Kharne Alpha 23 now available

(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.

Kharne 0.06a now available

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.

Kharne 0.06 now available

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.

The End - an announcement

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.

Kharne 0.05c now available

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.

Kharne 0.0.5b now available

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.

Kharne 0.0.5a now available

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.

Kharne 0.05 and source code released!

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.

Kharne 0.0.4a available

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". ;-)

Kharne 0.0.4 available

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

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

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

Here is what is included:

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

Kharne 0.03d available

Due to the hanging bug occuring too often for my liking on the current released version, I've decided to release a new interim bug-fix version, 0.03d.

It does not have any of the main features (potions/scrolls, integral character creation and so on) that are due to be in 0.0.4, nor is it be open-sourced, like 0.0.4 will be, but it will be a good basis upon which to release the next major version.

You can either get it here or via the link on the right-hand-side under 'Downloads'.

One small issue with this version is that due to the logging threading, after you exit the game, it takes a few seconds to clear itself from memory. I'm currently investigating that.

Here are the changes in this version:

• Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is now the only font used throughout the entire game.
• Ranged/magical attacks for monsters now use differening appropriate and meaningful ASCII symbols.
• Ranged/magical attacks for monsters now are described correctly (and differently from melee attacks).
• The status/info panel can now be hidden (F1/F2 to toggle).
• Grammar and punctuation has been corrected in various locations throughout the game.
• The Monster description window has been removed from the game.
• The Item popup window has been removed from the game.
• OOD Monsters and Uniques have had their stats adjusted.
• Wearing and removing magical items now produce additional atmospheric messages.
• The magnitudes of item enchantments have been modified.
• Attacking with a missile weapon now produces appropriate feedback in the message log.
• Monsters that haven't detected the player yet are grayed-out.
• Monsters can no longer critically hit the player.
• Skill levels now contribute to Game Score.

Ill shortly be starting a period of fairly intense revision for my Cosmology exams in mid-October, and coupled with my full time job and a family (significant other and two cats) my time is fairly limited so I don't anticipate 0.o4 to be out until after that.

Kharne 0.03c Available

v0.03c is now available.

(edit: see the addendum at the bottom of this post if you downloaded this version before midnight GMT on the 7th)

Although this version doesn't have the promised potions and scrolls implemented, the timing functionality is now included and I hope to release the next version soon.

Here are the changes in this version:

• Added milestones to the Character Log.
• Multiple Items can now exist on the same square.
• Firing a ranged combat weapon now correctly updates the turn count.
• The maximum damage a monster can do to a player in a single hit is now (Maximum Hit Points - 1).
• Piles of Silver and Bronze can now be found throughout the dungeons.
• Items have been reduced in cost by a factor of five.
• There is now a wider variety of entry vaults.
• Amulets can now be found in fountains.
• Combat Text is now much more descriptive.
• Monster attacks that hit you and cause damage are now displayed in a different colour.
• Co-ordinates are now only displayed if the Wizard Window is displayed.
• The number of hit points and magic points gained per level has been slightly increased.
• The effect on speed of carrying weights greater than maximum load has been reduced slightly.
• Monsters will use ranged attacks less often.

Addendum: I've had to reupload the v0.03c archive as the version I originally uploaded had two major bugs in it: the alertness radius (i.e. the radius of the FoV) was set to half what it should have been, and some of the entry vaults would have been generated without an up set of stairs. Please accept my apologies and redownload and overwrite the previous installation (the two files that have actually changed are Kharne.exe and Kharne.db3)

Kharne 0.03b available

v0.03b is now available. This is another mainly bugfix version (a bugfix of a bugfix?), to fix many of the bugs that have been reported in 0.03a. Thanks to Tekela Fisher, 'pol' and Mario Donick for all their bug reports. This version also includes more monster speech and actions.

Changes in this version are:

• Ranged Combat now works again.
• More monsters now have actions and speech.
• Using stairs now requires <> instead of , and ;
• The particular set of stairs taken to go down and up levels in the dungeon are now remembered.
• The standard 0 and 5 keys now allow resting as well.
• Keyboard commands that previously were only responsive to capital letters (e.g. 'S') now work with lower-case letters as well (e.g. 's').
• Font size and typeface have been made consistent across all the main window interfaces.
• The Status Bar has been redesigned.
• Attributes are no longer displayed on the Status Bar.
• There is now a short pause after death and before the Character Summary is displayed.
• Skills that are 100% progressed to the next skill level no longer have their progress indicators clipped.
• Artifact Names are now prefixed correctly whilst unidentified.

