Category: Roguelikes

The Kramora Times # 7, Ananias 2.4.5 released for Android!

It has been almost 5 years since the last release of Ananias.

Well, prompted by a critical situation where the Android version was completely broken due to Crosswalk no longer working in Android 10+, I decided to release a new minor version, fixing that as well as including some minor fixes that had been in the repo for years, see below for the full changelog.

  • Standard Edition
  • Fellowship Edition

In addition to removing Crosswalk and doing some tweaks around to modernize the deployment to 2022 standards, I uncovered a couple of interesting things that will be seeing the light of the day soon enough; the HD layout and the support for localization.

Also, I’ve started the work required to reestablish the iOS version, which had been down for some months. The store listing is available again but the game is crashing on start on the latest iOS versions.

v2.4.5 changelog

Technical

  • Remove crosswalk dependency from Android build.
  • Update to cordova-android 10 including updating build scripts for signing automatically.
  • Update the build process to accommodate with 2022 Google Play deployment process.

Fixes

  • Prevent issue with window.prompt not available
  • Prevent playing SFX before initialization
  • Prevent bug when sorting monsters or player without sprite (dead)
  • Prevent issue with using alchemy with a single reagent using keyboard
  • Prevent issues when using items from an old version save whose Spell no longer exists.
  • Prevent friendlies from using skills outside of combat
  • Hand gifts directly if no available room space
  • Disable pet command button as soon as pet is killed to avoid invalid commands

Known issues

  • The manual is currently pointing to an online version due to an issue with the InAppBrowser loading of local pages.
  • Since the HTTPS setup for the game server is still pending, some tweaks were done to be able to connect to it via HTTP which is no longer the default or acceptable in 2022.

EID 2021.2

Fixes some critical bugs found in 2021.1 with the transition to SERF0.29, and further improve user experience:

  • Prevent exploit to recover HP using Run command
  • Replace Luck with HP for clarity
  • Improve delay logic for better gunfight SFX
  • Replace fancy useless Miss messages with more practical numeric damage caused
  • Use bigger font by default for modern monitors.
  • Arm civilians so they can retaliate if you mistakenly hit them
  • Prevent civilians from going hostile when hit by enemies

Also includes

Download at https://github.com/slashman/elite-international-detective/releases/tag/v2021.2

Elite International Detective v2021.1 – After 10 years!

It’s been over 10 years after I last updated this game! recent playthroughs made me want to fix some stuff so here we are!

Here are the biggest changes:

  • Much smaller map size, less boring exploration
  • Fix display of map when the mission starts so it actually makes sense
  • Show weapon stats in the HUD
  • Fix issue blocking the game when the crime happened in HQ city.
  • Increase the height of city description textboxes
  • Remove unused Lethality mechanic

Bundled are also updates to serf-engine bumping it to 0.29, allowing us to have:

  • Improved Urban map generation
  • Improved targetting (remember the last enemy)

Have fun!

Links

Roguelikes and D&D: A profound connection

Miniatures on a grid board utilized for a Dungeons and Dragons game in La Mesa, California
Miniatures on a grid board utilized for a Dungeons and Dragons game in La Mesa, California  (source)

Finally, after many weeks of delays and many hours of work, I managed to finish a new article based on the research I did for my 2018 talk at the roguelike celebration. I hope this article provides useful insights and allows having an additional approach to roguelikes as a genre on its own.

Many thanks to all the friends who provided useful feedback. 🙂

Can we find useful insights on what a #roguelike is, by examining the results of the efforts of the developers of rogue and other early roguelikes to bring their beloved #dungeonsanddragons hobby into the world of computing?

You can read the article HERE

Winners of Ananias RoguelikeCel 18 Tournament

Congrats to the winners of The Tournament!

  • #1 – Jebidiah, with Sheena the Barbarian. Killed by a Porpworm on level 29 after 81:36. Downed 555 monsters
  • #2 – Geist, with MarMi the Alchemist. Killed by a Drogon on level 28 after 308:37. Downed 462 monsters
  • #3 – @burdfishdemon, with Red Warrior the Barbarian. Killed by a Guardian on level 17 after 75:57. Downed 270 monsters
  • #4 – @moemustaine, with Scalebearer the Barbarian. Killed by a Demonspawn on level 16 after 43:41. Downed 259 monsters
  • #5 – Adam Boyd, with Rodney the Monster Slayer. Killed by a Sireen on level 14 after 75:06. Downed 200 monsters

Adam Boyd receiving his prizes at roguelikecel
Adam Boyd receiving his prizes at roguelikecel

Burdfishdemon's loot
Burdfishdemon’s loot

Tombstone of Sheena the Barbarian
Tombstone of Sheena the Barbarian

Ananias RoguelikeCel 18 Tournament!

