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[Tormuse]

You're quite a lucky guy to have found two in one session!

Or unlucky.  :P

Did they appear on the ground at any point prior to vanishing? Did they drop to the same tile as an existing item?

I'm not sure for either question; I was more focused on my inventory free space at the time.

Ever play the old Gamecube game Eternal Darkness? That's the effect I'm going for with this system.

I haven't played that game, but I have played Consuming Shadow, (made by Yahtzee, of Zero Punctuation fame) and that has fancy insanity effects.  Same with Trilby's Notes, also by Yahtzee.

Removing an item that won't fit in your inventory will indeed drop it on the ground, and it should also send you a message telling you that.

As I recall, it did display a message saying the cuirass was dropped.  It just wasn't there.



In other news, I took a quick look at the latest version.  The display/interface looks *very* different from previous versions!  I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I'll give it a try and let you know what I think.


EDIT:  Okay!  I just finished playing a version 0.7.1 game and I won!  :D

Spoiler: Here's the autopsy. (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 2019.02.07.16.50.23

Cleared the game on level 14

Total XP: 29403

Equipped Items:
an ancient falchion (+2, 4d6+4) [Moderately Damaged]
<no item equipped>
an oil lamp <sacred oil:83%>
a Lemurian noble cuirass [Severely Damaged]
an amulet of protection

Carried Items:
<45> a steel cinquedea (+2, 2d4+1) [Slightly Damaged]
<85> a leather vest [Undamaged]
<2> an ancestral pendant
<3> an amulet of precision
<75> 15x flask [sacred oil] (100%)
<5> 1x flask [fire water] (100%)
<4> 1x vial [medicine] (100%)
<128> 16x clay jar [healing ointment] (95%)
<12> 3x ancient vial [clear elixir] (100%)

Kills:
76x giant red rat
16x cave worm
12x grave worm
29x tomb serpent
13x swarm of tiny scarabs
4x albino tiger
16x mummified swordsman
2x mummified noble
2x spectral remnant
2x viridian aura
1x lemurian necrocrat

[checksum: 6213fbd5]

At one point, I got hit by a virdian aura and didn't die, (it brought me down to "heavily wounded") so it either has a somewhat wide range of damage or the amulet of protection, which protects from physical attacks, saved me.

I have some more notes, of course.  I'll start with comments about the differences between this version and the previous one.  The different display without the inventory and equipment visible threw me at first, but I got used to it.  That being said, you might want to re-think what information you display on the left side.  If you want to cut down on how busy the screen is, that's fine, but the information that you leave there should be stuff that the player needs the most often.  Having the time, health, and sanity levels is fine, but I wouldn't expect the player to need to know all their individual resistances except when they put on something new.  Same with evasion and accuracy ratings.  I would put all of those on a separate screen, because they're stats that you would only want to look at once in a long while.  However, the state of your weapon, armour, and how full your lamp are would be much more useful to have there.  You're gonna want to know if your equipment is about to break or if you're about to be plunged into darkness.  (Though I admit I've never used any item to the point that it broke; that's probably something I should test)

I also encountered a number of bugs.  I'll start with the bugs that were absent from previous versions but started appearing in this version...

"The giant red rathits you."  There's no space between the creature's name and what follows.  This happens every time any enemy hits me.

Okay, using "targeting" mode works for viewing terrain features now, but now, it doesn't identify items as I walk over them.  I have to use targeting mode constantly for items on the ground, which is a bit of a nuisance.

The game no longer displays the last few messages at a time as it does in the previous version; it only shows the last message, and as a result, it seems that I sometimes miss important messages, such as if an enemy gets multiple swings at me, it only shows the last swing, so I only see "it misses me," but I still take damage.

It no longer displays how injured the enemy is after I hit them.  It doesn't show it when I use targeting mode either.

On the plus side, fire water seems to not give me infinite oil any more.  :P  (I never found a use for that stuff, by the way)

Is there a way to have the field of view pan around without actually walking to that place?  It would be nice to be able to survey the level to look for unexplored areas, so I know where to go.

Sometimes, I have to unlock doors twice.  Like it says "The lock falls open with a click," and then I "apply" it again and it displays "The lock falls open with a click," a second time and then I have to apply it a third time for it to actually open the door.

There appears to be no message for the lamp going out if it happens while you're walking, rather than while you're in the middle of an activity like unlocking a door.

The amount of oil in the lamp continues going down, even if you turn the lamp off.  (And here, I thought I was being clever, turning it off while unlocking doors to save oil)  :P

I notice that the message display cuts words in the middle if they go off the end of the line, such as with the message, "Your lamp does not seem to be compatible with this fluid."  (I took a screenshot if you want to see what I mean)

I witnessed the disappearing dropped items phenomenon again.  This time, I dropped my leather vest to make room in my inventory so I could look at a pile of items to find out what was in there.  I dropped the vest in a free square and it appeared on the ground, but at some point while I was rummaging through the pile of items, it vanished and was nowhere to be found.  Interestingly, when I tried to use targeting mode on the square where the vest was, it generated an error message.  It generated a new error message each time I tried to look at the square.  I'll attach them to this post in a zip file.

It happened again; a noble cuirass vanished after being dropped on the ground and it generated an error when I tried to look at the spot it previously was.  I actually saw it disappear this time.

Oh, hey!  My leather vest came back!  :o  I don't know what caused it, but it re-appeared in the same spot I had previously left it.

It happened again with a falchion.  I don't know what the pattern is.  I guess I have to accept that my dropped items just disappear sometimes.  :P



That's all for now.  I look forward to the next version.  It's fun.  :)

[Sereg]

Okay!  I just finished playing a version 0.7.1 game and I won!  :D

Congratulations. I'm amazed you managed it with so many healing items left - then again, you *are* More Angelic Than Not, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised =P

At one point, I got hit by a virdian aura and didn't die, (it brought me down to "heavily wounded") so it either has a somewhat wide range of damage or the amulet of protection, which protects from physical attacks, saved me.

