Kharne

Magic in DAEMON Part 3

2011-10-17T18:17:00.001-07:00

This is an early screenshot of the Spirit Details page from DAEMON. Ignore the details for now, they're still being worked on in terms of creating the algorithms for the details of the various powers of the spirits.

But each spirit controlled by the character has a power (a castable effect, like a spell in other roguelikes), and this has four parameters:

Proc: the % chance of this power being triggered each turn. This use does not modify the recharge time so powers can be both passive (proc-based) and active (on-use). Can be modified by environmental factors, target availability, items and so on. Also thinking of allowing the random proc effect to be suppressed under certain circumstances.
Effect: for damaging powers, the damage dealt. For non-damaging powers, the extent.
Duration: the duration of the power for non-instant powers in turns, for instant-powers, the length of a HoT/DoT effect applied.
Recharge: the time to recharge the on-use version of the power.

All these figures are/will be modified by factors such as the Spirit Power Level/Sphere/Current Tolerance and Character Spirit/Mind/Summoning Skill and so on. Also I want enviromental and transient effects to play a role too.

Magic in DAEMON Part 2

2011-10-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

In DAEMON, each spirit you summon will have its own unique seal. A "genuine" seal from the Ars Goetia is given below:

I've written code to procedurally generate similar-looking seals, given names and colours which as passed in as parameters:

Rendered on screen using Libtcod's functions the above seal appears as (actual size):

What's the point of all this? None actually, from a strictly game-play point of view, but I think it increases the atmosphere quite a lot.

Magic in DAEMON Part 1

2011-10-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd write a little bit more about the Magic system in Daemon. Its very heavily (well, more like ripped-straight-off from) two real-world occult systems: the medieval grimoire Ars Goetia (also known as the Lesser Key of Solomon), and the Kabbalah (Tree of Life) of the Western Mystery Tradition.

The Real "Tree of Life"

I intend gameplay to metaphorically simulate the path of the Goetic (one who summons spirits) ascending the Sephiroth (Spheres of Tree of Life) whilst battling the evil forces of the inverse of the Sephiroth, the Qliphoth as one descends dungeon levels. Thus the spirits the Character can summon to assist him/her have thematic powers appropriate to the corresponding Qliphoth, foes will also be based upon said qliphoths, and the Sephiroth themselves will influence both the environment and also other powers that the Character may have.

For example, the dungeon levels corresponding to Geburah/Golachab (named Golachag in the game) will have enemies themed with destruction/burnings and ruins (in real-world occult lore, the qliphoth Golachab means "Burners with Fire" whereas the sephira Geburah embodies Strength), but the level itself will perhaps filled with martial armouries, great demonic captains or the remains of a dead god of war and so on.

The fluff in the game for Golachag states that:

"Spirits of Golachag are those who burn to do destruction - even onto themselves. They are known for inspiring in mortals unbridled radicalism and tyranny that brooks no opposition, and executes all its opponents.When manifested their bodies are forever consumed with an unburning liquid fire."

Summoning and using Spirits will cost the Character corruption and degeneration points, which will however, in return make summoning and using spirits easier. There will be ways to reduce both, although I've not finished designing these, but I suspect they will operate much like piety in Crawl does, although aligned upon Kabbalistic premises.

For example, in the screenshot above, it is possible to attempt to summon one of ten ranks of spirits, from the least, Soldier, to the greatest, King (as per the Ars Goetia). The more powerful a spirit summoned, the greater the powers available to the Character, but the more risks are involved.

Characters can summon and control three spirits at a time, and have access to the powers of the spirits (for example, in the above sphere, Neremoth (Fear), spirits will be able to frighten enemies, reducing their effectiveness or even preventing them from attacking altogether for a short period of time).

However, accessing their powers will reduce the spirit's life-force - represented by a hunger level. If the hunger level gets too low, then bad things (tm) could happen. I am still designing the consequences of what happens if this occurs. Perhaps the spirit could break free and attack the Character?

I'm also intending for environmental effects to play a big part in the game, akin to Unangband for example. These could make summoned spirits more or less effective, or easier to summon, and so on.

My aim is to make magic, and in fact, entire game-play a much more two-edged sword than in any previous roguelike, simulating some of the character progression in RPGs such as Kult (which is another influence).

Note that the names of the Spheres/Qliphoths have been altered slightly from their real-world equivalents and all spirits will have randomly generated names as to avoid harming any innocent spirits.

Daemon

2011-10-08T14:39:00.001-07:00

I've scrapped the idea of rewriting Kharne. I'm currently coding the occult-themed roguelike as a new game called Daemon using C# and the libtcod.NET library.

I'm aiming to get a first version out (under the GPL) by the end of the month or so. It will be a complete game with save/load and a win condition, as I've largely used the framework I wrote for my 7DRL, Stygia.

Have some gratuitous screenshots:

Enochian

2011-09-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well, that's a function for rendering _Enochian_ on the fly using Libtcod.NET completed. I'm using Enonchian as a general purpose magical language to add atmosphere and mystique.

Welcome Kharne v3

2011-09-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

So, I've decided to take my existing 7DRL, Stygia (which is a complete game) and use it as a framework to commence an in-parallel (and much less ambitious) rewrite of Kharne, using C# and Libtcod.NET. This one will have a slightly darker, less generic theme (with a magical system based entirely on Goetic magick) and will focus more on atmosphere and personal horror.

No doubt there will be extra-dimensional tentacles involved somewhere.

Don't worry, there will be another release of the existing Kharne (Alpha 24) shortly.

And this mysterious text below? Why the big bad himself, that you will have to defeat. Kudos and a hug to the first person to recognise the language.

A new beginning?

2011-09-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

Magic Systems based upon the Goetia.

2011-09-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

So today I'm thinking about magic systems, or more importantly implementable magic systems for roguelikes. I haven't yet got around to implementing magic in Kharne, and I want to make sure the system I do choose works.

I'm tempted to implement a magic system modelled upon the Goetia:

The interaction between the magician and the summoned spirits in Goetic magick is quite unique. Whereas in some traditions, spirits are prayed to or asked for guidance and wisdom, the spirits and demons of Goetia are bound and commanded by the magician to act as his servants. In such an interaction, it is highly important for the magician to be aware that he is calling upon these spirits to perform an action, rather than do it himself, because many of these beings are more powerful than him. Therefore, compelling the spirits to obey is a major concern. For protection, the magician employs elaborate circles and
rotes to confine the spirit. Once confined, the spirit must be forced to act in accordance with the will of the magician. Many different methods are employed to compel the spirits; lesser spirits can often be coerced, threatened or fooled into compliance, whereas more powerful spirits can be more difficult to control.
Common methods of control include threats, particularly in the form of the vibration of divine names, which tells the demon or spirit that the magician speaks with the authority and power of the god whose name he intoning. Some magicians will try to persuade the spirit, sometimes resorting to begging and bootlicking. In many cases, the magician may try to bargain with the spirit, to which it will most likely happily agree, exchanging service for sacrifice of some kind.
The various Goetic demons and beings are often very specialized. Grimoires list long catalogues of spirits, their specific powers, and how they may be summoned by the use of different seals, incantations, sacrifices and incenses. Before conjuration, the magician must carefully consult these catalogues and select the single spirit best suited for the task.
The Goetic spirits are not well suited to conversation, as are the Enochian angels. The lesser spirits are often stupid and are not known for their honesty. Summoning of the demons for the purpose of gaining information is generally a waste of time, unless perhaps the being is specifically ordered to spy or seek out information for the magician.

i..e magic is essentially summoning creatures to do your will, and which creature you summon and bind depends on what effect you wish to create; also, summoning will have a cost.

In other words, instead of _yet another fireball spell_, you summon a creature of fire at a specific location for a certain period of time. The effectiveness of this (how long the spirit stays, how effective it is and so on) could depend on your reputation with the bosses/factions of the fire spirits/how much you've sacrificed.

It seems sufficiently orthogonal to conventional DnD-based magic systems that it may make for an interesting twist on roguelike gameplay.

Thoughts?

Multiple Light Sources

2011-09-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm wondering just how one handles multiple light sources? The alpha-blending of the various light-intensity values for a particular map cell is easily understandable, but how does one store (potentially near-infinite) multiple-overlapping light sources and their separate light intensities?

Hmmmm

2011-08-25T16:17:00.001-07:00

I'm really tempted to start rewriting Kharne in C# using Libtcod.NET

New Fonts?

2011-07-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

As part of a general overhaul of the UI, I'm experimenting with using Angband fonts:

To be honest, I think it improves the look of the game dramatically. Due to their slightly larger size however, I'm going to have to move the equipped items out of the inventory items view and into a new view of their own (like Angband!), but I think I'll only do that when I implement proper keyboard-equipping and removing items.

I do have a query though before going ahead with this in the next Alpha Release, which I've been unable to find the answer anywhere on the web: am I legally allowed to use the fonts that come with Angband in an MPL project? If so, what license are they under? If they are GPL, then I think I can distribute them solely as GPL and include them in my MPL program and then get a sore head due to all these mad license incompatibility.

Kharne Alpha 23 now available

2011-07-15T15:42:00.001-07:00

(note: I've moved to a new numbering system for Alpha releases - this is effectively 0.06b in the old system; the change was made because I don't feel right giving an incomplete game a proper version number - the Roguelike world is filled with too many v0.01s and v0.001s and so on as is).

A new version of Kharne (Alpha 23) is now available (source also available here as a download, and browsable here, and released under the MPL). This is mainly a bugfix version superseding the previous version, although I've made a few other additional changes:

Moved to a new Versioning System.
Status Conditions are now displayed at the bottom of the main display.
The '@' symbol is coloured according to the current health of the Player Character.
Added four more types of potions to cover Elemental Resistances, which add 40% to their respective resistances.
Trying to drink a potion or reading a scroll whilst not being able to will now exit the inventory properly.
Potions of Healing and Extra-Healing now cure poisons.
Potions of Extra-Healing cure the Paralysis, Blinded, Confusion and Drained conditions.
A message is generated whenever a level containing a Unique is entered.
Wearing Heavy or Medium armour reduces stealth.
Thieves now learn Stealth skills quicker.
Warriors now learn Defense & Heavy Armour skills quicker.
Stealth rolls are modified by the distance to Monsters.

I intend this to be the last version before magic, end-game/win conditions and the monster overhaul are implemented.

Comments, bug reports and queries most welcome of course.

Status Effects

2011-07-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

In the version of the code checked into the Repository this evening (which will eventually become either .06b or .07), Status Effects are now displayed at the bottom of the main display, with positive effects (for example, Fire Resistance and Free Action) on the left, and negative effects (in the screenshot below, Confusion) on the right:

Though should I also display the number of turns left for each one as well? e.g. Conf [10]? Or is that too much information? Maybe only limit it to positive effects?

