NotEye 7.5: TPP, samples, 7DRL invitation, and more!

After more than four months, a new version of NotEye is ready!

NotEye 7.5 has a new graphical mode (TPP). Since you can configure the camera angle, facing direction, and zoom, this is in fact several modes in one! Also, NotEye's fullscreen mode behaves in a more pleasant way (it keeps the current resolution, instead of changing it to the window resolution -- it can be configured to use the old behavior, too). Also, a new font was added (Wouter van Oortmerssen's Square font for roguelikes).

Moreover, NotEye is now friendly to developers using many different languages. Not only the support for C++ (namespaces) and C (NotEye header correctly compiles under a C comiler) has been improved, but also NotEye now includes samples in Free Pascal, Python, Java, and Lua. All of these examples (except Lua) show many basic features: PC, monsters, smooth animation, error handling (just reload the Lua files on Lua errors). All of the five sample games are very simple, but at least they are at least a bit different :)

Since the 7DRL challenge is coming, I invite the participants to use NotEye for their 7DRL this year. See here for more details.

Direct download link: NotEye 7.5+Hydra Slayer 15.5, Roguelike Bundle 1.3

Some more changes:

• Several options were added: Projectile speed, Backgrounds, Detail/violence levels (for disabling drawing of CPU-intensive details or blood). These options work for games which support them.
• Arrow keys can be used to change music/sound and detail/violence levels. Instant feedback when changing music/sound volume.
• All configs, recordings, screenshots etc. are now stored in the 'user' subdirectory; default config is included (in 'common') and copied there.
• 'copy error message to a file' in the crash menu.
• Auto-recording now can be selected from the menu (not only from the config file).
• Auto-logging. If you wanted to know how much time you spend playing roguelikes for some reason, now you can.
• Menus are now more colorful.
• Removed ADOM and PRIME from the menu - these games use NotEye, just download and run them.
• The NotEye Menu has been rearranged a bit. Fixed the message to 'press ENTER to resume playing' while in a game.
• Fixed the system terminal mode (it did not work in NotEye 7.3 due to changes).
• Gamescript files now provide their NotEye version (for backward compatibility in the future).
• In Hydra Slayer source, BFS is called bfs() instead of dfs().
• The palette display now works with all fonts (uses filled blocks instead of characters).
• Added some utility functions in the Lua scripts (sendvector, keyname).
• Renamed some functions in the NotEye header to make it clear that they belong to NotEye; also, for colors, the type 'noteyecolor' is used instead of 'int'. Added some new utility functions (noteye_lastkeyevent_* for examining the details of keypresses which do not resolve to characters, Lua-callable functions now can return nested arrays and Lua tables).
• Bounding boxes are calculated for tiles, which should make the pictures draw faster.
• A minor fix in backward compatibility.

HyperRogue 4.3 and Pandora

Pandora (image from Wikipedia)

mcobit has contacted be about his porting of HyperRogue to the gaming console Pandora. It was quite fun to improve HyperRogue's controls to make them work well on a device with a small screen, keyboard, and two joysticks (even if I have no Pandora myself). On Pandora, you need to touch and release to move (or use a joystick), arrow keys move (instead of panning), and shoulder buttons can be used to move diagonally; these could be also useful with other ports in the future. But the desktop HyperRogue got some control improvements, too. There are no real gameplay changes, unless you count new flavor messages which appear when you press 'g'.

• You can now actually control the whole game with keyboard (well, except the graphical editor and the help which you get when you right-click the framerate). When panning with arrows, a cursor appears, and you can press F1 for more information about that location, or 't' to teleport (if allowed).
• Keys 't' and 'g' now display messages if you have no respective Orb.
• You can now use a joystick to move. If you have two joysticks, the second one can be used for panning. There are two modes of joystick movement (press 'p' to switch).
• Right Shift and Right Ctrl change the meaning of mouse presses (useful with touchscreens and mice with too few buttons).
• Anti-aliasing can be enabled/disabled in the config file.
• Window caption was missing.
• You can now press the middle button to pan (a quite fun feature that was previously available only on Android), or use the mousewheel for far movement (down) or panning (up).

Download HyperRogue 4.3 here (Windows+source+music, 44MB); if you already have the music, you can download the version without music (1MB).

By the way, the next version of NotEye will have a Third Person Perspective mode. NotEye's FPP mode was mostly a joke to show the nonsense of the obsession with 3D in modern games, but the new TPP mode is something that looks quite well and is actually playable. Stay tuned!