Most monsters do in fact have a wide range on their damage. Depending on what armor you were wearing, that may also have helped (tip: armor resistances function differently than the resistances on other item types ;))

I have some more notes, of course.  I'll start with comments about the differences between this version and the previous one.  The different display without the inventory and equipment visible threw me at first, but I got used to it.  That being said, you might want to re-think what information you display on the left side.  If you want to cut down on how busy the screen is, that's fine, but the information that you leave there should be stuff that the player needs the most often.  Having the time, health, and sanity levels is fine, but I wouldn't expect the player to need to know all their individual resistances except when they put on something new.  Same with evasion and accuracy ratings.  I would put all of those on a separate screen, because they're stats that you would only want to look at once in a long while.  However, the state of your weapon, armour, and how full your lamp are would be much more useful to have there.  You're gonna want to know if your equipment is about to break or if you're about to be plunged into darkness.  (Though I admit I've never used any item to the point that it broke; that's probably something I should test)

It *is* still possible to switch back to the original screen layout for full access to everything at once. That said, you make some excellent points - I will see about redesigning the compressed interface to present more critical information.

I also encountered a number of bugs.  I'll start with the bugs that were absent from previous versions but started appearing in this version...

"The giant red rathits you."  There's no space between the creature's name and what follows.  This happens every time any enemy hits me.

Fixed as of the current version.

Okay, using "targeting" mode works for viewing terrain features now, but now, it doesn't identify items as I walk over them.  I have to use targeting mode constantly for items on the ground, which is a bit of a nuisance.

The game no longer displays the last few messages at a time as it does in the previous version; it only shows the last message, and as a result, it seems that I sometimes miss important messages, such as if an enemy gets multiple swings at me, it only shows the last swing, so I only see "it misses me," but I still take damage.

It no longer displays how injured the enemy is after I hit them.  It doesn't show it when I use targeting mode either.

All related to the new compressed interface - for now, these problems can be avoided with the expanded version, but as above, I'll see about redesigning the compressed interface to address these issues - they're certainly bothersome enough to be well worth fixing.

On the plus side, fire water seems to not give me infinite oil any more.  :P  (I never found a use for that stuff, by the way)

I am glad to hear this, because I went over the code in detail and couldn't find any reason why that would have been happening. If it ever comes up again, please let me know, with as much other information about the state of the game as it's feasible for you to provide. As far as the use, my autopsy may provide you with some clues...

Is there a way to have the field of view pan around without actually walking to that place?  It would be nice to be able to survey the level to look for unexplored areas, so I know where to go.

Not yet, and not planned for the near future. I will almost definitely add it once I begin to introduce larger levels, but for now I'm going to leave this one on the back burner, sorry =\

Sometimes, I have to unlock doors twice.  Like it says "The lock falls open with a click," and then I "apply" it again and it displays "The lock falls open with a click," a second time and then I have to apply it a third time for it to actually open the door.

Some doors are protected by multiple layers of security measures. However, these tend to have a different graphical appearance until you break the outer layers.

There appears to be no message for the lamp going out if it happens while you're walking, rather than while you're in the middle of an activity like unlocking a door.

I suspect this is due to the much smaller message recall in compression mode(meaning the message is probably overwritten before you have a chance to see it), but I'll take a look at it.

The amount of oil in the lamp continues going down, even if you turn the lamp off.  (And here, I thought I was being clever, turning it off while unlocking doors to save oil)  :P

This is unintended. Quite a simple fix, though, so I've patched it for the next release.

I notice that the message display cuts words in the middle if they go off the end of the line, such as with the message, "Your lamp does not seem to be compatible with this fluid."  (I took a screenshot if you want to see what I mean)

Unfortunately, this is a consequence of the compressed interface also. The info window uses a very basic wrap method to display messages, which produces the behavior you've described. The actual message window is actually a different type of window which uses a more advanced wrapping function(since that type of window is intended for displaying longer messages which are expected to wrap, while the info window is intended for short descriptions that would interfere with the descriptions on other lines if it wraps using the advanced method). I'll add this to my list of things to consider for the redesign.

I witnessed the disappearing dropped items phenomenon again.  This time, I dropped my leather vest to make room in my inventory so I could look at a pile of items to find out what was in there.  I dropped the vest in a free square and it appeared on the ground, but at some point while I was rummaging through the pile of items, it vanished and was nowhere to be found.  Interestingly, when I tried to use targeting mode on the square where the vest was, it generated an error message.  It generated a new error message each time I tried to look at the square.  I'll attach them to this post in a zip file.

It happened again; a noble cuirass vanished after being dropped on the ground and it generated an error when I tried to look at the spot it previously was.  I actually saw it disappear this time.

Oh, hey!  My leather vest came back!  :o  I don't know what caused it, but it re-appeared in the same spot I had previously left it.

It happened again with a falchion.  I don't know what the pattern is.  I guess I have to accept that my dropped items just disappear sometimes.  :P

This is bizarre. I've dealt with the previous lost drop issue you mentioned(turned out the method for replacing an existing worn item with a new one for that slot from inventory wasn't bothering to check that the inventory could hold the existing item, and as a result didn't care about putting it somewhere else if adding it to the inventory failed), but I suspect this is something different. I'll take a look at those error messages and see if I can work out what's going on.

That's all for now.  I look forward to the next version.  It's fun.  :)

Glad you enjoyed it, and I really appreciate your feedback. I'll do my best to squash all of the bugs you found =P I'll shortly post a new release, and it may have introduced new ones - some of the features gave me loads of trouble at first, and while I've dealt with all the issues I am aware of, there could easily be more lurking.

Edit: After checking the error reports, I have a theory on what might be causing them, but I can't replicate it. It's possible some of the debugging I did in related areas of the code for the current release has already resolved it, but do let me know if the issue persists.

Additionally, I can confirm that you are not 2Deving my autopsy files ;) checksums are a wonderful thing.

Edit2: I have rebuilt the compressed interface to supply significantly more information. Turns out the message window wasn't the one that supported advanced wrapping - that still wraps unintelligently. The Lore screen is the one that wraps properly and has tons of extra formatting tools... I'll look into possibly updating the message pane, but because of its scrolling capability, that may be a bit more challenging to do.

Additionally, disembodied map exploration will probably be easier than I originally anticipated, so it may creep in earlier rather than later - it's certainly not my highest priority update, but if it's simple to do it's more likely I'll tackle it soon.

Edit3:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 07 Feb 2019 22:30:03

Game time played: 0 days 00:48:53.049

Killed by tomb serpent on level 5

Total XP: 1002

Equipped Items:
an ancient falchion (+2, 4d6+4) [Moderately Damaged]
<no item equipped>
<no item equipped>
an ancient chestplate [Slightly Damaged]
an ancestral pendant

Carried Items:
<45> a steel cinquedea (+2, 2d4+1) [Undamaged]
<70> an ancient khopesh (+3, 2d8+2) [Undamaged]
<25> an oil lamp <lamp oil:40%>
<85> a leather vest [Slightly Damaged]
<5> 1x flask [lamp oil] (100%)
<5> 1x flask [fire water] (100%)
<4> 1x vial [medicine] (80%)

Kills:
47x giant red rat
7x cave worm
3x grave worm
3x tomb serpent

[checksum: 1abec1f2]

Seems your strategy of turning your light off to open doors is not without its dangers...

