Monthly Archives: January 2015

Next Build Almost Ready

Posted by Herbie on

The next build is almost ready. :) In addition to the snazzy new dungeon art will be a significant number of balance changes, UI improvements, and bug fixes designed to improve the overall experience. The following screenshot provides a pretty good summary of everything but the balance changes: it shows off the new dungeon look as well as some of the new UI tweaks (such as the borders around windows, the new Examine and Save game hotkeys.)

ImprovementsThusFar

I hope to finish the last bits of work on the build by the end of the week, and once it passes through some testing successfully, I’ll make it available for download. Next up after this: a content push!

Dungeon Art Progress

Posted by Herbie on

Bit slammed at work this week, but didn’t want to get too behind on the weekly update. :) Here’s a screenshot of the current progress on the dungeon art for the lower levels of the tower. Still no variant tiles, but the wall and floor look pretty amazing even already. :)

MaybeBlueGrey

Also fixed some fun bugs and did a bit of polish when I wasn’t in an art mood, but more on those can wait for the build notes. :D

Oblique Dungeon Art And 1/4 Version’s First Win

Posted by Herbie on

Hey folks. :) Two bits to share. :D First, one of the major features of this build will be a revamp of how dungeons look in Demon. Here’s a peek of a rough draft so the new obliqueness. :D

NewDungeonLook

Still need to do ‘variant’ tiles (the torches on walls, eyes peeking out from gaps between bricks, damaged walls, etc.) that I had before in the new style, but even just vanilla like this, I think it looks much better.

The other bit is I’m happy to report the first recorded 1/4 version win, by chillblain! Good jarb! Here’s the screen cap he posted showing his victory:

First1_4Win

Hope everyone’s enjoying the new build and having a great 2015 so far. :) Check back soon, I should have more of the new oblique dungeon art to show by next week!

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1/4: New Items, Balance Changes, and maybe Linux support!

Posted by Herbie on

Build link: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-sx_4eW-B5hWnhNZlRPclZLeUU&usp=drive_web

The new build containing a slew of new items and some good refinements to the game balance is finally ready! Also new: an attempt at a Linux build. I have no direct or even second-degree access to a Linux machine at the moment though, so I have no idea if that actually works or not. If you try it, let me know how it goes. :) Without further ado, here are the update notes. :)

 

Update Notes, 1/4/2015

Items
- Approximately 30 new items have been added to the game, some of which replace previously existing items, but most of which are new. Some of them can do some very interesting things indeed, like allow you to sacrifice one demon to bestow a modifier on another.
- Items that inflict status conditions no longer check the user’s cunning, they simply have a base (and usually rather high) chance to work.

Interface
- Selection lists now support a scrolling behavior, most often seen when looking in your inventory, or when discarding abilities when you have too many. Controls are up arrow and down arrow for line by line scrolling, page up and page down for page by page scrolling.
- Portal Search’s keyboard control is now just p, instead of Shift+p.
- Portal Search no longer has a hotkey button.

Balance Changes
- Global increase of about 15% to damage and healing.
- Made most “defeat the target” captureables slightly shorter in duration.
- Significantly reduced the effect of Level on combat effectiveness.
- Removed default immunity to Light from humans, including most starting player packages and most enemy summoners. Some humans may still have Light immunity (such as a certain red-headed paladin…), but it is no longer default for humanity.
- Adjusted T:1 and T:2 to be a bit more deadly. Wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea at the start. :)
- OffDown, DefDown, AccDown, and EvdDown are now less effective.
- SpdUp and SpdDown are now considerably more effective, but have shorter durations.
- Life-draining a hero or minion now removes heroic defense/minion vulnerability from the healing you receive. In essence, you will heal more HP than before when draining heroes, and less when draining minions, but the damage they each take is unchanged from previous builds. Also applies to maximum health drains.
- Heroes now apply ‘heroic defense’ to Stamina drains.
- Heroes now apply ‘heroic defense’ to self-damage to health and stamina from abilities such as Draw Wounds and Refresh. Minions also apply ‘minion vulnerability’ to these abilities.
- Fireball can now be “shot over” a low profile.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that gave characters with Lucky Dodge or Evade Step two chances to Dodge projectile attacks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be hiding from everyone who ever died to Raiju packs (all of two people, almost nobody gets to T:13+ anyway :) )
- Fixed a bug that caused the maximum number of items possible to spawn on each dungeon level.
- Fixed a bug with the Bane ability that caused it to behave suspiciously like Exorcism.
- Fixed a bug that caused the shortcut keys shown for viewing your recently killed allies at game over to be “off by one.”
- Fixed a bug where auto-explore did not always stop after picking up an item (usually if a second item was also visible.)
- Improved the AI’s ability to evaluate abilities that give buffs or debuffs.
- Fixed a bug where NPCs Vitality gains for a given level did not contribute to their maximum HP until the next level (in essence, from Level 2 on, they were always short a small amount of maxHP.)
- Yet another attempt to get Adria’s AI working right. :P

 

Enjoy, and don’t forget to drop a post in the high score thread if you do particularly well. :)

New build in testing this weekend, hopefully out next week.

Posted by Herbie on

It’s been a loooong ride, but I’m finally almost done with the next build, which will be the first of 2015 and should hopefully be ready to play by sometime next week. :) A whole slew of new consumables (including the ones you need for fusing demons together), significant balance changes, and bug fixes are coming soon. This will also be my first attempt at a Linux build, a fellow on the Temple of the Roguelike forums mentioned he would be willing to test it for me since I don’t have a Linux box around of my own, but wouldn’t mind a few other testers. I’ll go digging around and see if I can find a few after the builds are pushed out. Happy new year everyone! :)

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