Saturday, August 28, 2010

Dweller 1.3.0 - this time with Cupcake support for real!

Well, what can I say. I failed in adding Android 1.5 Cupcake support even though I claimed doing so in the last release. It all boiled down to the incorrect minimum SDK version specified in the manifest file used when generating the application for the Andoird Market. This is now done and while I was at it I also tried to focus a bit on the Android crash bugs I get reported via the built in Android crash report system (a very helpful feature indeed!).

One of the major gripes some Android players have with Dweller is that when the app crashes an ongoing game is lost. I do realise that this is not good and I have tried to tweak how Dweller behaves during the entire application life cycle. Most of the issues I've seen reported are related to how Dweller handles when the application is paused, most often when an incoming call arrives. I hope that with the changes in this version the game will be more stable and lost games will be much fewer. Please report your experience of the stability of the game here or via e-mail. Your feedback is invaluable to me!

Get the latest version via the Android Market or via the instructions here.

NEW FEATURES

  • Added an option to Use All (for instance use 3 Mushrooms of healing in one go, without having to go in to the menu between each use)
  • Added Potion of Mutation
  • Pushable stones
  • Some rooms within the dungeon have predefined spawn points for items and monsters when the map is generated

CHANGES

  • Game is now saved when moving between levels. This will prevent complete loss of your character if the game crashes

BUG FIXES

  • Floating damage text was not shown correctly for ranged attacks
  • J2ME and J2SE - Floating damage text was clipped
  • Almost insta-death by draning bug solved (Vampire bats were lethal)
  • Android - Crash bug on app exit
  • Android - Cupcake was not supported afterall due to an incorrect minimum SDK version

13 comments:

  1. Wow, really confortable play now on xperia x10.
    Font size has been fixed and showed by correct size now.

    Now no need to worry about incase game crashed,
    but need to have strong intention not to play all through night :)

    Thanks a lot , arigatou!

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  2. Dweller is really great game. Thank you for your work, Björn. Played every J2ME version since 0.14.0, and game worked fine on my cellphone (Nokia E50, Symbian OS 9.1, S60 3rd Edition).

    But I can't start 1.2.0 or any newer versions of Dweller (yes, I tried them all). No error messages or something like that, game just does not show up. Taking into account all awesome features introduced in newer versions, it is sad not being able to try them.

    P.S. Sorry for my bad English.

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  3. Versions of Dweller from 1.2.0 and up perform a version check to make sure that invalid/old game state data isn't read at startup. I'm pretty sure that, despite pretty thorough testing, I've managed to screw things up if you have an old version of the game installed. Could you please try and uninstall the game and do a re-install and see if the game starts? Thanks in advance!

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  4. I really like all changes that you have made !!!
    GREAT WORK
    Sadly Still there are fog of war "ghosts" to fix. (I am not whining :) I can live with it)
    You could add some random side quests from merchant like :
    "kill black orc","bring 10 mushrooms" merchant will make a potion that will train some of attribites or can give some scrools of enchantment...)

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  5. Thanks! I'm glad you like the direction Dweller is taking.

    Both the fog of war issues and side quests are on my ToDo list. You can at any time review the ToDo list and list of things ready for release at http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller#Todo_list

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  6. Great realease !
    I Love the new graphics and NPC idea.
    Could you tell me what frameworks,libraries or tools you've used to create that cool game in J2ME ?
    I'am using netbeans. But I am really begginer in game programming and I've wanted to start making some simple roguelike in J2ME. Could you tell me what do I need to know(alghoritms etc.) and what tools work best for that?
    Thanks and good Luck with your game its getting better and better with each release.

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  7. '... Could you please try and uninstall the game and do a re-install and see if the game starts?'

    Tried this many times in various ways (with and without saved game, simple uninstall and intstall, upgrade from previous version with and without saving app's data, etc) - no effect. Unlike 1.3.0, version 1.1.3 still working fine in any uninstall/install/downgrade combinations (yes, I tried even some downgrade involving combinations).

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  8. @Anonymous #1: I use Eclipse as my IDE since I can use it for anything from Java (J2ME, J2SE and Android) to Actionscript and PHP. Everything in Dweller is written from scratch. No external libraries are used. If you want to get into roguelike development I can recommend the Roguebasin Wiki: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

    You will find many good guides, algorithms and all kinds of inspiration for your roguelike. Good luck!

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  9. @Anonymous #2: I will do some on-device debugging and see if I can figure out what goes wrong. I'll borrow an S60 handset from work and run some tests. I'll keep you updated.

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  10. Great game, works perfect on my N97mini!

    Though if you're out of the dungeon(level with the merchant) the screen 'flickers'(a part of the screen goes black, but it happens fast) when you move. It's noticeable in the dungeons to, not as bad as above.
    I can live with it :D.

    Btw, from my experience, most weapons sold and found are aimed at warriors, it's hard for a ranger to find ranged weapons( I've found shortbow and recurve); but that might just be me playing bad.

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  11. The screen redraw code is kinda naive and redraws more than is needed to handle the animated sprites. On "slower" handsets like the N97 the redrawing is noticeable as flickering. I will try and address it in a coming version.

    You are correct in that gear for rangers are too rare. I will tweak the numbers and add some additional ranger gear.

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  12. Really enjoying Dweller for a good time waster, and the massive strides you are making with it, however there seems to be a bug when playing the Wizard. Sometimes you get the death screen prematurely when you have hit points left. This doesn't happen with the Warrior (not sure about Hunter as I have never played with that character)

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  13. I think the premature death is related to miscast spells that backfire and kill you. Could that be the case? Now that I think of it it is damn harsh that you are able to die from it. I will change that for the next release.

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