Tales of a Video Game Developer
A friend mentioned the Successor of Fate track from Harmony of dissonance. The conversation went on to me downloading CvRL 0.73 (from 2010) and he insisting I should upload to somewhere more public.
So here it is! Straight from 2010 to the Internets 🙂
“XRLs” are roguelikes themed around a popular series, in this page you will find games based on classic Nintendo series such as Castlevania, Metroid, Zelda and Megaman. You will also find a tribute to Richard Garriots’ “Ultima” series, in the shape of “Escape from Mt. Drash: The Roguelike” (Which, paradoxically, was not produced by Mr. Garriot)
All of these games have something in common, they are intended not to be overly complex to get into: keybindings have been reduced, music has been introduced (and graphics in some of them) and gameplay is straightforward. They can be considered coffeebreak roguelikes
Over the years, I have been developing them on and off, but I have found my limited human energy not to be enough to turn them into what I want; they have remained interesting – yet unpolished. Thus, the openXRL initiative came into being.
I have released all of these games under the GPLv3 Open Source License, you are now free to develop them. If you want to become the (official) maintainer of one of these games, just contact me and I will be glad to be of assistance. The following are the only requirements.
So, without any further ado, I present you the games! TAKE A LOOK!
Just some final fixes before February ends!
I added the Mandragora Scream attack, which I dont know why I had never implemented 🙂
Download from http://slashie.net
Done
- 0001007: [Bug Report] Invalid BLAST action crash
- 0001006: [Bug Report] No Boss in Dragon King Lair
- 0001005: [Bug Report] Equipping a weapon deletes the one that was previously equipped
Aprox. Work Time (Of the new age): 37:40 (36:40 + 1:00)
Just wrapped up and released a bugfixes version. Next time I must remember to subject the product to a proper testing cycle! (like I used to do.. bah…)
Download from http://slashie.net
Aprox. Work Time (Of the new age): 36:40 (36:20 + 0:20)
Had to pack a release due to a critical bug when equipping shields
Downloads available on Slashie.net
- 0000997: [Bug Report] Crash when equipping shield
Continued working, fixing some critical bugs reported on roguetemple
- 0001001: [Bug Report] Keys spawned beside walls
- 0001000: [Bug Report] Crash on saving
- 0000999: [Bug Report] Weather effects multiply
Also, fixed the MP3 player! so 0.72 will probably have a MP3 bundle in addition to the midi one!
- 0001002: [Tasks] Fix MP3 Player
Aprox. Work Time (Of the new age): 36:20 (33:20 + 1:00 + 2:00)
Lots of changes on this new version, powered by the results of the February Powerpoll!!
Downloads available on Slashie.net
Major changes:
* Environmental Effects (Fog, Rain, Storm, Sunny)
* Active Evade: Enemies target your last location
* Training mode is now less sparse and much more informative
* The game manual has been organized and a lot of more info added
* Remappeable keys
* Dodge Skill added
* Underwater combat with some weapon classes
* Damage is now displayed in the messages
* Some areas of the castle are now more “interesting”
* Skills are now easier to acquire
* Balanced difficulty for manbeast on mid game
* Two handed weapons
Screenshots (Click to enlarge)
Full changes log: here
Aprox. Work Time (Of the new age): 33:20 (25:20 + 8:00)
Now showing caused and received damage, which took a long time (sorry about that, it annoys me when I have to invest more time in this sort of things that seem so simple in the end product 😛 )
The manual is also much better now, I am linking it for reference: Manual
Done
- 0000930: [Bug Report] Last messages not show
- 0000995: [Tasks] Show caused and received damage
- 0000994: [Bug Report] Weapon shop always empty
- 0000081: [Request for Enhancement] Lack of thorough instructions in the manual
- 0000993: [Tasks] Add confirmation to warp when has hostage
- 0000067: [Request for Enhancement] Change view distance in castle quarters
- 0000065: [Request for Enhancement] Name changes
Aprox. Work Time: 25:20 (21:20 + 4:00)
Pretty deep changes in the works! Active evade has been added (this means you can dodge skeleton bones as long as you keep moving out of their line of fire (ala MetroidRL))
Added some environmental effects, let’s see how they work…
Also, keys a remappeable now. It took much longer than I thought it would…
The tickets to be dispatched for next version have been marked, I hope to do it before tuesday!
Done:
- 0000026: [Tasks] Add Active Evade to CastlevaniaRL
- 0000938: [Request for Enhancement] Allowing reasigning keys
- 0000061: [Request for Enhancement] Environmental Effects
- 0000060: [Request for Enhancement] Prelude Arena adjustments
Aprox. Work Time: 21:20 (12:20 + 3:00 + 3:00 + 3:00)
Following the results of the February Slashie.net Powerpoll, with CvRL winning with 42.5% of the votes, I decided to tackle the pending tickets, starting from the older ones!
- 0000054: [Request for Enhancement] Vampire Renegade power balances
- 0000053: [Request for Enhancement] Scale Hand to Hand Combat more strongly
- 0000036: [Tasks] Control Manbeast loss of control
- 0000030: [Tasks] Address Balance Issues Described on Thread
- 0000029: [Tasks] Change level up schema to acquire skills quickly
- 0000028: [Tasks] Increase Manbeast natural defense
- 0000027: [Tasks] Modify open areas on castle
- 0000024: [Tasks] Too much gold issue
Aprox. Work Time: 12:20 (8:20 + 4:00)
Following a research for another Java project, I invested some time into bundling a JRE with CvRL. Results seem satisfactory! Download the work in progress!
Aprox. Work Time: 8:20 (7:50 + 1:30)
Slashie's Journal 