[Tormuse]

Congratulations. I'm amazed you managed it with so many healing items left - then again, you *are* More Angelic Than Not, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised =P

The amulet of protection may have helped me avoid damage, but even without that, it's generally not too hard to avoid damage; I'm long accustomed to waiting until enemies approach me so that I can hit them first.

It *is* still possible to switch back to the original screen layout for full access to everything at once.

It is?  Is there a key for that or something?  (Maybe I should have looked closer at the menu options)

Some doors are protected by multiple layers of security measures. However, these tend to have a different graphical appearance until you break the outer layers.

In that case, perhaps it should have different messages like, "you open the first lock," or "you open one of the locks," or "you open the last of the locks."

Additionally, I can confirm that you are not 2Deving my autopsy files ;) checksums are a wonderful thing.

Ahaha!  I didn't realize "2Deving" is a verb.  :D  What does it say about me that I think it's hilarious that that's his legacy?  :)

[Sereg]

The amulet of protection may have helped me avoid damage, but even without that, it's generally not too hard to avoid damage; I'm long accustomed to waiting until enemies approach me so that I can hit them first.

Perhaps I made it too powerful? But then it's also one of the rarer types - and I feel like I'd be making a pretty big mistake if I try to balance my game around your capabilities, lol...

It is?  Is there a key for that or something?  (Maybe I should have looked closer at the menu options)

Yes, it's a checkbox on the fourth menu - unfortunately, it does not operate at run time - you'll need to change the option and then re-load the game for it to take effect. It should be possible to change that - I'll look into it.

In that case, perhaps it should have different messages like, "you open the first lock," or "you open one of the locks," or "you open the last of the locks."

This is slightly less feasible due to how the doors are implemented, but I should be able to come up with something hacky that'll do the trick.

Ahaha!  I didn't realize "2Deving" is a verb.  :D  What does it say about me that I think it's hilarious that that's his legacy?  :)

This is the Chaosforge forums, where anyone can become a verb if they're sufficiently successful at circumventing a feature of the game. I turned a challenge mode into a shortcut to victory, he turned a record of in-game accomplishment into a demonstration of text editing talent. Kornel's mortem system is a brilliant concept, which is why I've implemented mine in a very similar way, but it is 2Dev that inspired me to add a security feature to my system =P In any case, you too can become a verb if you like - although I'll warn you that Tormusing doors is not without drawbacks beyond those I demonstrated in my most recent autopsy post.

Edit: As of A0.7.6, compression mode can be toggled at runtime, and doors give better messages, among other things.

Edit2: Quick patch to fix an issue with runtime compression toggling breaking inventory and equipment modes. Last one for the week, gone for the weekend.

Edit3: I lied, here's Alpha 0.7.7 - actors no longer need to attack before they interrupt as long as they are adjacent to the player(so it's safer to run-wait, or otherwise use repetitive commands). I've also adjusted base move and attack speeds closer together(tradeoff - it's now no longer possible to get an absurdly large number of attacks in on an enemy that moves next to you).

[Tormuse]

I just played a round of 0.7.6...  (I didn't realize there's a 0.7.7 now)  and died mostly due to silliness on my part.  :P

Spoiler: Here's the autopsy (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 08 Feb 2019 21:47:00

Game time played: 0 days 00:53:45.334

Killed by mummified noble on level 8

Total XP: 3602

Equipped Items:
a steel cinquedea (+2, 2d4+1) [Heavily Damaged]
<no item equipped>
<no item equipped>
a leather vest [Ruined]
an ancestral pendant

Carried Items:
<70> an ancient khopesh (+3, 2d8+2) [Undamaged]
<105> an ancient falchion (+2, 4d6+4) [Undamaged]
<35> an Atlantean torch <no fuel>
<110> an ancient chestplate [Undamaged]
<10> 2x flask [lamp oil] (100%)
<35> 7x flask [sacred oil] (100%)
<8> 2x ancient vial [clear elixir] (100%)

Kills:
53x giant red rat
17x cave worm
6x grave worm
15x tomb serpent
2x swarm of tiny scarabs
1x albino tiger

[checksum: 17bb1b6f]

There was a combination of things that led to my death.  Firstly, I was trying to see what happens if I let an item's durability wear down to zero, so I wasn't using my best weapon or armour.  Secondly, I was about to encounter the first undead enemy of the game and I wanted to see what would happen if I killed him without seeing him.  (If it would break the programming for the message it shows when you first see one)  So I turned off my lamp, without realizing that my inventory was full, so it caused me to drop the lamp on the ground.  I ended up flailing around blindly and didn't even see what killed me.  :P

I found a lot fewer treasure rooms in this game than the previous one, so I had a lot less equipment, including healing sources.  I'm not sure if that's rotten luck or if you changed probabilities.  Oh well...

Some more notes:

If I switch compressed mode on and off a few times, the game slows down to the point that it's unplayable.  (Like there's a half second delay after each button press)

It still does the thing where it goes back and forth between "You fail to close the door" and "You fail to open the door."

"The grave worm's attack interrupts you!"  It said this message when my lock-picking was interrupted while my lamp was out.  (to save oil)  It probably shouldn't identify the creature that's doing the interrupting if I can't see it.

Using targeting mode on a monster doesn't show how injured it is unless you select it by pushing enter.  Not the most intuitive thing.  Any reason it doesn't display that when you just hover over the monster?

An Atlantean torch?  That's new!  :)  Could this be what the fire water uses?  (Too bad I never found any)  :(

I am overly amused by using the "alter" command on altars and being told that the altar can not be altered.  :)

I can resume game after I died!  Pushing "resume game" shows the last screen I died on and the game is frozen.  No key inputs work and the menus don't work either.  I couldn't even quit or otherwise close the window except by going into Task Manager and killing it from there.  I suspect this may be related to the fact that my last action of the game was to heal myself at the same time as I was being killed.

One more thing I've been meaning to ask:  What's the "view character" button on the main menu for?  It doesn't seem to do anything.

