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7DRL success : pyromancer !

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jice

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Mar 6, 2009, 7:42:30 PM3/6/09
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I won't be able to work on it tomorrow, so I'll stop now.
I call it a success but it's a lot smaller than I wanted. I intended
to have 3 spells and as much creature types, I have one spell (with
interesting variations though) and one creature type...

So I think it's a half-success in term of achievement, but a success
in term of gameplay. Of course, with such a limited range, it's a
rather boring hack-and-slash game (especially the boss fight which is
a pain for the fingers...). While the mouse control still needs some
polishing (mainly to lower the number of clicks..), it is compelling
and I definitely think we can do much deeper games using such a
minimalist/immediate/intuitive interface.

I'm also very satisfied with the subcell graphics. They're perfect for
cave lighting, tough I'm not sure it would be possible to use them in
fullscreen except on very recent computers. Pyromancer ! runs fine on
a Athlon 2800+ but it might not run very well on slower computers.

windows/linux downloads :
http://code.google.com/p/pyromancer/downloads/list

source code :
http://code.google.com/p/pyromancer/source/browse/#svn/tags/7DRL

PS : while playing, you can change the font size with PAGEUP/PAGEDOWN.

--
jice

jice

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Mar 6, 2009, 8:47:52 PM3/6/09
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There are also some hot(!) screenshots here :
http://thedoryenlibrary.appspot.com/projects/pyro

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jice

Nik Coughlin

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Mar 6, 2009, 9:39:42 PM3/6/09
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"jice" <jice....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4b2bbd57-c6b3-42b7...@v38g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...

>I won't be able to work on it tomorrow, so I'll stop now.
> I call it a success but it's a lot smaller than I wanted. I intended
> to have 3 spells and as much creature types, I have one spell (with
> interesting variations though) and one creature type...
>
> So I think it's a half-success in term of achievement, but a success
> in term of gameplay. Of course, with such a limited range, it's a
> rather boring hack-and-slash game (especially the boss fight which is
> a pain for the fingers...). While the mouse control still needs some
> polishing (mainly to lower the number of clicks..), it is compelling
> and I definitely think we can do much deeper games using such a
> minimalist/immediate/intuitive interface.

Very cool... but, crashed during the boss battle :(

bren...@gmail.com

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Mar 6, 2009, 10:18:11 PM3/6/09
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That was a lot of fun, more then I expected from your desciption :-)

I also crashed at the boss fight though, I think it happened right as
I got the last spell upgade I could.
I was playing on the windows build.

Matt B

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Mar 6, 2009, 10:58:44 PM3/6/09
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Very interesting, although the controls will definitely need work.
I've played a game that is very similar in playstyle called Merlin's
Revenge, and I think using its control scheme would be a vast
improvement. It uses arrow keys for movement while retaining the mouse
for aiming. This would fix two of my complaints which were that I
couldn't more while casting spells (or perhaps this is deliberate),
and that having both movement and a spell on the right click is
terrifying.

The game also crashes when you pick up every single upgrade. I should
have figured that might happen, but I had to try.

Xecutor

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Mar 7, 2009, 2:11:12 AM3/7/09
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On 7 мар, 06:42, jice <jice.nos...@gmail.com> wrote:

Looks very nice.
But IMHO too easy.
I descended to lvl8, found big M (boss?), killed it.
Found some amulet and ... that's all.
I traversed level several times and didn't found an exit.

jice

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Mar 7, 2009, 4:49:33 AM3/7/09
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> .. crash and bugs reports

Aw weird. I finished both windows and linux versions of the game
before releasing it. Looks like I'll have to release a 0.1.1.
So long, bugs reported are :
* crash when picking up a power-up on some systems
* crash during boss fight on some system (may be the same as above)
* victory screen not triggered when picking up the amulet

Did anyone manage to finish the game or I am alone.. ? :/

--
jice

jlund3

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Mar 7, 2009, 2:04:57 PM3/7/09
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I finished the linux version with no crashes. The victory screen
didn't get triggered right after beating the boss. So I wandered
around a bit wondering if there was a stair case or something. Finally
I went back to were the boss had died and the victory screen showed
up. Even with these random bugs, in my opinion this is one of the
better 7drl I have seen. Nice work!

Jotaf

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Mar 7, 2009, 2:13:09 PM3/7/09
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On 7 Mar, 09:49, jice <jice.nos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Did anyone manage to finish the game or I am alone.. ? :/

*SPOILER* I finished it on my first try. I took a long while exploring
the levels and patiently killing everything, at first, but around mid-
game when I had all the upgrades I just explored madly and went for
the exit as soon as I found it :P The boss was not too innovative
gameplay-wise, but I had to cast tons of incinerating spells because
of the spawns so it was kinda cool. I also think the graphical effects
there are very awesome. Maybe the boss could move around more? It
teleported away sometimes but IMO it could be made more frequent.

Yeah, and no crashes or glitches at all on WinXP. Nicely done!! ;)

Jotaf

curtmackevo

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Mar 7, 2009, 6:30:10 PM3/7/09
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I finished it just fine.

I agree with Matt that the controls need work. I also have a few other
complaints. First, rooms shouldn't spawn with invisible walls at the
edges of the map. Second, the fire effects shouldn't fade with
distance (especially not for a spell called "Incandescence"). Finally,
the game needs a pause feature.

Otherwise, this is a really high quality game. Props.

jice

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Mar 8, 2009, 5:13:37 PM3/8/09
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Thanks. In fact, there is a pause. Just hit space to pause/resume.
Thanks for all your feedback, and especially people who provided
feedback on the intermediate releases.
I'll take all remarks into account and I hope to come back soon with a
new version.

--
jice

jice

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Mar 13, 2009, 10:15:17 PM3/13/09
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And now a video on youtube if you don't want to install it or if it
crashes on your platform :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf8qC9DcxHA

and a MAC OS X version courtesy of Michael De Rosa :
http://code.google.com/p/pyromancer/downloads/list

--
jice

munk...@yahoo.com

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Mar 15, 2009, 5:39:04 PM3/15/09
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the game crashed for me shortly after beating the boss and getting the
amulet - I tried to pick up a scroll and the game crashed, I am not
sure if this is a result of getting a scroll when I have the amulet,
or if I just picked up too many scrolls, since I think I had maxed out
the spells.
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