Category Archives: Programming

What’s In The Next Patch

July 16, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

EXALTATIONS UNTO KRONG! While he cannot disclose any sales numbers, he is exceedingly pleased by sales of Dungeons of Dredmor, bringing Krong in all his glory to the masses (and also that slimy, good-for-nothing Lutefisk God.) Long has his anvil-shaped heart awaited this moment, and he thanks his chosen Mightily.

Nonetheless, he hears the people crying. “Krong,” they say, “why hast thou abandoned us? Our game, it crashes. Our game, it has small icons. Our game, it lacks keyboard binding interfaces, yea, and other certain necessities.” And Krong didst look upon his people, in their despair… and wept.

And lo, so it came to pass that Krong didst re-chain Gaslamp Games to their anvils, and Gaslamp Games has come forth in order to help the people. And lo, a great Patch came to pass upon the land, to be released Early Next Week.

What is in said patch? Krong is so very, very glad you asked.

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Update From the Code Bunker

July 15, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

We’ve put up another build which has a fixed audio driver, and resolves a few other little issues. We have tried to make this backwards compatible with previous save files, but one of the things we added in this patch was also backwards load/save compatibility… so we’re going to have to work out the kinks here a little. If you make a *new* save that crashes and can’t load it, or you still get a random crash (we know about one descending, then ascending stairs, which we have seen a bit – but it might also be the audio thing, so we’re just going to wait and see… also what are you doing going back *up* the dungeon anyway?), send us an e-mail, preferably with a save game or crash dump, and we’ll get on it.

That said, so far everybody who was having crashes has reported that this build has cleared it up. Whew.

(Profound thanks to Ryan C. “icculus” Gordon, who debugged the first audio crash, then confirmed that the second audio crash was, in fact, “something that has just never been triggered in the past eight or so years in SDL_mixer.” We have now broken SDL_mixer about eight times and aren’t allowed to keep breaking it any more.)

I don’t know when the next patch will be up – probably not until some time next week – but we are going to try to start resolving some of the UI Clunkers people have reported (getting the keyboard/mouse movement a little more consistent, adding UI scaling, etc.) I would also like to turn on the Mod Browser and Weekly Challenges, but getting the core game running well is the top priority for all of us.

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So. Uh. Hi there.

July 13, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

EDIT: Today’s patch, while fixing the random crashes for some people, has added a new one for other people. We’re on it. Please keep sending us your broken save files too, especially if they were entirely produced *after* yesterday’s patch. — Gaslamp Games McManagement

Hi, everybody. We’re… a little overwhelmed, and also going about with large grins on our faces. Being #1 on Steam – even if we have been cruelly deposed (for now!) by the Curse of Cthulhu Saving the World – is quite the rush. We should ship games more often. Thank you all for your support and patronage; we’re looking forward to kicking it up to the next level.

We have fixed a few bugs that came out of the woodwork. The random crash bug is fixed, a save corruption bug is fixed (there may be more), the Infinite XP glitch is fixed, and the infinite-money-in-shop glitch has been resolved as well. We will be sending a patch off to Steam as soon as we have finished testing it a little more.

….

So how is everybody enjoying the game?

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Some Minor News

July 9, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

Dungeons of Dredmor is coming in between four or five days, depending on your time zone. If you want to see some Video Footage of people Playing Dredmor, you are encouraged to check out the fabulous M and B Games Dredmor video-tutorial-ography: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Also, let’s not forget the ferocious videography of Paul Soares here.

So what have we fixed between our Gold Master Candidate and now? Well, honestly not all that much. Most of our work has been on prepping for launch, and we also took a modest, slightly less than Notch-sized vacation. Now that we’re back on the game, we’re looking forward to adding exciting post-release content and making this thing better than ever. We have started the mod work, but it doesn’t look like it will be done in time for our release; we will roll this into the game as soon as possible. Mod support, it turns out, is one of those difficult things to get working perfectly; in particular, it’s causing a great deal of trouble with the save games.

We did, however, add some fun stuff. First off, permadeath now works. If you die, we actually delete your save game! Mwa hah hah. By contrast, non-permadeath now works very well as well. You can save your game wherever and whenever you want, and it’s always there for you to carry on if you get slaughtered. Just remember to save as often as you feel that you can.