Monster Flags

2011-07-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

I now have decided on the following list of monster flags:

ALIGNMENT_EVIL
BEHAVE_BERSERK
BEHAVE_COWARDLY
BEHAVE_FLEE
BEHAVE_GREEDY
BEHAVE_IGNORE
BEHAVE_RANGED
BREED_MULTIPLY
DOOR_BASH
DOOR_OPEN
DROP_CASH
DROP_CORPSE
DROP_ITEMS_ARTEFACT
DROP_ITEMS_COMMON
DROP_ITEMS_EPIC
DROP_ITEMS_SUPERB
DROP_ITEMS_UNCOMMON
GENDER_FEMALE
GENDER_MALE
GOT_ESCORT
GOT_ESCORTS
GOT_FRIEND
GOT_FRIENDS
IMMUNE_AIR
IMMUNE_EARTH
IMMUNE_FIRE
IMMUNE_WATER
INVISIBLE
NEVER_MOVE
POISONOUS
REGENERATE
RESIST_AIR
RESIST_EARTH
RESIST_FIRE
RESIST_WATER
TELEPORT
TELEPORT_AWAY
TELEPORT_BLINK
TELEPORT_TO
WALL_KILL
WALL_PASS

Most of these do what they say on the tin, although the Behaviour Flags are worth noting in greater detail:

BEHAVE_BERSERK: This flag means the creature will do increased damage at low health.
BEHAVE_COWARDLY: Creatures having this flag will run away when hurt, and use ranged combat where possible, although their priority is to keep moving away from the @.
BEHAVE_FLEE: Creatures having this flag will flee when hurt badly.
BEHAVE_GREEDY: Creatures featuring this will actively prefer to pick up equipment as opposed to engaging the @ where possible.
BEHAVE_IGNORE: These creatures will not attack unless attacked first.
BEHAVE_RANGED: These creatures will attempt to stay at range and attack from a distance where possible.

If there are any more options and flags you think should be used, feel free to say so in the comments!

Source-diving

2011-07-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

I now have the Angband source for a deep perusal, which will help with implementation of magic and better monster AI. I think I'm moving away from a Crawl-inspired game towards an Angband inspired game, although I think there are many wonderful features in Crawl worth stealing^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hborrowing. Both are excellent games though.

More on Edit Files

2011-07-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Following up on this post, I've had to resort to an Excel spreadsheet to extract the data from the SQLLite database and get it into a suitable format. At least it will save me the hassle of retyping all the monster stats in (there are currently 120 different creatures).

Refactoring again

2011-07-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Anyone remember the Great Code Refactor of 2009? I suspect there will be a sequel - the Great Code Refactor of 2011, Son of the Great Code Refactor. Looking at a lot of the code for combat, as I implement better monster AI and spells, I'm going to have to rewrite and refactor it. Still, its all good, I have plenty of ideas on how to do this, and it will cut down strongly on code size and complexity.

Moving to Edit Files

2011-07-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

Following much thought, I've decided to move to Edit Files to store at least the Monster Definitions, instead of in an SQLLite Database. The main reason is actually flexibility.

The model I've chosen is something similar to the Angband edit file, with a few modifications. Here is the template:

# Each creature has an individual entry in the following format:

# N: ID : singlular name : plural name

# L: Creature Level : Rarity : Uniqable?

# E: Ecology : Type: Pickup Items?

# G: Display Character : Display Colour

# I: Hit Dice : Armour Class : Evasion : Speed

# V: Initial Alertness Level

# A: Action Frequency : Action Text

# S: Speech Frequency : Speech Text

# B: Attack Method : Attack Effect : Damage

# M: Spell | Spell | Spell | etc

# F: Flag | Flag | Flag | etc

# C: Class | Class | etc

# D: Description

Anyone familiar with the Angband source should recognise most of these options, although I've enhanced a couple, and added a few additional sections.

Below I give a couple of excerpts of 2 creatures already in Kharne translated over to the new format:

N: 2 : Kobold : Kobolds

L: 1 : Common : Yes

E: Fortress: Goblinoid: Yes

G: k: $004080

I: 1: 5: 11: 12

V: 255

A: 10: "picks a chunk of rotten meat from its teeth"

A: 10: "yips noisily"

S: 20: "I'm gonna kill you! Yip yip!"

B: HIT: HURT: 1d6

B: SHOOT: HURT: 1d6

F: COWARDLY | FLEE | OPEN_DOOR | GREEDY

F: EVIL | POISONOUS | CORPSES

F: DROP_ITEMS_POOR | DROP_CASH

C: Commando | Archer | Lurker

D: "Kobolds are short, ugly goblinoid humanoids."

D: "They are known to have cowardly and sadistic tendencies."

N: 23 : Ogre Mage : Ogre Magi

L: 4 : Rare : Yes

E: Fortress: Giant : Yes

G: O: $FF00FF

I: 4: 6: 12: 12

V: 255

A: 10: "waves a magic stick"

A: 10: "yells a magic word"

S: 20: "dis two and dat two make four, right?"

B: HIT: SLAM: 1d6

M: MAGIC_MISSILE | HEAL | HOLD | TELEPORT

F: RANGED | BESERK | OPEN_DOOR | GREEDY

F: EVIL | CORPSES

F: DROP_ITEMS_POOR | DROP_ITEMS_GOOD | DROP_CASH

D: "Ogre Magi are hideous and deformed ogres wrapped in deathly black robes"

D: "They are known to be cruel and masters of deadly arcane magics."

In the next version....

2011-07-08T00:45:00.000-07:00

I have a master list of items that comprise my "todo list". There are currently 138 items on it, comprising probably several hundred hours of development work. I'm currently combing through them, looking for achievable items to include in the next release.

So far, I have (typos, poor grammar and all):

Implement First level spells - have an array of ints to represent turns left for each spell effect
Change item generation so monsters drop more items and less are generated on the floor.
Corpses - some creatures drop corpses that can or cannot be chopped for food. Mainly humanoid or goblinoid or animal, or giant, but some are poisonous.
Reading a scroll or normal fighting or digging and opening doors produces noise - awakens any monsters within sight. Even ones out of visibility range e.g. "Something stirs in the darkness" a
Stealth bonus to stealth skill is reduced by wearing heavy or medium armour. Also thieves get class bonus
Add bonus to character stealth roll based upon distance to monster.
Monsters attacking makes noise
Monster morale? Some monsters flee if overpowered. Make an alert message to say this.
Thieves learn sneak much much quicker than other classes
Update item descriptions to make more grammatical sense. .
Add Elemental invasion gates. That occasionally pump out more creatures every one hundred turns or so so eventually the levels get filled up. Keep a count of the number of creatures killed - if none then allow the gate to be destroyed. Add count to dungeon object to keep track of this.
For monster pathing, if monster is weaker then set path to go through, and then swap them with message for pushing past - set other monster squares for pathfinding algorithim to small values equal to uncontested terrain.
When there is a unique present on the level, add a level feeling message like "a voice in the distance yells 'who disturbs the domain of blah the bleh'" - randomise the message slightly.

If this is your idea of safe, I'd hate to see your idea of dangerous....

2011-07-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

Kharne 0.06a now available

2011-07-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

A new version of Kharne (v0.0.6a) is now available (source also available here and released under the MPL). This is mainly a bugfix version superceding v0.0.6, although I've made some other additional changes.

Changes to this version are as follows:

Potions can now be drunk when confused or blind.
Some monsters can now pickup selected items from the dungeon floor.
Monster Breath Attacks are now represented graphically by a 'beam'.
Dungeon features (e.g. growths, piles of bones etc) are no longer passable by default and must be 'T'unnelled through to pass.
Added tooltips for Background Dungeon features.
Whenever the Player Character enters or leaves a Background Dungeon feature, an appropriate message is displayed in the Message Log.
Stair descriptions are now more thematically appropriate.
Changed the glyph for an open door from \ to '.
Magical items have been increased in power.
Fixed an issue with certain dungeon features not appearing whilst in steath or enraged.
Trying to drink a potion or read a scroll whilst unable to do so will no longer consume the potion or scroll.
Potions of See Invisible and Combat Mastery now have correct expiration messages.
Scrolls of Enchant Weapon will no longer enchant Shields.
Fixed an issue with not displaying the unidentified name of Potions of Might.
Potions of Might now triple the character's bonus damage, not their strength.
Potions can now be identified properly by using Scrolls of Identify.
When IDing a Scroll by using it, the Scroll Type will now be displayed in the Message Log.
Cursed items are now significantly worse in effect.
Monster Tooltips now indicate if the Monster is unaware of the Player Character.
Monster appearance messages now check for Player Character Stealth properly.

Beam and other Spell Graphics coming soon..

2011-07-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Bug Fixes

2011-07-04T05:26:00.000-07:00

I've identified the following issues with potions and scrolls, which I will be fixing in a bug-fix version (0.06a) which hopefully will be released soon (in the next couple of days):

Some potions aren't identified after use when they should be.
New occurrences of some potions that have been previously identified are thereafter wrongly generated as unidentified.
The text to indicate that a Potion of Combat Mastery's effects have ended is wrong.
Rage potions are not named properly.
Enchant Weapon scrolls shouldn't enchant a wielded shield.
Some scrolls aren't being identified after use properly.
When raging, and trying to consume potions, even though you get the "you can't do that right now", the potion is still consumed.

Apologies if any of these bugs have disrupted gameplay.

"Overconfidence will be your weakness...."

2011-07-03T14:15:00.001-07:00

Boo! OOD 11-headed hydras + overconfidence = dead @. Still, it was a most enjoyable run whilst it lasted, and I've come away with more ideas for Kharne (the last version of Angband I played before this was 2.7!)