The Roguelike Celebration 2018 is coming! We are celebrating it with a new Ananias Roguelike tournament with Cool Prizes! are you bad enough to win the tournament?

Prizes!

1st place 2nd place 3rd place 4th place 5th place
Money 50$ 20$ 10$
Ananias Box with instruction booklet X
Original Art Card X X X
Paladin Red T-Shirt X X X X
Ananias Stickers Set (8) X X X X X

 

How to participate

  • Share your Gravestone page, including a screenshot of your journey, via twitter using the #ananias18 and #roguelike hashtags. (See here for a Gravestone page)
  • You are also encouraged to share it on reddit but it’s not required
  • You can submit your character any time before October 7, 4PM PST
  • Participate playing in any valid official 2.4.4 version of the game, including Android, iOS, Steam and Web. No Fellowship Edition required.
  • You can also participate playing in person in the Roguelike Arcade at the Celebration (but it’s not required)
  • Winners will be picked based on the standard scoring criteria (depth level, then kills)
  • You can use any class / pet combo

Notes:

  • Money Prizes to be awarded via Paypal
  • Ananias Box and Manual – No diskette
  • T-Shirts available in limited sizes – To be awarded as available.
  • Sticker set will contain assorted characters as available.
  • Physical prizes will be delivered in person at the Roguelike Celebration on Sunday October 7. If you are not attending then they will be sent to you for an additional Shipping cost to be paid via paypal.

FAQ

  • How can I get the gravestone page for my character?

Just create an account in the game, and then when your character dies or ascends use the “Gravestone” button

gravestone

Trailer for the Roguelike Celebration 2018

The Roguelike Celebration is happening again this year, October 6 and 7. I will be flying to SanFran to assist and also give a talk about the History of Roguelikes.

Had an idea running on my head for a while to make a “trailer” for the event (no one asked me for it). At first, I thought of creating a playable classic roguelike using my JSRL roguelike template. I actually did create the foundations for it (as in walk in a predefined map), but it lacked the cinematic potential for a short trailer. In any case, I integrated the “torch” effect from the unicodetiles.js example into JSRL, which may be useful. You can check out the integration here.

Screen Shot 2018-08-10 at 7.30.17 AM

Then I had another idea and I just couldn’t be at peace until I implemented it. I think it occurred to me a day while driving and listening to the Mega Man III OST. I thought I had found the perfect tune for it. So, even in a busy week with lots of work, I just had to do it.

The trailer features the awesome speakers’ lineup in a “robot-masters” NES Megaman stage selected style.

I implemented it using JavaScript and Phaser, you can check the source code here and the demo running live here

Of course, there’s little structure to the project since it was meant to be a quick job (and is also pretty simple). Most of the relevant logic can be found in a single Object, the Game state. I set up a stage with a black background and the gray strip, as well a Sprite object for the character and 4 text fields. I used a Megaman 10 font (I had found another one for Megaman 2 but for some reason, it could not be loaded as a web font), I performed a simple centering function based on each line’s character count to keep the characters as sprites in the grid (thus getting a bit close to being a NES “background sprite”?).

There was also a simple “particle” animation in the background, instead of stars they were small @ signs because, you know, roguelike. I used the same color palette used on the Roguelike Celebration logo for them.

Of course, the most fun part was doing the pixel art for the speakers. I used a bunch of Mega Man 2 robot masters as a base and then I proceeded on tweaking them for each speaker. The ones I know in person where easier, for the others I had to do a bit of stalki Internet research, I hope I managed to capture their likeness.

Finally, I reused the “Retro TV with scanlines” from Cat Cafe.

 

Ananias Fellowship Edition hits 1.000+ installs on Google Play!

I missed the date, but we hit the 1K milestone for the paid version of Ananias on Android, last February 23 🙂

Screen Shot 2018-03-18 at 9.03.17 PM

We also surpassed the 1K mark on steam about 3 months ago (for sales), activations are waaay higher now (over 5K!) I wonder where I got that many? (maybe some bundles which I forgot to deactivate unused keys) while it took about 4 years in Android, it took less than a year on Steam. The Free edition on Android is now close to 60K cumulative installs

Screen Shot 2018-03-18 at 9.10.08 PM

Meanwhile, on the Apple Store,  Ananias has sold a bit over 300 units, in about the same period of time than Steam. So far, all of this has been without marketing campaigns or major advertising (besides some minor and useless facebook ads).

In other news, I decided to make the project board public, take a look if you feel curious 🙂

Ananias 2.4.4 released for iOS

It was about time to make a release for iOS. The last release was 2.4.1 from July 10, 2017! I was hoping to pack more into it but since there are many good gameplay changes (including a new class), a critical UI fix, and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to work on it in the next couple months, I figured it was a good time to do it.

New version coming soon to Newgrounds and GameJolt. Here’s a summary of the changes.