Brick Atelier

[Krice]

The new version of Brick is coming soon-ish. It's a pixel drawing program I've been working on since forever. I had the idea to create a tool for pixel art, because I couldn't find any programs that had the features I wanted. Another reason was to create a fast feel to pixel drawing, because most paint programs are huge and slow (like GIMP, Krita etc.). Of course everything has been easier said than done and I'm working mainly on some missing features which are as basic as they can get. I also had a relatively bad idea to use SDL2 as the graphics library in this project, and it was not a great idea, because I had to build a gui on top of it. The idea of rewriting this to another gui library is dreadful. I think alpha releases are the way to go, because getting any kind of feedback could be useful.

 

[Morblot]

When is Kaduria coming out?

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I used Pyxel Edit for a while and nowadays Pixelorama for Linux support which feels like a clone of it.
Which features would you add? An even better program is always welcomed!

 

[Morblot]

An even better program is always welcomed!

Good luck persuading Krice to release anything. Everything he does takes longer than Grimoire due to him being caught in an endless loop of code refactoring.

 

[Krice]

caught in an endless loop of code refactoring.

Refactoring or more like focusing on the source code quality is a problem that I'm aware of and I try to avoid it. If I can focus on the right thing it works quite nicely. As an example I spent total of 171 minutes yesterday and today working on the brush pad and now you can add brushes to it and select a brush. Doesn't sound like much, but to implement something like that is not easy if you don't have a gui library helping you in anything. I still have to add save/load of brushes and also deleting a brush from the pad, then you can use the pad. The last and probably hardest feature will be arranging brushes in the pad (moving them around). But I know if I just focus on it I can do it.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Kaduria is a (hopefully major) roguelike game I've been developing since 1995.

Just looked into it; how do you even keep motivation for all these projects?

Good luck persuading @Krice to release anything. Everything he does takes longer than Grimoire due to him being caught in an endless loop of code refactoring.

I'm not in dire need of a new program. I have lots of respect for people who work years and years on their magnum opus, like Grimoire, but only when it finally releases (which keeps me sane). I just couldn't work so long on something, everything under a year is best for me rn.

 

[Morblot]

Release early, release often.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Release early, release often.

Would say it depends on the project. In terms of games, I think roguelikes and all kinds of simulations are best suited for this approach. Games like Grimoire not so much. Not that you can't do it but I think for roguelikes and simulations it works best. For general use software I dunno.

 

[Morblot]

Would say it depends on the project. In terms of games, I think roguelikes and all kinds of simulations are best suited for this approach. Games like Grimoire not so much. Not that you can't do it but I think for roguelikes and simulations it works best. For general use software I dunno.

It's an approach that would have seen Kaduria released so, so long ago, for better or worse. Instead it has taken a full half, if not more, of Krice's life, and for what? All he has received and will receive is ridicule from the likes of me.

And re: Grimoire, Cleve did give demo versions for testers to play. The Superdemo was generally available, even.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

It's an approach that would have seen Kaduria released so, so long ago, for better or worse. Instead it has taken a full half, if not more, of @Krice's life, and for what? All he has received and will receive is ridicule from the likes of me.

And re: Grimoire, Cleve did give demo versions for testers to play. The Superdemo was generally available, even.

Kaduria is a roguelike, so it would fit. Like I said, I'm not into the very long dev times but if someone has something giant he wants to pull off and actually does it in the end, I respect that. And if not, I simply don't care.

I'm talking about releases like Early Access, not testing, demos or promobetas or something.

 

[Morblot]

Kaduria is a roguelike, so it would fit.

I agree, obviously. But the problem with Kaduria is that Krice doesn't agree. Instead he keeps on rewriting it endlessly (and needlessly) due to being a perfectionist of some kind. The codebase has even been rewritten in entirely different programming paradigms over the years, from procedural to object-oriented to who knows what and why.

Perfectionism is a helluva drug.

 

[Krice]

Trying to delete the brush. After 57 minutes of work you can delete a brush, but only if there is one brush in the list. What I didn't expect was that when the brush engine is using built-in and user defined brushes it never thought you could delete a brush, so brush visuals were not updated and in fact they can't be empty. So at the moment I set the routine to use the current default brush if there are no brushes in the pad. It's actually quite ok solution, because it did feel odd you couldn't draw anything with the stamp tool if there was no brushes in the pad. Next goal for the delete is trying to somehow move the iterator to next or previous brush if there are brushes left in the pad. Also, the alpha mask id "trick" requires that the alpha value has to be erased from the pad, but it should be easy. I'm using the alpha value from 1 to 255 to see if there is something in the pad which points to the brush with same id, it's a bit faster than going through the list and checking the brushes area for collision with the mouse pointer.