[Angband 3.2.0 Character Dump]

Name Berta Self RB CB EB Best

Sex Female Age 25 STR: 18/68 +4 +5 +4 18/198

Race Half-Troll Height 85 INT: 13 -4 -2 +0 7

Class Warrior Weight 220 WIS: 12 -2 -2 +3 11

Title Commando Social Known DEX: 18/57 -4 +2 +0 18/37

HP -11/575 Maximize Y CON: 18/80 +3 +2 +0 18/130

SP 0/0 CHR: 16 -6 -1 +3 12

Level 32 Armor [37,+59] Saving Throw 43%

Cur Exp 180931 Fight (+20,+17) Stealth Fair

Max Exp 180931 Melee (+32,+29) Fighting Legendary

Adv Exp 240000 Shoot (+38,+11) Shooting Heroic

MaxDepth 1800' (L36) Blows 2.3/turn Disarming 51%

Game Turns 589895 Shots 2/turn Magic Device 32

Standard Turns 91367 Infra 30 ft Perception 1 in 43

Resting Turns 746 Speed 7 Searching 13%

Gold 30817 Burden 203.7 lbs

Your father was a Water-Troll Warrior. You have blue-bloodshot eyes,

oily dark purple hair, and white scabby skin.

rAcid:....+.+...... rConf:.........+...

rElec:*.....+.+.... Sound:.............

rFire:......+...... Shard:.......+.....

rCold:......+...... Nexus:.............

rPois:............. Nethr:......+......

rFear:............+ Chaos:.............

rLite:............. Disen:.............

rDark:......+...... S.Dig:.............

rBlnd:............. Feath:.............

Light:............. Aggrv:.............

Regen:............+ Stea.:......+......

ESP:............. Sear.:.............

Invis:...+......... Infra:............+

FrAct:..+.......... Tunn.:.............

HLife:............. Speed:...........+.

ImpHP:............. Blows:.............

ImpSP:............. Shots:.+...........

Fear:............. Might:.............

[Last Messages]

> One of your Scrolls titled "sus aetasta" of Word of Recall (j) was destroyed!

> The 11-headed hydra breathes fire.

> The 4-headed hydra squeals in pain.

> One of your Scrolls titled "nundisco" of Satisfy Hunger (i) was destroyed!

> Some of your Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0) (n) were destroyed!

> The Hellhound pushes past the 4-headed hydra.

> You zap the 11-headed hydra.

> You miss the 11-headed hydra.

> The 11-headed hydra breathes fire.

> The Hellhound resists a lot.

> Some of your Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0) (n) were destroyed!

> The 11-headed hydra breathes fire.

> The 11-headed hydra resists a lot.

> The Hellhound resists a lot.

> You die.

Killed by a 11-headed hydra.

[Character Equipment]

a) The Mace 'Taratol' (3d4) (+12,+12)

Dropped by Beorn, the Shape-Changer at 1500 feet (level 30).

*Slays* dragons.

Branded with lightning.

Provides immunity to lightning.

Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

When activated, it hastens you for d20+20 turns.

Takes 171 to 340 turns to recharge at your current speed.

Your chance of success is 87.5%

Combat info:

2.3 blows/round.

With an additional 3 strength and 0 dex you would get 2.7 blows

With an additional 0 strength and 2 dex you would get 2.7 blows

Average damage/round: 132 vs. creatures not resistant to

electricity, 171.5 vs. dragons, and 92.3 vs. others.

b) a Long Bow of Extra Shots (x3) (+18,+11) (+1)

Found lying on the floor at 1550 feet (level 31).

+1 shooting speed.

c) a Malachite Ring of Free Action

Found lying on the floor at 450 feet (level 9).

Prevents paralysis.

d) a Mithril Ring of See Invisible

Found lying on the floor at 1750 feet (level 35).

Grants the ability to see invisible things.

e) a Copper Amulet of Resist Acid

Bought from a store.

Provides resistance to acid.

Cannot be harmed by acid.

f) The Phial of Galadriel

Dropped by Nár, the Dwarf at 1000 feet (level 20).

Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

When activated, it lights up the surrounding area, hurting

light-sensitive creatures.

Takes 18 to 34 turns to recharge at your current speed.

Your chance of success is 90.4%

Radius 3 light.

g) The Soft Leather Armour 'Hithlomir' [10,+20] (+4)

Found lying on the floor at 1750 feet (level 35).

+4 stealth.

Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, dark, nether.

Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

h) a Fur Cloak of Protection [3,+10]

Dropped by a Grave wight at 1600 feet (level 32).

Provides resistance to shards.

Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

i) a Large Metal Shield of Resist Lightning [12,+7]

Found lying on the floor at 1550 feet (level 31).

Provides resistance to lightning.

Cannot be harmed by electricity.

j) The Metal Cap of Thengel [3,+12] (+3)

Dropped by a Mature blue dragon at 1600 feet (level 32).

+3 wisdom, charisma.

Provides resistance to confusion.

Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

k) a Set of Caestus of Power (+3,+2) [5,+2] (+4)

Found lying on the floor at 1100 feet (level 22).

+4 strength.

l) a Pair of Iron Shod Boots of Speed [4,+6] (+8)

Dropped by a Dark elven warrior at 500 feet (level 10).

+8 speed.

[Character Quiver]

n) 30 Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0)

Bought from a store.

Combat info:

Hits targets up to 120 feet away.

Average damage/round: 82.6.

35% chance of breaking upon contact.

o) (nothing)

p) (nothing)

q) (nothing)

r) (nothing)

s) (nothing)

t) (nothing)

u) (nothing)

v) (nothing)

w) (nothing)

[Character Inventory]

a) 15 Rations of Food

b) 9 Gold Potions of Cure Serious Wounds

c) 58 Violet Speckled Potions of Cure Critical Wounds

d) 2 Cloudy Potions of Restore Strength

e) an Icky Green Potion of Restore Intelligence

Found lying on the floor at 1750 feet (level 35).

f) a Silver Speckled Potion of Restore Constitution

Found lying on the floor at 1750 feet (level 35).

g) a Copper Speckled Potion of Enlightenment

h) 6 Scrolls titled "quandus oc" of Phase Door

i) 20 Scrolls titled "nundisco" of Satisfy Hunger

j) 7 Scrolls titled "sus aetasta" of Word of Recall

k) 2 Nickel-Plated Rods of Treasure Location

l) 3 Cast Iron Rods of Curing

m) 3 Lead-Plated Rods of Illumination

n) 2 Zinc-Plated Wands of Trap/Door Destruction (20 charges)

o) 3 Platinum Wands of Teleport Other (27 charges)

p) 4 Sycamore Staves of Detect Invisible (45 charges)

q) a Mahogany Staff of Detect Evil (22 charges)

Dropped by a Novice paladin at 1750 feet (level 35).

r) an Elm Staff of Teleportation (6 charges)

s) 7 Cedar Staves of Identify (44 charges)

t) a Topaz Ring of Soulkeeping

Found lying on the floor at 1650 feet (level 33).

Sustains strength, intelligence, wisdom.

u) a Sling of Extra Might (x3) (+10,+22) (+1)

Found lying on the floor at 1700 feet (level 34).

+1 shooting power.

[Home Inventory]

a) a Blue Speckled Potion of Restore Dexterity

Found lying on the floor at 1600 feet (level 32).

b) a Scroll titled "fursus ducero" of *Remove Curse*

Found lying on the floor at 450 feet (level 9).

c) a Scroll titled "am cedus" of Deep Descent

Dropped by a Black knight at 1650 feet (level 33).

d) a Scroll titled "agiacto pirrum" of *Destruction*

Dropped by a Black ogre at 1500 feet (level 30).

e) a Chromium Wand of Stone to Mud (5 charges)

f) a Balsa Staff of Starlight (11 charges)

Dropped by an Uruk at 1550 feet (level 31).

g) a Main Gauche of *Slay Troll* (1d5) (+5,+11) (+1)

Found lying on the floor at 750 feet (level 15).

+1 strength.

Slays trolls.

Speeds regeneration.

Combat info:

3.8 blows/round.

With an additional 0 strength and 2 dex you would get 4.1 blows

Average damage/round: 149.7 vs. trolls, and 125.5 vs. others.

h) a Katana of Slay Demon (3d5) (+8,+8)

Dropped by an Ice troll at 1600 feet (level 32).

Slays demons.

Combat info:

3.3 blows/round.

With an additional 1 strength and 0 dex you would get 3.4 blows

With an additional 0 strength and 2 dex you would get 3.5 blows

Average damage/round: 181.8 vs. demons, and 117.5 vs. others.

i) a Ball-and-Chain of *Slay Dragon* (2d4) (+4,+7) (+1)

Found lying on the floor at 1600 feet (level 32).

+1 constitution.

*Slays* dragons.

Provides resistance to fear.

Combat info:

3.0 blows/round.

With an additional 3 strength and 0 dex you would get 3.3 blows

With an additional 0 strength and 2 dex you would get 3.3 blows

Average damage/round: 156.6 vs. dragons, and 91.2 vs. others.

============================================================

CHAR.

| TURN | DEPTH |LEVEL| EVENT

============================================================

1 0' 1 Began the quest to destroy Morgoth.

5616 50' 1 Found The Set of Gauntlets 'Paurhach' (LOST)

9483 50' 2 Reached level 2

14494 100' 2 Killed Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog

14494 100' 3 Reached level 3

14494 100' 4 Reached level 4

18450 100' 4 Killed Grip, Farmer Maggot's dog

19524 100' 5 Reached level 5

26486 150' 6 Reached level 6

36327 200' 7 Reached level 7

46211 300' 8 Reached level 8

48081 300' 9 Reached level 9

52088 350' 10 Reached level 10

52516 350' 11 Reached level 11

63456 450' 12 Reached level 12

76030 500' 13 Reached level 13

81264 500' 14 Reached level 14

89505 550' 15 Reached level 15

89688 550' 15 Killed Ufthak of Cirith Ungol

89688 550' 16 Reached level 16

91053 550' 17 Reached level 17

94708 550' 18 Reached level 18

96416 550' 19 Reached level 19

119021 650' 19 Killed Lagduf, the Snaga

122086 700' 20 Reached level 20

137186 750' 21 Reached level 21

146949 900' 22 Reached level 22

150085 950' 22 Killed Sangahyando of Umbar

152877 950' 23 Reached level 23

158592 1000' 23 Killed Nar, the Dwarf

158608 1000' 23 Found The Phial of Galadriel

160374 1000' 24 Reached level 24

168080 1000' 24 Killed Wormtongue, Agent of Saruman

169739 1000' 24 Killed Angamaite of Umbar

169932 1000' 24 Killed Bullroarer the Hobbit

174502 1050' 25 Reached level 25

181000 1100' 25 Killed Shagrat, the Orc Captain

186480 1100' 25 Killed Boldor, King of the Yeeks

199094 1350' 26 Reached level 26

206575 1350' 26 Reached level 26

208044 1350' 26 Reached level 26

211923 1400' 26 Killed Brodda, the Easterling

229571 1450' 27 Reached level 27

244687 1500' 27 Killed Khim, Son of Mim

247822 1500' 28 Reached level 28

253483 1550' 28 Killed Ugluk, the Uruk

267364 1550' 28 Killed Mim, Betrayer of Turin

278566 1600' 28 Killed Gorbag, the Orc Captain

284546 1600' 29 Reached level 29

303731 1600' 29 Killed Grishnakh, the Hill Orc

369012 0' 29 Reached level 29

388677 1550' 30 Reached level 30

393497 1500' 30 Killed Lugdush, the Uruk

403183 1600' 30 Reached level 30

404550 1600' 30 Found The Metal Cap of Thengel

418562 1600' 30 Killed Ulfast, Son of Ulfang

429823 1550' 30 Killed Bolg, Son of Azog

460637 1500' 30 Killed Beorn, the Shape-Changer

460664 1500' 30 Found The Mace 'Taratol'

