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.

So theres a new public preview of my roguelike Caverns of Underkeep.

You can play it in your browser.

This version will be updated and changed as bug fixes come in. I’ll start working on the beta version once I’m ready to start building new stuff

Have fun!

The last feature that needs to be implemented (apart from some very minor stuff) before I declare Caverns of Underkeep Alpha 2.0 is some new spells.

The new spells in alpha 2.0 will be:

1. Meteor Shower - Deal damage to everything in a 3×3 area. (Yes, including the player if they’re not careful.)
2. Enquire – Find out how many hitpoints a selected enemy has left.
3. Freeze Time – Time stands still for 5 rounds, allowing you to move about freely. Spell is broken if you attack anything.
4. Telekinesis – Pick up items from a distance, and open/close doors from a distance too.

After this Alpha 2.0 release will be the first Beta version

Global highscore tables will not feature in Alpha 2.0, as there still exist some issues that I haven’t resolved to my complete satisfaction yet.

Edit: Looks like there will be another spell added to the next alpha – Bonus!

First post for the new year

I haven’t been working as hard as I should be on Caverns of Underkeep. Partially because the weather is really hot and partially because it’s hard to pick up work after the holiday season and mostly because I’ve been playing computer games

The alpha 2.0 build of Caverns of Underkeep is right on track for it’s release on the fifteenth of this month. I’ve moved a couple of features into the beta schedule and brought a few features forward – Either way it will be a far more complete representation of the final game than alpha 1.0 was.

I’ve added the last two levels to the dungeon (for a grand total of seven.) These last two levels are shorter than previous ones, with around half the number of monsters and about half of the explorable area, so really it’s more like adding one new level. I split it into two because I wanted to add two new geographies, a lava based level, and a er.. secret geography. You will just have to play the game to find out.

Content in the dungeons is basically done. There are over 40 different monsters for you to duke it out with. I’ll probably be adding more items and monsters and things as time goes by, but they are no longer a priority.

I have two months worth of summer holidays left, and the game has to be done before that time is up. So far so good

I’m back from doing the ol’ Christmas rounds with family, hope Santa was nice to everyone

I usually like to blog about things that I’ve done, rather than what I’m going to do – That way I don’t break any promises when I change my mind or if (when) things don’t turn out. It also serves the purpose that if I’m making a post it’s based on actual, real progress. Ya know, something tangable that I’ve actually done. But because I’ve been away – this post aint gonna be like that.

There are five things I need to get done before Caverns of Underkeep reaches alpha 2.0

1. Content. Pretty vague term really, more monsters, Items, ecologies, misc. stuff, art assets etc.. I’m going to be adding two more levels to the current five. Oh, and I’ve got a basic story outline to incorporate. I’m reasonably confident that the total depth of the dungeon will stay at seven levels, at least for a while.
2. Better enemy pathfinding by implementing the A* algorithm.
3. New Spells and spell effects – I’ve got around 5 or 6 spells to add. You’ll be able to access the new spells by increasing your intelligence.
4. Saving highscores to an online database.
5. The Inn – A new location in town, you’ll be able to rest and recover, gamble and do some other misc. things.

That’s it! Remember Jan 15 is the target date.

I’m going away for a little less than a week and I’m not going to have any internet access, so no working on Caverns of Underkeep and no updating the blog. For those of you testing the game, please still give feedback, I really do appreciate it, you can leave comments on the blog if you wish, I won’t be able to reply but I will be able to read them when I get back.

As for Underkeep news I’ve added the first mini-game, a very simple jumbled-up word-puzzle used to unlock chests that are randomly placed about the dungeon. It was pretty easy to add and I think it’s quite effective. Although I’m not sure about the hint system I’ve developed, because you can just brute force solve it – I’ll probably change it when I get back.

Another thing that I’ve been thinking about recently is the direction I want to take the game in – And I’ve come up with two main objectives.

1. Short playtime (approx 1 hour to beat, 2 would be absolute maximum)

2. High replayability

The way I see replayability working is that you get a different experience almost everytime, this is somewhat handled through random level generation and different classes\challenge modes but I think I can take it a little further.

For example, I want to introduce ecologies, meaning that a level might be infested with spiders or undead or Fire and Lava creatures. But you wouldn’t know until you played the game as to which you got and each ecology would have it’s own special strategies that work best against it. The level would have all the decals and features for the creatures inhabiting it of course.

That way I can still keep the depth of the dungeon small, but increase the chances that the game will be different each time you play.

Another thing I want to do is add heaps of secrets and easter eggs, I really liked it how in Kings Quest II there was some ridiculously small chance that you could see batman driving the bat-car in and out of a cave. A friend told me about it once and I thought he was lying because I’d never seen it – Turns out he wasn’t lying, just that the probability of seeing it is really, really small.

Edit: I’d just like to point out how much adding ecologys would effect random generation. Say I have 6 levels that each have 2 possible themes, then I have 2^6 = 64 unique combinations of a 6 level set. This number grows at an exponential rate. So if I have 3 possible themes for each level then I have 3^6 = 729 unique combinations. That means there would be a < 0.14% chance that you would get the same ecology combination as your last playthrough.