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Tuesday 10th July 2001 - Roguelike News has closed.

This may come as a surprise to some. Others may have seen it coming for a while. Roguelike News is shutting down. I'm afraid I no longer have the time or the same drive for maintaining these pages as I once did.

I've thoroughly enjoyed reporting new releases and hearing about your projects over the years (four, infact - I forgot all about the 'page birthday' this June) but I feel I'd be doing you all a great disfavour by simply going through the motions without enjoying the experience, eventually growing to resent the effort involved. Best stop before it all gets too much.

I'll be leaving the pages up for a few months so if there is anything you want to grab from the site, get it now. Good luck to all the projects that have filled these pages, thanks to all the authors who took time to contact me (and even those who didn't) and thanks to all the people who visited RLNews. I hope you found what you were looking for...

Monday 9th July 2001
- New Atrogue Arne Thomaßen has another new version of his roguelike, Atrogue. New for v0.1.0 is support for the visual animation of remote actions like throwing and zapping, a new command-line option for better color display with some graphics cards where yellow looked brown and the usual bugfixes.
- Bablos Bug. Well, a bug in a Bablos Amiga port to be precise. It turns out that with the recent port of ZAngband (v2.6.1) there was a bug "...where if the character took around 10 steps, then the game would crash completely." - eep! Anyway, the bug has been nailed and the version on Clockwork should be updated soon. If you've already downloaded the buggy version, Bablos has made a 9k patch available, which you can downloaded here.
- DrAngband Update. Andrew White has a new version of DrAngband (v2.9.9) available. Here are the changes...
  • Borgs need to be able to use 2handed weapons <-- still needs work.
  • Tweaked the monster mana to slightly increase the amount of mana.
  • Fixed the damage calculator for the pseudo and blue dragon major breath.
  • Added new Dragon Races: Red, White, Blue, Green.
  • Borg has been taught to use the new dragon breaths.
  • Randart jewelry descriptions fixed, the borg can use them now.
  • Life potions and restore constitutions repaired.
  • Detection failrate decreased again.
  • Repaired spell 1,1 destroy doors/traps to work on doors (non aiming spell).
  • Borg re-enabled.
  • Hounds made a bit smarter, they no longer hide in a room.
  • Repaired the bugs related to traps being out of sync.
  • Fixed the (extremely hard to find) bug which gave Ring of Fire Resistance a random high resist.
  • Chests are more attractive by producing items 35 levels OOD.
  • Small chests produce money and jewels (rings or amulets).
  • The value of shop items will now increase relative to the player level.
  • Acquirement scroll now creates a randart item.
  • New wizard command of 'r' to create Randart, works like 'g' & 'v'.
  • Dragon breaths altered to make them more useful.
  • Ethereal Lock balanced by reducing duration and increasing cost.
  • Teleport Other has increased range, it was worthless before.
  • Hold Foe has increased duration.
  • Word of Destruction did not kill monsters, but now it does hurt them.
  • Mage spell of Cone of Cold given greater range.
  • Added a new non-unique town monster -- You'll know it when you see it.
  • Much smarter monster AI, careful.
  • Monster Mana has been implemented.
  • Striking will do extra damage if the monster can not be pushed back.
  • 52 item inventory makes it too easy, returned to 23.
  • Two Handed weapons are two-handed which means no shield can be used with the weapon. To make them more enticing, extra bonuses are given to the two-handed weapons: +10 to hit, +5% dam, +1 attack per round.
  • Fixed a bug that made stunned monsters freeze.
  • Invisibility made more effective.
Tuesday 3rd July 2001
- EyAngband Release. There is a new version (0.3.3) of EyAngband by Eytan Zweig available. Major changes concern balance and bugfixes and the graphics system has been removed (pending someone volunteering to create new tilesets). A full list of changes can be found here on the EyAngband homepage. Source, Win32 + Amiga + Mac binaries are available there too.
- New ZAngband. The ZAngband dev team have released a new version (2.6.1) with the usual truck-load of changes. Here it is with the file links just after...
  • The supplies store can sell ammo.
  • Added an option so that you can set the map to remember monster-lit grids.
  • Made potions of restore life levels more common.
  • Items from acquirement() can not be worthless anymore.
  • Quest rewards are now worth at least (100 * dungeon_level) gold pieces.
  • The object selection routines used by stores when stocking themselves should be much faster.
  • Towns now have random names.
  • Added autoconf support.
  • Potions of Life will now give back full hitpoints even if CON was drained.
  • Fixed the building prices. They were off by a factor of four.
  • The options screen could display bogus options.