 

[Krice]

All he has received and will receive is ridicule from the likes of me.

I don't get why people are so upset about long development spans. Nethack was first released 1984 I think and it's still under development. Same with ADOM I think, first released 1998. Sometimes it takes a long time for "reasons". Developers are human beings and more so indie developers who are not professionals, they usually don't get paid etc. I do have other things to do than just programming which is maybe taking "only" 1-2 hours per day usually.

 

[Morblot]

Nethack was first released 1984 I think and it's still under development. Same with ADOM I think, first released 1998.

And you don't see any difference between, say, Nethack and Kaduria..?

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Yeah, a long dev cycle without a release and continuous releases are two different things.

 

[Krice]

Now you can delete a brush and everything seems to work. I decided to set the list to beginning if there are brushes left, just because it is easier than any other solution and doesn't make any difference. As I said saving and loading should not be that difficult. I think the pad is a cool feature, because you can store brushes that can also work as copies of anything, even whole tiles or parts of something.

 

[Krice]

Yeah, a long dev cycle without a release and continuous releases are two different things.

As always in these discussions we have had over the years I have encouraged people to create their own major roguelike. If I'm right no one has ever done it.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

As always in these discussions we have had over the years I have encouraged people to create their own major roguelike. If I'm right no one has ever done it.

I'm not deeply interested in creating roguelikes atm but I created a couple of games over the years. But I don't know how this would proof any point since there are a lot of major roguelikes which are continuously released and it seems to be a working model, and I don't know a lot of games which do the opposite (dev cycle 10+ years, not continuously released) and succeeded, and actually I know zero games with your approach which are a roguelike and succeeded (i.e. an official release meant for everyone to play it, not a demo etc.). So, I think the burden of proof would be on you.

But as I said, if you pull it off, you got my respect and if not, I don't care. I was just pointing out a false comparison, I'm not here to shit on you.

And I'm still interested:

Just looked into it; how do you even keep motivation for all these projects?

 

[Morblot]

Yeah, a long dev cycle without a release and continuous releases are two different things.

As always in these discussions we have had over the years I have encouraged people to create their own major roguelike. If I'm right no one has ever done it.

I am tempted to accept the challenge, although I'd first wish for clarification on what makes a roguelike "major". However, my wife is pregnant, so this is a really, really inconvenient time for a new hobby project...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

When is Kaduria coming out?

The real Kaduria was the friends we made along the way.

 

[Krice]

But I don't know how this would proof any point since there are a lot of major roguelikes which are continuously released and it seems to be a working model

There are not "a lot" of major roguelikes, let's be clear about that. It's possible to do one, but it's difficult. One of the problems is solo development really, you have to admit it. In fact I think most major roguelikes were developed by more than one person which is smart. Working alone on a such project is dumb, but then again trying to find people who can do this and are willing to work for free is nearly impossible. I tried to find some back in the past, but it didn't go well.

 

[Morblot]

major roguelike

Define "major".

 

[Krice]

major roguelike

Define "major".

Don't act simple, we all know what a major roguelike is and what is not one. Roguelike term is fucked in the ass by developers who are using it as a marketing term. I guess it's easier for people to find games of that genre, except they are not roguelikes at all. I know people have weird way to figure out roguelike features, you know, with Berlin interpretation and dumb stuff like that, but it's useless. It seems anyone and their dog can decide what a roguelike game is, but I don't care about their shit woke opinions.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Still interested: How do you keep motivation working on very long projects?

 

[Morblot]

Don't act simple, we all know what a major roguelike is and what is not one.

What? I'm not "acting simple", nor is this a culture war woke bullshit mindgame, I just want your definition...

As always in these discussions we have had over the years I have encouraged people to create their own major roguelike. If I'm right no one has ever done it.

...because how else can one know if they've fulfilled your challenge of developing their own "major" roguelike?

If you can't define it, then anyone can release anything and call it a major roguelike if only to spite you.