Update for Caverns of Underkeep.

I’m not an artist by any means so what you’re seeing is what I’d call passable programmer art. When you have no budget to hire someone you gotta do it yourself I suppose.

The images where made by first sketching on paper, and then taking a photo with a digital camera and loading it into Paint.Net – I then created a new layer and drew an outline of the original sketch. I couldn’t just use the original sketch as the pen lines where a bit messy and I drew the images on lined refil pad – Lesson learned.

I had to use a mouse to do the outlines, which was a bit hard and why the linework isn’t too smooth. If I plan on developing my artistic side a bit more I think I’ll have to invest in a graphics tablet.

Programming wise I’ve been reading up on PHP the last few days, so I can save game information into a mySQL database. I’d like to find out how many games of Caverns are being played and to what frequency the different character classes are being chosen etc.. I’m also going to start building the ‘Hall of Records’ soon which will be viewable in the town and will list high scores and other statistics.

The most frequent feedback I’ve received with regards to the game is that people really don’t like having to walk all the way back to town to sell their stuff – So I’ve added elevators. There’s one on every level (except for the last one) and you can travel between levels freely, provided you have already visited the level you want to travel to. This should cut down on commute times.

The date for the beta release is going to be fri 8th feb 2008.

I also want to start on a new project next month, I want to do something much shorter than Caverns – A two week project would be nice.

Some very cool person by the name of Christopher Barrett sent me this

Unfortunately it’s getting to the point where I’m starting to run out of room on the applet for people to thank, I might have to have an ‘additional thanks’ section on the Caverns of Underkeep webpage.

I’ve also been thinking about how to best record high scores… I’ve even been toying with the idea of only recording the names of people who actually finish the game and create a ‘Hall of Legends’ within the town. What do people think?

List of tasks that need to be completed before Beta 1.0 – Had a go doing some GUI work today, but I’m really bad at interface art. And unfortunately, because Caverns of Underkeep is a free game, my budget doesn’t extend to getting a professional to design the UI.

No target date for Beta 1.0 as of yet, will just try to get the game finished as soon as possible…

Priority 1

• Implement global high score database.
• Create Elevator on each level that allows you to go to any of the 6 levels.
• Redo UI graphics.
• Redraw NPC character portraits.
• Auto display the first letter of the wordchest puzzle and remove the hints button.

Priority 2

• Double Clicking item in the inventory should equip/use items.
• Buy multiple potions at a time from the healer.
• Add ‘curse’ spell to turn monster into doom bunny. Does not work on undead.
• Draw Ogre for player character selection.
• Add barbarian character class. +2 Str, +1 Endurance (cannot use magic.)
• Add a couple new weapons and items and monsters and stuff.

Bugs to fix

• Pressing ‘c’ to does not close spell book.
• Can go overweight by buying items.
• Fix shoot arrow animation algorithm (sometimes it’s a bit wonky.)

Is that everything? Or is there something that I’ve missed?

Spent yesterday recording some new SFX at a friends place – Again we did the usual hit-stuff-with-other-stuff; Play with the midi keyboard and make stupid noises into the mic – We even employed the use of a six-year old child to do some squeeky noises. (Sadly they won’t be making it into the game, but it was quite amusing none-the-less)

And I spent today doing more tweeks to the Alpha 2.x series including adding the new sounds. There is probably more work to do in this arena but as I mentioned before, it’s the first time I’ve had a go at making SFX, and it can be quite difficult imagining what the sound is going to be like before it’s put into context with the rest of the game. I wonder if anyone has written some good articles on sound effects creation for games – Heck, movie SFX design is probably very similar.

What I have discovered though, is that you almost never want an actual recording of what you are needing a sound effect for, but rather, an idealised, representational version of the SFX in question – Or, something?

I’m pretty sure Alpha 2.2 will be the last in the Alpha 2.x series. I have to start to work on things which are a bit less trivial than just adjusting parameters and twiddling values. Look out for my road to beta updates, coming soon!

I’ve fixed a bunch of bugs and things, thanks to everyone for their feedback, keep it coming.

I guess it should really be Alpha 2.1 now, but I’m too lazy to update the version number on the title screen graphic, perhaps I’ll do that tomorrow.

Fixes include:

• A nasty crash bug concerning a particlar magic item.
• Halved the prices of all the items, so now you can actually afford to buy stuff at the begining.
• Changed the weight of arrows to zero, so now you can carry as many of them as you want.
• Made the equipped items count towards your carry weight (whoops.)
• The healer in the healers shop actually heals you now
• Doubled the speed that the mana regen staffs work.
• + misc other stuff.

I’ve also recieved some good suggestions that will be compiled into my to-do list for Beta 1.0, I made the above changes because it they were fairly easy to do, and I figured people may as well have a better experience playing the game now rather than make them wait for the Beta version.