Second off, we have added a few achievements. Seven, to be exact. Right now, you get achievements for a) killing Dredmor, b) being killed by Diggles. This is more of a proof-of-concept thing; we’ll be adding more in the first patch, but David has to wrap up some contract work for a bit. I have a draft list, and it has over one hundred things to acquire in it. So good luck with that one. If you have achievement suggestions, incidentally, we’d love to hear from you.

If you’re on The Steams, you will also find that Dredmor has some leaderboards going on. You too will be able to compete with your friends and enemies to see who can descend furthest into the depths of the Dungeon.

Finally, we fixed a few crash bugs. No biggie. 🙂

Anyhow, the time is nearly upon us. As prophecied, the Dark Lord Dredmor shall rise, and thousands upon millions of hours of productivity shall be destroyed by his evil machinations. Also, somebody got him on the Twitter, and you’re encouraged to follow him in addition to our own fine Twitterfeed. We’re looking forward to having you all as players.

Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor, Games, Gaslamp, Programming | 7 Comments

On Mod Support

June 8, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

Very briefly, because people keep asking: “Can you make mods for Dungeons of Dredmor? What is the plan for modding for Dredmor?” Emphatically: a) yes, b) what is contained below.

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On the Commercialization of Roguelikes (And Some Other Stuff)

April 24, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

(David recently did a State of the Dungeon post, and I guess this is my State of the Dungeon.)

For the most part it is rewarding for us, as developers, to hear that people are excited about the work that we’re doing and how badly they want to pre-order our title. (See, we’re listening!) I think that this is true of any creative endeavor: the artist thrives on the energy of his or her public. At the same time, it is also worth noting that it is very easy for a developer to get unexcited about a project when people keep telling you that you’re doing a lousy job. Most developers will tell you that the secret to this is not to listen to people on the Internet – after all, what do they know? That said, most successful developers – Valve springs instantly to mind, under the capable direction of Gabe Newell – will tell you that the success or failure of a game, and of a game company, is dependant upon your fans and your customers. Listen to people, get them excited, and you will prosper. Alienate your fans and you will alienate your customers, and your customers are the people who pay you money (or who will pay you money once we get the pre-orders going.) So that’s why we listen: we secretly want to be Valve. (Who doesn’t? Ben McGraw, our executive producer, recently pointed out that Valve is one of the few game companies in the so-called “Industry” that he would work for. Like indies, Valve brings joy to people. Other companies, he says, just make games.)

So what are our users saying? In a recent poll on our Twitterfeed – which you should all be following, because it really is the best way to keep tabs on us – one user wanted to know more about our development process, and the day-to-day decisions behind game development. We hope that this will oblige you, but today’s blogpost is *really* inspired by something from The Internets.

In a recent online discussion about Dungeons of Dredmor, somebody said – and I paraphrase: “Commercial roguelikes will never be as good as free roguelikes because the multi-year, evolutionary development process that results in amazing games like Crawl will never be commercially viable.” Here we have somebody who likes roguelikes, and who should like Dredmor. Hopefully,  he will support us – here is a man, after all, who could be a customer, and any failing to attain him as a customer is a failing on our part as a business – but his concern is legitimate. Can a commercial roguelike be as good as Crawl, or Nethack? Well, I think we can… but let’s talk about this.

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Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor, Game Design, Games, Gaslamp, Other Games, Programming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Dredmor 0.94 done!

April 6, 2011 by Nicholas Vining

We’ve finished Dredmor 0.94, and are busy trying to figure out what we need to fix for Dredmor 0.94.1 (a handful of minor bugs that weren’t worth stopping the build today for) and 0.95 (???) Based on where we are right now – the start of the game is looking good and polished, but the end game and middle game is still in need of work. We’re looking at how to address that with 0.95, but here’s where it gets encouraging: most of what is left in the TODO for the game – the entire game! – is scripting and content creation. Not much code appears to be needed from me, which leaves me relegated to bug fixes, little pieces of polish, and of course tackling some of the last few little design issues. I’m sure that my bugtracker will fill up again, but it’s very nice having only seven code issues sitting between me and shipping.

Be advised: we may start mining the beta list shortly for more testers. You lucky, lucky people.

 

100% natural fiberglass compounds.

Posted in Dungeons of Dredmor, Games, Gaslamp, Programming | 5 Comments