Sunday 27 September 2009

Kharne 0.0.4 available

"Release early, release often" as a wise man once said.

Kharne 0.0.4 is now available here, or via the link on the right-hand size. This is not the version with lots of promised yummy new features such as scrolls/potions magic and so on (I'm getting tired of saying that, but that version will come soon, I promise).

(Update@3.08 PM GMT: I've fixed the bug that would mean characters started with millions of MP, and I've reduced the amount of logging that takes place. I've replaced the old version of the distribution with this updated version)

Here is what is included:
  • Character Creation functionality has now been incorporated into the main window and no longer uses an external DLL.
  • The inventory screen has been redesigned.
  • Multidrop functionality via the keyboard has been implemented (press 'd').
  • Eating functionality via the keyboard has been implemented (press 'e')
  • Added PseudoIDing of items held in the inventory for a certain amount of time.
  • Added key summaries to the bottom of each subscreen.
  • Monsters have had their hit points and damage increased.
  • The application should now exit correctly and not hang around in memory.
  • Upon levelling, two appropriate skill categeories for each class are now increased by 1.
  • The chance of cursed items appearing has been more than doubled.
  • Added an item view to display detailed item information from the inventory.
  • Characters that do not know any magic can no longer access the spell screen.
  • The character dump now displays the monster kills for the character.
  • Monsters that have special plurals should now be referred to correctly in the plural form.
  • Fixed a few minor spelling mistakes in the character dump and a few layout mistakes on the high-score screen.
  • Female characters should no longer be referred to as "he" in the character dump.
  • When digging a reminder is now displayed of the keys used.
  • Drinking from fountains now uses a turn up.
  • Monsters in zones are now scaled more appropriately.
  • Not wearing any armour at all will significantly increase the rate at which the defense skill is learned.
  • The character 'back' slot which was never used in game has been removed.
  • Sneak attacks are now flagged in the message log.
  • Thieves now get extra sneak-attack damage when using ranged weapons.
  • The thievery skill now grants a chance to open and close doors without allowing monsters to react.
  • Monsters that are carrying items no longer have their items disappear on death when killed in ranged combat.
  • The change in 0.03 to not display messages upon opening and closing doors has been reversed.
  • Trying to open or close doors when there are no doors in range will produce an appropriate message in the message log.
  • Opening doors as part of movement will now cause a turn to pass.
  • Tunnelling now takes only half as long.
  • Tunnelling now displays a message indicating if it has been aborted due to nearby monsters.
  • Attempting to tunnel through impassable walls now doesn't use up any time.
  • Trying to dig on the town level results in a warning message.
  • Walking into walls now uses up a turn.
  • The rate at which subterfuge skills are learned has been dramatically increased.
  • The rate at which ranged combat skill is learned has been dramatically increased.
  • Trying to pick up an item with a full inventory no longer gives the message that an item has been successfully picked up.
  • The message log now reports that Undead monsters are 'destroyed'and Outsider creatures are 'banished' instead of 'killed'.
  • Identified items that are cursed now have 'Cursed' as an integral part of their name, e.g. they are called "A Cursed Longbow [-1,-1]" instead of "A Longbow [1, -1] (Cursed)".
  • Unidentified artifacts have now the correct prefix in their name.
  • Fixed a bug where an error would occur when trying to write a Hiscore to the HiScore table if the table was empty.
  • Special terrain tiles are now described correctly inside an elemental invasion zone.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

bug - my level 1 Dwarven Knight starts with 4322288/4 MP .

Dave said...

Ta. I'll get that fixed and put a new version up shortly.

Unknown said...

It might be a good idea to set a timeout before next input can be entered. I often miss the choose proffesion screen, because when I chose race the game goes immediately to choose proffesion screen and I didn't take my finger off the keyboard. It's the same when I'm walking around, often I press a key slightly longer and I move 3 tiles instead of one.

Very annoying.

Not being able to go back to the previous step in character creation is quite annoying, too.

Cheers.

S.

Dave said...

Good suggestions, and I'll make sure they're implemented for the next version.

Timothy Sassone said...

I tried playing a dwarven knight, got killed on the first level (fair enough, I shouldn't charge large groups of powerful creatures with 5hp :P), and my character dump said I was a Halfling Knight...


Other than that and the other comments, looking good!

Dave said...

Ok, that was my fault. Kinda embarassing. I'll put a new version out in the next couple of days with the fix for that.

Knights will eventually be able to cast from several schools of magic to augment their combat.

Dave said...

The next version is due to go out tomorrow, but I've already uploaded the zip here.

Changes are:

* Blocked repetitive keypressing whilst in character creation to avoid selecting multiple options with the same keypress.
* The various character creation steps can now be undone.
* Pressing [CTRL] on the background tab in character creation will now generate a random background.
* Half-Orcs are now Orcs everywhere in the game.
* Character Dumps should no longer report dwarven characters as halfings.
* Character files which belong to characters who have died are now moved to the morgue subdirectory.
* Upon death, a copy of the character dump is written to to the morgue subdirectory.
* Common items can now be pseudo-ided.
* Fixed a minor spacing error in automatically generated backgrounds.