[Sereg]

I found a lot fewer treasure rooms in this game than the previous one, so I had a lot less equipment, including healing sources.  I'm not sure if that's rotten luck or if you changed probabilities.  Oh well...

I have not adjusted anything; you are simply experiencing the disfavor of the RNG =P

If I switch compressed mode on and off a few times, the game slows down to the point that it's unplayable.  (Like there's a half second delay after each button press)

This is because I'm actually creating new console windows each time. I'll have to inspect the method I'm using to remove the old ones - obviously, there's a reference to the old console somewhere that I'm not properly cleaning up.

It still does the thing where it goes back and forth between "You fail to close the door" and "You fail to open the door."

This is odd - what kind of door is it happening with? One of the vault doors, or a basic one, or both? I haven't encountered this one, but I'll try to reproduce it if I can...

"The grave worm's attack interrupts you!"  It said this message when my lock-picking was interrupted while my lamp was out.  (to save oil)  It probably shouldn't identify the creature that's doing the interrupting if I can't see it.

An oversight on my part; this should be pretty easy to fix. Thanks for pointing it out.

Using targeting mode on a monster doesn't show how injured it is unless you select it by pushing enter.  Not the most intuitive thing.  Any reason it doesn't display that when you just hover over the monster?

It behaves slightly differently between targeting mode and game mode - in game mode, if you have a target, the info window will prioritize that target's info over the standard display(which is information about the tile you're occupying), whereas in targeting mode it will always display monster - item - terrain for the tile the cursor is on, ignoring the monster's health. I'll see about reworking this.

An Atlantean torch?  That's new!  :)  Could this be what the fire water uses?  (Too bad I never found any)  :(

It *might* be... the RNG is not your friend this game, apparently, lol.

I am overly amused by using the "alter" command on altars and being told that the altar can not be altered.  :)

  Heh. That particular play on words hadn't occurred to me until just now(having coded the altar, I knew it didn't do anything, so I never tried to alter it, lol), but perhaps it will have a use with a future update...

I can resume game after I died!  Pushing "resume game" shows the last screen I died on and the game is frozen.  No key inputs work and the menus don't work either.  I couldn't even quit or otherwise close the window except by going into Task Manager and killing it from there.  I suspect this may be related to the fact that my last action of the game was to heal myself at the same time as I was being killed.

This is certainly troubling - I encountered it once, but wasn't able to reproduce it, so I'm not sure where to start looking for the problem. If you can collect any more information about the state of the game when this occurs, that would be amazingly helpful... and yes, I do block the program from closing with the X button to avoid problematic exit conditions... I'll research the close operations of the java tool I built my console on top of and see if I can come up with a better solution.

One more thing I've been meaning to ask:  What's the "view character" button on the main menu for?  It doesn't seem to do anything.

That's an unimplemented feature - when I added the menu screen, I put it in there since I intended to eventually collect a character record like DRL has, but I have not gotten around to making it do anything yet.

Sadly, I won't be able to address any of these until probably Sunday night, but I figured I'd at least acknowledge the feedback before I leave for the weekend. As always, it's much appreciated.

Edit: How many times are you toggling compression mode before you experience notable slowdown? I've done it repeatedly for maybe 15 or 20 iterations without noticing any loss of responsiveness, and I can't see anything in my code that would indicate the old console still exists somewhere... even if it does, it shouldn't be consuming system resources, because the command I use to remove it from the screen actually cleans up everything used to run the window. I also re-direct the pointer by which everything references the console to point to the new console, and your JRE *should* then de-allocate every remaining resource committed to the old console once there's no longer a reference to it. Obviously, you're still noticing an issue, so something must be going south somewhere, but my initial suspicion seems unfounded... if there's any further information you can provide about this one, that may help.

Edit2: I've addressed the darkness interruption and updated the cursor targeting to show health. I've also found the cause of the door message bug you described... it'll take a bit of rearranging to correct but shouldn't be too problematic - expect a Sunday night release with these fixes. I've also changed the order that I handle cleanup after player death, which *might* fix the resume game issue. I'm not positive this is the cause, though... Just to clarify, you were presented with the resume option after landing back on the menu page following your death, not re-opening the game? In either case, can you confirm whether your game.sav file still existed?

Edit3: Ok, this is really it. Done coding for the week =P I am highly confident that I found and fixed the resume game bug - if it continues after 0.7.8, let me know, but I'll probably cry a little - but it will still be present until I have a chance to release that version, unfortunately. Incidentally, I also noticed that I'd broken the quit confirmation - it would only allow you to proceed, not go back to the game. That will also be fixed for 0.7.8.

[MaiZure]

0.77a: The major problems are still around, but the text is now somewhat legible...but I found something else that may be wrong on my side:

I started the first level wth only 2 rooms and no possible exit. I walked in to all walls and tried to change level on all floor spaces to no avail. Am I trapped? Screen shot included

EDIT: As I'm leaving the game window open pending some advice on this situation, I noticed that it's using up 10-15% of my CPU.
EDITEDIT: Oh it dropped to 1% after 5 minutes of being idle....ahh because it locked up.

I'm beginning to suspect it's my JDK -- 11.0.2 and I'm launching directly with './java -jar ViridianAbyss.jar'

[Sereg]

The + indicates a door... you'll need to use the 'a'lter command to open it. That gets me sometimes too... courtesy of the lighting engine, colors rarely have as much variation as might be ideal... perhaps I'll have to adjust some of the mechanics at work there.

I note that your menu bar is still missing. I wonder how widespread that issue is... I can allocate more space to it, but doing so will result in blank space at the bottom of the screen for anyone who doesn't have a missing menu bar... I think I may have to bring that into a keyboard interface instead of using the swing menu system to achieve the optimal result for the majority of players.

Edit: my phone sucks.

[Tormuse]

I played a game of 0.7.7 last night.  (That's the version that's up right now, although your other post made a reference to 0.7.8; did you neglect to upload it or is that a typo?)

Anyway, I died from a combination of wanting to find out what happens when I break my weapon (I got to level 10 killing everything with my starting cinquedea and it got down to "severely damaged") and just generally messing around with the torches and plunging myself into darkness in a moment I probably shouldn't have.  :P  Side note:  The cinquedea is not very good against the undead; they took a lot of pounding to go down, compared to when I was using a falchion like in the other game.  Does your weapon do less damage when it's degraded?