HyperRogue 4.2 smoothly released!

It turns out that OpenGL works with the Minkowski hyperboloid too! As a result, HyperRogue 4.2 is released, using OpenGL for display, which works MUCH more smoothly than previous versions. In case of any problems, the non-OpenGL renderer is still available (run with the "-o" option or press F2 o to toggle), and without OpenGL, anti-aliasing can be turned on or off (F2 Shift+O).

Also, fixed a crash bug with Ivy plants — it affected the Android version (and thus was fixed in 4.1a for Android), not sure whether it affected the desktop version too.

To celebrate the smoother engine, a better looking Wolf has been added. I am happy with the current graphics, but if you are interested in making alternative vector-based art, we could work on it ;) Don't forget that you can press F6 to draw your own floors and player character. (In the Roguelike Radio episode 83, Kawa mentioned how the @ sign traditionally used in roguelikes can represent any kind of character that the player imagines. In HyperRogue, you can actually draw one! Well, the editor is very simple for now, colors are not supported yet.)

There are no gameplay changes. See the HyperRogue website for more information about HyperRogue.

I am still working on porting the changes to Android, hopefully the Android port will also run more smoothly soon.

As expected, you can now vote for Roguelike of the Year on ASCII Dreams. Don't forget to vote for HyperRogue, Hydra Slayer, and ADOM! If you want to support HyperRogue, bitcoin donations are now possible (not sure whether they work, though).

Download HyperRogue 4.2 here (Windows+source+music, 44MB); if you already have the music, you can download the version without music (1MB). Happy hacking!

HyperRogue 4.1 is released!

HyperRogue 4.1 is released, with the following improvements:

• In the Android version, the Android-standard menu for user settings (which are saved now), and the game log is available from the menu. (This was actually done in version 4.0b, but not announced here.)
• Added tags to the OGG files. (Actually this was already done in "hyperrogue-40t.zip", but not announced here.)
• An option to reduce the framerate limit to conserve CPU energy. Also framerate is reduced in non-game screens and when the app is not in focus. (Thanks to Damyan Ivanov for suggesting this!) Unfortunately desktop only, for now (on Android the framerate is low even with full CPU usage, at least on my devices).
• Alchemist's lab fixes: all monsters (except eagles and ghosts) now adhere to the rules. Fixed a bug with pushing Thumpers through. Mimics and mirrors no longer damage the slime colors. Worms and Ivies can enter the Alchemist's Lab now. Flash/lightning spells now copy the slime color under PC when used in the Alchemist's Lab (thus allowing easy travel). (Thanks to Andrew Farnsley for mentioning this and several other bugs!)
• The Jungle is easier now. (Previously, either a single ivy with 7 branches, or two ivies next to each other with 5 and 4 branches, were generated; the ivy got less branches if the required cell was blocked. Now, the harder case only happens in 25% cases (instead of 50%), and the ivy is not generated at all if some of the locations for branches are blocked by other ivies.)
• The greater demon description now explains the mechanics is more detail. Mimics and mirrors no longer kill greater demons (they turn them to lesser demons instead).
• Fixed a minor bug with Thumper power draining incorrectly, and a bug with bonfire power draining twice as fast as stated.
• Eagles and ghosts no longer fall or collapse tiles in the Land of Eternal Motion. Also, Eagles now actually fly (i.e., can go through lakes, chasms, and slime).
• The Esc-screen now displays the last messages (scrollable with the arrow keys).
• Contributors are now listed in the Credits section in Help.
• Added missing license files to the package.
• Fixed the filename in hyperrogue-music.txt for Cocytus.

Download HyperRogue 4.1 here (Windows+source+music, 44MB); if you already have hyperrogue-40t.zip, you can download the version without music (1MB). The Android version should be available on Google Play soon.

See also: the HyperRogue website

Have fun! And don't forget to vote for HyperRogue, Hydra Slayer, and ADOM in the Roguelike of the Year poll, which should come soon on ASCII Dreams!

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!

NotEye 7.3

NotEye 7.3+Hydra Slayer 15.3 is released!

NotEye 7.3 has the following changes visible to players. You can see them in Hydra Slayer 15.3, as well as in ADOM Prerelease 17, which is coming soon to donors!