Kharne 0.03a available.

Kharne 0.03a is now available. As mentioned previously, it should fix many of the errors and bugs that have been reported in 0.03. Download it here or use the link on the right-hand side.

Changes in this version are:

• Fixed the crash that occurs sometimes in character creation (hopefully!).
• The Main Window no longer accepts keyboard input when it is not active (for example, if the character creation window is active).
• The cursor is now positioned correctly when the main window is maximised.
• Non-magical items no longer have extraneous item descriptions (e.g. bloodstained, gashed, rusted or corroded).
• Monster speech is now coloured white in the Message Log.
• The Quit (Suicide) menu option now works.
• It is no longer possible to cause an error by pressing random keys whilst in the Hi Scores screen.
• Fixed an error that could occur when entering a level where no unique is present. As a result the "You feel a brooding presence..." message that displays whenever a unique is present on the level is no longer displayed.
• Starting a new game after finishing an old one will now clear the Message Log properly.
• A Welcome Message is displayed in the Message Log when you start or continue a game.
• The Player score calculated on the Farewell screen and the Player Score recorded in the hi-score table are now the same.
• Monsters listed as cause of death in the hiscore table are now prefixed properly.
• Removed the Show Inventory option on the Death Hiscore screen (Inventory Details can be viewed via the character dump opption instead).

Kharne 0.03 available

Even though a few small features haven't made it into 0.03, I've decided to release anyway. So, get v0.03 here or use the link on the right-hand side.

The changes in this version are:

• The main window has been consolidated into the game window.
• Added Uniques to the Dungeons.
• Some monsters are no longer silent, and can shout and make other noises (this is a work in progress).
• Reduced the amount of items that are generated on a level, apart from food, which has been increased.
• Monsters can now occasionally wield and wear armour and items.
• Social Monsters can now be found throughout the Dungeons in greater numbers.
• High Scores have been implemented.
• Fixed a bug where deaths could be logged multiple times.
• Added a cursor to the main display window.
• The effect of AC, Speed, Blocking and Deflection have been reduced.
• Monster Hit Points have been recalculated and increased.
• Shops are now restocked with new level-appropriate items every time you re-enter the Town Level.
• Player Resolve is now affected properly by items with the Steadfastness Enchantment.
• Artifacts-quality items have now the "Ancient" prefix when unidentified.
• Items that bestow health are now properly factored into calculations for Hit Point Display and Damage Taken.
• The amount of damage inflicted and recieved is no longer displayed in the combat log.
• All rings and amulets generated are now of superb quality at least.
• Added warning text to alert the player if a dungeon is too difficult for the character level.
• Wearing and Removing Items now have more descriptive messages.
• Items that are carried but not worn contribute only 20% as much to overall game score.
• Monster awakening messages are now more atmospheric.
• Eating items now displays gramatically more correct messages in the message log.
• Added a warning whenever a single attack takes off more than 50% of the Player's Health Pool.
• Monster health is now displayed as health bars beneath the glyphs, and is displayed in the message log at regular intervals.
• Skill Gains have changed so that specialist skills (e.g. Melee or Heavy Armour) increase faster than the general skills (e.g. Fighting or Defense).
• The Wizard Console has been extended with more information and more options.
• Gifting an item on the Wizard Console no longer causes an occasional error.
• Items gifted using the wizard Console are now automatically identified.
• The Town Level Name is now displayed correctly on the Window Title.
• Opening/Closing Doors no longer displays a message on the message log.
• Intrusion Zones are now generated again occasionally.
• Intrusion Zone Monsters e.g. Vanguards or Intruders, are now scaled appropriately to the level in which they appear.
• Digging now stops if any monsters are in sight.
• Duplicate messages that occur when the character drinks from a fountain have been removed.
• Item/Monster tooltips have been changed slightly to display information better.