Spoiler: Autopsy (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 09 Feb 2019 21:46:24

Game time played: 0 days 01:43:12.952

Killed by tomb serpent on level 10

Total XP: 7487

Equipped Items:
a steel cinquedea (+2, 2d4+1) [Severely Damaged]
<no item equipped>
an oil lamp <no fuel>
a Lemurian noble cuirass [Moderately Damaged]
an amulet of precision

Carried Items:
<105> an ancient falchion (+2, 4d6+4) [Undamaged]
<35> an Atlantean torch <sacred oil:99%>
<85> a leather vest [Undamaged]
<2> an ancestral pendant
<10> 2x flask [lamp oil] (100%)
<5> 1x flask [sacred oil] (100%)
<25> 5x flask [fire water] (98%)
<4> 1x vial [medicine] (100%)
<48> 6x clay jar [healing ointment] (88%)
<20> 5x ancient vial [clear elixir] (100%)
<15> 1x clay jug [healing ointment] (75%)

Kills:
72x giant red rat
17x cave worm
5x grave worm
24x tomb serpent
6x swarm of tiny scarabs
1x albino tiger
2x mummified swordsman
1x mummified noble

[checksum: 1c394c11]

Notes for this run:

It doesn't take very many switches of "compressed mode" to slow the game down down; after 5 or 6 switches, it even made music that was playing in another window stutter and start to get crackly.

"Gilded door with a lock" (or "with an open lock") is the one that does the "You fail to close the door" and "You fail to open the door" thing.  It does this while opening and closing it.  "Ancient door" also does it.

"The giant red rat's attack interrupts you!"  (It still says this while the light is out and I shouldn't be able to see it)

Text in the "Messages" box doesn't wrap properly.  (It cuts words in two when going to the next line)

Oh, hey!  Another Atlantean torch!  And this time, I have fire water for it!  :D  Looks like it lets you see further and turns everything green.  Cool.  :)  Then I tried using sacred oil and it turned everything purple.  Aww...  I kinda liked the green.  :(  Oh well, purple can be a cool colour too.  :)  (I wasn't really expecting the sacred oil to work; I guess the Atlantean torch is the superior light source in that it accepts more fuel types)

EDIT:  Oh yeah, I almost forgot...  in the above game, I had the "Continue game" bug after dying.  (And again, I died at the same time as trying to heal myself, though I don't know if that's related)

EDIT2:  Played another game.  Died against the Necrocrat.  :(

Spoiler: Autopsy (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 10 Feb 2019 19:33:52

Game time played: 0 days 02:37:44.723

Killed by Lemurian necrocrat on level 14

Total XP: 25433

Equipped Items:
an embermace (+3, 9d2+4) [Undamaged]
<no item equipped>
an oil lamp <lamp oil:91%>
a Lemurian noble cuirass [Severely Damaged]
an amulet of precision

Carried Items:
<45> a steel cinquedea (+2, 2d4+1) [Slightly Damaged]
<70> an ancient khopesh (+3, 2d8+2) [Undamaged]
<105> an ancient falchion (+2, 4d6+4) [Severely Damaged]
<2> an ancestral pendant
<5> 1x flask [lamp oil] (9%)
<95> 19x flask [sacred oil] (100%)
<40> 8x flask [fire water] (100%)
<4> 1x vial [medicine] (60%)
<8> 2x ancient vial [clear elixir] (100%)

Kills:
92x giant red rat
16x cave worm
6x grave worm
33x tomb serpent
12x swarm of tiny scarabs
4x albino tiger
18x mummified swordsman
2x mummified noble

[checksum: 27098dbe]

I used a falchion and Lemurian noble cuirass that I found in chests on level 2 all the way to the end, killing every single monster I encountered, including every monster on the last level besides the Necrocrat himself.  I got them both down to "severely damaged."  I don't think it's possible to fully break any of your equipment with the current length of the game.  I found the embermace in a chest on the last level and was a bit disappointed that I didn't get a chance to try it out.  (I mean I swung it a couple times at the Necrocrat, but it missed both times)

I'm now convinced that my amulet of protection in the other game was responsible for my victory, considering that in this game, the Necrocrat was able to bring me from full health down to "critically injured" with one hit, even through my Lemurian Noble Cuirass.  (Maybe that's a sign that I should use armour that favours speed over protection?  Hmm...)  Anyway, the battle (such as it was) consisted of me taking a single swing at him, then him almost killing me with one hit, then cue the Benny Hill theme music as I ran wildly around the whole level, trying to get some distance between us so I could heal myself and try again.  When I ran out of healing sources, I started opening chests and urns around the place and a couple times, that caused him to get a couple free hits on me, annoyingly.  (That's when I found the embermace)  I only hit him once and it brought him down to slightly wounded.  Oh well, better luck next time...

Some more notes:

FYI, I confirmed that there's definitely no message if your lamp runs out of oil while you're walking around.

Something I've been meaning to ask:  Do different weapons have different attack times?  For example, the cinquedea is described as "fast" on the equipment screen, whereas the falchion is described as "slow."  I would expect that to mean enemies get more free hits on me if I'm using the falchion, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I witnessed an item vanish from the ground again.  Still haven't noticed a pattern, but here's the sequence in this case:  I killed a mummified swordsman, dropped my leather vest on an empty square so I could sort through the pile of stuff he dropped.  I picked up his ancient chestplate, moved over to an empty square and dropped it.  After noting that there was nothing besides the khopesh in the pile, I picked up my leather vest again.  The chestplate vanished from the ground exactly the same time I picked up the leather vest.  Oooh...  even more interesting...  when I drop the leather vest again, the chestplate reappears.  I can repeatedly pick up and drop the leather vest and make the chestplate appear and disappear over and over again...  but...  only when I drop the leather vest on a specific square?  O_o  I'm experimenting with moving around and dropping both the chestplate and the vest on different squares.  Sometimes, it makes the chestplate disappear and sometimes it doesn't.  I'm still not seeing a pattern.  I recorded a short 2 minute video to demonstrate the effect.

[Sereg]

"Interruptions in the darkness will no longer reveal the name of the source. Targeting mode now displays the health of any monster at the cursor. Fixed a bug where it was not possible to cancel quitting with ctrl-Q. Fixed the resume game bug after a death or win. An issue with incorrect door alteration messages has been fixed, and doors have their contrast forced during display so they will appear more distinct from the surrounding terrain." - Alpha 0.7.8 changelog

@MaiZure: Sorry for the short response earlier, I was only able to post from my mobile phone at the time. There is a door in one of your rooms, but the graphics do not set it off well enough from the surrounding walls - I've included a feature in the latest version(a0.7.8 at the time of this post) which will help with that.

