Dweller bugfix

It turned out that there were problems with the sewer level that I did not catch when testing... how sloppy of me... :-( Since I'm on my way on a one week vacation I had to release a patched version (1.0.2) with the sewer level disabled. I'll release a proper bugfix next week. Sorry for the inconvenience...

Dweller 1.0 released

I released a new version of Dweller today. The new version comes packed with goodies, most notably a well deserved graphical overhaul, courtesy of Oryx. The graphics also comes with simple idle animations. In the next version I have plans for things like attack and spell animations.

In this version I have also decided to remove the ASCII version of the display completely and make the game more accessible to new players outside of the roguelike scene.

Another brand new feature is the merchant on the surface from whom you can buy and sell items. This should increase survivability quite a bit and make the game easier.

Download from:
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller#Download_and_Installation_instructions

Change log:

NEW Brand new graphics
NEW Simple idle animations
NEW Merchant on the surface to buy and sell from
NEW Scroll of Recall to move between surface and deepest dungeon level visited

CHANGE ASCII mode removed

FIX Null pointer on rare occasion when switching level
FIX Null pointer when viewing an empty inventory/ability category
FIX Runetime exception when restarting the game after it has been halted (Android)

New graphics for Dweller

hSince the initial release of the Android version of Dweller I have come to realize that the current graphics for Dweller simply wont work on higher resolutions. The 8x8 tiles will not look good when scaled to above twice their size and I need at least 24x24 pixel tiles for high resolution devices.

I decided to make a post on a few pixel artist sites like Pixel Joint and Pixelation. I was surprised by the number of replies I got and the quality of the sample artwork many of the pixel artists sent me. I finally made a decision to work with a really talented US based pixel artist who goes by the handle Oryx. I first saw Oryx work at TIG Source a while back and was struck by the retro style and the crispness and overall coolness of the graphics he makes. I'm happy to be working with him and hope to have a new version with Oryx' graphics ready in a week or two.

Here's a few screendumps from a dev. version of Dweller showing the new graphics:

The guy next to the warrior with the sword is a merchant. In a coming version of Dweller you will be able to buy and sell things to the merchant to get upgrades and means of improving your survivability in the dungeon.

Dweller for Android released!

I'm happy to announce my first release of Dweller for Google Android! The version is a bit of a beta version, but is perfectly playable. I want to improve the UI and graphics much more before I can say that I have a proper version for Android.

Dweller for Android can be downloaded for free from the Android marketplace (do a search for Dweller and you should be able to find it), via this direct URL: market://search?q=pname:org.roguelikedevelopment.dweller.android or using the QR-code on this page.

New versions for J2ME and J2SE have also been released, but not much has changed since the last release. Changes and additions:

NEW All text now has a small drop shadow

CHANGE Locked the navigation keys completely from being redefined as it risks screwing things up if redefined the wrong way

CHANGE Added left/right commands as valid ways of navigating back and forth in menues (this used to work in old versions and is now back on player request)

Download from: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller

Dweller on Android coming soon

I got my HTC Legend a couple of days ago, and I immediately started coding on the adaptation of Dweller for Android handsets. The process is a fairly simple two step process:

1) Create a main app and implement an interface for providing the core game code with a means to load files, get default keys etc.

2) Create a view/gui class and implement an interface for providing the generic UI code with a way to draw tiles, text and primitives

The above is already done and Dweller is running on my Legend, BUT the much bigger resolution paired with the less-accurate-than-mouse touch screen (or do I have huge hands?) makes it hard to interact with the game in a good enough way. The graphics I use is simply too small, even at 16x16 it is hard to tap on the exact item/Monster/dungeon feature on the map you want to interact with. I am currently working on a context sensitive action bar that will show available game actions such as a Pick Up icon when standing on an item, an Open/Close icon when standing next to a door (problem is how to solve the case where you're standing next to more than one door), a Menu and an Inventory icon to open the main menu and inventory respectively and so on. I am also looking into changing the graphics and possibly ripping graphics from somewhere until I find someone who can help me do some larger graphics of my own. Any takers? :-)

Problems with the latest Dweller release...

The latest Dweller bugfix and stability release went out the door a little too fast. Unfortunately it contains an issue when saving highscores... so much for a stability release, hmm. The game is still fully playable, but no scores will be recorded. I'm away on vacation and won't be home until the 12th of May, so I can't get a bugfix out of the door until then.

Dweller 0.15.1 bugfix and stability release

I have recently run into a couple of weird bugs when playtesting Dweller. One time I after loading a saved game I came across a map cell that looked like a normal floor tile, but it was impossible to move there. After some inspection and hacking I came to the conclusion that it had contained a dead ooze, that for some reason left it's id on the map cell, but was removed from the main list of monsters. I think the problem was caused by killing the monster with a weapon of displacement/knockbacks, but I'm not sure yet. I've also come across an irreparable save game...

I've improved the error handling drastically to help me catch weird situations like the ones mentioned above. If you come across a Dweller error screen with some log output and an error message please let me know!

Get the new release from:

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Dweller

or try the desktop version straight away:

http://www.roguelikedevelopment.org/dweller/DwellerJ2SE.jnlp

Change log:

NEW Dweller Desktop now properly resize the drawing area when the window is resized
NEW Greatly improved the error handling when loading/saving data
NEW Added a loader/progress screen when starting Dweller to give feedback while waiting for the game to start

CHANGE The bottom bar is now hidden when showing item categories
CHANGE Additional drops from dead monsters favor the cell the monster was in if it is empty, instead of spreading it to adjacent cells

FIX Some key codes on some handset models did not show correct key names in the Commands menu
FIX It was not possible to close an opened gate
FIX The Dweller Mobile code to properly resize when the canvas was resized (not sure if/when that ever happens) did not work