469152 1550' 30 Killed Ibun, Son of Mim

474128 1550' 31 Reached level 31

480978 1600' 31 Reached level 31

484319 0' 31 Reached level 31

489729 1600' 31 Reached level 31

514270 1650' 31 Reached level 31

520086 1700' 31 Killed Lokkak, the Ogre Chieftain

531880 1750' 31 Killed Draebor, the Imp

552788 1750' 31 Killed Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief

572325 1750' 31 Found The Soft Leather Armour 'Hithlomir'

581708 1700' 31 Killed Uldor the Accursed

588857 1700' 32 Reached level 32

[Options]

Maximize effect of race/class bonuses : yes (adult_maximize)

Randomize the artifacts (except a few) : no (adult_randarts)

Restrict the use of stairs/recall : no (adult_ironman)

Restrict the use of stores/home : no (adult_no_stores)

Restrict creation of artifacts : no (adult_no_artifacts)

Don't stack objects on the floor : no (adult_no_stacking)

Lose artifacts when leaving level : no (adult_no_preserve)

Don't generate connected stairs : no (adult_no_stairs)

Don't show level feelings : no (adult_no_feelings)

Items always sell for 0 gold : no (adult_no_selling)

Adult: Monsters chase current location : yes (adult_ai_sound)

Adult: Monsters chase recent locations : yes (adult_ai_smell)

Adult: Monsters act smarter in groups : yes (adult_ai_packs)

Adult: Monsters learn from their mistakes : no (adult_ai_learn)

Adult: Monsters exploit players weaknesses : no (adult_ai_cheat)

Adult: Monsters behave more intelligently (broken): no (adult_ai_smart)

Score: Peek into object creation : no (score_peek)

Score: Peek into monster creation : no (score_hear)

Score: Peek into dungeon creation : no (score_room)

Score: Peek into something else : no (score_xtra)

Score: Know complete monster info : no (score_know)

Score: Allow player to avoid death : no (score_live)

Jade....meh?

2011-07-02T12:58:00.001-07:00

So finally, after three billion years (approximately), JADE is out. Well, the first version anyway (0.10).

What did I think of it?

I have no idea.

I got as far as the 2nd character selection screen - the one with the gadzillion of skill options and went "sod it"; and switched back to stat-gaining my current Half-Troll Warrior on Angband.

There's a lesson for us all. And why Crawl is so successful. And why I ditched the intensive character min-maxing in a very early version of my own (as incomplete) roguelike.

Grab me in please. Without having to go through twenty-billion (contextless) options.

I just want to play!

A little aside on crafting

2011-07-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

I'm incredibly excited about being able to implement magic, I have great plans, which include an overhaul of Monster AI to make them quite smart (where the situation calls for it), but for now, I've got an idea for a crafting system that I can include without making too much sacrifices in terms of gameplay and playability. Its something akin to what I talked about earlier, but much simpler.

Effectively, at special forges scattered about the dungeon, one should be able to disenchant non-Artefact items into their constituent parts. So given an item like this:

A Bronze Great Sword [+4, +4] of Goblin Slaying

it increases your damage against goblins (+5)
it increases your chance to hit (+4)
it increases the damage you deal (+4)

...this item could be "disenchanted" into three residual elements. Using special anvils, also scattered about the dungeon, one could reassemble various residual elements of your choice into new item, given the investment of a plain non-magical "base" item, and...something else.

The something else is the tricky bit. This should be a non-trivial process in terms of consequences for the character, even though the interface for doing so may be simply nothing more than dropping all the items concerned onto the anvil and pressing 'A' to activate it.

The obvious penalty is something like losing a point of CON, or some HP or something every time a magical item is created. Along with the risk that the process won't work. But I don't want the cost to be too prohibitive. After all, what I'm suggested is a mechanism that is effectively a means of getting round (to a degree) resist-farming.

Anyone got any thoughts on what the trade-off should be? Or the consequences for failure at this process?

Text Truncation Bug?

2011-07-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

I've had a bug reported to me (thank you Eben) where the text is often truncated, e.g. on the Character Creation screens. If this is happening, please try this replacement executable (no changes, just a recompile)

I've seen this before, and normally a recompile fixes it.

DB vs Edit Files

2011-06-30T07:44:00.001-07:00

For some reason, I'm actually contemplating moving away from the use of a Database for Monster and Item definitions towards using edit files instead.

Kharne 0.06 now available

2011-06-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Finally. After a year and more of real-life shit, and a complete loss of interest in coding, a new version of Kharne (v0.0.6) is now available (source also available here).

To summarise the big changes in this version: potions and stealth.

The full list of changes are below:

Potions have been implemented.
Added a stealth mode (entered and exited by pressing 's').
Added NPCs to the Town level.
Added a house for the character to the town level.
Eating no longer restores any lost health points.
Projectile Animation is now much smoother.
Increased the number of monsters generated per level.
Resting is no longer possible when starved.
Additional Identify scrolls are now generated on each dungeon level.
Right-clicking on a Creature will bring up Monster Memory for that creature.
Elemental Intrusion Creatures have had their hitpoints reduced again.
Reduced the rate at which certain skills are learned.
Groups of Monsters can now have a slightly tougher leader monster accompanying them.
The cursor now changes colour depending on LOS.
Unique monsters now have their glyphs marked with a double-underline.
OOD monsters now have their glyphs marked with an underline.
Fixed an issue with certain vaults having impassable walls in error.
Removed the extraneous buttons from the Inventory view.

I'm very happy about this release, not only because its been 10 months since the last, but because I'll be able to implement magic and ammunition in the next release, which I hope, as I've got my enthusiasm for coding back, will be soon.

In the meantime, please let me know either here or via email any bugs you find.

Mouse-Over Tooltips

2011-06-28T10:18:00.001-07:00

Potions completed

2011-06-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

Potions have almost all been implemented, just debugging them all now. Here's a potion of Rage (which increases your Strength dramatically for a short period of time) in action:

Once they are done, I think I will release v0.06 - almost a year after the last version. Its been too fucking long...

Monster Con

2011-06-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

Foes which are tougher than normal (uniques, or OOD) now have one or more bars underneath their glyphs to indicate this is so.

Stealth

2011-06-25T12:55:00.001-07:00

I've managed to implement a crude form of Stealth in the dev version I have. Its basically a toggle setting that increases dramatically your Stealth skill at the expense of moving much more slowly:

Yes, primitive, but its a start!

Potions

2011-06-24T05:57:00.001-07:00

Potions are a pain in the arse to implement. Not so much the instant effect ones like Healing, but time-limited ones like Might/Confusion and so on. I was tempted to hack in quick counter attributes for each potion on each PC class, but I should really do the full object-orientated method outlined here instead.

That said, I like Mario's suggestion in the comments of just using an array of counters, and it would mean actually getting code out quicker.

More on Townspeople.

2011-06-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, its been a while. Picked up some coding again, and finished the Townspeople implementation. Each type of townsperson has its own speech pattern and says something different when you move past them. Its only a cosmetic thing really, but helps to give life to the town level.

Now if I can finish implementing potions, I've got enough for a release.

Townspeople

2011-03-17T00:32:00.000-07:00

I've done some code to handle random townspeople on the town level, to give the town level a bit of atmosphere. I've not checked it into the repository yet, as its incomplete, but each townsperson will have its own unique behaviour and its own unique sayings.

I don't intend on these townspeople to be attackable, but I do hope to add some interaction between them, based upon their (randomly-generated) behaviours; for example, a drunken guardsman might do things differently than an angry guardsman.

Your pet cat is of course, the true master of the multi-verse, and all kills are dedicated to him. He remains on the town level to protect it from harm.

And to prove that this blog isn't immune from cat-blogging, here are my own fuzzy-overlords

(if you must know, their stats are: Num:547 Lev:100 Rar:2 Spd:140 Hp:20000 AC:150 Exp:60000 RFuss--- RFood---, and they have many deadly powers, and have never been defeated yet, except by shameless application of fuss and/or food)

Code Updates

2011-03-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

Those who are observant will notice some code updates have been committed to the repository. I've actually done some coding on Kharne! (sound of cheering in the distance).

I've now got visible and smoother missile animation, as well as framework code for potion handing and town NPCs. This is an ongoing thing, when I get the code working I'll release v0.06 containing these features.

With regards to missile animation, for simple bolts etc, I wanted to ask a question of my readership: should their trajectories be plotted in the ASCII resolution, or should they be plotted pixel-by-pixel?

For example, consider the scenario below:

If the Storm Giant to the North of the player launches a missile, if it is plotted strictly to ASCII, it will zigzag towards the @, whereas it could be plotted smoothly and move at an angle instead if pixel-by-pixel plotting was used.

I'm divided between both options, hence why I'm asking.

Stygia completed

2011-03-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it. I finished coding a roguelike, finally.

More details over at the Stygia blog.

I even looked at the Kharne code today. Its not as bad as I feared, even if it isn't C#. I should really implement potions, shouldn't I?

Stygia

2011-03-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

I've started work on Stygia as a 7DRL. See http://stygiaroguelike.wordpress.com/ for details and a devblog.

The End - an announcement

2011-01-25T07:33:00.000-08:00

I've held off making this post for quite a while, but I think looking back now, that its obvious, and it deserves to be made given the recent lack of activity on Kharne.

I'm abandoning any further development on Kharne.

This is for a number of reasons, which can be summarised below:

I suffer from on-going depression, and I find it very difficult to work on coding in my free time. This has been ongoing for some time.
I have no interest in using Delphi to do any coding that I do partake in from now on (anything I do do will probably be either in C++ or in C#).
The idea and what I've implemented so far is much much too ambitious for it to be completed.

So....

What happens now?

As far as Kharne goes, as its now open source, and therefore anyone is welcome to take the project on, if they so wish. Additionally to the code, I hereby release all game data into the project domain. By game-data I mean monster-speech text and so on.

If you wish to take it and use it, feel free and good luck. I will always be available for advice.

That bears repeating: Kharne is open source. Its yours. Run with it, if you wish.

