The first feature that went into the next update is manual control over workshop production. The randomness in the previous versions was temporary, although it took me a while to get to that :P. Items also have their cost now, and the economy will be modified to accommodate that fact: resources will be more plentiful, but they will take longer to extract. I'll also have to change imp AI so that they don't get stuck mining when there are more important things to do.

The new system is pretty smart: traps are auto-scheduled for production as you place them in the dungeon. Minions will also look for something to do in other workshops if the queue in their current workshop is empty.



You can also notice another change in the screenshot above. Floors and various furniture have been discoupled, so you'll have much more freedom in designing your dungeon. All the furniture, like book shelves, training dummies and workshop tables will block creature movement from now on. The various types of floors might influence things like efficiency, minion attraction, combat, etc. (I still have to design that part). Rooms will be upgradeable.

It might also be time to let the player reinforce dungeon walls and make the prettier.



I'm planning to add one more gameplay feature, which I will discuss in the next blog update. Besides that, I won't try to stuff much more into Alpha 20. I think just polishing and balancing the new features will take enough time. There are also a few things from the campaign updates that need fixing, like travel constraints.

The first feature that went into the next update is manual control over workshop production. The randomness in the previous versions was temporary, although it took me a while to get to that :P. Items also have their cost now, and the economy will be modified to accommodate that fact: resources will be more plentiful, but they will take longer to extract. I'll also have to change imp AI so that they don't get stuck mining when there are more important things to do.

The new system is pretty smart: traps are auto-scheduled for production as you place them in the dungeon. Minions will also look for something to do in other workshops if the queue in their current workshop is empty.



You can also notice another change in the screenshot above. Floors and various furniture have been discoupled, so you'll have much more freedom in designing your dungeon. All the furniture, like book shelves, training dummies and workshop tables will block creature movement from now on. The various types of floors might influence things like efficiency, minion attraction, combat, etc. (I still have to design that part). Rooms will be upgradeable.

It might also be time to let the player reinforce dungeon walls and make the prettier.



I'm planning to add one more gameplay feature, which I will discuss in the next blog update. Besides that, I won't try to stuff much more into Alpha 20. I think just polishing and balancing the new features will take enough time. There are also a few things from the campaign updates that need fixing, like travel constraints.

• Fixed a frame rate issue happening in dungeons with lots of minions. This doesn't fix all frame rate problems, but the situation shouldn't be as severe as before. More optimizations will arrive in Alpha20.

• Fixed a frame rate issue happening in dungeons with lots of minions. This doesn't fix all frame rate problems, but the situation shouldn't be as severe as before. More optimizations will arrive in Alpha20.

Now that Alpha19 is out, fixing many technical and other issues introduced earlier, a lot of weight is off my chest . Players seem to enjoy the Adventurer campaign greatly. So far 782 Adventurers have been played, compared to 838 Keepers. The total number of turns spent by Adventurers is only 886 thousand compared to 5.4 million in Keeper mode, but that was expected as the games are much shorter. Big thanks to everyone who agreed to sending game statistics, I promise not to target any ads based on your sadistic deeds in the game. 😀

I’m now going to work on gameplay improvements, mostly in the basebuilding department. It has long been known that the game suffers from poor progression mechanics. Currently the player only faces a few major challenges, and the road to victory is either quick or contains long stretches of boredom. My ambition is to change that in Alpha20 and later.

I’ve played a few good basebuilding games recently, and I think the goal of the game should be putting visible and well defined challenges in front of the player, sometimes letting him or her create their own. The tools to beat the challenges should be easily discoverable (big bonus if there are multiple ways to do it). Challenges can be external, like enemy attacks, or internal, like a food shortage or a desired improvement in the base.

My goal is to set up the gameplay of KeeperRL as a long string of challenges of growing difficulty. It’s a ridiculously hard thing to do, of course, and requires a lot of trial and error. Ultimately, however, I think it’s essential for KeeperRL to be a game that people keep playing for many years.

I’ll write about some of my ideas soon, and I hope to hear your comments. With a lot of the technical stuff behind me, I’m hoping for really fast progress.