As far as your CPU usage, that seems quite good - my development computer is a fairly powerful Alienware desktop and I use ~20% of both CPU(Intel i7-8700 3.2GHz) and GPU(NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080) running the game.

When the game locked up, did it generate an error file in your save directory? If so, can you please send it to me?

I am not particularly familiar with the effects of different Java environments, unfortunately - if you decide to update to the latest version, I'd be interested to know if you experience an improvement in performance.

@Tormuse:

I played a game of 0.7.7 last night.  (That's the version that's up right now, although your other post made a reference to 0.7.8; did you neglect to upload it or is that a typo?)

I was able to make some changes to the code, but I did not have a chance to complete and upload the new version that night - as of now(~21:00CST 10 FEB 2019) that version is up, with the changes listed at the top of this post.

Anyway, I died from a combination of wanting to find out what happens when I break my weapon (I got to level 10 killing everything with my starting cinquedea and it got down to "severely damaged") and just generally messing around with the torches and plunging myself into darkness in a moment I probably shouldn't have.  :P  Side note:  The cinquedea is not very good against the undead; they took a lot of pounding to go down, compared to when I was using a falchion like in the other game.  Does your weapon do less damage when it's degraded?

Damage types are important - undead aren't generally bothered much by stabbing attacks like the cinquedea performs, since they have no functioning internal organs to damage. In general, I intend to create monsters with intuitive strengths and weaknesses along those lines. And yes, as your weapon(and armor) degrades, it will become less useful - think armor threshholds in DRL (where, say, a red armor would drop from 4/4 to 2/4 below 50%, if memory serves). However, my armor generally has a lot more base durability than in DRL and more thresholds where its performance deteriorates, so it's probably a good idea to replace your gear well before the point of falling apart on its own.

It doesn't take very many switches of "compressed mode" to slow the game down down; after 5 or 6 switches, it even made music that was playing in another window stutter and start to get crackly.

Interesting - I have not been able to reproduce this, unfortunately, and I do not know why it could be occurring. I hate to wave it off by saying, just don't use it that many times, since that's not addressing the underlying issue - but in this case, there's not actually much of a reason to be adjusting that particular setting more then once or twice a run(and honestly I sort of intended it to be a preference setting, where you'd pick the one you like best, then never mess with it again).

Out of curiosity, are you using the most up to date JRE? I can't help but wonder if there's an issue with an older version of Java, maybe not properly garbage collecting or something...

"Gilded door with a lock" (or "with an open lock") is the one that does the "You fail to close the door" and "You fail to open the door" thing.  It does this while opening and closing it.  "Ancient door" also does it.

"The giant red rat's attack interrupts you!"  (It still says this while the light is out and I shouldn't be able to see it)

These should both be fixed as of the current release.

Text in the "Messages" box doesn't wrap properly.  (It cuts words in two when going to the next line)

I'll have to look at updating the underlying console utility that runs this type of display. It's probably going to be fairly straightforward to upgrade, although not trivial, but it's also not my biggest priority just now. I'll tack it on to the to-do list.

Oh, hey!  Another Atlantean torch!  And this time, I have fire water for it!  :D  Looks like it lets you see further and turns everything green.  Cool.  :)  Then I tried using sacred oil and it turned everything purple.  Aww...  I kinda liked the green.  :(  Oh well, purple can be a cool colour too.  :)  (I wasn't really expecting the sacred oil to work; I guess the Atlantean torch is the superior light source in that it accepts more fuel types)

Yes, and as I continue to add light sources, expect different ones to be compatible with a different range of fuels. You may also notice that the light produced by burning sacred oil in an Atlantean torch is slightly different than from burning the same fuel in an oil lamp.

EDIT:  Oh yeah, I almost forgot...  in the above game, I had the "Continue game" bug after dying.  (And again, I died at the same time as trying to heal myself, though I don't know if that's related)

This is another issue that I believe I've solved for the current release - as always, if you continue to notice it, do please let me know.

EDIT2:  Played another game.  Died against the Necrocrat.  :(

I used a falchion and Lemurian noble cuirass that I found in chests on level 2 all the way to the end, killing every single monster I encountered, including every monster on the last level besides the Necrocrat himself.  I got them both down to "severely damaged."  I don't think it's possible to fully break any of your equipment with the current length of the game.  I found the embermace in a chest on the last level and was a bit disappointed that I didn't get a chance to try it out.  (I mean I swung it a couple times at the Necrocrat, but it missed both times)

I'm now convinced that my amulet of protection in the other game was responsible for my victory, considering that in this game, the Necrocrat was able to bring me from full health down to "critically injured" with one hit, even through my Lemurian Noble Cuirass.  (Maybe that's a sign that I should use armour that favours speed over protection?  Hmm...)  Anyway, the battle (such as it was) consisted of me taking a single swing at him, then him almost killing me with one hit, then cue the Benny Hill theme music as I ran wildly around the whole level, trying to get some distance between us so I could heal myself and try again.  When I ran out of healing sources, I started opening chests and urns around the place and a couple times, that caused him to get a couple free hits on me, annoyingly.  (That's when I found the embermace)  I only hit him once and it brought him down to slightly wounded.  Oh well, better luck next time...

This is much more in line with my experiences with him - that amulet of protection must be doing some serious work(I do remember him being easier back when I was testing different amulets by granting them at the start of the game). There will be quite a lot of balancing to be done, especially as I continue to add more items(an armor that emphasizes speed over protection could certainly be an interesting addition).

FYI, I confirmed that there's definitely no message if your lamp runs out of oil while you're walking around.

This baffles me - I actually went to test this myself to see if I could fix it for the a078 release, but couldn't reproduce it despite running out my fuel under multiple repeat conditions. The message itself is generated as a result of the lamp attempting to burn fuel and finding that it doesn't have any, so it shouldn't matter what conditions cause this to happen - the message should be produced regardless.

Something I've been meaning to ask:  Do different weapons have different attack times?  For example, the cinquedea is described as "fast" on the equipment screen, whereas the falchion is described as "slow."  I would expect that to mean enemies get more free hits on me if I'm using the falchion, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Yes, weapons do have different attack speeds - I don't make that information directly available, but the interested player is welcome to find out for himself by observing the game clock. It's possible that as a result of my contraction of the gap between base move and base attack times, the difference in speeds isn't meaningful enough to make a significant difference. Then again, it's not *really* meant to be about minmaxing your weapon choice - it's more about the idea that you'll need to use multiple different weapons throughout the game, and the experience should be different from weapon to weapon - each will have a slightly different flavor. Still, this will be another area where I'll be seeking balance as I move the game forward, so I welcome feedback on it.

