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[pat]

I’m sorry to hear that. Interestingly I use the same font and font size as Incursion, although that game uses it for the map as well. Are you able to handle that game’s display?

[scriver]

I've never played Incursion, but if from looking at those images, no, it is also too small.

[Retropunch]

I've never played Incursion, but if from looking at those images, no, it is also too small.

Honestly not exactly sure what the problem is with the display - maybe use screen magnifier if you're struggling to see it? I've never had any problems.

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.

Awesome to see it's on Steam - as it grows it'll really help keep the interest up in one place I'm sure!

[pat]

New version up: https://patjw.itch.io/theredprison



Major changes are the inclusion of level 3 wizard spells fireball and lightning bolt, the introduction of a character level cap of 10 to reduce the scope of the game to something more feasible for now, and the reworking of composition of various graphical tiles so that objects can be stacked on screen as well as a few other better looking effects.

Full change log:

* Implemented fireball spell. 3rd level wizard spell with radius of 3 squares, dexterity check for all targets in that radius with 8d6 damage on failed save and halved for successful save.

* Updated spellcaster AI so that mage companions can use the fireball spells if they are far enough away to be safe and no allies will get caught in the blast.

* Fixed bug where enemy archers projectiles weren't being animated.

* Fixed bug where actors out of sight would overwrite door squares.

* Added a 1 in 3 chance of kobolds, orcs and bandits in mobs to have a lit torch.

* Increased chance of spellcasters using shocking grasp and inflict wounds in combat to 50% per turn.

* Fixed bug where AI spellcasters weren't properly using spell slots.

* Fixed issued in compiled version where second console window opened for no reason.

* Added level cap of 10 so that focus can be put on those class features under the cap.

* Implemented lightning bolt spell - 3rd level wizard spell with a ray sent from caster, dexterity check for all targets in the way with 8d6 damage on failed save and halved for successful save. Still not finished because it needs to keep going until it hits a wall and this currently doesn't happen.

* Added transparency to custom tiles. Changed actors to be printed on another level to background and to effects so that they can be visually merged properly for a better graphical effect. Made a whole host of changes behind the scenes to do with different layers - now background is layer 0, actors, items and effects are layer 1, special effects are layer 2, and menus are layer 3. Items now stack on ground (!!!).

* Fixed bug in character creation where menus for high elf cantrip selection didn't clear properly.

* Fixed bug where last spell caused a crash when you hadn't cast anything yet.

[pat]

I've never played Incursion, but if from looking at those images, no, it is also too small.

I got this feedback elsewhere as well, so I've introduced another font for game info, the message log and menus.



It's really pretty complicated now with a number of different fonts in different sizes all working around each other - a base 8x8 ascii font for the small ascii mode, a 16x16 ascii font, an 8x16 font for text and a whole host of graphical tiles in both 12x12 and 16x16 for different uses. But despite the complexity, it seems to be working!

[( Tchey )]

Hi,

Just to say, it does run well via WINE on PC Linux.

However, it seems that the "Linux" build from itchio is not a Linux build, and i have to dig to local folder to then launch the .exe with WINE.

Also, is there a way to go fullscreen ? The current size is quite "small" compared to my screen (standard size, but still).

That, and with non qwerty keyboard (french bépo), i have some issue to actually playing the game, but that's something else.

[pat]

Thanks for the feedback. To be honest, the only reason I marked it as a Linux download was because someone directly asked me to. I’m glad to hear it’s working well for you though. I haven’t even considered full screen yet but leave it with me!

[( Tchey )]

"Someone" could be me, as i asked about a Linux version on itchio.

Fullscreen would be (very) neat.

[pat]

This week was spent entirely on playtesting, UI fixes and bugsquashing yet again. I had a few people playtesting for me and it was really helpful to try and find a few odd things that were going on, particurly with areas of the game that I don't often replay. I'm pretty happy to say that I haven't had a crash or other issue come up in the last few hours of playtesting and my playtesters are saying the same. I even implemented an autoplay mode on top of autoexplore which doesn't quite manage to play without issue yet but manages to automate a lot of the game which was helpful.

This is great timing because the game unlocks on Steam Early Access in about 22 hours from now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1074040/The_Red_Prison/

 It should be an interesting experience and I'm curious about how it's going to go because the game is still relatively immature but there's still a fair bit of content worth playing in my opinion. It'll always be free on all platforms and I've currently got about 50 wishlists for the game and I'll be trying to monitor things to make sure things don't horribly wrong once people are playing through Steam and I'll be keen to see what the stats end up looking like, which is something I have no idea about currently.

Moving forward from here, I think I'll keep trying to release unstable builds regularly on itch.io but perhaps hold back on the content which hasn't been tested from Steam so that version is always stable. I've started planning for the next arc of development which is the addition of more dungeon features, encounters and complex traps. And what I mean by complex traps is something like the player exploring an old church and stumbling onto a pressure plate which locks the door and releases a group of ghouls. I don't think I'll implement traditional traps which just cause damage but hopefully they'll all incorporate the environment like that and make for some fun!

Full change list:

* Implemented a rough autoplay for testing purposes. It's commented out in public builds but it combines autoexplore with invincibility and autofight.

* Fixed bug with error in tile setting for chimera.

* Fixed bug with accidental doubling up of fighting styles at level up to 10 for fighters.

* Fixed bug with shocking grasp causing crash.

* Fixed bug with displaying armour character in non-default font in bearlibterminal.

* Updated character creation so that you can restart at any time and continue creating a character.

* Fixed number of player avatars with overly transparent backgrounds.

* Added heavy armour proficiency to all clerics to reflect that they are all Life domain.

* Made sure that previous saved games are deleted upon player death.

* Fixed bug where converted bandit archers would not use ranged attacks as allies.

