status of developement ?

[Norbert Belthäuser]

hello !

its now been a year since the last Newspost on the official webpage. i
just want to ask, whether there is active developement going on right
now ?

to me, Incursion is one of the best computer games (computer games,
not just roguelikes!!!!) i have EVER played. especially since i am
overly sick of the fastfood-attitude of modern "mainstream" computer
games, especially RPGs.
with 0 complexity or freedom of choice regarding character
developement, strategy etc.

even in its current version,as-is ("promo game"), i have spent many
hours, nights, days playing Incursion. no game, not even Dwarf
Fortress, can top its replayability and depth of play. i am really,
really looking forward to the final version, with overland map etc. it
would for sure be the game #1 of all times for me !

thus, i wanted to ask, whether there is still active developement. or
- if this is not the case anymore - if it is possible, that the
sources are disclosed at some point in the future.
if, however, the game is still being developed, or if it just a
"temporary standstill", id love to contribute with a donation.

i hope you understand my terrible english

greets

[Radojičić Đurađ]

Hi there,

There was many mentions about that on this mailing list and Incusrion is
developed. There are some delays but the game is not death at all.

Read it here:
https://groups.google.com/group/incursion/browse_thread/thread/6e32c084d6ab6254

[Journeyman]

Incursion is still being actively developed; it's my
primary hobby -- it's just very large and takes a long
time.

I would say there are four primary stages of the "big
revision" -- the first, getting the script compiler and
development tools to work, has thankfully been fully
done for about eight months now. It took a really long
time to get there, but I can now write pages-long
functions and scripts in my own language and trust my
compiler and bytecode VM to build and execute them
correctly.

Stage two is what I'm on right now -- rewriting and
refactoring the basic game mechanics that support the
whole game. I think I'm about half through, or maybe
a third of the way. Not truly sure.

Stage three is the fun bit -- adding all the specific
cases and resources: classes, races, monsters, dungeon
features, magic items, etc. and the special case scripts
that support them. I have HUGE plans for this, but this
part is also easy to scale down if need be.

Stage four is revision, testing, debugging, play-
testing and so forth.

The game isn't playable right now, but I have coded a
lot of things that work well recently:
* I refactored the character gen and level-up process to
use a standard query system and hierarchial data
structure for all the things you select in character
generation (race, class, alignment, subclass, feats,
skills, etc. -- with even more options planned in new
Incursion than the original game). This is very close
to done and actually worked out really well.
* Completely rewrote the text presentation engine to
support complex message filtering and more robust
logging and journaling with a better GUI for reviewing
messages if you have a dozen companions or are otherwise
inundated with text in the current game.
* Rewrote the basic game loop to use actual d20 initiative,
action types and round structure, and restructured the
GUI to suit players running a whole party of characters
rather than a single avatar (though solo play is still
very supported).
* Rewrote both the effect/spell manager window and the
skill manager to be much more flexible and robust.
* Added support for D&D-style spell preparation and Vancian
fire-and-forget spellcasting, with minor tweaks to be
more suitable for roguelikes. The GUI allows the player
to re-prepare spell lists automatically, maintain
multiple spell lists for different situations and apply
megamagic both at prep time (for wizards) and at casting
time (for sorcerers). So it replicates D&D spellcasting
much more closely now.
* Built a much more complex and configurable key binding
system, so that players can bind any command in the
game to different keystrokes and set up the keyboard
however they want.

There's also a lot of work being done toward the idea
that the Incursion variant of the d20 rules will be
usable both for the roguelike game and as a variant of
D&D for tabletop gaming, but revised for balance and
playability -- and yes, I know everyone has an OGL d20
variant of their own these days, but if I'm writing
the rules for the roguelike anyway, why not go this
direction? I feel I have some really original mechanical
ideas to bring to the table here, anyway.

So yeah, I know from the outside perspective it looks
like Incursion is stone-dead, but it is actively being
worked on. I'm not saying a lot, because I know release
is some indistinct long-time away and so I'm actively
not stirring up interest or frustrating people -- but
work is being done steadily.

-- Julian Mensch
Incursion Developer

[Lmaoboat]

I think this is one of the best roguelikes out there, such a shame it
has hide in shadows maxed out.

[Geoff Zop]

Good to hear. I quit playing it more than a year ago, and decided to
try it again, but I found that the version hadn't been updated since.

As I played, I kept thinking to myself that the way inventory is
handled is quite like Omega... but that game seems too lesser-known to
be possible. I just noticed today that the title screen gives credits
to the game! Anyway, keep on keep-on-ing, you have another fan
waiting.