• Some crash bugs in NotEye 7.2 have been fixed.
• The display does not jump to center of the new player position immediately—instead, it moves smoothly.
• Smooth character movement animations in games which support it, such as Hydra Slayer or ADOM. There are some issues with it, but still, I think it is a nice feature.
• Auto-scrolling, manual scrolling, and movement animation speeds are configurable.
• OpenGL is now automatically turned on in the FPP mode (this previously worked in ADOM, and has been moved to NotEye).
• Fixed a problem with out-of-window mouse on Mac (thanks to jt).
• Ctrl+wheel zooming has a limit now.
• The Minimap now tends to use the reserve lines if they were allocated.

For those who want to use NotEye for their own games, there are also some more technical changes:

• Noteye uses Vector and Rectangle structures now (see vectors.noe), instead of {x=, y=} or {x0=, y0=, x1=, y1=} structures. This makes some code more elegant (we no longer need to do the same thing for X and Y coordinates separately).
• Adjustments for the Roguelike Bundle: NotEye detects if it is a part of the Bundle, and adjusts its menus accordingly.
• Added "pickinteger"/"pickbool" functions to make it easier to write user config files (config-GAME.noe).
• Redesigned the display system. Most of the functions have changed.
• FPP mode now accepts floating point coordinates of the origin.
• Fixed spFree ordering in the non-OpenGL FPP mode (it is now drawn after spFloor/spCeil).
• I have started some refactoring (to reduce the number of global variables), but this is still a work in progress.
• Some of the changes above are not backward compatible (old game.noe files would not work with the new version). The file "backward.noe" is supposed to list what has changed, and apply fixes for old game.noe files.

You can download NotEye+Hydra Slayer (Windows binary+source) here (~8 MB), or the Roguelike Bundle Draft v1.2 (Windows, 20 MB) with more games included which work out of the box.

Have fun!

HyperRogue 4.0! (music and other features)

HyperRogue version 4.0 is hereby released!

This version includes music, by Neon Corridor. You can now listen to a canon which plays in reverse in the Land of Mirrors, a mysterious tune in R'Lyeh which always gets lower and lower, and many more great tunes on your way to the Orbs of Yendor! Also some things have been improved (Crossroads treasure added, Ivies improved...), and some exploits have been removed (thanks to Adam Borowski for noticing these).

The full changelog is below:

• music support added
• Ivies have been greatly improved: they shrink if an active branch sees no good move (except at the root), they are now active as long as there is at least one segment in view, and they no longer go to the Alchemist Lab (as this caused bugs). Also, if you cut an active Ivy just after root or another branching point, it immediately regrows and spins (previously it regrew without spinning at the root, and caused bugs at other branching points)
• Worms are now active as long as there is at least one segment in view, they now destroy walls and thumpers around them when they explode (so if you find a good place for killing worms, it is hard to use it more than once), and worms and tentacles can go to other lands now, except Motion and Alchemist (but worms produce spice on explosion only in the Desert)
• After getting 10 Demon Daisies, Crossroads get a unique treasure to be found (Hyperstones), so the player has some point to spend time there (should be fun, since you are likely to meet almost all monsters and orbs on the Crossroads)
• the cheat mode has been extended (press F2 F4 to start cheating, then press shift+letter for various effects)
• Cocytus works now (but is still available only via cheating or by getting an insane score)
• if you collect a lot of items in a single land, this increases the spawning rate of wandering monsters in all lands, so you are no longer relatively safe by walking at the edge
• when used on a location containing both an item and a monster, context help now shows information about the monster
• added some flavor messages, and replaced "ESC to quit" with "ESC for menu/quest", to make it more clear to the players that there is more about the game than hunting for treasure
• pressing F1 or right clicking while looking at the context help now displays the general help screen
• Fixed the Crossroads description (there are no longer Crossroad Rangers and big holes in the ground)
• improved the general help screen
• improved the handling of non-qwerty keyboards (movement is done according to the QWERTY layout as previously, but other menus take the layout into account correctly)
• Alchemist Lab: the description is more detailed now, killing lots of slimes no longer degenerates the Alchemist's Lab into pure treasure, slime beasts now destroy items around them when killed, and dead orbs no longer cause the slime to spill
• Living Caves: Foreign monsters and objects affect the Living Caves now, and cave trolls now destroy items around them when killed
• Graveyard: killing graveyard monsters slowly increases the initial monster rate in the graveyard (so grinding for Dead Orbs is harder), and necromancers can go outside the Graveyard now
• renamed Icy Lands and Living Caves to singular (for better grammar)

Have fun!

HyperRogue homepage
download source+Windows binary+music (44 MB)