Sunday, August 14, 2011

JADE 0.1.3 released

It has been done. After almost four weeks since the last release JADE 0.1.3 now is available. The longer period between releases is not a sign of my weakening resolve but rather a consequence of the mass of content added to JADE 0.1.3.

As you can read below JADE 0.1.3 adds lots of content. It's still not a complete game (by far) but it feels a lot of different from the previous release. It also includes some features that already exceed ADOM (like the new exploration mode, automatically walking towards the nearest up stairs or down stairs, fine grained diseases, etc.) that slowly start to show the muscles of the JADE engine.

In other words: I am very proud of this release and pray that there are no show-stopping bugs in it.

I also learned that my trusty Macbook slowly is coming to its limits - I therefor happily recommend the donation support for JADE and welcome every donation so that I can afford a new and more powerful development notebook for JADE.

As I have been pretty sick during the past week I failed with two goals: I added less than 20 new monsters and the testing phase was cut a bit short.

Thus the direction for the next release is pretty clear: If serious bugs are found I quickly will provide a bug fix release. If no serious bugs are discovered I will work on more content. The focus for the next content release will be covered in one of the next blog postings. Stay tuned ;-)

So here we are with the list of changes in JADE 0.1.3:


* Added the 'W' command to display the current (melee) weapon statistics.
* Added the 'D' drink command in order to be able to consume potions.
* Moved the 'D' extended drop to ':d' for better ADOM keymap alignment.
* Implemented the '!' dip command to be able to dip items into fluids.
* Adjusted the keys for waiting (changed ' ' to '.') (issue 308).
* Added auto-more (issue 308).
* Added the death location to the high score entry.
* Added gold pieces to the game.
* Added 14 monsters.
* Added 5 items.
* Added rusted items.
* Added poisoning.
* Added auto-identification to some potions.
* Added new item options to the starting equipment of dwarven fighters.
* Added skill synergies to skills and implemented them for all relevant skills.
* Added the ability to sell items to shopkeepers.
* Added the ability to buy items from shopkeepers.
* Added an info display about the number of experience points required to gain the next level
  (issue 254).
* Added a weight info to items lying on the ground (issue 307).
* Added an item count info for item heaps on the ground (issue 169).
* Added wealth levels to settlements.
* Added price tags in shops.
* Added 10 special areas to dungeons.
* Added some condition details.
* Added a level dependent to-hit bonus to professions.
* Added the owned amount of gold pieces to the statistics display.
* Added (more) prompts to various points in the game when the internal statistics of the PC change.
* Item sizes now modify their statistics (PV, DV, damage, ...) (RFE 334 and my own ideas).
* Added an info message when advancing a level (RFE 312).
* If a single door can be opened or closed it will be automatically selected (issue 295).
* Refactored the complete quest infrastructure so that it now is tried, mean and lean. Will expand it once
  more based on a more specific use case approach. Added actual quest.
* Combat wounds now provide a more detailed description of the kind of damage that was caused.
* Extended the FAQ and the credits.
* Changed a couple of ASCII representations.
* Refactored the way skill work internally.
* Monsters now drop items only half as likely to reduce the sheer amount of items in the game a litte bit.
* Renamed small shields to bucklers, medium shields to heater shields and large shield to kite shields.
* Strengthened hydras quite a bit.
* Expanded the '>' and '<' commands to move towards the nearest appropriate stairway if not already
  positioned on it. 
* Added the 'w>' and 'w<' commands to walk towards the nearest known stairway leading downwards or
  upwards.
* Modified the infection SFX so that critical hits now are twice as likely to cause a disease.
* Added exploration commands ('#' and 'w#') that auto-explore the nearest unknown positions on the map.
* Added the '+' command in order to auto-melee the next opponent.
* Implemented/activate the healing, first aid, dodge, find weakness and athletics skill.
* Entering and exiting levels now takes special areas into account.
* Extended the startup sequence to include area, prefix and suffix loading in order to be able
  to identify errors earlier.
* Unified the item drop handling code which was distributed across several classes and now is
  gathered in one method of the being class in order to centralize all aspects of being able to
  drop items or not. Also introduced new awarenesses in order to intercept the item dropping 
  process.
* The power point meter now only is displayed if the PC has at least one power point.
* Modified the routing algorithm so that water is evaded.
* Added differentiated attack mode descriptions based on the weapon type (issue 269).
* Refactored some parts of the combat engine in order to allow for more logical sequencing.
* Improved the path finding algorithm so that "straight" directions are preferred over diagonal
  ones which leads to more natural movement paths.
* Being fully healed or recovering from some special condition now disturbs the being which interrupts
  walk mode and extended actions.
* Tweaked the highscore message.
* Intrinsics (SFX) now also factor into awarenesses (yet another detail I had forgotten).
* Damage SFX now actually work.
* Tweaked some colors and color definitions.
* Special materials now also modify protective gear in various ways.
* Fixed a very strange timing problem in interpreting the shift key in some cases.
* Fixed a message problem with plural items when items are dropped by monsters.
* Fixed a problem with infections that prevented giant rats from actually being a bit more dangerous.
  Fixed the 'AfterDamagingAware' interceptor to do exactly what the name implied.
* Fixed a bug which prevented any item prefixes and suffixes from being generated. Effectively
  this adds 44 prefixes and 15 suffixes to the game.
* Fixed various message display problems during combat caused by incidental side effects of hits, etc.
* Fixed the plural name of orcish brutes.
* Fixed a problem with the message display where the last word in a message (that got cut by the more
  prompt) was lost and never displayed.
* Fixed more problems in calculating the total weight carried. Now it definitely works.
* Fixed some more problems with beings noticing beings (and so on).
* Fixed a problem with container items which didn't propagate markers correctly (both when removing
  or adding them).
* Fixed yet another problems with beings noticing themselves (regression 162).
* Removed the endless walk messages (issue 171, 283).
* Fixed a problem with repetitive item messages while waiting (issue 173).
* Fixed a problem with one missing pixel on text lines in skill displays and others (issue 179).
* Fixed problems with selecting and deselecting all items as well as with paging one line forward
  (issue 199).
* Fixed talking to yourself (regression 206).
* Fixed a problem with monsters getting frozen (issue 264).
* Fixed the door opening capabilities of animals (issue 265).
* Fixed the gender display issue for goodwives (issue 271).
* Fixed the problems when accidentally leaving settlements by walking (issue 273).
* Fixed a problem with the game hanging when the PC is killed by a monster without any
  professions (issue 274).
* Fixed the delayed statistics updates after changing equipment (issue 281).
* Fixed a position crash bug when generating new monsters in the vicinity of a given being 
  (issue 288).
* When the first walk mode step results in a monster kill walk mode now ends (issue 299).
* Fixed attacks with shields (but one shield attack now can be used per turn) (issue 303).
* Fixed a tile display problem with 10-headed hydras (issue 304).
* Fixed a bracelet typo. Additionally bracers now can be equipped (issue 305).
* Fixed the problem of weapon skill DV modifiers not being applied to the overall DV of a being 
  (issue 275, 309).
* Fixed a problem with the item list display in the inventory which caused a variable number of items
  simply to be hidden in the display. Now all items are visible. (Issue 310)
* Fixed the message order for some status messages when closing doors (issue 317).
* Fixed a shopkeeper typo (issue 338).
* Fixed the weapon skill synergy for two-handed axes due to skill on one-handed axes (issue 343).


