Update 52 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.64

This is a small update (v0.1.8.64) that fixes a few bugs thrown by Alpha testers. Thanks for testing!!

Update Summary:
 Fixes bug loading dead spiders.
 Fixes bug when trying to remove walls on map edges.
 Fixes server request bug.  

Best Moments at GDC 2013

I finally was able to [kind of] attended GDC. I wasn't in any of the workshops or the exhibit, but I managed to go to some events that happen around the expo. A GDC ticket is still a hefty price to pay and given that I also work full time during the day I decided not to get a ticket this year and instead invest that money into the game. And I think that was a good idea: The after parties are excellent; there are events/parties on all topics related to games. People tweeted all over the place with invitations or where to rsvp. It's awesome to meet people from all over the world that all share that game development fever. I was also extremely happy to finally meet Andy aka JigxorAndy. He's making an awesome dungeon indie game called Dungeon Dashers which I've been following for a while now. He presented his game in the Indie Area at GDC and my goal is to be presenting there next year too. I met some people who could potentially do freelance sound and audio. But that's still developing.
The highlight of my week at GDC was meeting @Notch. There's a funny snapshot of us, I'm the dude on the left side, no not the one on the far left, but that guy behind my shoulder looks hilarious. I had to sneak up to the VIP area to meet Notch and I still can't believe that he walked away with my contact card in his jacket.

Thanks Notch for your generosity!
Lastly, Raven67854 made a Let's Play video of Dungeon Colony. That's a nice bonus since this entire week I haven't been able to work much on game code.

Now that GDC is over and the San Francisco's geek wave is calming down, I am also returning back to my dungeon and preparing to get back into coding.

Update 51 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.60

Hi everyone,

I just released a new update (v.0.1.8.60). This version refactors some code and introduces a new object, which I am very excited about: The Alchemy Bar.

The alchemy bar allows you to brew potions that your creatures can use when they are about to crap out. For now, you can make 3 kinds of potions - Health, Mana, and Stamina.
And to make highly magical potions you need to gather some tools and ingredients. First, you need glass flasks to bottle up the potions, second you need water to mix the dry ingredients and then you need mushrooms that provide the power to one of the three benefits. Glass flasks are made in the furnace. You can now add sand to the furnace which will produce the flasks in a 1 to 1 ratio. Once everything is combined it begins making the potions. The following screenshot shows the three potions (health, mana, stamina) and some empty glass flasks:

Select the Alchemy bar on the map to bring up the brewing window (lower left in the following screenshot). There you can see what ingredients you have already supplied and you can select the potions that have been brewed to transfer them some place else.

There is also new logic that goes along with the potions: Select one of your creatures and directly click on the potion icon next to the status bar in order to command the creature to drink a potion...

... if the creature has one in the inventory then it will be consumed immediately. Otherwise, the creature will go to find one in any container where you stored them. You can add them to your creatures inventory and use the lock button to lock them into place for when they may need them. That is, if in battle and health is too low, creatures will drink a health potion if they have one.

It's probably a good idea to store them in chests in areas where you can expect high enemy traffic. However, enemies are very eager to find potions and will steal them from you.

Though, I gotta say, I think i created more bugs than I fixed. So this version could be a bit buggy :-p. Plus there are many many small details that I want to fix/add, you may realize that while playing.

Please leave some feedback... till next time

Update 50 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.58

Woot - update 50!!!
Today's version increment goes up only by one notch to (v.0.1.8.58). That's because I've been working on the same feature without committing the code once.

After introducing water collection in the last version, you can now use water to cook a wholesome dungeon stew. The cooking pot introduced several updates ago can therefore be used to cook using any kind of food resources, water and wood to heat up the pot. Only when these three resources are combined will the pot produce the hearty stew. However, if you add just wood to the pot, then fire  will automatically start burning and producing light as a side effect. The wood burns much much slower than in the furnace lasting much longer since less heat is needed to cook as opposed to smelting. To load the pot with resources, select them and then right click on the pot.

The following screenshot shows the new Cooking-Pot Frame that opens when you select the cooking pot. There you can see what kind of resources you have already loaded into the pot and once each slot contains at least one item, then the pot will produce 5 stews every so often. Each stew has a different amount of Food-Points and that depends on the type of food you put into the pot: Meat will make a much richer stew than just nuts or mushrooms.

There are still some kinks and bugs I believe but for now I want to test it out and find the right balance.

Till next time and...

If you haven't tried it yet, download and support Dungeon Colony here!

Update 49 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.57

Dungeon Lords!