  • Fixed problem with the description given when looking at snow.
  • Fixed problem with displaying charging artifact lights in the wrong colour.
  • Fixed an off-by-one error in the object selection function.
  • The inventory is now reorganized after refueling from a lantern.
  • The monster list term is now turned off when hallucinating.
  • Interactions with traps shouldn't cause any display glitches.
  • Door bashing with '+' command works again.
  • Fixed an error that was preventing the throwing mutation from working.
  • Only display the 'gain' message when getting a mutation.
  • Fixed problem with monsters being able to walk though wall-like squares.
  • Fixed problem when recalling into the dungeon when the overhead map term was turned on.
  • Fixed duplicated mutation information for the 'dazzle' mutation.
  • Updated the message you get when *identifying* artifact lights.
  • Fixed the problem with starting the game on 64bit machines.
  • Corrected the color palette for the 16x16 tiles in the DOS version.
  • The curses interface should now be more compatible with some BSD curses versions.
  • The '5' key on the numeric keypad should now work in the X11 version.
  • The X11 and XAW versions default to three windows instead of eight.
  • Use the mkstemp() function where available instead of the insecure tmpnam().
- Amiga *bands. Bablos has another bunch of Amiga ports for you. For your enjoyment, you can partake of EyAngband (0.3.3), Gumband (2.1.7a), PsiAngband (1.3.0) and ZAngband (2.6.1), all to be found here...
Tuesday 26th June 2001
- Atrogue Update Arne Thomaßen is back with another new version (0.1.0) of his roguelike, Atrogue. This time round changes include a new command "pick object" (e.g. useful in combination with the command "move onto"), interesting new weapons (harpoon, boomerang) and a greatly improved "artificial intelligence" of the creatures in the dungeon.
- Linux PernAngband. Skylar Thompson has created a Linux version of PernAngband (v4.2.2) which you should be able to find in here before too long.
- Win32 Gumband. Another port, this time the recent update of Gumband (2.1.7a) for Win32. You have Shaun Sides to thank and you should be able to find the file here soon...
Monday 25th June 2001
- New Gumband. Joseph William Dixon has a new version (2.1.7a) of his variant, Gumband, available. A full list of changes can be found in the text file (link below). Source and Dos executable can also be found below...
- Roque Update. Andreas Koch has released a new version (1.1) of his roguelike, Roque. He's very keen on feedback so give it a try and tell Andreas what you think. Here are the changes from the last version...
  • Doubled light radius.
  • Light now lasts ~5000 instead of ~500 turns.
  • Empty chests say they are empty.
  • Chests now contain MUCH more items.
  • Made some items less rare.
  • Rubble level density increased.
  • Far away monsters don't move.
  • One more possible level generation hangup removed.
  • Fighting system now much faster (1-3 hits instead of 10-30 for a gnome).
  • Equipment stays equiped when loading a saved game.
  • Traders should no longer be embedded in rock.
  • Isolated water pools for sever levels should be gone.
  • No more microscopic levels (may cause multiple generation runs).
Thursday 21st June 2001
- New Falcon's Eye. Jaakko Peltonen has a new version (1.9.2) of his Nethack enhancement project, Falcon's Eye available. Along with a number of bug fixes, changes include...
  • Music support in Linux (MIDI and MP3).
  • Much improved keyboard customization (you can customize any of NetHack's keyboard commands).
  • Improved sound customization: all sounds and music can now be customized.
  • Mouse movement now works also without "number_pad" option.
  • Over 20 new tiles, including traps, ladders, zap and explosion effects.
  • The message area is now shaded so that messages can be seen better.
  • Directions (for kick, chat, etc.) can now be given with the mouse.
  • Directions given from the number pad now always work the same (in movement and for kick, chat, etc.).
  • "Previous message" command (CTRL+P) now works.
Monday 18th June 2001
- Miggy ZAngband. Just the one port from Bablos this time round - ZAngband (v2.6.0) which, if all goes well, should be located here...
- Another Atrogue Arne Thomaßen is continuing with his rapid-fire release schedule, putting out yet another version (0.0.6) of his new roguelike Atrogue. Changes include fixes for a few bugs (esp. a crashing one with the command "call a magic object"), implementation of spell-casting plus several other improvements.
Thursday 14th June 2001
- Spoily Site. Mark Mackey has created a site, the 'Association for the Advancement of Dungeon Crawling' containing all manner of hints and spoilers concerning Linley Henzell's Dungeon Crawl. So if you're finding the dungeons just a little too much, take a look, it might just help.
