Stairs

In v2.1 I introduced bumpable stairs. This was for two reasons: first of all it is more convenient to just bump the stairs but the most important reason was because it made the space key ambiguous while standing on stairs. Sometimes you wanted to wait and sometimes you wanted to descend or ascend. The new system places stairs inside walls like in Brogue.

However, this new system has caused me a lot of trouble. It messed up my previous path detection algorithms and introduced a number of rare bugs, of which I still haven’t fixed all. It made a lot of generation code more complex. For example, I had to make sure every stairway had exactly one entry and exit point, which can get you the confusing message “you cannot ascend the stairs from this direction”.

Now as I am planing to add more level generation algorithms, this type of stair placement gives me more headaches and it is really making development difficult. I guess that’s what I get for stealing ideas :p (in Brogue it works well because it was designed with those kind of stairs from the start).

The Old System

Because of the problems outlined above I have decided to go back to the old system: stairs are now placed on floors again instead of in walls. This gives me a lot more flexibility and much more stable code.

However, as I mentioned there was a reason I replaced the old system: pressing ‘space’ while on stairs would immediately take them instead of waiting. This can be problematic especially in corridors. To overcome this annoyance I have… added a keybinding (gasp!!). Ok… I know I am probably the only one worrying about having too many keybindings in TGGW, but I admit another keybinding was really necessary in this case.

The ‘a’ key (for activate) activates floor features such as stairs, portals and fountains. Actually, you don’t have to use ‘a’ either. The ‘rest’ option in the menu also changes to ‘activate’ whenever you’re on a feature that can be activated (that also means you can no longer rest on such, but I don’t know why you’d want to do that?).

This change also means that you can choose to wait on other features that activates without activating them. Yay!

 

Comments

  1. Hi, I wanna to thank you for your great game. I’m very addicted lately, and I’m excited about the changes you have talked about for 2.2 version, seems that is going to be even cooler.

    I almnost ascend once, but a shadow poisoned me while retrieving the artifact, and I had no food left to rest in the way up, neither items to cure it. I hope I can ascend before you publish the new version!

    1. Ah thank you for getting in touch 🙂 Really happy you like the game! If you made it to the artifact you will probably win soon!

  2. is this a bug? A frozen meet seems like it can be be rotten in the same turn it thaws.

      1. Big bug: if you have too much items in your inventory, and try to put something into a bag, that can’t fit there, you lose the item! I just lost 3 chocolate milks when i tried to put them into food bag :/ And a small bug, if your bag is full, but you have the same kind of item as an item in it, then the text box don’t offer button to put it in, but you can still do it.

      2. Yeah, this is something that’s actually been bugging me for a while. It makes silk gloves the only stealth item that you can’t /really/ use as a main part of your developement as a low stealth character. Every other item that grants stealth can be upgraded to give more stealth (and even a few items that don’t) except for this one.

        1. Thanks, will think about upgrades for silk gloves. Ideally all items should be upgradable, but there are maaany items so it’s always a work in progress 🙂

  3. Do monsters awake each other? Or combat will awake them? I started to use stealth more, and im not sure about this.

    And are monsters able to attack me with magic or ranged attack even if im invisible and they can only hear me? Maybe it had infra vision, don’t know.

    and it seems like sometimes monsters have a strange speed. even it has 3 speed while i had 6 it seems like it moved two turns in a row. but im not sure about this one either. I just died when i thought that i have a free turn.

    1. The only things that will wake up monsters are:
      – you being within ‘noise’ squares of it
      – another monster walks into it (swapping places)
      – you attacking it in some way
      – shouts, alarm traps, squeaky doors (the “wake all” effect)
      – another monster using it’s “monsters” ability (like ‘bark’) near it

      If a monster cannot see you (you can find out by targeting it) it can only use a melee attack against you. Ranged and magic attacks require that they see you unless it is an area attack. A monster can still track you if it can hear you.

      The strange speed is a bug that has been there from release #1 and is finally fixed in v2.2.

      Hope that helps!

      1. Thank you. It helps a lot. What does “you attacking it in same way” means?

        I just realized, in the right info panel, the color of the @ next to a monster shows that if it is able to see you. I’m not sure if it would be possible to add something like the red Z, when you are one step away to move into its vision range. It might be useful when you have a high stealth. Maybe one separated symbol if it can hear you, and one if it can see you. and those could change color. I’m just guessing. I see that this info is there if i press x an the monster. Strange how much i play this game and just realized these now 😀 I thought that monsters always see me 😀 And when they don’t attack, it is just because it isn’t their turn 😀 I see stealth different now 🙂

        1. “you attacking it in some way” was a bit weird formulation from my side. I mean: it wakes up if you attack it or use a wand or rod against it.

          I think TGGW has a problem showing a bit too much information which is why you missed that piece of information (the brain automatically filters it away). I’ve noticed other players also miss the information in the side panel.

          I’m not sure I follow your suggestion. Do you suggest to split up the “@ can see/hear you” into two separate that changes colour depending on if they are close to see you or not?

          1. Yeah, but I suggest this, to see that i’m just one step away moving into hear or vision range of a monster. I can’t see how this could be solved with a single @. But I’m not sure if it is needed there, how useful it was during game play to see this easily.

            Actually i kinda like this sound and vision thing. I just realized how cool stealth is in the game. It is so great I still learn new things. I always surprised how good game this is :). I just can’t bore it.

            For me the amount of shown info are pretty good. I think the system is pretty clean. For me it is worse when I forget something i can’t see on the main screen and die. It is great if you still can polish it, but the system is pretty mature already.

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