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[BlindKitty]

Just a little update - I've been sick _and_ busy at work lately, so there is not much done, unfortunately. But I've managed to move the skill checks to another place in code, where they are accessible for everything I need, so the next few things are going to be a little easier. I've also done some work on Treasure class, allowing you to loot something from a room, but it's long way from completion. The overhaul for Attributes and Skills was introduced, and I will be implementing the test set of ten misc skills for the next public release. So, two out of three done, it's not so bad.

[BlindKitty]

Finally, I have managed to get myself together into a human-resembling heap and write some more code (Christmas this year weren't very productive), and put a new version online. It has a lot more exploration implemented, and it should be much more interesting thanks to that. You can now shop for items in the dungeon (shops are supposed to be persistent - give me a heads-up if they disappear, please), fall into traps (or notice them - disarming isn't yet implemented, but it's late already and I don't know if I will be working tomorrow on the game, so I wanted to put it out already), find chests full of loot (and pick the locks or just bash them open). I've also made some more code refactoring processes (I have more smaller code files which are easier to manage now). I think the priority now is finishing the exploration systems (trap disarming for starters), making foundations for more work (reworking rest of the output and probably some of the input from player) and creating tag system for items, enemies, dungeons and traps (and maybe other things, I will try to make as universal as possible).
Enjoy!

[Mephansteras]

Cool. I'll have to give the new version a whirl in the next few days.

[BlindKitty]

Due to a bunch of new things I'm responsible for in work and a few changes in my schedule (I've picked up writing a short story for a certain competition and few other things), the production of Shepherd: The Game is currently on hiatus. Than again, I still have the desire to finish it, but first things first - I'm starting a course in programming at March, 23rd, and after I finish it (12 weeks?) I should be able to go back with more knowledge. And maybe even more free time, as the new term in college starts soon with better hours for me.

[n9103]

Best of luck, and here's hoping for many happy returns

[BlindKitty]

So, it turns out that because of various Real Life (TM) events I didn't have a chance to finish the Python course properly. Which is a bad thing, but also frees up some time right now, so I kicked into gear and started working on Shepherd: The Game again. There are several changes to the opening post about that, but shortly: I've been trying to incorporate some sort of terminal emulator to improve graphics and make it easier on myself, but it turned out to be a waste of time so far. When/if I decide to move to more graphical presentation, I will probably try again, unless I will feel confident in my skills enough by then to make something like that on my own, but so far, I have done some work on my Output class and I think it should be enough, eye-candy wise.

I will be now working on making various activities (shops/traps/treasures) more interesting, and upgrading the general quality of code and design (I need to make GameLoop class working and so on), but I probably won't do anything on the weekend (there are other things to be on weekends, work should go to weekdays ). I will try to put up a new version in April, and I will make some more changes to the opening post probably tomorrow, and on Monday if not then.

[n9103]

Just incase you're unfamiliar, CodeAcademy.com has all kinds of programming tutorials, including plenty on python.
Last I checked, they're all free.

[BlindKitty]

Yeah, actually when I found it, I finished them all, I think. But the Python isn't really all that interesting to me; the programming class was the all-round one, which just happened to use Python. I would love some actual classes on C#, but there aren't any that I know of. So I'm back to old-school text based learning and trial-and-error (with quite a bit of error), while keeping one eye on videos of the class I was taking.
On another note - I have some content on paper already, so there is a possibility that the game will hit the 'playable' state this year. That is playable as in 'you feel like you are playing a game, not watching a tech demo', not 'it doesn't crash every other minute', though.

[BlindKitty]

Yesterday I had to visit a doctor, and stopped by to see my parents, and done no coding whatsoever, but I've done some concept working and added some data which will be in the next update. Expect to see a few new sword types, as well as few new spears. Also expect them to be wildly unbalanced. Aside from those, there will be multiple new monsters, getting the total up to about 20 for now.
As for the real coding, shops, traps, and treasures should all be implemented in rudimentary, bug crash-free state today in the evening, and this is when the new version should be up for grabs. Exact moment depends on how late I will be back from work.
Anyway, I'm working on Shepherd: The Game again and I hope for no long hiatus in the near future...

[BlindKitty]

So it has been quite some time since last release, but I think I finally have more-or-less working version I can put up on the internet. It lacks polish on new features (and lacks it a lot, unfortunately, don't expect great things from it), so it is 0.6.4.0, but it is playable. New items and monsters have been incorporated, as well as traps, treasure chests and shops. You should be able to finish all those activities, buy and sell at shops, step into trap (there is only one type now) and so on. Beware of saving, it takes a good few seconds now and pumps out a 25 MB file, because of its naive implementation (I'm just serializing pretty much everything there is to serialize). If you could report any errors/bugs you encounter, it would be great. Keep in mind that there might be a lot of really unbalanced things, especially so with new items and monsters. But balancing isn't really a priority now. Some new and more polished version should appear soon-ish, probably later this week.