On Nov 2, 7:33 am, Journeyman <jmen...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>   Incursion is still being actively developed [...]

[Elethiomel]

> * Rewrote both the effect/spell manager window and the
>   skill manager to be much more flexible and robust.
> * Added support for D&D-style spell preparation and Vancian
>   fire-and-forget spellcasting, with minor tweaks to be
>   more suitable for roguelikes. The GUI allows the player
>   to re-prepare spell lists automatically, maintain
>   multiple spell lists for different situations and apply
>   megamagic both at prep time (for wizards) and at casting
>   time (for sorcerers). So it replicates D&D spellcasting
>   much more closely now.

I notice you say you added support - is this going to be optional, or
is this going to be the only way spellcasters work after the revamp?
In either case, is it possible through the new spell manager to set up
"spell sets" that can be cast in quick succession with few keypresses?
I ask because the reason I give up on most of my attempts to play the
Neverwinter Nights games is that buff management is tedious and time-
consuming.

[Journeyman]

> I notice you say you added support - is this going to be optional, or
> is this going to be the only way spellcasters work after the revamp?

It's not optional, but there are classes (mage, cleric)
which cast from a list of prepared spells that they can
re-prep every day, and other (sub)classes that cast from
a fixed known list based on a fatigue pool (sorcerer,
oracle, etc.) So you can avoid spell prep if you don't
like it.

> In either case, is it possible through the new spell manager to set up
> "spell sets" that can be cast in quick succession with few keypresses?

Yes. You can set up multiple spell lists, name them and
select which one is active and will be automatically prepared
after resting. It's very user-friendly and strategic, and I
hope the whole interface will be better the second time
around.

> I ask because the reason I give up on most of my attempts to play the
> Neverwinter Nights games is that buff management is tedious and time-
> consuming.

I agree. Real-time d20 does not work, especially not as NWN
set up spell preparation. Hopefully Incursion's interface will
be a lot more usable in practice.

-- Julian Mensch

[Elethiomel]

> > In either case, is it possible through the new spell manager to set up
> > "spell sets" that can be cast in quick succession with few keypresses?
>
>   Yes. You can set up multiple spell lists, name them and
> select which one is active and will be automatically prepared
> after resting. It's very user-friendly and strategic, and I
> hope the whole interface will be better the second time
> around.
>

I feel like we're talking past each other here; I was referring to a
subset of memorised spells that could be cast all in one go (taking
the requisite number of turns) without selecting each spell to be cast
individually at casting time.

Say, for a wizard, setting up Mage Armor, Fox's Cunning, Detect Secret
Doors in a "buff list" and then casting them all in succession through
entering, say, (C)ast, (B)uffs, (A) - 'general exploration', once. And
then modifying those buff lists as more spells are gained, so you
wouldn't have to cast each individually every time you'd rested.

[Journeyman]

> I feel like we're talking past each other here; I was referring to a
> subset of memorised spells that could be cast all in one go (taking
> the requisite number of turns) without selecting each spell to be cast
> individually at casting time.
>
> Say, for a wizard, setting up Mage Armor, Fox's Cunning, Detect Secret
> Doors in a "buff list" and then casting them all in succession through
> entering, say, (C)ast, (B)uffs, (A) - 'general exploration', once. And
> then modifying those buff lists as more spells are gained, so you
> wouldn't have to cast each individually every time you'd rested.

Yes, we have "buff sets" too, and they're separate from
memorized spell lists (and a lot simpler). There's already
a simple AutoBuff in currently-released-Incursion -- you
select your buffs in Spell Manager and then mark them, and
there's a key to cast them all at once, and the status line
shows whether they're all up, some up or none-up.

The new game is a bit more complex, because your AutoBuff
might consist of the mage casting /enlarge/ on the fighter
and /improved invisibility/ on the thief while the cleric
casts /divine favor/ on himself, /bless/ on everybody and
has the rogue use a wand of /stoneskin/ on him. And the
player has to be able to do all these characters' actions
with one keystroke, but only those that aren't up already
in case some but not all get dispelled.

This is not fully coded, yet, but will 100% certain be
there in the final game, and a lot of the support code is
already written. And yes, like with memorized spells, you
will get to make multiple lists of buffs for different
situations, name them and switch between them.

-- Julian Mensch

[Lmaoboat]

I noticed you mentioned something about casting buffs on party
members, is the interface going to better support controlling several
characters? In my experience, very few games make controlling party
members intuitive unless they were designed for that for the ground
up. I think tactically paced games like Pool of Radiance did it best.

