Jason
chasing a bee
<p>Over at Temple of the Roguelike, Jeff "Powder" Lait delivered his annual <a href="http://www.roguetemple.com/articles/2010-failure-rates-of-roguelike-games/" target="_blank">analysis of rogulike development</a>.</p>
<blockquote>So where does seven years of data put us? We are doing very well for roguelike creation – 6.75 new tracked roguelikes per month, a new peak. It is tempting to dismiss this as a 7DRL effect, but the Old column I think is correctly tracking the creation of larger projects. While it is a new high, I’d hesitate to call that a trend. I suspect we are seeing a continuation of the 30 new roguelikes a year rule identified last year.</blockquote>
<p>On to more specific news, <a href="http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/2010/06/alpha-32.html" target="_blank">Rogue Survivor</a> hit Alpha 3.21. Here's just some of the AI changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fleeing AI try to close/barricade door/window between them and the enemy.</li>
<li>Fleeing followers prefer to flee toward leader.</li>
<li>NPCs leveling up try to choose usefull skills (they still have to choose from 3 random skills like you).</li>
<li>AI only interested in ammo items compatible with carried weapons.</li>
<li>AI only interested in expired food if lacking food.</li>
<li>AI will use blue pills more often.</li>
<li>CharGuardAI and SoldierAI now use Fight or Flee logic (less stupid melee deaths).</li>
<li>Soldiers and Gangs explore the map too.</li>
<li>All undeads -except Skeletons- explore the map.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://blog.te4.org/2010/06/tome/t-engine4-tome4-beta6-unleashed/" target="_blank">Tales of Middle Earth 4</a> moved on to beta6.</p>
<ul>
<li>Fixes random crashes and load errors</li>
<li>Reworked the internal CMap, it now does not know what a terrain or an actor is, instead the map objects are just textures, positioned on a z-order, each map object can tell if it can be seen, remembered, …</li>
<li>Trees are now made of two or more map objects, a patch of grass and one or more tree, randomly placed on the tile, to make forests look less tilish</li>
<li>Fix shaders to always use floats</li>
<li>Fix dual shot to only use 2 arrows</li>
<li>Random tree layout will try to place lower trees on top</li>
<li>Fixed FOV update when running</li>
<li>Don’t allow jumpgate to work between levels</li>
<li>Fix lots of monsters that did not deal damage</li>
<li>Download without music (for slow connections) are available</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/motm/2010/06/29/menace-of-the-mines-0-4-released/" target="_blank">Menace of the Mines</a> is at 0.4.</p>
<blockquote>Menace of the Mines (or motm) is a GPL-licensed roguelike written in Common Lisp that runs on Windows and Linux. The major new features in this release include items and replay mode. The release is available from the “Downloads” section of out website http://motm.sourceforge.net/. The website also contains documentation and contact info.</blockquote>
<p>And and some changes are in store for <a href="http://iferrorthrownewbrick.blogspot.com/2010/07/iteration-i-dont-think-that-means-what.html" target="_blank">Magecrawl</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Create level dependent items and monsters</li>
<li>Refactor how skills and items are handled to combine with new traits for monsters</li>
<li>More effect work, including debuffs specific to various schools attack spells.</li>
<li>"Field" effect to model sound/smell to make monsters seem more realistic.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>So where does seven years of data put us? We are doing very well for roguelike creation – 6.75 new tracked roguelikes per month, a new peak. It is tempting to dismiss this as a 7DRL effect, but the Old column I think is correctly tracking the creation of larger projects. While it is a new high, I’d hesitate to call that a trend. I suspect we are seeing a continuation of the 30 new roguelikes a year rule identified last year.</blockquote>
<p>On to more specific news, <a href="http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/2010/06/alpha-32.html" target="_blank">Rogue Survivor</a> hit Alpha 3.21. Here's just some of the AI changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fleeing AI try to close/barricade door/window between them and the enemy.</li>
<li>Fleeing followers prefer to flee toward leader.</li>
<li>NPCs leveling up try to choose usefull skills (they still have to choose from 3 random skills like you).</li>
<li>AI only interested in ammo items compatible with carried weapons.</li>
<li>AI only interested in expired food if lacking food.</li>
<li>AI will use blue pills more often.</li>
<li>CharGuardAI and SoldierAI now use Fight or Flee logic (less stupid melee deaths).</li>
<li>Soldiers and Gangs explore the map too.</li>
<li>All undeads -except Skeletons- explore the map.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://blog.te4.org/2010/06/tome/t-engine4-tome4-beta6-unleashed/" target="_blank">Tales of Middle Earth 4</a> moved on to beta6.</p>
<ul>
<li>Fixes random crashes and load errors</li>
<li>Reworked the internal CMap, it now does not know what a terrain or an actor is, instead the map objects are just textures, positioned on a z-order, each map object can tell if it can be seen, remembered, …</li>
<li>Trees are now made of two or more map objects, a patch of grass and one or more tree, randomly placed on the tile, to make forests look less tilish</li>
<li>Fix shaders to always use floats</li>
<li>Fix dual shot to only use 2 arrows</li>
<li>Random tree layout will try to place lower trees on top</li>
<li>Fixed FOV update when running</li>
<li>Don’t allow jumpgate to work between levels</li>
<li>Fix lots of monsters that did not deal damage</li>
<li>Download without music (for slow connections) are available</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/motm/2010/06/29/menace-of-the-mines-0-4-released/" target="_blank">Menace of the Mines</a> is at 0.4.</p>
<blockquote>Menace of the Mines (or motm) is a GPL-licensed roguelike written in Common Lisp that runs on Windows and Linux. The major new features in this release include items and replay mode. The release is available from the “Downloads” section of out website http://motm.sourceforge.net/. The website also contains documentation and contact info.</blockquote>
<p>And and some changes are in store for <a href="http://iferrorthrownewbrick.blogspot.com/2010/07/iteration-i-dont-think-that-means-what.html" target="_blank">Magecrawl</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Create level dependent items and monsters</li>
<li>Refactor how skills and items are handled to combine with new traits for monsters</li>
<li>More effect work, including debuffs specific to various schools attack spells.</li>
<li>"Field" effect to model sound/smell to make monsters seem more realistic.</li>
</ul>