[Zireael]

Something to check out, maybe? PTW.

[BlindKitty]

Repaired a few bugs; you should be able to play without anything too annoying popping up in first few seconds. I've also cut down dungeon to 100 floors from 1000, thus cutting both time to save and save size by 90%. It is temporary measure; later I will work on save system, but I will take some time probably. The version number has not changed, as I'm still pretty sure there are some bugs around, but hopefully I will be able to pump out something a little more polished this week. From other good news - traps data has been moved to XML file, so bigger selection of more interesting trap (and generally, trap mechanics) are much closer now.

I've also decided to go for more items/materials/monsters right now - it will be long before I will start developing more complex system for those, and I would love to make a playable alpha rather sooner than later. So I will be putting some more content into the game, and balance/refining/major upgrades to all system will wait until some more groundwork is done.

Zireael - where does your nick come from? Also, if you want to take a look, the rared executable is like 120 kB, and there is only enough content for a 15 minutes of toying around, probably, so very little now. I'm very happy to have somebody watching this, to be honest. Thank you for attention!

[n9103]

It's still being watched by some of us from your first ?programming spree?.
Got a lot on my plate for the time being, but I do watch this thread on a daily basis.

[BlindKitty]

That's great, n9103. I was wondering if anybody is still around from back then - the game wasn't really too advanced when I went into hiatus... But I'm back and hopefully, better than ever. So, back to coding.

EDIT: I'm not putting the new version up today, as there are very small changes, but the traps are about 90% functional now. They are randomly chosen from the list, their difficulty and damage are dependant on how deep in the dungeon they are generated, coefficients that are being read from data (and are type dependent, so we can have some traps hard to spot, but dealing little damage, and some easy to spot, but dealing huge damage) and finally a little bit of randomization is thrown into the mix, to keep things from being boring. Next (and last for some time) step will be making finding and disarming trap (and perhaps avoiding it after triggering) have different difficulties and updating data/schema files to match, but that's for tomorrow.

SECOND EDIT: There were some trouble in the last few days, limiting my time to code, but the traps are finally done. I will need to start commenting the XML files, or else making some documentation for them; they are pretty nice as far as the tags go, so they should be easy to read, but in some places they might be problematic. I came to this conclusion after realizing that most coefficients are in floating point format, but trap coefficients are ints (as they are percentages of default values). This should be either better documented, or changed; I will try to do both at the end. The last thing for traps is giving you a chance to avoid them after triggering, but this will be a part of bigger update later on; right now, most such tasks (like opening locks, disarming traps etc.) use hard - coded skills (as in, I use Skills[7] or something like that). I want to move such behaviours to outer, moddable file, so modders will be able to rearrange after renaming them. A config file will have tags like <OpenDoorSkill>Lockpicking</OpenDoorSkill>, and the game will read those and know that OpenDoor behaviour is governed by the Lockpicking skill, not by Skills[7]. This will also include <AvoidTrap> tag which will be linked to some Awareness skill be default. But it will be quite major change to code, so it will be done after finishing with treasure chests.

[BlindKitty]

I'm announcing a little change here - the name goes from Shepherd: The Game to Little Shepherd. But it is still subject to change (I always had a funny problem: I can easily come up with great titles with no content, or content with no title, but I've never managed to get both title and content together ), but you can get used to it now. I will probably change the topic name too.
The new release has fully functional traps and almost fully functional treasures; shops are implemented and working, so you can buy and sell stuff. Prices might be completely off, but that's balancing issue and we are far from balancing yet.

Thus, first iteration of exploration is done, and I will be moving to 0.6.5 - implementing anatomy of both player and enemy. For now I will probably stick with two anatomy types (humanoid and quadrupedal), but those should be easy enough to add later, when I put them in XML files. Anatomy is required for two main things, which are interconnected - aimed attacks (so you can gouge somebody's eye with a spear) and partial armour (so you can wear mail pants, steel breastplate and boiled leather gauntlets). Both of those should make fighting a little bit more interesting, and with anatomy done, I will probably move to implement partial armour and with that I will be ready for fighting, iteration two (0.6.6) and crafting, iteration one (0.6.7). After that inventory management will probably close the 0.6 version with 0.6.8 series.

I will also try to add more new items and recipes around that time, so actually the version 0.7 should be somewhat playable, not only a tech-demo-toy.