Dance of Death v0.4.89 Released!
June 20th, 2010
Announcing the release of Dance of Death v0.4.89!
Among the features for this version you’ll find custom keyboard mapping, international keyboard support, ranged combat, and game saving and loading. The following is a complete list of new features and updates:
From the goals:
- Game is now automatically saved and subsequently available from the new “Continue” option in the main menu.
- Options screen has been added, which allows for custom keybinding (saved automatically).
- Input system was reworked to correct problem with international keyboard support.
- Item icons are now shown in inventory, equipment, drop, and look boxes.
- Item, monster, and terrain icons are shown in look boxes.
- Basic ranged combat implemented.
- Monsters now have their own skills and techs where relevant.
- Monsters now deal different amounts of damage.
- Monsters now have different amounts of energy they use to attack and move.
- Quest text edited.
- Journal and quest panels now scroll.
- Health, Stamina, and Mana bars are now scaled according to their values (largest is 100%, the others scaled respectively).
The following features were also implemented:
- Keybindings can be reset to default in the Options screen.
- New skill/technique for ranged combat added: Bows/Straightshot.
- Bows now have their own equipment slot: Missile Weapon.
- Quiver equipment slot renamed to “Missiles”.
- Basic item stacking implemented.
- Character creation: Names are now validated vs. the global save list to prevent multiple characters with the same name.
- Chance of generating a secret door halved.
- Modified monster pathfinding to make them less aggressive. You now will be greeted by a monster less often after opening a door.
- Additional quest text added for main quest.
- Pressing [Space] on the main menu regenerates background.
- Bug fix: When generating/loading a new area, the previous area’s list of valid floor tiles was not being cleared, leading to some odd monster/item placements.
- Bug fix: Dice algorithm was fixed to be uniformly distributed. Previously, the first and last number in the roll had 50% less odds of being rolled.
As always, feedback is much appreciated!
I like the game so far, I was able to plow through it in just one try with a warrior, but it has excellent potential.
I can see the ADOM influence clearly, and I’m looking forward to more feature complete versions with longer dungeons.
Had a quick blast on it. Seemed like fun. Would like an option to start with a pregen character – it’s a bit of pain having to put in all those stats when you don’t know what they do. Instant gratification is what you want with a Flash game!
Someguy,
Aesthetically, Dance of Death is heavily influenced by ADOM, although as far as gameplay I plan on moving more into a “wilderness survival”-style game in the vein of UnReal World.
Dave,
I also did not feel like the Quick Character Creation was quick enough. In the future, I will streamline this feature and pick from archetypes that already include races, skillsets, and optimal stats.
Thanks for the feedback!
Looks like a good first effort. However, I cannot see where total AC is displayed, except where you go into inventory and there is a lone stat there for defense. That seems a bit out of place, I think it would be better on the main screen or character stats screen. Also another stat that seems to be neglected is “to hit” or “attack power” or “damage range” for example if a dagger hits between 1-6 dam then (1-6 dam) could be in parenthesis next to total attack power. If it was dual wield daggers total dam would be (2-12) for example, but I don’t see any damage numbers on weapon descriptions either though, so its hard to tell which is better..
Hi Michael,
I have plans to rework the UI quite a bit a few versions from now (around 0.7). At around that time I will also be implementing the full-fledged combat system, which will act as a guideline for which stats to display to the player.
For the time being, all weapons do 1d6 damage; the only difference is the to-hit, which is determined by your weapon skill’s technique (Jab, Stab, and Slash).
I definitely plan to expose a lot more numbers to the player, however, such as weapon damage and to-hit. Thanks for the suggestions!