I witnessed an item vanish from the ground again.  Still haven't noticed a pattern, but here's the sequence in this case:  I killed a mummified swordsman, dropped my leather vest on an empty square so I could sort through the pile of stuff he dropped.  I picked up his ancient chestplate, moved over to an empty square and dropped it.  After noting that there was nothing besides the khopesh in the pile, I picked up my leather vest again.  The chestplate vanished from the ground exactly the same time I picked up the leather vest.  Oooh...  even more interesting...  when I drop the leather vest again, the chestplate reappears.  I can repeatedly pick up and drop the leather vest and make the chestplate appear and disappear over and over again...  but...  only when I drop the leather vest on a specific square?  O_o  I'm experimenting with moving around and dropping both the chestplate and the vest on different squares.  Sometimes, it makes the chestplate disappear and sometimes it doesn't.  I'm still not seeing a pattern.  I recorded a short 2 minute video to demonstrate the effect.

I'll check out the video, and I'll double check the hashing algorithm I use to access the floor inventories - there's most likely a bug on my end, but I'm sort of hoping I can blame this one on an out of date JRE, too =P Thanks for taking the trouble to create that - hopefully, it'll help give me an idea as to what might be the problem.


Edit: Ok, I have a theory - would it be possible for you to send me a savefile capturing a game state where that is happening?

Edit2: Nevermind, I've replicated the issue. Should be soluble now that I've got it to occur for me. 

Edit3: Fixed, I've uploaded a patched version. Turns out what was happening was that I was trying to clean up old piles by removing them from memory once the last item was withdrawn. Unfortunately, I didn't consider the impact this would have on the hashing algorithm - I actually was properly handling collisions, but once I removed an existing data entry, the collision no longer happened because the earlier entry no longer existed to collide with, and the result was non-sensical - the hash table still contained the dropped items, but the method the rest of the game was using to access them was reporting the wrong index, so the pile wasn't displayed. When you dropped an item back at the original coordinate, suddenly the collision occurred as expected and the real index was again being returned, so the lost items would become visible again.


Once again, thank you for making the video - makes my job so much easier when I can clearly see what's going wrong.

Edit4:

11 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.7.9:
   Fixed a problem with dropped items sometimes disappearing if other dropped items were picked up. Oil lamp once again uses fuel at a reasonable rate. Engineering pass to de-clutter the game engine. Added several new items. Adjusted certain lamplight values. It is now possible to empty fuel from a lamp, whether in inventory or equipped, with the 'l' command from an item mode. Dropping something you don't have room for now gives better messages.

Edit5: Found a bug and added some new content.

11 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.0:
   Introduced a new Vault room type, new loot types, and a new door. Fixed a bug with removing fuel from an equipped light. Ensured that inventory display will not write out of bounds if too many items are carried.

Edit6: More updates -

12 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.1:
   Reworked the loot system - more dangerous monsters have a significantly higher chance of dropping decent loot, and loot containers may dispense more than one item. Message pane messages now wrap more intelligently.

Edit7:
Found some really cool stuff thanks to finding one of the new vaults on level 1, but it wasn't enough to save me from an errant viridian aura(especially with the new upgrades designed to offset the new higher loot chance!). However, it appears that the autopsy writer can skip items if your inventory is open at the time of death - that'll be corrected for the next release:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 12 Feb 2019 10:50:18

Game time played: 0 days 01:16:35.488

Killed by viridian aura on level 6

Total XP: 769

Equipped Items:
an embermace (+3, 9d2+4) [Slightly Damaged]
<no item equipped>
a Lemurian censer <sacred oil:6%>
a Lemurian noble cuirass [Moderately Damaged]
an amulet of precision

Carried Items:
<136> 17x clay jar [healing ointment] (100%)

Kills:
36x giant red rat
10x cave worm
1x grave worm
2x tomb serpent

[checksum: 234bc26c]

Edit8:

12 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.2:
   Fixed a bug where the autopsy file could fail to write inventory items if the inventory was open at the time of death. Implemented free camera mode.

Thereyago, Tormuse, you can look around all you want now.

[Sereg]

Finally won my own game:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Autopsy: 12 Feb 2019 14:07:35

Game time played: 0 days 02:11:54.116

Cleared the game on level 14

Total XP: 31647

Equipped Items:
an embermace (+3, 9d2+4) [Slightly Damaged]
<no item equipped>
a Lemurian censer <sacred oil:15%>
a Lemurian noble cuirass [Undamaged]
an amulet of precision

Carried Items:
<25> an oil lamp <no fuel>
<75> an Atlantean soulcradle [Undamaged]
<2> an ancestral pendant
<3> an amulet of focus
<3> an amulet of precision
<10> 2x flask [lamp oil] (70%)
<35> 7x flask [sacred oil] (100%)
<15> 3x flask [fire water] (100%)
<4> 1x vial [medicine] (20%)
<56> 7x clay jar [healing ointment] (100%)

Kills:
68x giant red rat
28x cave worm
9x grave worm
37x tomb serpent
9x swarm of tiny scarabs
4x albino tiger
15x mummified swordsman
2x mummified noble
1x spectral remnant
4x viridian aura
1x Lemurian necrocrat

[checksum: 1f99351d]

That embermace does *work* against undead - got lucky and found it in a greater vault near the bottom.

Edit:

12 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.3:
   Introduced the Grimoire item type. Currently this only serves as an extra item slot for hosting resistances and other modifiers, but will be expanded in the future. Also introduced several new terrain types, mostly loot oriented. Successfully altering a loot terrain will give a more specific message.
   
This is finally an actual content update and should significantly expand the feel of the game - balancing feedback is always welcome.


Edit:

13 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.4:
   Certain loot containers are now required to generate an item - they may not contain nothing. Fixed a significant bug with Actor tracking that was granting the player extra moves. Implemented the language system, which grimoires now use. Added casting speed. Added element and speed glyphs to the weapon details of the critical info panel in compression mode. Further reduced the condition masks there.

