Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.191

Dev-log from this week's nightly development brings Dungeon Colony to (v0.1.8.191):

- Dungeon Master leaves book stand when done researching a topic and displays a message to the player to select a new research topic from the list.
- Fixes bug that showed wrong warning message when trying to rearm a wooden spike trap.
- Fixes issue with collision detection and objects placement on map.
- Reduces the collision rectangle for stockpiles allowing creatures to walk over the border. This helps also fix bugs with certain games from alphas who reported minions being stuck due to stockpiles blocking the way.
- Stockpiles can now be moved and replaced once build, that is if they are not filled with too much material. If it's too heavy, then you will have to first move resources from the stockpile before moving the board elsewhere.
- Traps are now triggered by enemies and neutral units: Boars walking into a trap will trigger it too.

Play the alpha free, and if you like it, support development by pre-purchasing the game. Thank you =)

Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.187

And I'm back into development mode. After spending the past view weeks on business aspects, I'm glad to be back to working on code. But I have also played some games including StarCraft and Civ and I finally tried FTL, which is totally right up my ally (plus it was on sale on gog.com).

It's insane how much you forget about your own code if you don't touch it for a couple of weeks. Not necessarily the code itself, but how modules interconnect and relate.

So today's version moves up a notch to (v0.1.8.187) and fixes a couple of bugs:

- Fixes issue with Minions AI when they try to find essential resources but can't reach them.
- Fixes bug when minions try to empty their inventory into a container.

Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.8.186

This update (v.0.1.8.186) fixes a series of bugs and balances some game elements. Most of the changes have been available for a few days since I have silently released new versions to fix critical bugs. There has also been an increase in game traffic and, therefore, many more bugs reported. Again, thanks to all your playing and testing. Some of the main issues have to do with the AI and minions acting up. (I should really introduce the hand from Dungeon Keeper to slap the minions who behave badly)

Besides fixing bugs, I also went to the IGDA summit a few days ago and continued expanding on the business side of being an indie game developer. In fact, I will spend a lot of my time in the coming weeks focusing on business. For that, I want to thank all of the players who have supported the game so far. Once the business side is setup, I will begin expanding development into new areas. I am very excited about that, but that's all I can say for now. So don't expect to many game development news in the next couple of weeks.

There are two issues I want to mention as they have been reported frequently:
- Sometimes, minions are not able to find food or coins which causes problems with the AI. Also, the activity counters over the chest or dining table may increase to huge numbers due to a similar bug. (Thanks Karsten B.) I haven't found the bug yet, since I had trouble recreating it, but I suppose it has to do with the reach-ability of objects. If you can recreate it and if you save your game before it occurs, please let me know. Thanks!

Here is a summary of the changes/fixes since the last post:

• fixes bug with dead spider sprites
• fixes null pointer exception with minon-order locations when loading a game.
• improves performance with pathfinder
• fixes null pointer exception with order manager
• increases food output of nuts from 10 to 20 points
• removes fuel points from fur
• re-balances flower growing algorithm
• increases starting meat to 7 pieces
• improves bug notifications to server
• fixes bug that caused minions to be stuck when building walls over them (Thanks Johny193).