Goals for Version 0.6
With version 0.5.102, Dance of Death reached a stable point and is ready for its next major features: the world map and wilderness. I definitely have my work cut out for me for 0.6, and though the goals list below is short, it is a meaty one.
In addition to wilderness generation, v0.6 will begin to reflect the results of a recent discussion in r.g.r.d. regarding gender bonuses and the social responsibilities of game developers at large. What begun as a simple disagreement regarding gender bonuses evolved into a source of inspiration that helped me define where I want to take the gameworld as a whole, the fruits of which will be seen throughout the next releases.
The following are the goals for Dance of Death v0.6:
- World generator.
- Wilderness area generator.
- Ability to move between wilderness areas.
- Ability to move between a wilderness area and the world map.
- Moving at the world map level.
- Entering a wilderness area from the world map.
- Entering a dungeon from a wilderness area.
- Exiting from a dungeon onto a wilderness area.
- Improved name generator.
- Gender bonuses tweak.
- New playable races.
- Rework main quest to include the wilderness.
- Saving the world map.
- When the game loses focus, add a “Paused, click to continue.” overlay to ensure the keyboard focus is always correctly active.
Thanks again to everyone for your support and meaningful discussions; you have played a crucial part in keeping the development momentum strong!
Sounds like another good step forward indeed, best of luck knocking it out.
Heh, for some reason I’ve wound up creating an arbitrary competition in my mind between Dance of Death and Menace of the Mines as of late—probably due to the odd fact that both projects seem to manage about the same pace and you both recently hit a v.5 milestone!
Great game ! I particularly like the very intuitive UI. My only concerns about version 0.5 :
– too much useless identical items. It’s kind of depressing finding its 5th leather belt 😉
– too easy. I won the first time (though the ogre almost killed me). Maybe there should be one boss per level, delivering an item unlocking the next level.
Thanks for the compliments! An intuitive UI is a large focus for Dance of Death, and I’ll be revamping it to streamline it further in a version or two.
Both the items and monsters are placeholders for now. I’ve hardcoded a handful of them to have a playable game, but have not yet fleshed out a robust item generation system or a monster generation system. I plan on dedicating a release to rewriting each of these features and fleshing them out.
A large part of the ease of the game comes from the rapid regeneration. I’ve consciously left this in, because, in these early stages of development, I want players to have a relatively easy time getting through the game, to facilitate feedback. As I introduce different ways to heal, through food, potions, spells, etc., rapid regeneration will be removed.
Development has been spotty in the past two weeks, with vacation and a heavy workload, but I plan on having 0.6 out for the September 19th ARRP!
Hi, I’m the guy who made the first gender remark at the newsgroup. (Not really wanted to spark that large a debate, it just bugged me).
I just tried your rl again. And had a small issue. Apparently, when you start the game your starting equip isn’t always equipped at the start. Which is a bit odd.
Also (here comes a list of nitpickings):
– When you allocate your stat points only +/- work, while I also expected left and right to work.
– The stats also effect the starting stats, but that part is way to grayed out to properly read. Perhaps highlight the changed skills better? (To better min max your char). (If you go forward a panel and back, the colors are better. (ps: I also expected backspace to take me back a panel))
– Somehow the max stat bonus is lvl 3, but I have 9 points. This simple fact should have just been listed somewhere.
– The min character name length is not listed. (I wanted to name me B dammnit 😉 ).
– I created a orc dude with a lot of skillpoints in mace and wound up with an inventory full of bracers, sashes, and maces, around 10 of each. (perhaps created because I switched panels a lot, or tried creating one char name characters?).
– Suddenly the game requested to store 1mb on my pc (a flash safety setting, was using 100kb before). (Which was odd I saved before).
Apart from these small points it looks great. (Like the little pointer at the currently viewed square using the look command). (The 40 hp, mace lvl 8 orc won of course).
Thanks for your feedback, Soyweiser! Some thoughts on your comments:
– On the next version, starting items will be equipped.
– I am currently working out a rehash of the character creation and skill system that may not allow for left and right to be used to increase skill points (spoiler: the skills will be laid out spatially, so the arrow keys will be used to navigate the skill tree/graph).
– Will add notes detailing the level cap and name minimums to character creation.
– Will look into the bug of too many starting items.
– The Flash 1mb notice is for total storage across all saves and game settings. The game currently saves automatically every second, so the notice may come up out of nowhere!
Thanks again and, by the way, don’t sweat it about the gender debate: enough people were interested in it and it was meant to happen; ultimately, the game will be better for it!