[Holsety]

The nice thing about Pool of Radiance was that your party was a single entity as long as you were not in combat. When maze crawling it was as if you were controlling but a single character. Most roguelikes with multiple characters I´ve played so far have you micromanaging all of your characters' movements all the time; stay close to me, no don't go there, stand behind that guy etc etc. It gets mildly irksome, especially when there's a speed difference.

Luckily Incursion had that one feat where your party uses the PCs movement speed AND the System Option (one of the best things about Incursion, so many options!) called Wait for Companion.

(For nostalgia's sake, Evets: The Ultimate Adventure was a roguelike with a pretty unique take on having multiple characters.)

[Journeyman]

We already have a multi-character GUI support. The way
it works is that you control one character at once and
use TAB to switch between them. Out of combat, all the
other characters are controlled by the AI, and take one
step for every step you take, with your out-of-combat
move limited to the slowest in the party. In combat,
each character acts separately in initiative order and
can move up to their move rate and take combat actions
like in d20. I think it will be quite elegant, but there
isn't enough "game" there yet to really test it. You
can tab around as much as you want to view character
sheets and such, but in combat your characters don't
act out of initiative order.

As a visual aide to the player, the controlled character
is the only creature displayed as '@', while the other
party members can be displayed as numbers or as glyphs
normal for their monster type, at the player's elective.

[Lmaoboat]

Another question, if you don't mind the unsolicited Q&A. What are
plans concerning the overworld? Is it going to be a sort of randomized
Elder Scrolls sort of thing with random dungeons with varying sizes
and different themes (Like the rooms in the current game)? I think the
main problem I ran into with Goblin King version is that I got
fatigued after a certain amount of levels, and the hordes of enemies
made it feel almost like Diablo sort of game. I'd love to see ancient
dwarven cities, jungle ruins, desert tombs, wizard towers, and that
sort of thing.

[Priority7]

Do you have plans to allow a party member to separate from the rest of
the party, while still remaining under player control, outside of
combat? I, for one, would appreciate the ability for the sneaky member
of my party to scout ahead, and I'm sure there are a ton of other uses
we would come up with for something like that.

[Journeyman]

On Dec 17, 3:56 am, Lmaoboat <lmaob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Another question, if you don't mind the unsolicited Q&A. What are
> plans concerning the overworld? Is it going to be a sort of randomized
> Elder Scrolls sort of thing with random dungeons with varying sizes
> and different themes (Like the rooms in the current game)? I think the

Truth is, I haven't looked at anything overworld-related in
more than a year now. It's still a planned element of the game,
but my focus has really been on getting the game engine back to
a state that makes it actually playable as a game -- casting
spells, trading blows with monsters, summoning creatures, etc.
-- but using the new mechanics, backbone and much deeper data
structures. It's taking a long time.

The overworld will not be technically complex. Initial plan
for release is "something like Omega", with weather effects,
challenge ratings for different geographic areas and so forth.
It will *probably* be randomly generated. I'm not familiar
with the Elder Scrolls games at all -- I downloaded the old,
free ones from Bethesda's site but never get to play them. (I
never want to start any time-consuming games because it takes
time away from working on Incursion.)

I am developing the background and the setting of the world
overall, and it has defined, fixed nations and cultures with
human-written characteristics -- you'll be able to pick a
culture for your human characters in the final game. But I
don't think the roguelike will end up being set in the areas
of those defined nations, but rather in a region called the
Vatic Wastes where there are no maps, the kind-of frontier
land of Therya, which can credibly be random-generated.

This is all still up-in-the-air at this point, though.
There's a reason I say release is probably about two years
off all the time.

> main problem I ran into with Goblin King version is that I got
> fatigued after a certain amount of levels, and the hordes of enemies
> made it feel almost like Diablo sort of game. I'd love to see ancient
> dwarven cities, jungle ruins, desert tombs, wizard towers, and that
> sort of thing.

This is definitely planned. There may still be one "fruit
salad" dungeon in new!Incursion that feels like the one in
old!Incursion, but smaller, more contained and tightly
themed locales are planned to be the norm.

[Journeyman]

> Do you have plans to allow a party member to separate from the rest of
> the party, while still remaining under player control, outside of
> combat? I, for one, would appreciate the ability for the sneaky member

It would be impossible not to allow it with the way
the game is currently written.

