Fame 0.9.11 released!

The automatic exploration feature, also called "autoexplore," has always been sparkling a lot of discussion. Many love it. Some people claim that autoexplore is just a way to compensate for poor dungeon generation algorithms. Don't generate boring rooms and you won't need autoexplore, they say. The problem is that dungeons cannot consist solely of ultra-interesting stuff. That's not natural and probably not as cool as it sounds. Interesting stuff condendsed in a relatively small area is not that interesting anymore, that's one thing. The other is that different people have different opinion on what is interesting. You've probably already guessed it - I'm in the autoexplore camp.

Autoexplore algorithm in Fame is very simplistic. It stops only when a hostile creature gets close or when there is no more undiscovered tiles. Items are picked up only if this has been configured prior to pressing the autoexplore key (X). Some item categories (most interesting, I guess) are enabled by default to be picked up automatically, both when autoexploring and during normal exploration. One more thing that will currently stop autoexploration is doors. Perhaps one day I'll decide that autoexplore should attempt to open doors automatically, but at the moment it doesn't seem to be a good idea. A door may be trapped, locked or (starting from this version) simply get stuck. This requires some thinking and a proper action from the player, so...

You may notice that the Character Creation window has changed a little. Now all "advanced" options are hidden by default and the only significant choice to make is the "Primary Skill" dropdown list. This is the classic choice between melee weapons, ranged weapons and magic. There may be more presets in the future, but for now let's focus on these three. It might look like I'm introducing something like "character classes," but I am not. That's just an interface improvement. It spares you some clicking and maybe some experiments (which you are still able to perform, anyway.) If you choose "Magic" and later in the game decide to use bow and arrows all the time, you won't be doomed. There are no "classes" in the game.

The Character Creation window now has also its ASCII mode. As always, I try to "convert" at least one game's window per version to ASCII. This way we're getting closer and closer to a "full ASCII" game and I don't get too distracted from adding new features and content. This is also a great opportunity to do some code refactoring, separating GUI from actual implementation, which is always a good thing.

There is a new town in the game. Inhabited mainly by outlaws of all kinds, Totdnum has an arena as a central place of interest. Currently you can only place bet on fights between various monsters, but in future versions in will be possible to take part in a fight. I've programmed the whole arena thing in half an hour (most of this were script interfaces for existing game mechanics), and then spent another 12 hours trying to make the dialog window display names of fighting monsters.

Quick summary:

• automatic exploration
• simplified character creation
• new town
• door improvements

Full change log:

• automatic exploration
• simplified character creation
• new town
• ASCII version of the Character Creation window
• a game is now set in a specific year of the history
• added some item interactions for monsters
• no more wall "bumping" when auto-moving with Ctrl
• auto-moving with Ctrl ignores opened doors
• kicking a door now does have an effect
• added simple kicking effects to certain special objects
• it is now possible to kick something even if the right leg is broken or missing
• information about permanently missing limbs is included in the Character window
• it is now possible to destroy doors with large rocks
• monsters will no longer attempt to open doors in special rooms
• ctrl+click on doors now enables the player to step into the doorway
• an option to completely disable movement using mouse
• added separate tile for destroyed door
• [bugfix] game no longer crashes during loading an old game
• [bugfix] dungeon doors no longer has the same type of trap on the entire level
• [bugfix] corrected AI for monsters using ranged attacks
• [bugfix] items given to neutral or hostile NPCs no longer fail to appear in their inventory
• [bugfix] when giving gold to monsters, the entire selected gold pile disappears instead of just 1 gold piece
• [bugfix] when giving gold from sack to monsters and the sack is scrolled down, an appropriate item is now selected

As usually, you can expect that saved games from versions 0.9.9 and 0.9.10 are still compatible with 0.9.11.

Have fun!