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[pat]

Cool! There should be a new version uploaded in about 24 hours with a whole heap of changes, including improvements to ranged and magic quick keys, spell macros, and also giving the player the choice of 50 graphical avatars which can be changed at any time:

[Retropunch]

This looks great - it's really good to see a proper D&D rules roguelike.

As it's based on DnD which has a lot of more narrative elements - will you be thinking of adding that kinda thing in? I'm not talking about full on quest lines and NPCs - just player choices and interactions beyond 'bash stuff'.

[pat]

Absolutely, that’s exactly the plan. I don’t think I’ll have a very restrictive overall quest but I’m working through the logistics of mini-quests being generated with dungeon branches with a choice of goals and differing rewards depending on player choices. I think that’s important for a game like this - it’s not a balanced tactical experience like some roguelikes but rather aims to be a fun role playing sandbox. There’s a lot of work to go!

[Retropunch]

Absolutely, that’s exactly the plan. I don’t think I’ll have a very restrictive overall quest but I’m working through the logistics of mini-quests being generated with dungeon branches with a choice of goals and differing rewards depending on player choices. I think that’s important for a game like this - it’s not a balanced tactical experience like some roguelikes but rather aims to be a fun role playing sandbox. There’s a lot of work to go!

Awesome!! Really looking forward to it.

As an aside, one thing that was always good about the old computer D&D games was how alignment fitted in it - allies could hate what you're doing so much they'd attack you (or at least leave); it'd give a really interesting twist on the usual 'do quest->get stuff'. No need for it to be too elaborate or complex, just something to balance out as a risk vs reward.

[pat]

Alignmet is a really tricky one for a few reasons - it's ridiculously hard to implement in a sensible way because there's just so many layers to it. I don't know if I want recruited NPC's to react to your decisions like that because they're pretty hard to come by and important as part of the character build. It's a 'maybe' but unlikely. Much more likely is your actions on certain quests locking you in as enemy or ally to other dungeon groups, ie. you help a lizardman on level 2 and you find that the lizardman camp on level 5 is friendly as a result.

[Teneb]

Here's an idea regarding alignment: have it not rally be so much as mid-gameplay choices as be an option that you can pick during character creation. The effects of it being spell selection for clerics, perhaps, availability of companions and maybe even types of enemies that can spawn.

I realise some of this stuff is not exactly feasible right now, but maybe for the future.

[Frumple]

From a practical point of view, that probably sounds like a good idea. I played the hell out of Incursion, and while there was a ton of neat things going on with it on the alignment front, it was a constant source of bugs, odd behavior, and general nuisance. If you're going to do it particularly well or dynamic (and not regularly infuriate your playerbase) you're going to be adding a metric ton of complexity and coding interactions for relatively little gain. If you can go with a more simple system and save your efforts for other interesting, less finicky, AI et al interactions, it's probably a good idea.

... or in other words, if you're thinking about it leave some design space for future implementation and mess with it after you're done with basically everything else, lest you spend the remainder of your development cycle(s) constantly beating your head against the alignment wall to get it to function decently

[Mephansteras]

It's worth noting that Alignment in D&D is generally there as a guideline for the player on how to act than it is for anything else. Yes, there are some mechanics that care about the player's alignment, but those are the exception rather than the rule. So I see no problem with it being generally ignored by the game and just used for specific things like quests and those few mechanics that reference it.

[pat]

My experience playing Incursion is the reason I’m reluctant to commit to a formal alignment system. I don’t think it would work without a mess of bugs unless it was very shallow, and the deeper it gets, the more weird nonsensical scenarios arise. It’s easier to leave it as a role playing mechanic and focus on more tangible features. A reputation system with different factions is much feasible and that’ll leave the moral judgments to the mind of the players.

I’m currently working on vastly different systems though - I’m about halfway through an animation system for magical effects and projectiles. This became important when monsters gained the ability to cast and make ranged attacks because it wasn’t entirely clear who was attacking and from where. Hopefully this will add a bit of visual flair!

[Retropunch]

All good points - by alignment I was really thinking something pretty basic; not a whole DnD good/chaotic/blah blah thing. I just like the idea of something overarching that would give you various benefits and issues for sticking with being good or evil.

For instance, Uber Warlock Steve the Terrible offers you a +5 armour of the invincible crow if you slay a camp of friendly halflings. If you do that your follower, Eric the holy paladin, would turn on you as it's a very evil act. But you would get the awesome armour, which you really need. Using dark magic might also make Eric leave you (instead of attacking you).

All that said, a reputation system could work in a very similar way and might be better - especially if you're thinking of having distinctly different groups that you can side with.

[pat]

* Added info screen to display player's traits and proficiencies by pressing '@'. It still needs to be crossreferenced to the game docs but at least players can see what weapons etc they can use at a glance.

* Added graphical tile to spiritual weapon.

* Added red heart icon to top right corner of ally's graphical tile.

* Updated area of effect animation for bearlibterminal. Allows for a transition between two colours with increasing and decreasing alpha values with 3 random characters to be displayed.

* Rewrote explosion effect animation for bearlibterminal.

* Rewrote ray effect animation for bearlibterminal.

* Implemented new bolt effect animation. Draws a line between caster and target and draws a projectile with a fading trail behind it.

* Implemented projecile effect animation. Draws a '*' along the path of the projectile so the player knows what's going on in combat with ranged attacks.

[pat]

Because I’ve been updating so regularly, to make distribution easier, The Red Prison is coming to Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1074040/The_Red_Prison/

[Teneb]

Because I’ve been updating so regularly, to make distribution easier, The Red Prison is coming to Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1074040/The_Red_Prison/

Oh wow, congratulations on putting it on steam.

I know that getting on Steam these days doesn't mean a lot, as evidenced through the many, many pieces of turd flooding it, but this is still a pretty big move.

[pat]

Yeah, the only real stumbling block is the fee and then dealing with the unintuitive Steam backend, but I’m hoping that it makes the barrier for new players even lower. It’ll certainly save on me asking players to download a new build every week.

[scriver]

Downloaded and gave it a try. Font is way too tiny. Not playable for me.