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[The Scout]

Does eating body parts only give good mutations?

[ChairmanPoo]

No. I dont think it's better than regular mutagen potions. Might be worse.

[Whales]

It's precisely the same.  In the future, limbs will give one mutation, while potions will give up to 3.

[The Scout]

And I forgot what file has the mutations in it. Halp?

[Sergius]

The reason the window version creates two windows is probably the same reason that DOSBox runs in two windows (unless explicitly using the "no console" option). It was probably compiled for win32 console, which basically deals with the actual console output of programs, even though it still allows you to create GUI elements like windows (in this case, a graphical PDCurses SDL window).

So yeah it's an (optional) windows thing. And the linux version just outputs straight to text. HOWEVER, removing it in Windows would probably get rid of any debug/error messages that aren't explicitly outputted via Curses by Whales.

[head]

It's just whoever compiled it messed up.

[GlyphGryph]

I intend to do so at some point, but it's a bit of a chore   Most of the time it's fairly obvious what killed you, so.

Not true. I haven't known what's killed me in... like... 10 deaths. Not counting the one where I purposely killed myself with fire. From the people I've talked to know, having any clue at all what killed you is actually less common than having no idea. :/

Also, Whales, I think the only problem with screens like the wait screen is that "space" is the cancel button for pretty much every other screen, isn't it? But for that one, it's different.

[Whales]

And I forgot what file has the mutations in it. Halp?

pldata.h, technically mutations are just traits like the ones you can start with.

Future plans include moving mutations to mutation.h, a half-completed file with mutation "families" such as aquatic, lizard-like, bird-like, etc., where possesing a mutation in any family increases your chances of a mutation in that family next time you mutate.
Also planned are "trees" of prerequisites and growth path; e.g. "rough skin" mutation can lead to "thick skin" or "fine scales," and the latter can then lead to "green scales," "red scales" with fire resistance, or "feathers."  And so on and so forth.

[G-Flex]

I noticed that the Asthmatic trait is pretty game-breaking. My asthmatic character couldn't even sleep for more than a couple hours before being woken up by an asthma attack. I get that the attacks probably should happen in the middle of the night sometimes, but not so reliably that it's basically impossible to sleep even if you just used your inhaler immediately prior to sleeping.

It's precisely the same.  In the future, limbs will give one mutation, while potions will give up to 3.

Also planned are "trees" of prerequisites and growth path; e.g. "rough skin" mutation can lead to "thick skin" or "fine scales," and the latter can then lead to "green scales," "red scales" with fire resistance, or "feathers."  And so on and so forth.

It's getting really obvious that you're taking some, er, inspiration, from Dungeon Crawl here. Pretty direct inspiration, actually! Seriously though, when you find yourself copying game mechanics so directly from such a different game, you might want to re-examine how you're doing things. Same with the "boomer"; I've never even played Left 4 Dead, but I immediately recognized it as being ripped straight out of that game.

[jc6036]

Dungeon Crawl is a great game, and I'm happy to see Whales taking some inspiration from it. It's not like Cataclysm is going to become "Dungeon Crawl: Zombie Stew" Or anything. You're not complaining or anything, are you?

[G-Flex]

Dungeon Crawl is a great game, and I'm happy to see Whales taking some inspiration from it. It's not like Cataclysm is going to become "Dungeon Crawl: Zombie Stew" Or anything. You're not complaining or anything, are you?

There's a difference between being inspired by another game's style or features, and directly copying mechanics from it. Liking how Crawl does mutations and taking inspiration from that is far different from copying a specific mechanic like "eating mutagenic body parts gives you 1 mutation and using a mutation potion gives you up to 3" and "scale mutations start off generic but then develop into specific colors and styles that grant resistances and properties of their own". It's the difference between inspiration and "inspiration".

Am I complaining? I don't know. I think that it's a pretty bad way to go about development, so I'm mentioning it now before it (potentially) gets out of hand. If you like how another game does something, then consider it, and why it works, and find out how those principles may or may not apply to your own game, then design some implementation that works well for your game. You should never directly copy something from another game just because it works in that game; you should always try to come up with an implementation of your own. I'm probably coming off as a little more harsh than I want to be here, but I figured the game is in early enough development that it's worth discussing these things.


Personally, I'd prefer if the game didn't have these fantasy-style "mutations" at all, and radiation just messed up your body in a more quasi-realistic fashion. We already have bionics for body modification (so the functionality is kind of redundant), and I feel like growing fire-resistant skin or wings because you sat in a pool of nuclear waste just... doesn't really suit this game's genre or style well.

[jc6036]

Well, you know, we are talking about a cinematic style game here full of not just zombies, but robots, burrowing worm things, and various other monsters. Plus, I think that the form of radiation recieved is somewhat specific to the story, which would them kind of make sense.

[G-Flex]

That may be true, but I still think that, from a gameplay point of view, it's redundant given that we already have bionic body modifications, which can (with the right flavor) account for virtually anything that mutations can. It also makes your character's starting Traits a little less meaningful if they can be cured/gained during gameplay (not to mention that calling them all genetic mutations is kind of weird to begin with).

[jc6036]

I see your point, but on the other hand, bionics aren't always an option from the start, and mutations are often bad. While it is true that they both provide the same benefits, a melee character with robust genetics would have a much easier time mutating him self than trying to do self surgery. On that note, all characters should have some sort of chance to get those gameplay boosts, instead of just the hyper intelligent ones. However, when NPCS are back in, the whole situation could prove problematic, what with bionic installations possibly being easy to come by. But then, changing the mutations to something that couldn't be possible to get thorough bionics, or vice versa, would be unfair to different characters with different skill sets.   

[G-Flex]

Is that really unfair? The point of having different skillsets is that you have different options available to you. If the same things are available to everyone no matter what skills they have, then the choice in skillset becomes meaningless.