As far as my own coding in general, I'll be resurrecting my C#/Libtcod project, Stygia, with a view to producing a smaller but complete roguelike in a matter of a few months.

But for that, I'll probably create a new blog, and eventually close this one.

So what I have learned from this?

The main lesson is to limit your objectives to ones you know are easily achievable. In hindsight, its obvious, but at the time, it is easy to get carried away on the code.

It is also important achieve and maintain sufficient momentum. And Feedback and involvement with the community are important in getting a roguelike out the door.

I've failed, in the end, in that respect. But it wasn't a waste of time. I've gained knowledge, I've met people, and I've learned some belated lessons.

And in that respect, it was a success.

Random Item Fluff

2010-12-22T02:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Due to other things, work on the next version of Kharne is progressing slowly. One feature I'm thinking of adding to the next version (0.06, which will also include NPCs and potions) is random flavour text for items, e.g. when you inspect say a +1 Spear you get something along the lines of:

“This ruby-encrusted spear was formerly the prized weapon of JoeBloggs the Hero of Xyzzy. He used it mainly in the war 600 years ago against the Goblins of Zzyyyzzzy. He fell in battle against Bob the Goblin Chief and the weapon was subsequently lost. What it was doing in the hands of a common goblin you have no idea.”

This is fairly easy to program, e.g. it is nothing more than a series of randomized phrases in a format such as:

“[description] [owner] [owner legacy] [now]."

Each of these could be constructed out of further tags like [weapon description] [weapon name] [time period] [owner fate] [weapon fate] etc, which may or may not be present in an individual description. Some tags require randomly generated names, which can be done using the existing name generator routines.

So the example above could be broken down into:

[weapon description] = "This ruby-encrusted"
[weapon name] = "spear"
[owner] = "was formerly the prized weapon of"
[owner name] = "Bill"
[owner famous] = "the Hero of Xyzzy"
[owner use] = "He used it mainly in the war"
[owner timeperiod] = "600 years ago"
[owner use reason] = "against the Goblins of Zzyyyzzzy"
[owner fate] = "He fell in battle against Bob the Goblin Chief"
[weapon fate] = "and the weapon was subsequently lost."
[weapon now] = "What it was doing in the hands of a common goblin you have no idea".

But as ever, my creative juices are failing. Any suggestions and ideas for randomised phrases to use in this generator are most welcome.

Roguelike localisation

2010-09-18T00:03:00.000-07:00

A fascinating thread on Roguelike Localisation. Eventually (hah!) its something I'd like to include in Kharne. Hebrew Kharne anyone?*

*I need to get the bloody thing finished first though

AARP

2010-09-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

I was going to participate in the 2010 AARP but alas, I've been busy with last minute dissertation panic instead. But it is being submitted on Monday, so after that I'll have plenty of time on my hands so I hope to have a new version of Kharne out by the end of the month.

0.05c source archive now available

2010-08-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

As promised, a source-only distribution for v0.05c is now available here (also linked from the menu on the right)

DnD 4e and Status Conditions

2010-08-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

I play a lot of DnD 4.e and I think some of the character statuses (stati? statum? stata?) could work well in Kharne (with some small modification). Others wouldn't work so well.

For example, certain undead could stun you. Stunned creatures can't do anything; the stun has a certain duration, or there is a chance the stun wears off at the end of each turn. In the context of a roguelike with a single character this is a highly lethal attack - it might be worth restricting this property to certain unique monsters.

Immoblisation/Restraining is also easy to implement - you can do everything except move! The closest analogue to dominated in the roguelike milieu would be the classical Confusion, where your movements are randomly swapped (along with further limitations that are generally roguelike-specific). Weakened is also simple to implement, and would also be a good brand.

Dazed however, which in DnD cuts down on the number of actions you can perform in a round to a single (standard) action would be tougher to implement. At its core, dazed is about controlling and limiting the effectiveness of a character, perhaps the closest analogy in a roguelike might be not allowing the character to attack, but allowing the character to do anything else.

And finally another status effect (but this time, not from DnD) - bleeding. Like poisoned, you lose hp each turn (or so) but to cure it you need to raise your hp to minimum as opposed to quaffing a potion.

Any thoughts on any of these? Have I missed any?

Autoexplore

2010-08-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'd really like an autoexplore feature. Just like Crawl's. Anyone any idea how to write one? Or will I need to RTFM and dig out the Crawl code and have a squizz there?

Some thoughts on Potions & Food

2010-08-25T03:36:00.000-07:00

The latest version of the SVN code booked in already has a lot of the potion handling built in, I've just not implemented the actual code for what happens when you drink a potion. That's next on the list to do, and I want to get a potion-enabled version out soon, in the next week or so.

I'm also going to change the eating-restores-full-health feature to:

take a significant number of turns (@s should suffer from indigestion when eating too quickly, just like humans)
during which there is a small chance of a wondering monster coming by
not be possible when in view of a monster

Other small (and not-so-small) changes I want to include in the next version are a general increase in the number of monsters, an option to remember the last character type created and give an option to quickly start a new game with that, and putting a house where you can stash items into the town level.

Proc-based item brands

2010-08-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some suggestions for beneifical and hindering item brands I've been thinking of implementing, based upon procs. There are three types of procs - those that have a chance to occur when an attack is made (i.e. offensive), those that have a chance to occur every turn, and those that have a chance to occur when a creature gets attacked (i.e. defensive). Some (e.g. torment) are more powerful than others - I haven't worked out competitive power rankings yet but I would like the slightly less powerful effects to be more common than the more powerful ones.

I envisage these brands would be placed upon magical items in a similar fashion to other brands, although their names would take precedence in item name construction.

Suggestions for more, and their frequency would be more than welcome.

Offensive beneficial effects:

transfer 10% of hp from target to attacker [vampiric]
inflicts 50% extra damage [vorpal]
reduces maximum hp of target by 25% [draining]
teleports target to random place on level [telekinetic]
teleports target away permanently [banishment]
turns a normal hit into a critical [slaying]
knocks target back a number of squares to the nearest wall [thundering]
turns a single attack into two or more attacks [quick]
chains the damage to any adjacent targets [chaining]

Offensive hindering effects:

drains target of 10% of hp and returns it to the attacker [withering]
turns an attack into a miss [clumsy]
makes the target trip and fall, thus losing the current action [stumbling]
teleports target randomly around the level [blinking]
injures target for half hp [tormenting]
randomly makes target drop an item carried in inventory [itching]
randomly eats a carried ration of food [consuming]

Defensive benficial effects:

absorbs the blow entirely [shielding]
heals the target for the damage the hit would otherwise have caused [restoring]
makes target's evasion temporarily higher and forces the attacker to reroll the triggering attack against the new evasion [displacing]
knocks attacker back one square (if possible) [rebound]

Defensive hindering effects:

freezes the target in place for a turn [rooting]
terrifies the target, cutting the target's evasion rating to 0 temporarily and allows a reroll of the triggering attack [terrifying]
allows the attack to proceed at full damage, ignoring armour [piercing]
teleports a nearby but non-adjacent creature to a square adjacent to the target [attracting]

Now these effects are relatively easy to code, being all instanteous effects. But if you have any ideas for longer lasting effects, it would be good to read them as well.

A few of these procs also might make good scrolls as well.

Kharne 0.05c now available

2010-08-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

Kharne Alpha 0.0.5c is now available for download (an archive of the source code will be available soon, but if you want the latest code it is already in the SVN).

Changes in this version as are follows:

Some monsters now can poison.
Some monsters now follow characters up and down stairs.
Mineral nodes are now found on levels and can be dug out for extra gold or occasionally items.
Classes now have different titles, dependent upon current character level.
Only the just finished game will be now highlighted correctly in the hiscore list after character death.
Spurious double quotes (") will no longer appear in automatically generated character names.
When resting, there is chance of a monster appearing randomly near the character.
Eating now restores all lost health points.
When starting a 2nd game in the same session, the Character Background will be reset properly.
On Character death, the Main Window Title will be reset properly.
Elemental Intrusion Creatures no longer have as many hitpoints.
Unidentified Scrolls are now identified properly on Character Death.

Arguments for and against Stamina as a stat

2010-06-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

In the comments to my last post, Nolithius remarks (rather sensibly) that:

No need to have complexity for complexity's sake! If 4 stats work well for your system, then 4 stats is the right amount. In fact, for a 3-class system you can get away with 3 stats and have the HP progression be determined by the class.

To be honest, the thought (of just having three stats in Stygia) had already crossed my mind, but I've been resistent to just having the three stats for several reasons:

Dungeon Crawl has only the three stats, and using the same stats smacks of ripping Crawl off (the corrolary of this argument is below).

To have HP Progression determined by class makes class the most important choice in the game (which is why, I guess, Crawl determines HP by skill levels).

However, on the other hand, there are excellent reasons for not having a stamina stat:

A Stamina stat becomes either an irrelevance or worse, it becomes a 'stat tax': witness the continual dependency (and arguments) upon stamina items in certain MMOs

It doesn't actively contribute to the game, and doesn't have any natural decision points hanging off it. In short, its additional unwarranted and unjustified complexity.

Crawl doesn't have a stamina stat, and Crawl is the best roguelike about at the moment.

The first one is perhaps the biggest argument against stamina, and the argument that I'm likely to persuade me. But if I don't have a Stamina stat, how do we determine Hit Points?

Leaving aside whither or not we should have hit points (a whole other argument altogether), the standard roguelike options tend to be:

by Class

by Race

by Skill

I'm against determining HP by Class alone, and Stygia will not have any races (the PC will be 'human'-ish). For this reason, I'm gravitating towards making Hitpoints dependent upon both Level and the value of the class's primary Skill (e.g. Fighting, Sneaking or Spellcasting).

Charisma and other stats

2010-06-17T05:19:00.000-07:00

Getting back to Stygia development, I'm pondering, for a small roguelike, how many stats a character needs? 3, like Crawl (these are Str, Dex, Int). Or 6 like DnD, Angband?

I think 3 is too few, but 6 is too much (has anyone ever worked out a good use for Charisma in a roguelike?

I think just the four (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Stamina) would be better. They also suit thematically the type of game I'm planning (with only three Character Classes - Basher, Sneak, Adept that map to Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence respectively).

Thoughts?

BRogue!

2010-05-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

A new version of BRogue is out and its now fully cross-platform courtesy of Libtcod!

I've downloaded it but not played it yet other than a cursory wander through to check that it works. But I'm really looking forward to playing it!

C# Cartesian Point class

2010-05-04T12:05:00.001-07:00

I've developed a class for using Points in C# (unlike Delphi, there's no inbuilt type). You can grab the source code and a sample console app here or here. All code is public domain, knock yourself out, etc, etc, etc.

