Alpha5 (v0.5.0) was released earlier today… and then v0.5.0.1 to fix some issues that were found almost immediately by the intrepid playtesters. Alpha playtesters should see this forum topic to learn why…
I expect everyone to be walking around at Level 16 with Double Battleaxes and Expert Regeneration skill by tomorrow.
… That gives you one hour until tomorrow. Have at it.
I haven’t stopped typing since last Friday’s incremental release, so here’s another for-the-sake-of-Friday update, which includes two dozen fixes and enhancements. Alpha playtesters can read this forum entry for the details.
For RPG Alpha Playtesters, I’ve released an incremental update (v0.4.1). Why? Mostly because it’s Friday. Also, I’ve tampered with (er, improved) a lot of code since the last release. See this forum topic for details (and comments on future releases).
All the tasking for Alpha4 is complete (… or brushed under the rug of a later release). Alpha Playtesters are invited to read the details, then try it out.
For Alpha playtesters, I’ve posted an incremental release (on the roadmap to Alpha4) with some important enhancements to island building. See this playtesting forum topic for details.
I’ve been coding furiously since … well, since 2005. Over the past week, I’ve implemented the steepest spike in the project’s SLOC History.
Posted this morning, Alpha3 v0.3.1 is an incremental release on the roadmap to Alpha4, introducing Player-Created Islands. There are some known issues and limitations, but basic functionality is testable. (This is the secret alpha bonus feature mentioned earlier.)
Disclaimer: I’m not promising how this feature will manifest itself in the final game design, but I’m very excited about the potential.
Alpha playtesters should see this forum topic for details on testing the new feature.
Just a couple notes for Potential Playtesters… Read the rest of this entry »
I am proud to announce the Potential RPG Alpha3 edition! The focus of Alpha editions is to introduce gameplay features, bringing us closer to a feature-complete Beta edition. Alpha releases are for approved playtesters only, but steady progress is being made toward a more open Beta edition.
Some of the outward improvements in this edition include:
This edition theoretically fixes several bugs and performance issues, but Alpha playtesting is greatly needed (and appreciated). If you’re an Alpha playtester, have a look at the new gameplay (and have a look at the outstanding tasks).
This article is mostly of interest to RPG Alpha Playtesters. Characters, creatures, some surface features (trees), and sprites are being painted as on-the-fly effects, atop the underlying terrain. The underlying terrain was still being background rendered to an off-screen image, rather than on-the-fly.
As a performance test, I’ve added an (internal) switch to paint the underlying terrain with the new effects system, short circuiting the (soon-to-be legacy?) background rendering altogether. The latest test release (labeled 2008-05-02-1442) renders the terrain in this fashion.
The concern is that the effects-based on-the-fly painting system will not be fast enough to handle painting all 256+ on-screen terrain tiles, plus surface features, characters, creatures, as well as other special effects sprites. Nonetheless, it seems to be working for me, on my non-graphics-accelerated Linux development machine.
There are some known issues and glitches. Items, towns, corpses, and other surface elements will not be drawn during this test (they’re still bound to the legacy rendering system).
The recent significant graphic performance improvement inspired me to tinker with a few new rendering tricks. Surface features (such as trees) now stand atop the underlying terrain. Characters and creatures
can walk behind these features. The goal is to provide a more dimensional perspective to the world.
For alpha playtesters: There are some known issues with the new feature rendering, but I’ve released a new alpha version anyway.
Recent Improvements Tome of Lore