Now that Alpha19 is out, fixing many technical and other issues introduced earlier, a lot of weight is off my chest . Players seem to enjoy the Adventurer campaign greatly. So far 782 Adventurers have been played, compared to 838 Keepers. The total number of turns spent by Adventurers is only 886 thousand compared to 5.4 million in Keeper mode, but that was expected as the games are much shorter. Big thanks to everyone who agreed to sending game statistics, I promise not to target any ads based on your sadistic deeds in the game. 😀

I’m now going to work on gameplay improvements, mostly in the basebuilding department. It has long been known that the game suffers from poor progression mechanics. Currently the player only faces a few major challenges, and the road to victory is either quick or contains long stretches of boredom. My ambition is to change that in Alpha20 and later.

I’ve played a few good basebuilding games recently, and I think the goal of the game should be putting visible and well defined challenges in front of the player, sometimes letting him or her create their own. The tools to beat the challenges should be easily discoverable (big bonus if there are multiple ways to do it). Challenges can be external, like enemy attacks, or internal, like a food shortage or a desired improvement in the base.

My goal is to set up the gameplay of KeeperRL as a long string of challenges of growing difficulty. It’s a ridiculously hard thing to do, of course, and requires a lot of trial and error. Ultimately, however, I think it’s essential for KeeperRL to be a game that people keep playing for many years.

I’ll write about some of my ideas soon, and I hope to hear your comments. With a lot of the technical stuff behind me, I’m hoping for really fast progress.

• Replaced dragon back with minotaur in castle cellar.
  
• Fixed loading of smaller version of menu background in case OpenGL doesn't support the resolution of the original background.
  
• Added more diagnostics to audio initialization failures on some systems to get a better understanding of what's going on (future updates will simply start without audio in such situations).

• Replaced dragon back with minotaur in castle cellar.
  
• Fixed loading smaller resolution menu background when OpenGL doesn't support the original resolution.
  
• Added better diagnostics when audio initialization fails on some configurations, to get a better understanding of what's going wrong (in the next updates the game will simply run without audio in such cases).

• Replaced dragon back with minotaur in castle cellar.
  
• Fixed loading smaller resolution menu background when OpenGL doesn't support the original resolution.
  
• Added better diagnostics when audio initialization fails on some configurations, to get a better understanding of what's going wrong (in the next updates the game will simply run without audio in such cases).

KeeperRL Alpha19 has finally arrived! This update, among many small features and fixes, allows adventurers to play in the campaign. This makes the adventure mode much more attractive, as you can now visit allies, buy from shops and level up on smaller enemies before tackling the dangerous guys. See the changelog below for all the changes.



Changelog:

• Added adventurer campaign mode.
• Fixed management of autosave files so that there is a always a file to recover from.
• Switched from SFML rendering and audio library to SDL2, OpenGL, and OpenAL.
• Decreased RAM usage by about 50% by reusing objects for identical map tiles.
• Optimized the rendering logic to get about a 50% increase in framerate in the early game.
• Moved back from Visual Studio to MinGW compiler to avoid some technical issues with the former.
• Added message boards that can be built by Keepers and function as primitive chat rooms.
• Added small random settlements: human and elven villages, dwarf and kobold caves.
  
• Added forest animals: deer, foxes and boars to maps.
• Added different body materials, which affect combat and types of dropped corpses.
• Enabled passing through doors of friendly settlements.
• Added opt-in collecting of game statistics.
• Added question marks and town names to minimap.
• Added a message for when a minion learns a new spell.
• Made the game work on a single thread to avoid some technical issues.
• Changed the ratios of hills and forest in level generation so that trees are found more easily.
• Made the keeper always be spawned next to a mountain.
• Fixed conquering of cemetery level.
• Fixed crash when creature is insta-killed by a spell.
• Removed Sokoban from the single map mode to avoid level generation issues.
• Fixed crashes when exiting the game.
• Fixed crash involving the power spell animation.
• Fixed scrolling in the minion window.
• Fixed various issues that prevented winning, retiring, and playing as adventurer in single map mode.
• Prevented the giant spider from getting entangled in her own webs.
• Fixed a minion spell learning bug.
• Fixed item pricing and shopkeeper bugs.
• Fixed ambush bug that caused the player to be invisible forever.
• Fixed message refreshing that caused some confusion when the game ended.
• Fixed various issues in music playback.
• Fixed switching tabs in creature control mode.