Dungeon Colony Version 0.2.0.25

Get Early Access @: DungeonColony.com

Today's release (v0.2.0.25) adds a new feature to the game that I've been waiting for a long time: Custom Ground Tiles. Now, the player is able to place these tiles and change the look and feel  of the dungeon. This also lays the foundation for a future feature: rooms (TBA). Check out the following video to see digging dirt and laying tiles in action:

The following is a screenshot shows all of the different tile types available:

Also new in this release (v0.2.0.25):

•  New Flooring Frame allows you to choose between the 3 new tile sets but also allows you to put dirt back on the ground. 
• Adds new AI Behavior allowing Minions to find the necessary resources to build ground tiles.

Dungeon Colony Version 0.2.0.19

Hello,
Welcome back, but if this is your first time on this blog, please go to DungeonColony.com and get your Early-Access account to play the game as it is being developed. Right now you can get the game for only $5. This helps pay our bills such as server costs, business costs, new content costs and much much more. Without your help Dungeon Colony cannot exist. So Thank You!
The newest addition to the game is digging. Yes, your minions just got a shovel and can dig up dirt from the ground. Digging up dirt provides one dirt resource. You can dig up dirt inside and outside of the world. This new feature lays the foundation for an upcoming related feature, ground tiles. Soon your minions will be able to decorate your dungeon with different tile types. The prerequisite was therefore to give your minions the ability to clean up any dirt in order to have an even and clean space to place beautiful tiles. So now that I revealed this little secret, you can expect tiles in a soon to be released feature update.

Check out the following screenshot where my minions are cleaning up the dungeon dirt:

Summary for release 0.2.0.19:
- Ability for minions to dig up grass and dirt tiles. (Dirt provides one dirt resource.)
- Fixes bug that didn't allow non-US Keyboards to input certain characters. Thanks Eletrusith!
- Other fixes and adjustments. 

Dungeon Colony Version 0.2.0.11

This version adds some new graphic content and balances the game in a few areas. Big thanks goes to StmpwrdBear for helping with the balancing and finding bugs for this version. 

Summon Animation

I've added a new animation that plays when you summon a minion from a Shrine. The shrine requires a red gem stone to power it up. With the red gem in place, the shrine generates mana power. When the Shrine is charged, you can summon a minion which will consume the red gem. Check out the following video to view the new animation:

Other Changes

In addition to the new animation, I also updated a the placeholder coin used in the header row (the bottom is the new one) :

I also re-balanced some game elements, reducing the number of spiders that spawn. Now it's a function of the game difficulty times a constant.

Additionally, most game objects' life-points have been increased. It was way too easy for bandits to destroy your dungeon-furniture:

Object	LP Before	LP After
StockPiles	60	300
Wood Chest	100	150
Crate	100	150
Dining Table	50	300
Workbench	50	300
Iron Door	250	400
Wood Door	150	200
Barrel	30	75
Clay Pot	5	30
Alchemy bar	400	300
Book Shelf	100	200
Book Stand	50	100
Fire Bowl	200	400
Furnace	400	500

Finally I changed the life-bar that is shown when a creature is hit from red to green. So much better =)

Dungeon Colony Version 0.2.0.1

Yesterday, I released a new version (v0.2.0.1) which includes a range of new improvements and features. As a result, we posted the game on Steam Greenlight Concepts to increase it's visibility and we also moved development from 'pre-alpha' into just 'alpha' since the game engine contains most of the high level requirements. We shift our focus to mid-level game features such as creature development, mid level game logic, new objects and creatures, creature and resource management... to name a few.

The most significant change of this release is the completion of the Level Editor and the first set of Tutorial levels made using this editor. The are 5 new levels which explain how to:

1. Move Creatures
2. Move Objects
3. Collect Resources
4. Activate Objects
5. Craft Objects. 

With the new Level Editor,  I've also created new Level and Level-Chain Classes that keep track of level winning/losing conditions and connect the levels with each other, in order to load the proper levels once the player completes one.

