0.0.1.8 - Hunger, Engraving, and Post Mortems

You know how I said I was going to work on status effects? Went off on a tangent. Take my mspaint crud as apology, along with that update.

So I'd started with adding status effect definitions to creatures. You know, confusion timeouts and stuff. Well, I added a hunger level too, and then I found myself working on that more. So I got that working good. Then I thought, hmm, let's stop having sudden death restarts and instead do something with it. So, I built it to give appropriate messages related to how you died. And then, while I was figuring one more thing to throw in before I upload, I added engravings.

I also have more blog comments I'm going to go back and respond to. Also, I noticed I have an Issues tab on the Google Code site, I already replied to the two things there. And I have hit a milestone: my first spam comment on the blog. Something about pricey glasses. Just so you know, if I ever do dump a comment off in spam wrongly, let me know and I'll move it back in. If there's ever a bit of drama about that, I'm likely to move it back in, I like free speech. In the meantime, if I spot obvious junk accumulating, I'll move it over to spam.

So thank you all for what is becoming more than monthly responses. I will try to keep up my average weekly rate of uploads, and I'll try to keep up with comments and such as much as I can.

Next week, I may just get around to actually adding items and stuff like I said I'd do last time. I've got some of the structures in place from the bit I dabbled with it this week, so it shouldn't be too hard to do. See you then.

0.0.17 - Creature Select

Yup, the new version's up. You can play as any creature in the bestiary. Also, I fixed an AI crash bug, and added some appropriate features about what should and should not be able to do things like open doors.

I am also cripplingly tired for some reason, so I won't take long with this post. I may edit and extend it in the morning.

Next week, I'm going to try to add things like status effects, scrolls, wands, and perhaps magic.

I sleep now.

0.0.1.6 - Towns and Trading

You all have no idea what I've been through this week. I have literally hauled 3 tons of cinderblocks. I did the math. I've fought with all sorts of weirdness and problems in my web classes. I even aced a trigonometry quiz, and I knew next to nothing of trigonometry until last week. But that's all irrelevant. Because the most important thing here to this blog, is the next update. I kinda sorta did miss a day, but mainly because it also happened to be the end of the web class week, so I was dealing with that. After singlehandedly finishing the block hauling job, your hero got right back to work on Adventurer, and turned the half-done job of mindless humans standing about in their houses into some decently proper quest givers.

If you go to see one, they'll want an item, and in exchange for it, they'll give you another item. They're persistent like levels are; which is to say, only semi. They won't know if you've completed a quest before when you come back, but you don't have to worry about them wanting a stick one time and wanting a flail when you come back. Later, when truly persistent levels are in, I'll do that kind of thing. Also, I fixed a few small things. Including the whole infinite rope thing as Anonymous so kindly pointed out.

Also of note, I got a FormSpring account. If you're shy about comments here or just want to ask a question there, go right ahead. I increased the number of 'gadgets' here on Blogspot, I didn't just willy nilly add all, just the stuff I thought wouldn't be a total waste of bandwidth. I'm on dial-up, I know these things. Also, no one has edited the wiki at all. :/ Link comin' at you whoa.

And finally, plans for next week. I actually had a conversation with one of my cousins where I basically rattle off huge walls of text, and then suddenly inspiration strikes. "I think I'll let the player be any creature. I wonder if I should balance it, like having new dragon adventurers be totally wimpy and rat adventurers be totally awesome. Or not. I could leave it natural, but then all the powergamers would pick dragon and go on a rampage, kill everyone in town, or at least until... ...the other adventurers hear about you and come after you." Yeah, maybe not all of that latter part will be in, but I'm totally going to work at letting the player be an adventurer of any race in the book.

The long term implications of this, when Adventurer is more developed, is that the creatures with a higher difficulty class are also going to have a higher natural level of fame. Dragons are sorta a big deal for fame-seeking adventurers. Rats? Not so much. New and wimpy adventurers just starting out. I do see that balancing in the long run; you can be tougher but hassled more often, or you can be weaker with less glory-seekers trying to kill you, letting you work in more subtle and secret ways. So I think this will be the first step of something good.

End of Month 4 - October

Well, I've got a lot done this month. I set up a donation button, got the overworld forest in, and fixed the 64-bit problem. I've made $4.04 in ads, and the only donation was from my mother to test the thing out. I have a fair amount of downloads now, going from 20 to 100 each week. And according to the analytics, still growing. Things have really picked up this and last month, and I hope it does continue that trend.

So, um, I really don't know much else to say about the month. I've started college back, which may or may not slow down progress. Front porch roof is removed, so that's ready to be moved out so the trailer can be moved out, and a doublewide can be moved in. My days now, instead of porch deconstruction, are going to be occupied by cinderblock siding removal and other packing. And still, I'm going to keep on updating.

As far as the progress goes on the next update, I've got a few things done in level generation and creature data. Still a bit early on to tell if a town should really be ready.