There are some party-based conceptual hassles still to
work out. Currently, the game goes into combat-time when
any member of your party gets into combat, so your scout
gets attacked and, three rooms away, the rest of your
party rolls initiative and starts taking combat actions.
This may change, of course.

100% sure it will be possible to tell one or more party
members to stay in a safe locale, and send the others
elsewhere on the map.

Not sure yet how it will work if you want to send some
party members to a different game map (i.e., some people
go down stairs, others don't). It might require some kind
of telepathic bond effect between party members to allow
that. There's no real engine-barrier to it as the code
is currently written, though.

[Hihepux]

Is there any timeframe we can expect for the next update to come out?
From how it sounds your kind of retooling the entire game as it stands
so it doesn't seem like it will be quick patch for your next update
but even if its something as simple as, "Short of development snares,
expect between MONTHX and MONTHY" or "Sometime in Mid 201X?"

[Priority7]

>   There are some party-based conceptual hassles still to
> work out. Currently, the game goes into combat-time when
> any member of your party gets into combat, so your scout
> gets attacked and, three rooms away, the rest of your
> party rolls initiative and starts taking combat actions.
> This may change, of course.

For what it's worth, I have no problem with the way you just described
being the way it works in the game. There should be some element of
danger to scouting ahead, in my opinion.

>   Not sure yet how it will work if you want to send some
> party members to a different game map (i.e., some people
> go down stairs, others don't). It might require some kind
> of telepathic bond effect between party members to allow
> that. There's no real engine-barrier to it as the code
> is currently written, though.

I hadn't thought about having party members on different maps. I
should know by now that you're already working on potential problems
that haven't even occurred to me. Thank you for taking the time to
answer our questions, by the way. I know it takes time away from
programming, but it's nice to have occasional confirmation that the
game is still in development.

[Journeyman]

> Is there any timeframe we can expect for the next update to come out?
> From how it sounds your kind of retooling the entire game as it stands
> so it doesn't seem like it will be quick patch for your next update
> but even if its something as simple as, "Short of development snares,
> expect between MONTHX and MONTHY" or "Sometime in Mid 201X?"

By update, you mean "first new release", not "post about how
things are going", right?

There is no timeframe except "far away". I set timeframes in
the past and missed them not only by a few months but by a
really spectacular degree -- my mind doesn't really work in
terms of schedules longer than a year, and I work full time
and have some health problems and other concerns. Prediction
is really impossible.

"Release in two years" is a REALLY OPTIMISTIC guess. I don't
do dates anymore because all they do is pressure me, disappoint
others and increase potential burnout factor. I'm really glad
I chose to write a roguelike rather than a graphical game, as
the technology doesn't date. :)

[Journeyman]

> I hadn't thought about having party members on different maps. I
> should know by now that you're already working on potential problems
> that haven't even occurred to me. Thank you for taking the time to
> answer our questions, by the way. I know it takes time away from
> programming, but it's nice to have occasional confirmation that the
> game is still in development.

It sure is. I'll be offline from this Friday until after
New Years, though, to focus on coding. Just FYI. But I will
answer anything posted sometime in 2012, even if it takes
me a few days to notice.

[Journeyman]

>   There are some party-based conceptual hassles still to
> work out. Currently, the game goes into combat-time when
> any member of your party gets into combat, so your scout
> gets attacked and, three rooms away, the rest of your
> party rolls initiative and starts taking combat actions.
> This may change, of course.

To clarify what I meant here -- it's not a problem
that the rogue can get spotted and ambushed three
rooms away from the rest of the party. The problem
is that the rest of the party has to use the more
tactical/awkward movement system of combat movement
to navigate to where the rogue is one by one, and also
rolls initiative when they have no in-world way of
knowing combat has started.

[Elethiomel]

On Dec 21 2011, 10:49 pm, Journeyman <jmen...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>   To clarify what I meant here -- it's not a problem
> that the rogue can get spotted and ambushed three
> rooms away from the rest of the party. The problem
> is that the rest of the party has to use the more
> tactical/awkward movement system of combat movement
> to navigate to where the rogue is one by one, and also
> rolls initiative when they have no in-world way of
> knowing combat has started.

How are you going to handle teleportation spells like Dimension Door
that can bring several people with it in these instances? I mean,
sure, game mechanically the wizard can Dim-Door the rest of the party
into the room where the rogue is, but "in character" they would as you
say not have any idea that the character is even in combat, nor where
they are... unless we get some sort of magical telepathic
communication dingus (and this is IMO a brilliant way for high-level
parties to stealthily get through an area... if they have some way to
communicate).

