Actually, neither app needs to meet the other at all. That’s the nice part about file-based versioning systems like Subversion: You can just lob them at a particular part of your drive and they just work. Most of the time.
Now that we’re starting to focus on building a Unity version of DD, we’re running into a few problems. Firstly, we’re a distributed team, so that means we NEED to have some sort of versioning in place. Frankly, even if we were always in the same office, versioning systems are so useful that there’s no excuse NOT to use one. Game Maker’s been great for prototyping the game so far, but it’s sorely limiting because having multiple people working on one GM project is tricky (and we’re pretty darn good at it). For instance, I built the interface as stand-alone as I could and I still needed to freeze the code for 4 days to merge it all into the version Nandrew was working on.
Anyway, back to Unity. This being the first time we’ve used the package, we’ve found out that it does some things that make it not play nice with versioning systems. Like continuously rewriting needed object metadata in a constantly changing set of random directories. Which is sort of a dick move when you think about it. Apparently the Pro license lets you force Unity to write that metadata as text next to the resources themselves, nixing the random rewriting/renaming and apparently letting SVN do its job as advertised.
We’ll probably switch up to the Pro version of Unity at some point over the next few months, but until then we really needed to get something working so that we could all start taking bites out of the todo list that’s growing alarmingly fast. There are a fewpostsout there about versioning and Unity, there’s even an official how-to if you’re using Pro. Unfortunately the consensus seems to be that versioning and free Unity is messy at best and non-functional at worst… More…
Progress on DD is picking up, now that we’re able to start on it full time properly:
Aequitas has been getting the basics going in Unity so that we can start moving development over to that for the full version. Those of you that have issues with getting hemmed in by monsters at low level will have a new target for your ire soon, because he’s been messing with the random generation algs as well.
Nandrew’s been working on the religion system in the game and we’re busy testing how the changes impact both first-time players and veterans. It was clear that certain gods were just too powerful if worshipped early and that the incremental increase system was a little too open to runaway positive feedback. He’s also been resolutely squishing bugs and poking the Vampire with a stick in the hopes that it’ll be less broken when he’s done…
I’ve been messing with the game’s interface (because I tend to feel strongly about these things), trying to make it more streamlined and less “math heavy” for people to play. It took a while to write a modular interface overlay that I can change the look of in a hurry, but I’m getting to the point where the sorts of big, friendly health bars and damage taken/dealt indication are in the game.
One of the big things I’ve been focusing on is to remove the need for popups unless user-prompted and to re-use the bottom-right pane of the screen depending on current context. So shops and altars tell you what’s on offer or who they belong to without a popup and you can choose to buy/worship without the game pausing… At least, that’s the theory. We’ll probably still have to have some sort of menu for the new religion system so that you can choose what to spend your piety on, but that’s still coming 😉
A few weeks ago, I sat down (metaphorically) with John Harris, the gent who writes GameSetWatch’s @Play roguelike column. It was about 4am at the time, and we had a cool little chat about Desktop Dungeons and anything else that immediately sprung to mind.
That cool little chat has now been published in all its indie glory on GameSetWatch for people to read and enjoy. So go forth! Learn about the inner workings of a horribly confused game developer’s mind! Experience the excitement and danger of crafting a puzzle-style tribute to the roguelike genre! Answer all of life’s important little questions, such as why the goo tribute in-game seems to refer to World of Goo, yet mysteriously gets drawn like Gish’s tarball!
So we just finished another advergame. That’s cool. But it’s not what QCF is for and we know it. The awesome part is that we can totally afford to self-fund Desktop Dungeons, which is what we’re doing come April 1st (auspicious day to go full indie, eh?)
The less awesome part is that we’ve still got loads of “other” work coming in, the sort of work we did to be able to fund our own game ideas. So the dilemma becomes one of what to do with work enquiries that you would have jumped at a year ago. The way I see it, we have three options: More…
The TIGSource community recently managed to get its collective hands on Desktop Dungeons, and the good folk there have been tearing it apart with felt-tip pens and pixel sorcery ever since.
Derek Yu has set up this cool thread for DD tilesets and the like, so head on over if you’re interested in crafting or downloading cool new looks for DD. Some of the highlights include Yu’s DD tileset, a sci-fi interpretation from PencilInPain and a classic roguelike set by Hangedman.
The tileset editor in Desktop Dungeons isn’t really that amazing (right now, it actually just consists of grunt file creation and placement), but it’s pretty awesome seeing what styles people can come up with. This, combined with the interface overhaul in coming versions, should help make the game look all varied and stuff in addition to being oodles of fun.
We’ll try to grab some of the better tilesets we see and bundle them up with future releases of the game. It would be a shame if future players missed out, after all.
They done linked to it. Is what we mean… Our recent Global Game Jam entry, YouDunnit, has popped up on both Play This Thing and Boing Boing, making us happy that Greg Costikyan was able to sit through the initial feelings of WTF and frustration that we didn’t have time to polish out.
We’re proud of YouDunnit’s concept, it’s really nice to have someone else pick up on that out of the blue. It’s also humbling: Someone in the Boing Boing comments mentioned Braid. Hah, no, it’s not quite as cool a game as that. In response, we’ve created a new section for 48 hour games and other quick-turn around stuff as we do it. We should probably create another section for Nandrew’s epic collection of games, but he’s so prolific that it would be a ton of work…
I can’t believe I missed this, but EVOKE episode 3 is now live and challenging players around the world to go out and Inspire each other. On the way, more is revealed about Citizen X and a host of new missions and research await:
Evoke is an ARG by Jane McGonigal in partnership with the World Bank Institute. If you’re not living under a rock, you should have seen the CNN coverage or the TED talk about games changing the world by now.
If you need some help getting to grips with Desktop Dungeons or just enjoy trawling the web for game trivia, the recently-established Desktop Dungeons wiki should offer you a great way to check up on all sorts of number-crunching stats and in-game secrets.
This wiki is still pretty young at the moment, so contributors are particularly welcome to step in and help out with some of the stubbier pages. All sorts of useful information can be contributed: item lists, character guides and even general game feedback and suggestions. Heck, just post whatever you think may be useful. Or entertaining. Or both.
Now that this game is prestigious enough to have three whole decimal points in its version number, it seems only fair that it gets paraded about a fair bit more.
For those not already in the know, Desktop Dungeons is a casual, puzzle-based Roguelike which takes as little as ten minutes to play from beginning to end. Players choose from a variety of fantasy races and classes before heading into the darkened depths of the doom-filled dungeons in search of fame, fortune and level-up opportunities.
Though tricky at first, DD strives to be more accessible than the average Roguelike and its unlock heirarchy ensures that it’ll maintain replayability for a good long time. Advertising blurb aside, check its forum thread for information on the latest version, tips and tricks from the community and even video replays (such as the above from OrtoSlon).
Or just, you know, hit the direct download if you really hate that sort of stuff.
Roughly a year ago Gamasutra ran a piece on South African game development – featuring salient comments from QCF – by local El33tOnline (that’s a site, not a title) writer Oliver. He’s started re-posting the initial interviews that the piece was based on, complete with a couple of follow-up questions to bring them more up to date.
