the advantages of a graphical display (better aesthetics, accessibility for new players), but also the roguelikes' classical ASCII display (clarity, allowing one to use imagination, simplicity of creation of new monsters and items). An ASCII mode is also provided for SSH access, and other hardcore ASCII fans.

For developers:

• Most of the game written in a special scripting language called VaporGS, allowing developers to create new modules, which can be simply placed in an appropriate game to modify the game somehow; these can range from minor additions (and you should be able to easily use several such additions at one time, if there are no obvious conflicts); they can be also provided as either open source (for educational purposes), or as closed source (if you want to have hidden secrets)
• The language is based on a extension of the Object Oriented paradigm, where objects can modify other objects by providing additional methods to them (like a ring of flying providing a flying ability to the wearer, but this paradigm has been applied in many various ways)

(Note: the development tools and the script sources are not yet available in the current release)

Get Vapors of Insanity here