After the successful pre-alpha start (many thx to rockpapershotgun for an incredible boost !!!)  I want to talk about the future of the game.

At the moment I’m working at the crafting system, the dungeon building part and the gnoblins, which will see the darkness of the dungeon in the next major release. You will get some preview videos of the upcoming features in the near future.

The following version will contain mainly a content update. This will pimp existing content and add new: more skills, new creatures, the next dungeon world, new items etc.

After that I want to address the following features/content (unordered and incomplete)

• more content (can’t tell you too much without giving some spoilers)
• performance tweaking
• visual improvements
• dungeon generator improvements

If and to what extend we will go commercial is unplanned at the moment. But the alpha version (currently only the pre-alpha version is available) will be for free and will contain many of the planned features. Because of being only a hobby project (we both work only in our spare time at this project), and with the vision of the complexity of our game, a polished, completed version at steam or similar publishing service is unlikely at the moment. More probably will be a business model like minecraft, that is, you can buy the game before release for a discount and will get access to the beta version. But this will be decided in the future, first comes the Gnoblins.

Version 0.0.3 is out to address the AA-shader bug and some other minor fixes.

Special thanks to SpaceKing and Disrespecting QT who helped me to analyse the bug and do some testing of the fix afterward.

Here’s the complet changelog:

Changelog Version 0.0.3
=======================
Minor Changes & Bugfixes:
————————-
- AA shader should work now with newer nvidia and amd/ati videocards.
- Changed the player control, it is not ‘sluggish’ any longer.
- Creature movement has been adjusted too.
- Quickfix for keybinding and inverted y axis of the mouse.
To change the keybinding, install the game and start it once !
After starting it, go to c:\users\<user name>\AppData\roaming\gnoblins\config\game_config.xml
Open the file and change the following settings accordinly (always use upper case characters, nothing else is supported yet):
<value name = “invert_y_mouse_axis” data = “false”  />
<value name = “key_toggle_inventory” data = “I”  />
<value name = “key_toggle_character” data = “C”  />
<value name = “key_toggle_quest_log” data = “J”  />
<value name = “key_toggle_crafting” data = “B”  />
<value name = “key_toggle_map” data = “M”  />
<value name = “key_toggle_recipes” data = “R”  />
<value name = “key_move_forward” data = “W”  />
<value name = “key_move_left” data = “A”  />
<value name = “key_move_right” data = “D”  />
<value name = “key_move_backward” data = “S”  />

Notes:
——
- A proper ingame keybinding mechnism will be included in a future release.

The german download points to version 0.0.1. I’ve fixed this one, thought only about 10 people downloaded it from the german download page, the other 2500 downloaded the correct version from the english download page.

Trying to get rid of some bugs…

Read the rest of this entry →

The second pre-alpha version with some great improvements is out. Most important are the addition of sound fx and music. The awesome  music is created by Christian Andersson (Craze Music).

As always you can download the new version here.

The new configuration supports mixed resolution rendering, that is, the 3d world can be rendered in a lower resolution than the gui to keep a moderate framerate at higher monitor resolutions even for not high-end videocards. The following screenshots display a scene with different quality setting at a screen resolution of 1680×1050 (the fps is displayed at the left, upper corner). All screenshots have been taken on a nvidia 8800 GTS videocard.

quality_high

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Here’s the complete changelog:

Changelog Version 0.0.2
=======================

Major Changes:
————–
- Added an ingame options dialog.
- Sound and music have been added !

Minor Changes & Bugfixes:
————————-
- The map displays the edge of the level properly now.
- Added a pause function (clock icon in hud).
- Player animation/actions don’t stop while a dialog is open any longer.
- Inventory item drag’n'drop behaviour improved.
- Items are no longer black when dragged.
- Some gui frames do not change the color any longer.
- Fixed a bug, where sometimes items are not showing up properly after a game has been loaded.
- Game start time and level switch time have been reduced dramatically.
- Fixed the terrain texture glitch.
- Added an exit button to most ingame dialogs.
- Armor and combat values (damage/penetration) are displayed in the equipment dialog now.
- Handling of the save games has been improved:
. You can delete characters now.
. You can only play saved characters with the proper game version.
. Fixed some bugs related to saved games.
- Removed some texture glitches (red lines).
- Can’t equip any item to the earring,ring,bag slot any longer.
- A newly created character gets a random name, which you can change.
- Un-/equiping items to a statues is displayed properly now.
- Added some low level creatures to the starting area.
- Added Anti-Aliasing (set postprocessing setting above very low)
- You can turn off the outlines now (set postpressing settings to extreme low)
- Animals can no longer open doors.