[Journeyman]

> How are you going to handle teleportation spells like Dimension Door
> that can bring several people with it in these instances? I mean,
> sure, game mechanically the wizard can Dim-Door the rest of the party
> into the room where the rogue is, but "in character" they would as you
> say not have any idea that the character is even in combat, nor where
> they are... unless we get some sort of magical telepathic
> communication dingus (and this is IMO a brilliant way for high-level
> parties to stealthily get through an area... if they have some way to
> communicate).

The current design isn't to block or even discourage any tactical
metagaming on the player's part -- if your rogue gets in trouble,
the wizard can dimension door in to help him. There's really no
way to prevent that, and I don't want to frustrate people trying.
In fairness, a lot of the AI's knowledge is group-level too --
when one member of a group of monsters casts a spell on a player
that has a Fortitude save, they all learn what his save is and
judge odds accordingly. At least, that's the (as yet uncoded)
plan.

The game can identify a group broken up into sub-groups and who
is in what. In theory, when subgroup A gets in combat, you could
limit the player to only choosing actions for characters in
subgroup A until the combat finishes. But I'm not even sure I
want to do that.

I want to get the actual game dynamic working, with spells of
all the basic types (attack, buff, summon, curse, etc.), and
stuff like grappling, martial maneuvers, detailed combat, etc.
before I refine dynamics of gameplay like this, as I'll have a
much better idea what the "right" choices are then. But that's
still a ways off.

[Anthony F]

Just how detailed of combat are you planning? Are we talking Dwarf Fortress level detail, or the same as oldIncursion? Maybe somewhere in between?

[Journeyman]

On Jan 9, 10:50 pm, Anthony F <ashna...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just how detailed of combat are you planning? Are we talking
> Dwarf Fortress level detail, or the same as oldIncursion?
> Maybe somewhere in between?

Very detailed. Incursion has always been a detail-
oriented game, and that hasn't changed now -- so, as
much detail as I can manage to add while keeping the
game fun and playable.

I'm not familiar enough with Dwarf Fortress to say
how the combat will differ -- I played it a bit years
back, but kept away because I didn't want to rip it
off.

I tend to think of old!Incursion combat as being
very detailed, between the maneuvers and grappling,
weapons, feats, attacks of opportunity, polymorph
abilities, stati like trip and stun being caused by
weapons and so forth. What detail were you thinking
of in DF that isn't in Incursion?

There are new combat things planned for new!Incursion,
loosely inspired by a D&D supplement called "Book of
Nine Swords". This is mostly in the area of martial
characters having special named moves, martial arts
styles and being able to compose an attack out of
different base components just like mages add
metamagic effects to spells. There's also some specific
injuries and side effects from criticals and elemental
damage planned, and a more realistic injury system
dividing hit points into two categories -- one for
battering and bruises that you heal naturally and
rapidly, and another for serious injuries that are
a serious problem.

[Elethiomel]

If you've played IVAN and experienced its limb loss mechanic, Dwarf
Fortress is like that but on steroids.

Dwarf Fortress has a detailed descriptive system of combat that also
terminally affects its mechanical combat system. It has data entries
for most of the organs in the body, the skeleton, and the skin. Of all
creatures. So when someone stabs someone else with a spear, it can
hit, say, the head. If the hit does enough damage it might crack the
skull, ruin the eye, the mouth, the brain... any number of things. And
all these organs, bones, skin have "nerve counts" that affect how much
pain a creature feels when that part is damaged. A damaged organ will
also affect creatures, so someone with a ruined leg can't stand up,
someone with a damaged stomach will have extreme nausea, someone with
a ruined brain will die, and so on. It is highly detailed, highly
strange, and highly volatile. I do not recommend emulating it in a
roguelike where persevering is supposed to be an option.

After all, the byword for Dwarf Fortress is, "Losing is Fun".

[Journeyman]

> If you've played IVAN and experienced its limb loss mechanic, Dwarf
> Fortress is like that but on steroids.

Oh, okay -- I get it.

Yeah, that does sound really neat, but not the direction
Incursion is going.

The current plan is for a more realistic combat system
that still allows cinematic toughness by making the
current Resilient feat basically standard, and then
making serious injury and healing a more serious and
difficult matter, with healing harder and potions a
lot rarer.