* Updated character creation so if you press escape on the first menu, you're back to the main menu.

[pat]

"Someone" could be me, as i asked about a Linux version on itchio.

Fullscreen would be (very) neat.

By the way, fullscreen is implemented by default in bearlibterminal I realised - it's still undocumented in the game but alt-enter will do it and it works pretty well with small ascii in particular in my view.

[pat]

I had some really frustrating issues with the Steam Early Access launch where I had done everything right and the game was scheduled for release over the weekend. It announced to everyone that had wishlisted it that it was out but the store page didn't have a download link... there was a workaround through the steamdb website but it was really annoying to be unable to do anything about it until business hours Pacific time.

Turns out the issue was completely on Steam's end and the game was in a "unique release state" for unknown reasons which have now been fixed. So after all that, it's free for download on Steam at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1074040/The_Red_Prison/

[Mephansteras]

Oh, good. I was wondering what was up with that.

[pat]

I'm sure there's quite a few people who wishlisted the game and recveived an email that the game was now available but then not being able to see a download link on the Store page. No doubt some of these people might still be unaware that the game is available on Steam properly now.

The issue was made worse that the launch date was on a weekend (because it had to be one month after I signed up as a Steam partner) and technical help wasn't available until business hours Pacific time, which came around on a Tuesday morning where I live in Australia.

Apart from resolving those issues, I managed to resolve a couple of rare bugs identified by new users, and make some important changes to autoexplore which meant that it no longer sometimes had trouble dealing with doors and also made it stop whenever a new item was discovered so that important things weren't missed by the player.

Full changelog:

* Fixed bug which caused crash when pressed esc while targetting spiritual weapon.

* Fixed bug which caused crash when trying to set spell macros but not having any spells to choose from.

* Fixed problems with autoexplore dealing with doors - now the game just opens all doors when passing by them.

* Added additional stop to autoexplore whenever a new object is seen.

* Fixed bug which caused a crash when casting misty step and cancelling during casting.

* Made change to make sure that no bug would show up during casting and cancelling spiritual weapon.

* Amended healing prayer message to make it clear that up to 6 targets can be chosen.

* Amended aid and bless message to make it clear that up to 3 targets can be chosen.

[pat]

I tried to return to proper development this week after a month or so of being side-tracked from straight foward development. I actually found it a little bit hard to get back into coding after doing different things for a while and there were a couple of hours where my codebase felt a bit alien to me. Lesson to learn from that is to never take a break!

Main things that happened this week are:

* I finally received the finished product after paying an artist to create an image to use as cover art! I'm really happy with the result and I think it fits in well with the tradition from the original Rogue with cover art which doesn't resemble the game whatsoever!

* Custom names for player and for NPC's. During custom character creation you are still given a suggested name (and implied gender) but you can regrenerate this until you're happy or enter your own name. During the game, when giving orders to your allies, you can also choose to name them now as well.

* Reworking of the poison system. Before this I just lazily created a 'poisoned' condition which applied 1 hit point of damage per turn for a set number of turns. This didn't really reflect how poison works in the rules where there are a number of different poison types which instead apply damage instantly with various dice rolls to determine this, along with the chance of saving throw against variable difficulties with differing results if you succeed... there's a lot to deal with there from a programming point of view! But it's all implemented now and each monster with venom follows the rules as written in terms of how it's applied, how much damage it does, and whether you have a chance at a saving throw or not and what chance that is.

The poison rework actually has been a sorely needed buff for the rogue class because they start with a blowgun and poisoned needles. Needles only do 1 hit point of damage, but on top of that you add the dexterity bonus along with a possible sneak attack bonus and a further possible critical hit bonus AND now a further 1d4 poison damage. The end result is that rogues can dish out quite significant damage against poison vulnerable enemies right from the start of the game and it's even possible (although very hard) to play an effective solo rogue without a light source and specialise in hiding and sneak attacking from the shadows.

[Retropunch]

I tried to return to proper development this week after a month or so of being side-tracked from straight foward development. I actually found it a little bit hard to get back into coding after doing different things for a while and there were a couple of hours where my codebase felt a bit alien to me. Lesson to learn from that is to never take a break!

Main things that happened this week are:

* I finally received the finished product after paying an artist to create an image to use as cover art! I'm really happy with the result and I think it fits in well with the tradition from the original Rogue with cover art which doesn't resemble the game whatsoever!

* Custom names for player and for NPC's. During custom character creation you are still given a suggested name (and implied gender) but you can regrenerate this until you're happy or enter your own name. During the game, when giving orders to your allies, you can also choose to name them now as well.

* Reworking of the poison system. Before this I just lazily created a 'poisoned' condition which applied 1 hit point of damage per turn for a set number of turns. This didn't really reflect how poison works in the rules where there are a number of different poison types which instead apply damage instantly with various dice rolls to determine this, along with the chance of saving throw against variable difficulties with differing results if you succeed... there's a lot to deal with there from a programming point of view! But it's all implemented now and each monster with venom follows the rules as written in terms of how it's applied, how much damage it does, and whether you have a chance at a saving throw or not and what chance that is.

The poison rework actually has been a sorely needed buff for the rogue class because they start with a blowgun and poisoned needles. Needles only do 1 hit point of damage, but on top of that you add the dexterity bonus along with a possible sneak attack bonus and a further possible critical hit bonus AND now a further 1d4 poison damage. The end result is that rogues can dish out quite significant damage against poison vulnerable enemies right from the start of the game and it's even possible (although very hard) to play an effective solo rogue without a light source and specialise in hiding and sneak attacking from the shadows.

That cover art looks fantastic!!

I really like the tiles you have, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen if the same artist did tiles in a similar style. I imagine a visual overhaul with that level of graphics would make it definitely something people would buy on steam.