The best laid plans of mice and men....

2010-05-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll won't be working on my map classes and getting the '@ walking around an empty map' state done after all.

The perils of running out of anti-depressants on a bank holiday weekend. :-(

Stygia - story & monsters

2010-04-30T12:15:00.001-07:00

Unlike Kharne, I'm intending to have a detailed story line from the start with Stygia. This will manifest itself in many ways throughout the game, from factions the character can join, perform quests and obtain reputation for, to NPCs from different factions fighting each other if the character's actions have caused a war between them. I think C# will allow me to make a really good living world and NPC/Monster AI.

I've found two posts on creature AI in roguelike that I can't recomnend heavily enough: here and here. Certainly the first one (and its followups), courtesy of the ever informative Andrew Doull should be read by any budding roguelike developer.

Meanwhile, a random screenshot from the intro section (which I eventually hope to animate and sort out suitable music to accompany it) explaining the back story of the game:

This weekend I'll be working on my map classes and getting the '@ walking around an empty map' state done.

Stygia - some initial design thoughts

2010-04-27T03:04:00.000-07:00

One of the things I'm planning to do with Stygia is to not overreach myself - something that sadly, Kharne suffers from. To get the game done in 3 months, I'm going to limit the initial version to something achievable:

One main persistent dungeon, with around a dozen levels (with varying themes). Dungeons will be smaller than those in Kharne.
No character classes.
Characters will have fewer stats then Kharne. I'm currently thinking of only having Strength, Agility, Constitution and Intelligence as the main stats.
Only a few skills, e.g. Fighting, Defense, Subterfuge and Spellcasting.
Only a limited number of items and brands.
A limited selection of spells (perhaps just over a dozen, giving just enough to initially make magic playable and no more).
Around a dozen types of enemies.

By limiting the scope, I hope to get an actual game out, which some of us perpetual roguelike programmers seem to forget to do.

Beyond this, I have a whole spreadsheet filled with ideas I want to implement in both Stygia and Kharne, culled from other roguelikes and near-endless searching of a decade of r.g.r.d's archives.

Stygia - day 3

2010-04-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the main menu:

Before I start working on the @ moving round the screen (and does libtcod make it easy!) I think I'll look into setting up a quick music player API (probably OGG files from The Rogue Bard) as this will give me much-needed practise in using different assemblies and wrappers.

Stygia - weekend 1

2010-04-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

So, weekend 1 of Stgyia coding completed. Time spent so far: 3 hours. Managed to get the title screen and a framework set up (albeit in a glorified hello world-esque application):

But this is the same as his previous hello world application, I hear you cry. Not really. This is using the new C# wrappers for libtcod. I pretty much had to rewrite from scratch all my code.

Next stop, a main menu framework and doing some more framework code, so I can progress onto Step 3.

Incidentally, as well as the sources mentioned previously, the plot will also be inspired by this old (and criminally underrated, IMHO, CRPG).

One other thing I'm intending to do within the three months is to write all my data maintenance tools in ASP.NET.

Stygia - a 3-month Roguelike

2010-04-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

It might have been obvious that I've been having some thoughts recently about rewriting Kharne in C# using libtcod.

This would mean rewriting an absurd amount of code from scratch.

I don't want to do that, however, I've got a powerful career incentive to learn C# properly.

So I'm going to turn the work I've done already on Prelude into a new Roguelike, which I'll develop in parallel with updates on Kharne.

This one will be called Stygia, and I've set myself a strict 3 month timescale to get a complete game out, following the steps outlined here.

Stygia will be loosely inspired by this particular classic CRPG and somewhat more by this classic roleplaying game. Features wise, it will follow the usual roguelike conventions, but with a more heterotopic and dystopic vibe.

It might even have tentacles in it. Scratch that, it WILL have tentacles in it.

And lots of san loss.

Town Levels?

2010-04-23T02:38:00.001-07:00

I've had a sudden crisis of confidence regarding my town level. It will probably be the last thing finished, but I find myself asking: do I really need it? Its very incomplete at the moment - no NPCs or plot-related items.

Here are some alternatives:

Get rid of town levels entirely and adopt the Crawl approach.
Get rid of town levels as such and allow their functionality to be inherent (for example the character has a device that can teleport him/her to an "extraplanar shop" at regular intervals)
Implement regular "outpost" levels (that would be safe) that function as mini-towns.
Implement an overworld (or rather oververse) map (almost like the old version of Kharne)

At this point I'm not sure what I want. Analysis paralysis ahoy.

Bah, I hate having existential crises!

An experiment....

2010-04-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

Using Libtcod.NET and C# with Visual Studio 2008. I shall have to ponder what this means.

Narrow Horizons

2010-04-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

May the Lords of K0bol save us from narrow-minded Stallman acoplytes*:

"Well - sad...since you use this properietary M$ crap, i can't test this variant. Also i think that it could be quite interesting from the gameplay.
IMO you shouldn't use programming languages like visual C (or other one-manufacturer-one-system languages) for *Bands because its against the philosophy. They should run without trouble on most common computer systems and not only on windows."

So..what have we got here:

Obligatory reference to "M$". Check.
Obligatory insistance that only the one true language (probably C?) be used Check.
Miltonesque mindset of the true believer on display - that "philsophy" comes first before everything else. Check.
Lazy assumption that windows software can't be ported to other operating systems. Check.

Dude, chillax, as I believe the youth of today say.

But to answer the respondant's specific points (without bursting a blood valve):

Visual Studio is pretty much the best development environment out there at the moment. Mono allows cross-platform .NET development. Microsoft (the whole M$ thing is just immaturity), for all the bad things they've done, have also done plenty of good things as well; and programming, when you take a reasonable view of things, isn't important enough to be something worth an ideological crusade over. Women's Reproductive Rights, Identity Cards, Access to Clean Drinking Water, Trade Tariffs and Barriers - those are worth getting worked up about. But not whither someone uses one bleeding format of input text or another to produce a load of sodding pixels on a screen.

Bet he's a Vi user as well. That would explain a lot**.

Feh, and more feh! His attitude makes me want to code a C# roguelike just because. Kharne# anyone?

* This post was brought to you by the concepts "maturity" and "perspective". Dude, try it some time. It works, y'know.
** Emacs, definitely, in case you ever wanted ot know. Although Textpad is better than both of them.

Poison

2010-04-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

I've implemented poison. It is modelled after Crawl, though its not quite as lethal in that it will never kill the character directly (poison won't reduce the character's hit points beneath 1).

Onwards - a new roadmap.

2010-04-19T02:20:00.000-07:00

0.05c will be released when I have potions and ranged combat implemented.

According to the old roadmap, I'm way behind on just about everything. Quelle surprise. Such is the life of the roguelike developer. Problem is, I have so many ideas for the game its preventing me from really developing it quickly. That, and the fact that I'm doped up to my eyeballs most of the time on venlafaxine, and that also I've got my dissertation ("Microquasar VHE photon production and its implications for microquasar identification, morphology and classification") to write this summer.

The two biggies coming up next to implement are persistence and magic.

Lighting Enhancements

2010-04-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

Something I'd like to introduce in future releases of Kharne (mainly inspired by the visual sexiness of Brogue) is independent light sources. Fortunately Delphi implements the Win2k+ AlphaBlend WinAPI call which would make implementation quite easy (he says confidently).

First batch of changes for v0.05c uploaded to the repository

2010-04-17T06:45:00.001-07:00

I've uploaded the first batch of changes to the code for the next version to the online source-code repository. Fixes & Updates completed in the code so far are:

Some monsters now follow characters up and down stairs.
Classes now have different titles, dependent upon current character level.
Only the just finished game will be now highlighted correctly in the hiscore list after character death.
Spurious double quotes (") will no longer appear in automatically generated character names.
When resting, there is chance of a monster appearing randomly near the character.
Eating now restores all lost health points.
When starting a 2nd game in the same session, the Character Background will be reset properly.
On Character death, the Main Window Title will be reset properly.
Elemental Intrusion Creatures no longer have as many hitpoints.
Unidentified Scrolls are now identified properly on Character Death.

I'll not produce an executable release for these, but I'll wait until the other changes (including potions!) are finished before releasing the next version (some of them are incomplete in the code but don't affect compilation).

You are of course welcome to download and compile the latest version if you are in a position to do so.

C#/Libtcod.net revisited.

2010-04-16T02:44:00.000-07:00

I never got very far in the end with using libtcod.net to write a C# roguelike. Mainly due to various issues with setting it up, and a general development ennui which had enveloped me over the winter (major personal issues & upheaval didn't help either).

I do see that there's a new version out now with improved C# documentation. I don't intend to start work on a C# roguelike until I get Kharne complete.

But after that I may end up writing some additional optional features (such as a hiscore/chat server in ASP.NET, which I have to learn soon for my day job.

Dungeons and Room Types

2010-04-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

My next blatant theft of a feature from another roguelike will probably be the room names from Unangband. I've deliberately not looked at the code for this on that game, but am designing my own system. I have the implementation worked out in my head for this already, but as ever I need more lubrication for my creative juices!

So let's imagine, say, a circular room in an undead themed level. What could it be called?

The most straightforward would be random selection from a list generic names such as "The Slaughterhouse", "The Crypt", "The Necopolis". This would have to be a large list to avoid reusing names.
This could be enhanced by adding one of more random adjectives before and after the name, e.g. "The Hidden Slaughterhouse", "The Crypt of Despair", "The Crypt of Hidden Dreams".
And then we can consider the role of uniques. If we generate a unique in the level inside a room, name the room after the unique: "The Crypt of Barney", for example.
Now, additionally, depending on the name, selected, we could reverse the traditional way of generating dungeons and let the name drive the dungeon features. For example, consider a room called "The Hidden Slaughterhouse" - use of the term "Hidden" would mean the entrances to this room are sealed up with diggable walls (or doors) - and use of the term "Slaughterhouse" would mean that there would be loads of corpses generated in the room, as well as certain types of monsters.
There could also be passive effects tied to the room, for example, with "The Hidden Slaughterhouse" there could be a smell that makes the character nauseous whilst inside it.

Yes, I know I'm probably going through the same thought process that Andrew Doull went through about ten years ago, but I'm increasingly convinced random generic dungeons can't cut it any more in roguelikes.

So yet again, its time to ask: thoughts? ideas? Comments are most welcome.