Enough words... you can download JADE 0.1.3 from the usual location. Enjoy and let me know your feedback!

11 comments:

  1. Thomas, don't you have a PhD and own a company? How is it that you can't afford a laptop? (Also, I wouldn't have the nerve to ask for donations Apple hardware when much cheaper alternatives do the job well.)

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  2. OH SNAP, Anon2AtY8yBA isn't giving you nada, buy your own laptop he says, BOO-URNS. That's what you get for begging in your release notes he says ZING.

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  3. Nice update, really glad you added all the autoexplore functions! :D thanks

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  4. AWSOME!!! to chiux do i sense a "I was saying boo-urns" simpson-styled reference :), oya I just moved and got a new job so it shouldn't be to long before my adom/jade donation, figuring I've gotten probably somewhere near one million hours of entertainment from adom dropping $10 almost seems like I'm ripping Thomas off :)

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  5. Nice! This is feeling ever more like an enjoyable game. With a quest it truly feels like you have a goal, and there are somethings I have not yet discovered, so I'll have a lot of fun over the next few days discovering these.

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  6. Yay! Anon: I think the man will bloody get a bloody Mac is he so chooses. Although the alternatives may do the job "well" the creator needs something that will do great. Stet.

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  7. Could you add normal download? For example zip file.

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  8. The game is very annoying when trying to play it on a secondary monitor. It moves the window very often to the center of the primary monitor's screen. This should never happen.

    Also the splash screen is used multiple times when starting a new game. Nicer experience would be to use in-window animations.

    BUG: you cannot exit the game while in the skills screen when creating a new character.
    (That was the point where the window moving was too much)

    Btw, is there a proper place to report bugs and such?

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  9. Bugs are to be reported here:
    http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?projectid=3

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  10. Woah, you're still doing this? I got so caught up in Dwarf Fortress I forgot about it. I'll check it out soon.

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