I encountered several vexing bugs while implementing these changes - while I believe I've dealt with them, the nature of the bugs is such that there's potential for more to be hiding, so please be on the look out for anything unusual with this one. Essentially, there was a significant deficiency with a core system of the game engine which had gone unnoticed due to a rather unqualifiable impact up until I introduced some of the features for this release, and while I was able to address it, the fix was not particularly elegant or satisfying. I believe it to be effective, but I guess we'll find out...

Edit:

13 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.5:
   Adjusted the rate of learning for new languages from grimoires. Adjusted sanity costs of discovering dark secrets in grimoires. Fixed an error with language knowledge modification of grimoire stat adjustments.

Short balance pass on last night's update.

Edit:

13 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.6:
   Internalized the settings menu. There is now no longer a menu bar at the top of the window - instead, access the settings menu  by pressing 'm'.

This one's for you, MaiZure. There's no menu bar to go missing anymore - hopefully this allows you to experiment with the display settings and see if it becomes playably legible for you at some point. As always, let me know if something I didn't catch has gone sideways for you.

[Tavana]

Downloaded Java 11.0.2 to test this out. Seems to run well for me, at the moment. I tested two levels of the game and then needed to take a break. I could have just left it running, but I normally shut this computer off when I'm not using it.

There appears to be no command to quit a game once started, or for saving/loading. I tried 'Q', 'q', 'ESC' and even 'ALT+F4' to no avail. Had to kill the process in task manager. The game would not boot up properly after this, just showing a blank screen with no graphics. I suspect I will have to restart my computer to get it to work again.

The kerning of your walls of text was a bit odd on my computer. I could read it, but it strained my eyes a bit due to the spacing. Given the feel of your game, perhaps that was intentional?

Unlocking a vault on level 1 worked fine, but man was there a wall of text of my failures. Any chance of when there's a repeated action like that to show "You failed to [do a thing] 147 times." and then either have the interrupt or show a success?

[Sereg]

Downloaded Java 11.0.2 to test this out. Seems to run well for me, at the moment. I tested two levels of the game and then needed to take a break. I could have just left it running, but I normally shut this computer off when I'm not using it.

There appears to be no command to quit a game once started, or for saving/loading. I tried 'Q', 'q', 'ESC' and even 'ALT+F4' to no avail. Had to kill the process in task manager. The game would not boot up properly after this, just showing a blank screen with no graphics. I suspect I will have to restart my computer to get it to work again.

The commands are 'ctrl-x' to save and quit, and 'ctrl-q' to quit and delete the savefile. Both of these and all other existing commands can be accessed via the '?' help screen - however, you're not the first to encounter trouble with the window's refusal to close. I did intentionally disable that to avoid unhandled exit cases - both ctrl-x and ctrl-q go through specific routines to properly shut down the game, and I suspect that your task manager kill may have caused the game to shut down in a way that left a non-restorable character file. I have had to do this myself but didn't experience problems with startup - for now, I would suggest simply deleting the contents of the SaveData directory, which will allow the game to restart from a blank slate. In any case, this is something I plan to address in the near future.

Out of curiosity, did the game generate an error file in that directory when it failed to start? If so, could you please send me the contents of that before deleting it? It'll help me pinpoint the source of the data corruption and help with any fix I implement.

The kerning of your walls of text was a bit odd on my computer. I could read it, but it strained my eyes a bit due to the spacing. Given the feel of your game, perhaps that was intentional?

Not quite intentional, simply a side effect of how the console program I wrote to support the game automatically sizes itself. Again, you are not the only one to have difficulty with the text - much of my development time since first releasing the game here has been on attempts to make the game easier to read =P as a result, there are quite a lot of font options, color themes, and screen resizing tools available to customize the appearance - these are accessible through the 'm' (settings <m>enu) command. Unfortunately, kerning isn't an area I'm very familiar with, so that's the best solution I've come up with so far.

Unlocking a vault on level 1 worked fine, but man was there a wall of text of my failures. Any chance of when there's a repeated action like that to show "You failed to [do a thing] 147 times." and then either have the interrupt or show a success?

I should be able to work out a way to do this.


Thanks for giving the game a try - I apologize for the difficulties you encountered; it's still a work in progress, and the reason I posted it here was to find issues that bother other people that I may not have considered, or overlooked due to personal preferences.

I really appreciate your feedback - I should be able to kill the message spam for the next update, and I'll see what I can do about the closing situation in the near future.

Edit: I've got the code for blocking spam messages done and it'll be in the next release. I also think I've found a solution to the closing problem, but I'll need some time to work out exactly how it functions and how I need to implement it to do what I want it to do. However, unless I experience significant difficulty with that, I should also have it available for the next release, which I expect to push later today.

Edit:

14 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.7:
   No longer display the same message repeatedly - instead, if a message is repeating, a count will be kept and displayed when a new message arrives. Amulet of Focus now increases casting speed. Existing magical grimoires have had their modifications improved. It is now possible to close the game safely via the window X button - this will have the same effect as quitting with ctrl-x where applicable.


Edit:

14 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.8:
   Added more info to the help - commands screen. Languages slightly easier to learn. Fixed a crash that occurred if the player removed their weapon other than by equipping another weapon in compression mode. Implemented a new item type to support spell-casting. Reworked and codified display symbols - an overview is available as part of the help screen.


Mostly minor stuff to support eventual full functionality for the grimoire item type. Some display symbols have changed significantly, so those of you who have played before should be wary of that.

Edit:

14 FEB 2019 - Alpha 0.8.9:
   It is now much easier to distinguish walls from all other terrain on the memory map. Fixed a settings menu bug. Updated Grimoire glyph in compressed mode and description in expanded mode. Player now starts with a grimoire. More work to support spell-casting.

[Tavana]

Dude, its an alpha, no need to apologise! XD

I didn't see instructions for Ctrl +X or Q in the ? menu, let me look again. Also, good to know about deleting the save file. I'll give that a go if it doesn't load up the next time.

I don't see any obvious error file that has generated, so I'm guessing that none came about. I'll download the newest version and give it a go later.

[Tavana]

Error time!

So, the first time I ran your game it displayed the opening screen and then in hung, and I restarted my computer. I figured it had done this due to my literally just installing Java.

This time, I deleted my old directory and installed your new files. Ran it once, it created the Save files and then the first screen had another hang. It accepted ALT+F4 as an input and closed. When I ran again, it apparently detected a save file and would not let me start a new game, I had to continue. It of course had an issue with this, and gave me a red error message. There are more error files than the forum will allow me to attach, so I'll just email them to you.