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Working on a roguelike...

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Sereg:
<Latest version: Demo 0.1.3.0 @ 03APR2019 21:15 CST>


I've been inactive here for quite a long time due to RL commitments, although I have been occasionally (quietly) observing the progress of Jupiter Hell - from what I have seen, it's looking good and I hope to have some time to get into it in depth in the near future.

That said, part of my RL commitments have involved learning to code, and I've been working on a roguelike of my own. I have a very small group of friends I've shared it with, but I'd like to put it out to a slightly larger audience for a better range of feedback, and since it's, at least to some extent, inspired by DRL, I thought this would be a suitable place to make it available.

I've primarily been working with Java, so I distribute it as a .jar. If anyone would like to help me test it, here is a download link - I'm currently hosting it out of my google drive since I don't have any sort of website or anything else at this point.

For anyone playing on a smaller monitor, I recommend enabling the Maximize Screen option - I don't currently support dynamic resizing, so this is my solution to legibility issues on smaller screens for now.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is an extremely early alpha release, and the gameplay is incomplete(although winning is possible), unbalanced, and very unpolished - there are also probably most definitely bugs lurking that I haven't detected during my own testing.  Edit: Already found one! Link updated with a bugfix.

If there is any objection by the Godhand or the Inquisition to my releasing a personal project unrelated to the Forge on this forum, do please feel free to remove the link.

Thanks for reading,

-Sereg

Edit: As of 03 APR 2019, I have iterated from Alpha to Demo. At this point, I had planned to move into a Beta, but due to other projects, I am indefinitely suspending active development on Viridian Abyss. I will, however, continue to support it with balance updates and bugfixes based on player feedback.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with testing the Alpha, especially Tormuse and mihey1993, my most prolific players. Your feedback was essential to getting the game to its current state - I greatly appreciate your participation, and I welcome continued feedback on balance issues and bugs - there are definitely a lot of these still out there, which I'd love to get cleaned up.

I'll also probably bring my other projects here in the future, but that may be a long way out - I intend to spend much more time on design and quality assurance so I can avoid the massive amount of bugs I experienced with Viridian Abyss, and keep the code cleaner and more conducive to continued development.

Kornel Kisielewicz:
No problems on my side - I'd have issues if this was the only reason you'd register and post, but as a long time community member, you're more than welcome to post your stuff :). I might take a look myself, but probably at work, because I don't want to setup the needed java stuff at home (in the long run you should research the all included deployment setup of java projects).

Sereg:
I appreciate your approval - thanks, Kornel.


I'll definitely look into other methods of deploying projects as I continue my education - this is simply the format I am most familiar with and it's sort of a starting point as I develop my skills, but I do realize how limited it is.


Thanks for the advice - and if you do end up having a look at it, I'd definitely be interested in your thoughts.

Tormuse:
Ouch...  that font is not easy on the eyes at all.  :(  Even when I maximize it, I still have to lean forward and squint at my screen to read anything.  (So when I saw the text wall at the beginning, I was like, "F...  that!")  :P

Anyway, it looks pretty cool!  :)  I wandered around for a bit, fighting giant red rats and I'm already encountering a bug that I can't access the menus.  (Like they appear greyed out when I click on them)  They started greyed out when I first ran the program and then I was able to access them briefly after I started the game, but after that, they've been perpetually greyed out and I can't look up the controls, so I have no idea what button does what.  I mean I can guess; I figured out that "i" accesses my inventory and "e" accesses my equipment, and "g" gets items on the floor, but anything else, I have no idea.  For example, I found a chest, but I have no idea how to open it.  :(

Sereg:
Thanks for trying it out, Tormuse. Out of curiosity, which version did you download? I've been pushing updates somewhat frequently as I continue to work on it...

I did encounter some menu oddities, but at least during my tests, they have been resolved as of the 0.6.3 release which I've just uploaded - I believe it had to do with how I handled loading existing game files, so if you delete your existing game.sav file that should also resolve the menu issue(this can be done by quitting with ctrl-q instead of ctrl-x - I frequently use the q option in my testing and I believe that's why I hadn't noticed the menu problem until just now).

Typing '?' will load the exact same help screen that the menu option does, so there is some input redundancy available if you continue to have trouble with the menus - but do let me know if that's the case, since I'll want to look into that if my latest fix doesn't resolve the issue on your end.

Typing 'a' will "alter" your environment and is a general purpose command that does different things depending on what you use it on - it should allow you to open chests and doors, among other things.

As far as the text, is it solely the font that's to blame or the formatting also an issue? I can certainly look into changing the font if that's the only problem, but the formatting is dependant on the underlying console program and may prove much more difficult to change... My latest release features additional screen size options and the ability to resize at run time, so give those a try and let me know if anything helps. If not, I'll consider other fixes.

The text walls that occasionally pop up are just some BS lore I've written to give the game a setting. It can certainly be skipped with minimal loss of enjoyment(or perhaps even gain, if my writing is as awful as I suspect, lol) for the rest of the game.

Thanks again for your input - I welcome feedback from anyone, but, having read your commentary on quite a lot of topics during my time here, I find yours especially valuable.

Edit: Alpha 0.6.4 is up with support for font selection from a limited set of common fonts. Please let me know if this helps with readability for you, and feel free to suggest other fonts for future inclusion.

Edit2: Help! Can't stop coding. Must go to sleep... Anyway, 0.6.5 is now available, which features an additional color theme which may help visibility - or screw it up even worse. I suspect lots of fine tuning will be needed to get it to look decent, but give it a shot and let me know what you think.

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