...in which I admit I play DnD 4e

2010-04-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

There are several main reasons why I've never won Crawl. The first is that I'm much too impatient. The second is that I'm not cautious enough. And the third is that I get complacent playing MdFis (my favourite class). Yet I'm glad about this. Mindlessly hacking things isn't and shouldn't be the way to win at Crawl, thankfully. Its a testament to how state-of-the-art (when it comes to Roguelikes) that Crawl has become, really.

That aside, that you have an added level of depth for "just" melee characters is something I'd like to emulate in Kharne. albeit via a slightly different mechanism. I've played a lot of DnD 4e recently and am impressed with some of the features that have been introduced to pep up playing fighter/melee classes.

So I'm going to make slight changes to the class system in Kharne. The five classes will stay the same (Warrior, Knight, Thief, Cleric, Mage), but as the character advances in level, they will gain powers and innate abilities.

They also gain a different name as they gain in level, for more atmosphere. For example, a level 1 Warrior would be a Grunt whereas a level 5 warrior would be a Soldier.

The full list of proposed names is as follows:

Warrior
Grunt, Soldier, Warrior, Commander, Warlord

Knight
Squire, Defender, Paladin, Champion, Hero

Rogue
Thug, Rogue, Criminal, Villain, Malefactor

Cleric

Novice, Acolyte, Cleric, Minister, Prelate

Mage
Initiate, Apprentice, Scholar, Sage, Archmage

I've not quite figured out all the powers that each class will have at different levels (suggestions are most welcome), but here's an example of what I had in mind for the Rogue class. The powers gained are cumulative, and would scale for the character's current level. They're also thematic.

Thug: every x turns, make your next attack a critical hit (where x is a reasonable length of time).
Rogue: every x turns increase your stealth dramatically for a short period of time (where x is a reasonable length of time).
Criminal: gain a bonus to critical hit damage.
Villian: gain a bonus to evasion.
Malefactor: give a percentage chance to cheat death once every y turns for a small period of time (where y is a fairly large number)

Now, of course, when you have, in a roguelike, a resource that regenerates over a period of time, you immediately open up the can of worms that is Pillar Dancing. I don't think there have been that many truely satisfactory solutions to Pillar Dancing, but I think that powers that recharge every x turns should only count turns when the character is actually doing something.

Some additional features that come to mind:

Powers could be recharged (or drained) by fountains
It wouldn't be good to display the exact number of turns left until a power is usable - but a descriptive indicator would work
There could be an item brand that decreases/increases the timer of the powers.
Powers could be enhanced, suppressed or even turned off by certain zones in the dungeon, or certain monsters

Thoughts? Suggestions for appropriate powers? Criticism?

Q is for....

2010-04-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

Whilst working on potions, a thought just occured to me.

Press Q to (q)uaff a potion.

But....

Press Q to (q)uaff from a fountain.

What happens if you're standing on a fountain square and want to (q) uaff a potion instead?

Progress Report #19

2010-04-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

The next version will be out soon (yes, really!)

Here's the current intended feature list. I'm still working on finishing off the implementation of potions.

Potions have been implemented.
Some monsters now follow characters up and down stairs.
Only the just finished game will be now highlighted correctly in the hiscore list after character death.
Spurious double quotes (") will no longer appear in automatically generated character names.
When resting, there is chance of a monster appearing randomly near the character.
Eating now restores all lost health points.
When starting a 2nd game in the same session, the Character Background will be reset properly.
On Character death, the Main Window Title will be reset properly.
Elemental Intrusion Creatures no longer have as many hitpoints.
A Character Knowledge screen has been added that shows identified and unidentified items. This can be accessed by pressing "/".
Identified items that are restocked in shops are now pre-identified correctly.
A keyboard shortcut ("^") has been implemented to refer to the last item picked up.
Unidentified Scrolls are now identified properly on Character Death.
A Toggle ("W") has been added to the inventory screen that displays the weights of items.

And, yes, it will be still be in Delphi. There's too much done and to do now to start rewriting it in another language.

Strange Urges

2010-04-09T12:38:00.001-07:00

I have these strange urges to restart development from scratch, only in C++ (or even C).

7DRL: Bane of the Living

2010-03-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

This looks interesting. I especially like the clean interface:

Kharne's current interface is still much too cluttered. :-(

Should the minimal view (below) be the default one?

Kh

7DRLs

2010-03-06T02:44:00.000-08:00

This year's 7DRL has just started. What is a 7DRL?

A Seven Day Roguelike is a roguelike created in seven days. This means the author stopped writing code one hundred and sixty eight hours after they started writing code.

Already there are quite a few entries. Good luck to all the developers taking part, and I hope to review some of the entries when they are done.

Brogue

2010-02-26T17:47:00.000-08:00

This is certainly a beautful looking Roguelike.

Seems to have lots of innovative ideas as well. But its Mac only at the moment. Is it any good?

Development Restarted

2010-02-25T16:12:00.001-08:00

Development on Kharne has restarted (slowly, but surely). The next version will have the following changes and bug fixes:

Potions have been implemented.
Some monsters now follow characters up and down stairs.
Only the just finished game will be now highlighted correctly in the hiscore list after character death.
Spurious double quotes (") will no longer appear in automatically generated character names.
When resting, there is chance of a monster appearing randomly nearby the character.
Eating now restores all lost health points.

This last change was prompted by this thread in r.g.r.d.

Alive

2010-02-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm still alive!

More on stairs and monsters

2009-11-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

I think that, further to the comments on my last post, I won't bother, for now, allowing monsters to follow the character up and down stairs.

Hiatus

2009-11-26T12:11:00.001-08:00

As you'll probably have noticed, posting is light at the moment. I've decided to take a break for a few weeks from development.

Stairs and Monsters

2009-11-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

I'm currently writing some code to allow monsters to travel the stairs with the character, following the behaviour of those in Crawl.

As implemented, all adjacent monsters will travel with the character, as long as there is room on the destination level for them to do so.

However, I'm nearly sure that (from last time I looked at their source) Crawl puts a limit on the monster types that can come up stairs.

Do you think this is a better solution? And if so, what criteria should be used to determine ability to travel up stairs? (I don't have any Dalek monsters alas)

More on achivements

2009-10-26T04:16:00.000-07:00

Unlike the achievements in MMOs, I want them to be a bit more than just fun, and affect gameplay.

For example, let's say there is an achievement that can be obtained by killing 10 vampires. Let's call it "Wannabe Van Helsing" (as suggested by my muse - I think I prefer slightly humourous titles).

I'd like to give characters who complete this a tangible game benefit. For example, a small (but significant) damage bonus against vampires. Or slightly increased resistance to vampiric drain attacks.

Or for an achivement for eating every single different type of food ("I'm not fat, I'm just big-boned") which allows 10% extra nutrition from food.

I'm going to throw open the comments for suggestions for possible achivements If your suggestion is taken and used, you'll get game credit! The titles should be somewhat humourous, and referencing either common fantasty-tropes or the roguelike milieu where possible.

Ahem...

2009-10-20T05:20:00.000-07:00

That's me told off...both DoomRL and Lambdarogue have achievement systems.

I've also been thinking about a couple of minor other features: stairs, and player ghosts. Adjacent monsters should be able to climb stairs with the character, and ghosts should retain a proportion of the gold and an item or two as reward for the character killing them.

And I should really play some of the roguelikes I mentioned here.

Achivements & Reputation

2009-10-17T17:55:00.001-07:00

Some day (cue wistful music and sepia tones), I'd like to implement an achievement system, like you find in MMORPGs:

I'm actually quite surprised that there aren't any, as far as I know, roguelikes with an achievement system. Though you could argue that the game score is a measure of achievement in itself.

Further to that, I'd like to implement factions & reputation (with faction quartermasters):

Of course, you could argue that the deities in Crawl are effectively factions.

Roguelikes I have never played....

2009-10-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

1. DOOMRL

2. Incursion

3. Nethack

No, seriously, I have never actually played the above three roguelikes.

Scrolls and Potions oh my

2009-10-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

Now that the first tranche of scrolls have been implemented, and my exams are finally over for the year, the next thing to add to the game are potions. Potions are slightly more complicated to implement than scrolls, given that scrolls are one-off effects and potions have effects over time. A while back, I listed the various types of potions I'd like to implement, but as with scrolls, I'll probably only implement a subset of these at first, and add more in later. I will release 0.0.5c when I have potions implemented.

Configuring and compiling Kharne - a brief guide

2009-10-13T12:44:00.001-07:00

(this is a copy of CODING.TXT which is found in the source code distribution. I will also add a permalink to this post for reference purposes)

Contents:

Introduction
Required 3rd Party Components
Licensing Notes
Other Notes
Contact Details

1. Introduction

Welcome to Kharne. Kharne is a standard Delphi Windows application that uses a certain number of third-party controls and libraries for additional functionality above and beyond that provided in Delphi.

I have developed Kharne using Delphi 7, but provided the external controls can be installed, it should be compilable in any version of Delphi newer than 5.

2. Required 3rd Party Components

Due to licensing terms, I can't provide these components or distribute their source with my own distribution.

You will need to download and install the following before you open the source in Delphi for the first time:

a. TGradLabel
http://www.delphi32.com/vcl/929/#

It is my intention to phase the use of this component out entirely.

b. TAStarPathPlanneer
http://www.riversoftavg.com/tastarpathplanner.htm

c. TQProgressBat
http://mapage.noos.fr/qnno/pages/delphi_en.htm#TQProgressBar

d. TSQLLite
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/a-simple-delphi-wrapper-for-sqlite-3

You may need to add the path of this component to the Project Search Paths.

e. THotLog
http://mapage.noos.fr/qnno/pages/delphi_en.htm#hotLog

This isn't a component as such, simply copy hotlog.pas into the source directoy and make sure it is added to the project.

f. TKeyboardHandler

As this is no longer available *anywhere* on the web, I've included the source in the components subdirectory. Longer term I want to phase use of this component out and duplicate its functionality,

g. sqlite3.dll

This is the SQLLite interface library, is public domain and thus is included with this source distribution.

If any of these components become unavailable, contact me (starbog@gmail.com) and I will send them to you direct (I will only do this under these circumstances). I will then try and remove any dependency upon them from the next version.

3. Licensing Notes

I have released Kharne under the MPL as opposed to the GPL because I'm not convinced that the latter allows a Delphi program to link with components that are not GPL themselves.

I've had a reply direct from the FSF telling me that it does provided I add an additional disclaimer to the GPL License that gives explicit permission. However, as I'm not convinced about this (the GPL itself is quite fuzzy in this regard), I'm releasing Kharne under the MPL to avoid any doubt.

However, just to clear things up, I'm am granting an irrevocable right to link my code released under the MPL to any other custom component, library or API no matter what the license.