So in new!Incursion, you can theoretically get a limb
hacked off as the result of a specific injury generated
by a critical hit, but that's an odd and notable event --
most of the time damage is just hit point loss, and
even most specific injuries are things like internal
bleeding, a cracked rib, a facial scar or a mild
concussion. Things that make the game more difficult
without invoking comical, over-the-top gore.

The detail in Incursion combat is (excluding these
specific injuries) not as much about anatomy as about
strategy, tactics, positioning and martial arts.

[Elethiomel]

>   The current plan is for a more realistic combat system
> that still allows cinematic toughness by making the
> current Resilient feat basically standard, and then
> making serious injury and healing a more serious and
> difficult matter, with healing harder and potions a
> lot rarer.
>
>   So in new!Incursion, you can theoretically get a limb
> hacked off as the result of a specific injury generated
> by a critical hit, but that's an odd and notable event --
> most of the time damage is just hit point loss, and
> even most specific injuries are things like internal
> bleeding, a cracked rib, a facial scar or a mild
> concussion. Things that make the game more difficult
> without invoking comical, over-the-top gore.

I'm sure you're already aware of this, but I'd like to remind you
anyway - make sure to balance the numbers with regard to the amounts
of fights your average PC will get into. Opponents tend to last for 1
fight, PCs last for hundreds - so any rare event will
disproportionately affect PCs, especially if there's no way to play
conservatively to make sure it doesn't happen.

[Journeyman]

> I'm sure you're already aware of this, but I'd like to remind you
> anyway - make sure to balance the numbers with regard to the amounts
> of fights your average PC will get into. Opponents tend to last for 1
> fight, PCs last for hundreds - so any rare event will
> disproportionately affect PCs, especially if there's no way to play
> conservatively to make sure it doesn't happen.

Yeah, I know.

The plan isn't that injuries will be hard/impossible
to heal, just that they'll take some notable resources
and time to do so. So drinking a healing potion will
be a notable event rather than a "quaff 3-5 after every
fight" routine.

I can't balance numbers until I get the game remotely
playable as a game, and that's still a way off -- right
now I'm still working on the engine, GUI and mechanics
code. But everything will be finely tweaked later,
potentially after input from playtesters. Numbers are
easy to tweak once the basic frame of the game is in
place.

I expect there to be less, but more involved, fights
in new!Incursion -- controlling an entire party is a
bit more cumbersome, after all, so every combat has to
be worth the player's attention. There certainly won't
be lower levels clogged with hordes of enemies like in
the old game; the new AI is designed around running a
more limited number of enemies more intelligently
instead.

[math0ne]

WOW, I just want to say this all sounds amazing!

[Chris Petersen]

(Made a mistake on a new topic post earlier - if that shows up,
forgive me)

>   I expect there to be less, but more involved, fights
> in new!Incursion -- controlling an entire party is a
> bit more cumbersome, after all, so every combat has to
> be worth the player's attention. There certainly won't
> be lower levels clogged with hordes of enemies like in
> the old game; the new AI is designed around running a
> more limited number of enemies more intelligently
> instead.

Yet the game is still expected to be playable as a lone wolf?

Is there any plan to allow dungeon features, vaults, etc to be
designable by others? I'm sure there are people who'd be happy to add
content, such as is done with Crawl: Stone Soup (even though Incursion
is closed-source). This the quite a huge project for one person; I
wonder if there's any way the community can help other than
playtesting?

[Journeyman]

> Yet the game is still expected to be playable as a lone wolf?

Yes.

> Is there any plan to allow dungeon features, vaults, etc to be
> designable by others?  I'm sure there are people who'd be happy to add

Yes, the scripting language is user-friendly and I plan
to open that, at least, when the game is finished.

> content, such as is done with Crawl: Stone Soup (even though Incursion
> is closed-source).  This the quite a huge project for one person; I
> wonder if there's any way the community can help other than
> playtesting?

Not right now, but in the long term, definitely.

-- Julian Mensch

[Anthony F]

The Dwarf Fortress reference was an extreme example. DF basically emulates aimed attacks at body parts, with each body part having its own set of tissue layers which refer to actual material engineering numbers vs the weapons material and and momentum to determine layer penetration and resulting damage. To put it into perspective, the guy who develops the game is a mathmetician who loves detailed simulations.

Overall I would say a balance between game and simulation is best. Critical strikes chopping off limbs sounds fun, especially if there's a "Potion of limb regeneration" that's fairly rare. I can imagine running around frantically with one arm searching for magical limb regrowth.

Try not to let these special conditions snowball the player into loss. They should each present a challenge, but not add up to automatic loss if more than one or two are present.