Today I added water collection to the game. You have to craft a clay pot to collect water. That requires you to collect four slabs of clay from dirt walls. In order to collect water just click on a water tile and wait until a worker does the rest. If you crafted a pot and have it stored somewhere, the worker will find it, pick it up and carry it to get water which you initially selected and then return it back to an empty storage container. They will do that until all empty water pots are consumed. In that case the water-source will automatically be deselected:

Water is still useless, but I have simultaneously been working on advancing some other game elements to start using water. One of them is the Cooking pot. That will most likely be added to the next release. This release (v.0.1.8.57) also includes some other changes. I have decreased the shadow by a few shades, (what I mean is that I made it lighter and easier to see through :-p). Now you can see more detail of the wall behind the shadows and on top of the walls. It also makes shadows look a bit more natural and creates nice effects [Unfortunately, in the screenshot below, all the white space around the image makes that hard to see :-(:

Here is the summary:

• Adds quest to place a new stockpile
• Adjusts Shader Engine, resulting in a lighter shadows.
• Adds Water Containers
• Adds Activity 'Get Water'

I've been spending time with new assets and working out more nature for the outside world. 


Till next time aand...

If you haven't tried it yet, download and support Dungeon Colony here!

Update 48 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.54

This update (v0.1.8.54) upgrades the mushrooms by making the weight and food points of the mushroom based on it's size.
 
Another new feature is the ability to look items in a minions inventory:

The locking feature also enabled minions to manage their inventory on their own. This means, that for any item that is not locked and if the minions is not performing any activity, then will he go and try to store those items in containers that are available within your dungeon. 
Lock a cell to lock in the items: Move the mouse to the upper right corner of a cell to reveal the lock button. Click it to lock or unlock it. 

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Here is the summary of today's updates:

Bugs
 Fixes bug that caused minions to store items in a container even if they are not within reach of the container.
 
Updates:
Mushrooms

• Mushroom food points are determined by size, which also determines the weight.
• A mushroom can have a minimum of 16 food points and grow as large as 64 Food points worth.
• A mushroom's weight ranges from 0.2 to 0.8 points.
• Made mushrooms a little less available.

Inventory Lock

• Adds ability to lock in items in a creature's inventory.
• When minions carry items that are not locked they may decide to store them in a container.
• Lock in items such as weapons (in future also potions food and other items)

 

If you haven't tried it yet, download and support  Dungeon Colony here!

Update 47 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.48

Today's update (v0.1.8.48) adds mushrooms to the dungeon. This is a food type which not only increases the food-meter, but will (not yet coded) also bring different attributes that may benefit or harm a creature. Mushrooms grow in the dungeon and since this is a tile based game, I decided to make mushrooms grow in small patches per tile. Within each patch mushrooms can grow multiple specimens.

Each mushroom in a patch starts of as a tiny baby mushroom. They can grow over time, getting bigger and gaining more weight. Soon I will add logic where bigger mushrooms may also have more effect when consumed as opposed to small ones.

Besides growing, mushrooms can also be collected by selecting a mushroom patch and then right clicking on it. This will call a minion to the patch for collection. Since mushrooms are rare and grow slowly, minions will be careful when collecting and leave some mushrooms behind to keep the patch growing (unless there is only one left - if you command a minion to harvest a patch containing only one mushroom, the patch is removed completely). This allows you to keep mushrooms growing if you want to keep a steady harvest.

The growing algorithm is a bit shaky so I'll revisit it if there aren't any errors with this new version sometime in the coming days.

If you haven't tried it yet, download and support Dungeon Colony here!

Update 46 - Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.46

Today's update (v0.1.8.46) brings more balancing and bug fixes! But also, there are a lot of changes or updates  internally: I am officially moving from svn to git. Finally!! For me the primary reason was branching. I can't stand branching in svn anymore, so it's over to git =D since my branching-needs have increased a lot. Additionally, I've been updating and adjusting some short term objectives for game development and started doing legal stuff too. I also started learning iPad development (while I have been learning Android development with a friend for about a month) 

Now I want to return to coding, I get anxious sometimes when I don't code on it for a while... So this weekend and the entire next week is devoted to continue on a new game feature and do a lot of bug fixing and re-factoring. GDC is also around the corner, oh boy!! I am planning on exhibiting next year, but this year, i will go to see, meet and greet =).


Here is a summary for the new version:

Bugs

• Fixes the logic when minions mine or lumber with regards to inventory storage/carrying capacity.
• Fixes the Study Animation when the study is rotated into different directions.
• Fixes bug that prevented the Dungeon Master to reach the Study based on the walls around it (and other factors).
• Fixes bug that caused commands issued to a minion to be lost when hitting the 'Equip Sling-shot'-button in between.

Upgrades:

• Added new tutorial quests for building stock piles.
• Game Balancing on Trees and wood cutting.
• Adds blueprint for crafting walls  to stock pile containers.

If you haven't tried it yet, download and support Dungeon Colony here!