Levels are stored on the server so that whenever we complete a new level or make changes to an existing level, the player will automatically have the latest sets of level.

The following screenshot is from the level "Activate Objects" and it shows a new 'Quest Completed' popup, which informs the player about quest progress:

Here is a Summary of the remaining changes in this release:

New Features:

• New Tutorial Level window with 5 new tutorial levels. Check back for more soon!
• New Save/Load window with map preview.
• Improved UI window with improved navigation.
• New Quest completed notification.
• New Level class that shows level won/lost notifications.
• New Level Chains that allow levels to be loaded once it's parent level was completed.
• Improves Mini Map with creatures proportional to the size on map.
• Improves creature AI.
• Improves Level Editor.
• Upgrades Web-Server.
• Recreates game-save storage methods on server.
• Combines all logins into one login screen at startup.
• Updates the website.

Bug Fixes:

• Path finding improvements
• Fixes bugs with shadows
• Fixes various bugs that crashed the game.

Dungeon Colony First Early Access Trailer

Greetings Dungeon Masters!

We hope you had a nice winter break; we sure did! But we've been hard at work in the past weeks of this new year to bring new updates to Dungeon Colony. And we have a lot of news and things to show. Starting off, I would like to share is our new trailer to Dungeon Colony. It shows off what the engine can do, and what game play will be like:



We've done a lot of changes to the infrastructure of the game by upgrading the server, and optimizing how server calls are made. We've got more room for online game saves and have laid the foundation to future online game options. We have also made changes to the website by removing pages that were out-dated and took way too much time to maintain.

The next blog post will introduce the changes made to the new release 0.2.0.1. Get access to this new version right now at DungeonColony.com/Download.

Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.9.99

Today's version (v0.1.9.99) extends the recently updated quests. Now, the level editor allows the level designer to associate quest rewards to a quest. This is optional and a reward can currently be any kind of object that exists in the game. A count can also be set to specify a specific amount of reward:

When the player completes a quest, the reward is placed in a special reward-crate. This crate allows the player to select the reward from the crate and place it anywhere on the map. Eventually, the rewards will be extended to include more than one kind of reward as well as other types of entities, such as creatures or abilities.


Here's the change-log summary: Other changes include:

• Improves Error Catching for Video Card Issues.
• Adds Quest Rewards: Quests can now reward player with different types of rewards. 
• Adds Reward Crate: Rewards are delivered in a special Reward crate. 
• Adds Rewards Management to Level Editor.
• Extends Server Database to incorporate Level changes made over the past weeks. 
• Adds new server methods to load/save Level data. 
• Code Cleanup and Refactoring
• Some visual additions 
• Extends quit-game frame to return to main menu.
• Adds new frame to select tutorial levels.
• Extends textbox control.
• Fixes bug with projectiles.
• Fixes bug that caused enemies to spawn like there's no tomorrow.

Dungeon Colony Version 0.1.9.91

Today's version upgrades many Quest related classes and simplifies/refactors a lot of code. This was especially good to make the level editor easier to use. It's so much easier now to create a Level and add quests to it than it was ever before. I've also added a few new quest types, such as giving creatures a goal to reach a certain tile location. This will be very useful for quests where the player will need to reach a region like mining through thick walls to find a specific resource for example.

While upgrading the quests, a lot of older code broke, which let me to just scratch all the old quests in the Sandbox game mode and redo them. So I made them a little bit more descriptive, not wasting too much time there, since my main goal is to continue on the tutorial levels. Quest information in now displayed in a new quest window centered in the middle of the screen. Hovering the mouse over the quest buttons shows the quest info window:

The next thing I will add to quests are rewards.

The summary of changes in version 0.1.9.91:

• New Quest Window Centered in screen when hovering over quest buttons
• Adds Question Tile Locations
• Unifies quest class and deactivates unnecessary quest classes.
• Temporarily restricts leg traps from being replaced. realized that this caused a new bug.
• Editor: Adds more missing logic to Quest Manager.