The source code file UnitOtherFuncs uses a few small routines freely available on the web - I have indicated carefully what these are in the source and their origins, and this file is obviously not released under the MPL.

The distribution also includes a copy of the Bitstream Vera Sans Mono Font (veramono.ttf) which can be freely distributed and is in the public domain. If you are doing development, please copy this and install it in the usual way before opening the source code.

4. Other Notes

I have no idea if Kharne will compile with Lazarus, I suspect the custom components may prove to be an unsurmountable obstacle, but anyone is welcome to try porting if they wish. I'd like Kharne to run multiplatform without using WINE, but that may have to wait until cross-compiling for Delphi becomes a reality (it has been promised for the version due out in 2010.)

5. Contact Details

I can be emailed direct at starbog@gmail.com or reached via the blog at kharne-rl.blogspot.com. Or you can reach me on #rgrd regularily where I am known as "starbog".

Kharne 0.0.5b now available

2009-10-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

Kharne Alpha 0.0.5b is now available (source code is available as a ZIP as well as from the SVN).

The big change in this version is the addition of Scrolls (press r to read them). There are currently nine different types of scrolls available, there will be many more added over forthcoming releases.

The full list of changes is:

Scrolls have been implemented.
Scrolls and potions are no longer PseudoIDed.
Hunger is now increased by wearing magical items.
Fixed a bug with cursed fountains not causing the character to hunger correctly when drinking from them.

Automatic notifications of commits

2009-10-11T02:45:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know of a way to automatically post a message to a blog with summary details of a commit that's been made to a Googlecode SVN? (but not the email that's generated with all the changes)

More frequent releases or not?

2009-10-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Should there be more frequent releases of Kharne? (perhaps weekly?) Or should releases be restricted to when major new functionality is available?

Obviously anyone can download the most recent code and build it, but for those who can't or won't, what do you want?

Scrolls

2009-10-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

I've implemented scrolls:

They basically work like they do in most other roguelikes.

I've implemented the following types to begin with:

Enchant Armour - enchants a random piece of worn armour with greater AC.
Enchant Weapon - enchants a randon wielded item with either greater +hit or extra damage.
Remove Curse - removes curses from carried and wielded/worn items.
Teleportation - instantly teleports to another point on the level (as in the screenshot).
Identify - identifies all carried items.
Magic Mapping - gives knowledge of the current level.
Forgetfulness - the opposite of Magic Mapping; takes away knowledge of the current level.
Blank Piece of Paper - the old favourite!
Cursing - curses a random worn/wielded item.

The enchant and identify scrolls I'll change at a later date to target only one item as they're currently much too powerful; and its also currently possible to get a magic item for free by cursing and then uncursing a common-quality item.

I've uploaded the changes to the repository.

Progress Report#18

2009-10-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of progress recently. I'm spending over 3 hours a day revising for forthcoming exams and that combined with a full time job, significant other AND two cats means I get little time for coding at the moment. I managed to do a couple of small changes but the next thing on the agenda is scrolls and potions, and those will be quite hefty to implement. And as such, I need to get these exams out of the way first. before I really start them/ After that, normal service will be resumed of course.

Kharne source code repository now on GoogleCode

2009-10-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Kharne sourcecode is now on GoogleCode.

Kharne 0.0.5a now available

2009-10-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

Kharne Alpha 0.0.5a is now available (source code is here).

Changes are:

Fixed a bug that caused text in the character creation screens to be cut short.
Fixed an error that occurred when loading one of the sample characters.
Logging can now be switched on with the "/log" command line parameter. The default value is off.

The source code distribution also includes the fixes mentioned in my previous post.

I've also managed to set up a local subversion repository which I'll be hopefully shortly exporting to googlecode.

Source Code Issues #1

2009-10-03T00:06:00.000-07:00

dunkel^ on #rgrd has discovered a couple of gotchas with the current source code distribution that prevent compilation.

In the uses clause in the interface section of UnitDisplay.pas (line #33) I left an errant reference to a component I no longer use. If you remove BtChkBox from this clause, it solves this problem.

The new uses clause should look like this:

uses Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms, Dialogs, ExtCtrls, StdCtrls, KeyboardHandler, DateUtils, jpeg, ImgList, Menus, ComCtrls, ToolWin, Gradlabl, PathPlanner, QProgBar, AppEvnts, hotlog, UnitDungeon, UnitDefines, UnitConst, UnitVars, UnitFunctions, UnitItem, UnitCreature, UnitMonster, UnitInit, UnitGame;

Also, the logging component, THotLog seems to be unreliable and AVs a lot. To disable it for now, just comment out the hLog.StartLogging call in the TFormSplash.FormCreate method in UnitSplash.pas (line #66):

{ Form Create }
procedure TFormSplash.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
{ Set up Logging }
hLog.hlWriter.hlFileDef.append := False;

{ Start Logging }
//hLog.StartLogging;

{ log System Information}
hLog.add('{OSVI}');
hLog.add('{CPUI}');
hLog.add('{mem}');

With these changes, Kharne was able to be compiled and ran successfully.

Now what?

2009-10-02T03:29:00.000-07:00

Now that the source code is out, what's next?

For my own part, there are still a few things in the code that I feel need tidying up. The code for creating, placing and dropping items, for example, really needs to be refactored further as it is duplicated in about a dozen places in the code.

Then I need to blitz the googlecode documentation and learn how to use that, to set up the repository.

After that, its time to look at what new features I'd like to implement.

The old roadmap was quite specific about what functionality would go into (then) future releases:

Character Milestones
Potions/Scrolls
Multiple Items on a Title
Timer Handling
Corpses
Magic & Spellcasting.
Saving/Loading
Ranged Combat
Damage Brands
Interface/Control Upgrade
Mutations & Corruption
Town NPCs
Victory Conditions
Traps

I've bolded the items that are currently fully or partially implemented.

But this still leaves quite a lot. I feel the next release should work towards new functionality, and the ideal candidates are, as I've been hinting at for some time, potions/scrolls and ranged combat.

But, of course, one of the joys of open source is that anyone can help, so if there is anything you'd like to see in Kharne, and you know Delphi/Pascal, and you can understand my extant code, just download the source, install it and start coding!

Kharne 0.05 and source code released!

2009-10-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

Kharne Alpha v0.05 is now available, and has been released as open source under the MPL v1.1

This version is functionally identical to v0.04a.

The source code is available here or via the downloads menu.

Please read CODING.TXT in the docs subdirectory before attempting to load the Kharne project into Delphi.

If you have any questions, or difficulty getting the source to compile, feel free to leave a comment here or email me on starbog@gmail.com.

Refactoring Completed

2009-10-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Its the 1st of October, and suitably, the great code refactor of 2009 has finally been completed.

As soon as I write a guide for obtaining and installing the various 3rd-party libraries, APIs and custom VCL components that Kharne uses, I will release a source code distribution under the Mozilla Public License (MPL).

Shortly after that, I hope to set up the source code repository on GoogleCode.

Memories

2009-09-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

As part of the refactoring process I came across a random executable dated mid 2007 and found it was a prototype I had written back before the rewrite became public knowledge.

It doesn't actually do anything other than display this screen, but it does illustrate that, back in that day, I was obviously still wedded to the "moar windows!" paradigm. Now, on the other hand, I'm frantically trying to emulate an X-term using a RAD Application Tool.

Oh the irony!

Refactoring Progress #5

2009-09-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

The refactoring is almost complete:

I've just spent about five hours in total dealing with bugs I introduced into the TDungeon level generation code while refactoring, which was mainly due to doing the refactoring offline, i.e. not within an environment where the code could compile. It has been a useful exercise, as well as removing any code that I'd be ashamed of releasing (now there's just a lot of code left that I merely dislike), I've reaquainted myself with a lot of code that has been written for quite a while now and which I had forgotten the purpose of. The code also conforms a lot more to coding standards.

The only major source code left to refactor is UnitDisplay.pas which, as the name suggests, is, contains the code that interfaces with the screen and the GUI-handling code. Its about 4000 lines of code. I'm on target to finish the refactor within the week or so.

Its a messy unit, full of code like this:

Procedure TFormDisplay.ListViewMonstersCompare(Sender: TObject; Item1,
  Item2: TListItem; Data: Integer; var Compare: Integer);
begin
  if ListViewMonsters.Items.Count = 0 then Compare := 0
  else
  begin
    if (StrToInt(Item1.SubItems[6])) > (StrToInt(Item1.SubItems[6])) then Compare := 1
    else if (StrToInt(Item1.SubItems[6])) = (StrToInt(Item1.SubItems[6])) then Compare := 0
    else Compare := -1;
  end;
end;

I'm not coding C, so there's no virtue in conciseness. The refactor turns that code into this (note that some of the indenting may not display properly, but the final code is indented properly):

{ Sort Routine to sort entries in the Visible Monsters display - compares two
  TListItems and returns a comparison based upon TMonster.Level }  
Procedure TFormDisplay.ListViewMonstersCompare(Sender: TObject; Item1,
   Item2: TListItem; Data: Integer; var Compare: Integer);
var
  FirstItemLevel: Integer;
SecondItemLevel: Integer;
begin
  { Logging }
  hLog.Add('{now} {lNum} TFormDisplay.ListViewMonstersCompare()');

  { Default result which is that both items are equal}
  Result := 0;

  try
    { Make sure there are items to compare }
    if ListViewMonsters.Items.Count > 0 then
    begin
     { Get the monster levels from the Listview Items }
      FirstItemLevel := StrToIntDef(Item1.SubItems[MONSTER_LEVEL], 0);
   SecondItemLevel := StrToIntDef(Item2.SubItems[MONSTER_LEVEL], 0);

   { Compare the Monster Levels of each items }

   { First > Second }
      if FirstItemLevel  > SecondItemLevel  then
     Compare := 1
      { First <>
      else if FirstItemLevel < style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">) then  
     Compare := -1;
    end;
except
 { in case of error, log the Exception }
 on E: Exception do hLog.AddException(E);
end;
 end;

After I finish that unit, I'll have to put together the instructions for downloading and installing the various 3rd party components that I use, and then technically I'll have a source code distribution ready for when I release Kharne under the MPL.

Kharne 0.0.4a available

2009-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

After a few issues were pointed out with 0.0.4 I've decided to release a new version, 0.0.4a (836K zip file, link is also on the usual place on the right-hand side) to address them. Changes are as follows:

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.

Note that one of the changes here is when a character dies, the character file is moved to the morgue directory and flagged as a dead character. This is in preparation for implemention of saving and loading. Character files are currently not scrambled or encoded, so if you want to undeadify your character file, load it into a text editor and change the first line from "Dead" to "Alive". ;-)