The other changes mentioned previously will roll forward into 0.03a (yes, I said "sod it" after all).

Kharne v0.02c available

Get it here or via the link at the side of the page. Changelog is here.

Release Early, Release Often...but where?

Following the Powder maxim of releasing early, releasing often, I'll release 0.02c in the next couple of days (mainly to get something out the door). Baring any last minute changes, the changelog will consist of:

• Gold is now automatically picked up.
• Varying Radius FoV has been implemented - randarts with the 'alertness' property can increase and decrease (if cursed) the radius of the FoV.
• Moving the mouse over a creature or item in the dungeon now displays pertinent information on the main screen.
• Food found in the dungeon is no longer flagged as unidentified.
• Fountains that have been drunk from cannot be drunk from again.
• The player avatar ('@') is now transparent.
• The main menu has been given a graphical overhaul.

Yeah, I know: no ranged combat, no scrolls, no potions, etc etc. They're coming up, honestly.

The only current snag is that I've forgotten all my login details for rapidshare. I'm getting somewhat tired of that anyway as a filehosting platform, so are there any easily available alternatives where I can store the Kharne releases?

Kharne 0.02b available

v0.02b is now downloadable, following the maxim of 'release early and release often'. The full changes in this version are as follows:

• Combat/Defense and Subterfuge Skills have been implemented.
• The nutritional value of food has been quadrupled.
• You can no longer removed cursed items by swapping uncursed items into their slot.
• The display font has been changed to a standard system font (Courier).
• Message Colours have been changed and standardised.
• A welcome message is now displayed when you first start the game.
• A Low Hit Point Warning has been added.
• You can now only target hostile creatures with ranged weapons.
• Projectiles have been fully animated.
• Fountains can now be found in all dungeons apart from the Elemental Planes. They can have both beneficial and harmful effects.
• Whilst the Wizard screen is displayed, death is optional.

No proper ranged combat just yet. Its a heck of a lot of work, and the next release will probably just contain its implementation. The refactoring necessary for it will also make implementing spells and targeting thereof much more easier as well.

Kharne 0.02a available

As promised, here is v0.02a. To summarise the changes in this maintenance release: Item Anonymity, Stacking.

Fixes in this version:

• Item Anonymity and Identification has now been implemented (wear/wield an item to identify)
• Item stacking now works properly.
• Eating stacked food now only consumes one of the stack.
• Defense Skill is now listed properly in the Skill Screen.
• Food is now listed in the inventory in one colour. It remains colourful on the dungeon floor.
• The font size of the message window has been reduced.
• Wands are temporarily no longer generated in the dungeons (it makes no sense for them to be there whilst their functionality has not yet been implemented).
• The Inventory Screen has been redesigned slightly

For now, I'll leave the link to the previous version online, although you should really upgrade to 0.02a. The character files are identical so just copy those over if you wish to use them in this version.

Kharne v0.02 available

Get it here or use the link on the right.

The changes are listed in full below, but to summarise: Persistent Dungeons, Food/Hunger, Shops, Ranged Combat, Wizard Mode.

* Dungeon Levels are now persistent within each Branch - exiting a Branch entirely will generate new levels.
* Food & Hunger have been implemented. Whilst starving, HP and MP do not regenerate naturally.
* Ranged Combat has now been implemented (left click on a monster to fire a projectile at it - for now, ammunition is inifinite).
* The amount of HP and MP that characters gain on level up is now also dependent upon Fighting and Magic Skill levels.
* Added a Wizard Mode (accessible by pressing W)
* Monsters can no longer be generated in the walls of Vaults.
* Monster HP and Damage has been rebalanced.
* The XP required to gain a level has been increased substantially.
* Level Feelings are no longer immediately generated if you have recently navigated more than one set of stairs.
* Reduced the amount of gold that is generated.
* The elapsed game time (in real terms) is now displayed at the top of the Main Game Window. This pauses whenever the Inventory or any other subscreen is shown.
* Character Dumps now display the correct version number.
* Character Dumps now show the elapsed game time (in real terms).
* Digging now updates the visible areas of the dungeon correctly..
* Turns elapsed is now displayed in a more appropriate colour.
* Fixed a few minor grammatical errors in the Combat Text.