The Binding of Isaac

Rock Paper Shotgun are the second people to tell me today that the Binding of Isaac is worth playing.

Head over to their comments thread for discussion on whether roguelike-like as a term is a good thing. I'm for it, as I've mentioned previously.

Teaser

Ah... the early days of a project. Given I'm learning the language I'm implementing in at the same time, I'm really happy with the amount of progress I'm making (Thanks [insert-really-cool-library-here]).

Javascript.notEqual(highLevelLanguage)

So, array comparison.

Why is there no standard function for this in Javascript?

Roguelike Radio - Episode 5 (Frozen Depths)

Is up at Roguelike Radio.  I really enjoy how effective Frozen Depths is at conveying its theme.

We're on iTunes so please rate and comment on the podcast there to help spread the word.

Importing save files

It doesn't happen much (at all?) these days, but more games should support importing the save file from an entirely different game.

Early on in Unangband's development history, I supported important vanilla Angband character saves: the game was initially - and arguably still is - an Angband + cool stuff variant. Since then, the two save file formats have undoubtedly diverged, but I'm still tempted to redo this functionality.

Here's a chart of some games which did support this functionality.

Pinky has shot the food

I wonder if NetPack is a worthy coffee break successor to DoomRL?

Roguelike Radio - Episode 4 (DoomRL)

Is up at Roguelike Radio. Episode 3, if you missed it, was on Brogue last week - I was on holiday in Fiji so wasn't able to attend. Luckily, this meant I was able to enjoy the first podcast dedicated to roguelikes I've had the pleasure of simply listening to.

We're on iTunes now so please rate and comment on the podcast there to help spread the word.

Unangband 0.6.4b released

This is a back port of a number of features from the SVN version which probably deserve some air time prior to me releasing a broken 0.6.5.  You can download the source code from http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-064b-src.zip and a precompiled Windows build from http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-064b-win.zip.

For the full change log, see the official web page.

ARRrrrrrP

Hmm... I didn't realize the ARRP (Annual Roguelike Release Party) this year fell on Sunday the 18th, which was yesterday in this time zone.

However, I'm going to celebrate the International Talk like a Pirate day (September 19th) by releasing a new version of Unangband some time later today.

So happy ARRrrrrrP day instead.

And here I was thinking of coding in Javascript for the next game...

One day a student came to Moon and said, 'I understand how to avoid using BIGNUMs! We will simply use floats!' Moon struck the student with a stick. The student was enlightened.

Annual Roguelike Release Party

I'm putting a cunning plan in place to attempt to have a version of Unangband ready for the 2011 Annual Roguelike Release Party.[1]

A cunning plan which is in serious threat of being derailed by this (scroll down for review). You have 3 days to convince me not to buy it...

[1] I cannot promise the new version won't eat your computer however.

Roguelike Radio - Episode 2 (Desktop Dungeons)

Is up at Roguelike Radio.

We're on iTunes now so please rate and comment on the podcast there to help spread the word.

Historium: A Concise History of A World

You may remember a blog post about some 'house rules' I put together for Civilisation Revolution... umm. I've spent a little more time working on them.

210+ page PDF.  TeX source. PNG tech tree. GraphViz source for the tech tree.

I have it on good authority that this isn't how you design a game.

(Doing this just reinforces in my mind how awkward it is to design a tech tree, and how clumsy a game mechanism it is).

[Edit: Version 0.2 is up. This is final unless a) there's stuff people want clarified or b) I realise I forgot to put something else in].

[Edit 2: Version 0.3 is up, which fixes refugees - see change log for details. Thanks to Tom for feedback and suggestions regarding Conscription and Professional doctrine changes].

[Edit 3: Version 0.4 is up. Change log.]

[Edit 4: Version 0.5 is up. Change log.]

[Edit 5: Version 0.7 is up. Change log. Change log for version 0.6.]

[Edit 6: Version 0.8 is up. Change log.]

[Edit 7: Version 0.9 is up. Change log.]

[Edit 8: Somehow got up to version 1.6. Renamed from Alternal to Historium, for a variety of reasons]

Help me Internet. What's wrong with me?

I should care about games like Witcher 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Rage and one or more franchises coming out in the next couple of months...

But instead I'm interested in Overgrowth, Hawken, In Profundis, Lords of Uberdark, Blade Symphony and Desktop Dungeons. And by interested, I mean spending my hard earned dollars on. [1]

I mean, I've not even bought Red Orchestra 2, a game I loved the previous version of.

Please cure me of my passive aggressive affair with unreleased alpha indie games.

[1] Technically my wife's hard earned dollars. But I've always had to get approval from the financial controller, so the process is essentially unchanged...