Some UI problems with lamdarouge 1.6

[Anders S Lindbäck]

First there is a bug that makes the game get into an eternal loop when entering
the Catacombs of Enoa -
How to activate bug:
- go to stairs down in temple and go down into catacombs
- if bug dont appear - just go up and go down again
until the game freezes when trying to make the catacombds maze
looks like the maze generation code has some infinite loop inside it.

I like the game but there are some thing in the UI that bugs me alot
and could be changed to make the game smoother to play:

- why can't I leave an dialogue ('t') with pressing Escape ? Most other windows
can be dismissed by pressing Esc.

- selecting items from inventory requires you to both enter a number and then press return.
most other rougelikes the inventory is letter so its just selecting one
letter - having to use 2-3 keystrokes with something that in other rougelikes
only takes 1 keystroke is someothing that I think needs to be fixed.

- why is there no letter for dropping items without having to go into inventory when
wanting to sell 'junk' ?

- the start of the game when trying to make your own character the game should
accept Esc key and go on to next part and not waste my time with showing the
same picture and text and forcing me to see them and read the text every
time I want to make a test a new character - its get very irritating having to see them
every time and slow down the game play alot.

- the quickstart characters are better then the ones you can make yourself
why is that ?

--
Anders S Lindb�ck, http://kunskapssamhallet.se/

[Mario Donick]

Hallo Anders,

thanks for your feedback.

>   - if bug dont appear - just go up and go down again
>     until the game freezes when trying to make the catacombds maze
>     looks like the maze generation code has some infinite loop inside it.

Never had this before. I will check.

> - why can't I leave an dialogue ('t') with pressing Escape ? Most other windows
> can be dismissed by pressing Esc.

Because I forgot to think about this when programming the
dialogues ;-) I will add this option.

> - selecting items from inventory requires you to both enter a number and then press return.
>     most other rougelikes the inventory is letter so its just selecting one
> letter - having to use 2-3 keystrokes with something that in other rougelikes
> only takes 1 keystroke is someothing that I think needs to be fixed.

I already thought about this one, but did not see this as a major
annoyance. PROBABLY I'll change it now.

> - why is there no letter for dropping items without having to go into inventory when
> wanting to sell 'junk' ?

I.e. you want to have a "sell" option in a shop?

> - the start of the game when trying to make your own character the game should
> accept Esc key and go on to next part and not waste my time with showing the
> same picture and text and forcing me to see them and read the text every
> time I want to make a test a new character - its get very irritating having to see them
> every time and slow down the game play alot.

You can press ESC to skip it. (The key press will be processed after
the blending of the current intro screen is finished.)

> - the quickstart characters are better then the ones you can make yourself
>     why is that ?

As I wrote in the quickstart guide ( http://lambdarogue.net/guide.html#starting
):

"In quickstart mode, you can choose one of four character presets,
which are pre-configured for a balanced play. [...] I suggest to start
in quickstart mode, if you never played LR: The Book of Stars before."

So quickstart chars are basically for new players or if you don't care
about your class, they are not meant to simply shorten character
creation.


Mario