Hydra Slayer Social for Android 13.0b: more social features

Hi, a minor update about Hydra Slayer for Android: it becomes even more social by integrating with HeyZap. Also, there has been an bugfix with one of the achievements, and a new leaderboard added (the simplest one, which counts the wounds until winning). Have fun!

The desktop version of Hydra Slayer is still the same. I think I have a nice idea for a new weapon: a blade which reverses time. The basic idea is as follows: a flaming dagger is not very useful against most opponents in the later levels, as it usually removes one head and gives, say, 7 new ones. But what will a time-reverse flaming dagger do? Well, it will take 7 heads and grow one. I think it could be quite interesting to have it in the first part of the game, which would probably mean a new race which starts with it (like Elves start with the Bow). What about the later game? Well, the dagger described above it is too unreliable to be very useful in the later game, but using the Scroll of Big Stick could give more time-reversal powers, like being healed on an attack, or making the Hydras flee from you instead of going to you. Needs some balancing, but could be fun.

Hydra Slayer for Android 13.0a: bug fixes and social features

A new version of Hydra Slayer for Android is released on the Android Market!

On one hand, this fixes some bugs. You can now show the soft keyboard ("show keyboard" in the menu), and the game should now detect corrupted savefiles, and offer to remove them (instead of silently crashing again and again). It also should no longer create empty savegames (which resulted in a slayer in an empty level). There are some other minor improvements.

I am also experimenting with Swarm, which is a SDK for enhancing Android games with social features such as achievements, leaderboards, and friend lists. So, you will now be able to compare your scores against your friends, and fight for achievements. Since some people might not want it (due to Internet permissions or a slighly larger size) you need to download another version of Hydra Slayer, named Hydra Slayer Swarm.

Since these features are only for Android, there is no new version for desktop.

Good luck Hydra slaying!

Brogue video

And here is another NotEye video, presenting Brogue.

There are some glitches (Brogue draws some black letters on black background which are supposed to be invisible but are visible in NotEye; windows do not display very nicely and sometimes don't receive mouse clicks correcly) but I hope it shows something.

Have fun watching!

Hydra Slayer + NotEye video

Another video! This one presents Hydra Slayer as viewed through NotEye. It presents the various graphical modes available through NotEye (one important thing which is not shown on the video is that you can change to a bigger resolution to see a bigger part of the map), and Hydra Slayer's various geometries. Have fun!

Noteye version 5.0 released!

NotEye version 5.0 is released! This is a rather big release, with many new features:

• Isometric view.
• Mini-tiles view. This is similar to the roguelike's normal ASCII view, except that the ASCII map is replaced with tiles.
• Sound effects, based on messages from the game.
• You can now change fonts in NotEye. This also changes the resolution, so more tiles will fit if the font is larger. A nice VGA-like 32x16 font from VoI is included.
  
• A custom libtcod 1.5.1, so you will be able to connect to libtcod roguelikes.
• A config for Brogue. All graphic modes and sounds.
• More configuration options in config.lua.
• Objects in 3D no longer float over the ground.
• Additional optional input methods: Shift/Ctrl+Left/Right arrow for diagonal movement, and VI keys.
• Keypresses now know their "unicode" meaning, not only key symbol, which should make development easier, and more portable to different keyboard layouts.
  
• NotEye Menus (and webpage) now display a logo.
  
• Curses output. Could be useful to watch recordings of 16-color roguelikes on simple terminals, but not recommended for things like Brogue (the colors are very bad).
  
• Faster (SDL's blit functions are now used where they were not, much more efficient hashing of tiles, some additional hardcoded functions).

Also I have created a video showing NotEye in action (with DoomRL). 

Hydra Slayer itself has not been updated, but NotEye gives new options to it (sounds, new fonts, isometric and mini-tile views).

Plans for the future include finally writing the documentation (I suppose adapting NotEye for new games might be quite hard now due to the lack of docs), and probably improvements to the FPP mode (using OpenGL's hardware acceleration instead of drawing by own calculations should be much faster, also new ways of placing the 3D objects).

Good luck to all (B)Rogues and Hydra Slayers!

NotEye 4.0

Necklace of the Eye 4.0 is released!

The focus of this release is a streaming protocol. You can use it to record and view recordings (which you can also annotate with messages, or perform simple editing), or use it over network, allowing clients to watch you while playing, or share a game between two or more people. You can let the viewers use their own mode (plain ASCII, tiles or FPP) or make them use a specific one. I suppose that, for simple uses, it is easier to set up than a SSH server, although some care needs to be taken for safety.

My next goal will probably be to make libtcod able to communicate via the NotEye protocol, thus allowing NotEye to work with libtcod roguelikes, not only system console ones.

Have fun!

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 :)