Tuesday 12th June 2001
- PsiAngband Release. Matthias Kurzke has released a new version (1.3.0) of his variant, PsiAngband. Here is the list of changes with links to the Win executables and source just after...
  • The codebase was updated to vanilla 2.9.2 (except for autoconf support).
  • Cursed ego items are generated in a more sensible manner now.
  • Objects with boosted damage dice are slightly more common.
  • Rogues can set traps for monsters.
  • A bookstore was added.
  • Since several monsters changed their positions, some uniques might get resurrected.
  • Searching and Pseudo-ID bonus combined to "Sensing". Amulets of Pseudo-ID will be magically converted (read:hacked) into Amulets of Sensing.
  • Psionic Foci are "*" now. Hidden gold is "$".
  • Lots of new amulets were added.
  • Priests should only use blunt or blessed ammo, or get a severe to-hit penalty (-15).
  • Being hungry no longer has effects on your speed.
  • Potions of Infravision give +30 feet now.
  • Adrenaline (as potions or as spell) is a *lot* better now, but too much of it is still dangerous...
  • Heavy Curses (such as on Calris) can't be broken by enchanting alone anymore.
  • Precognition should be less scummy than in 1.0.7b and more useful than in 1.2.0 now.
  • Some low-level psionic spells have a better damage/mana ratio now.
  • Psionicists have more hitpoints.
  • The spell and activation of clairvoyance don't detect objects anymore. But *Enlightenment* still does.
  • Revamped targetting for Telekinesis, Dimension Door etc.
  • Summoning flags changed slightly.
The files should be available from...
Monday 11th June 2001
- Khaos Update. Benjamin W. Lagow has made some changes to his roguelike, Khaos: The Shattered Worlds, adding basic combat and monster AI, armor, some potions, level advancement and skills. With the release of v0.15a, the game now has a purpose. Subtitled "Sewers Of Slime", your job is to descend into the sewers of your town (a single level dungeon), kill the rats and eventually face the evil Rat King.
- New Atrogue A new version (0.0.4) of the fledgling roguelike Atrogue from Arne Thomaßen is available. Changes in this version include fixes for level-generation and map-display bugs plus more scroll and trap kinds.
- Minstrel Moves. Jonathan Hayward has moved locations for his project - The Minstrel's Song - so if you've got it bookmarked, you might want to update your pages.
Thursday 7th June 2001
- PocketPC Angband. Just a quick note to tell you about Frank Galligan's project to create a version of Angband for the PocketPC. On the AngbandCE homepage, you will find ARM, MIPS and SH3 version for download. Over weekend, Frank plans to put a guide on the project homepage showing people the enhancements made to make Angband playable on the PocketPC.
- Dev FAQ. James McCann is in the process of putting together a FAQ for the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.development and would be a very happy bunny if anyone with suggestions for questions that they think should go into the FAQ. Send your questions to James directly.
Wednesday 6th June 2001
- New Roguelike. Brian Conley would like to announce his new roguelike project - Ragnastock (jokey work-in-progress name). It's a graphical roguelike (using tiles by David E. Gervais) and is written in Visual Basic. He's got big plans for it (Point and click interface, 30 magical attributes which can appear in any combination on items, 48 spells to master in 16 spell spheres, create your own character classes, 12 skills, 10 weapon proficiencys, 573 types of monsters) and says that there is less than a month's worth of work remaining on it. Brian is looking for people to help out - a gfx artist for the GUI, a sound bloke for music/sfx and a bunch of beta testers. Anyone who thinks they can fill those spaces should email Brian.
- Another New Roguelike. The second new roguelike project of the night is from Arne Thomaßen and is called Atrogue. It's text- based and written for Unix'ish operating systems. Arne describes the gameplay as "somewhat similar to that of the 'original Linux clone' of Rogue" so if you fancy searching for that old Amulet of Yendor again, go check it out. There is a version (0.0.2) available for download.
- Stable ZAngband. The ZAngband dev team have released a new stable version (2.6.0) of their variant. Here is the list of changes with file links following...
  • The starting town has a fixed list of stores now.
  • Changed how the sanity-blasting effect of monsters works. It will only happen if you can see the monster. Stats will not be drained. However, you may become afraid, even if you have resist fear.
  • Made sanity blasting monsters much rarer.
  • Included 'unseen' monsters as a category in the kill-count list.
  • The rare book store now stocks more normal books, and less dungeon ones.
  • Nightmare mode is slightly harder.
  • Splitted the 'lib/user/' folder into 'lib/pref/' for the default pref files that are distributed with the game, and 'lib/user/' (or ~/.angband/ZAngband/ on multi-user systems) for files created by the user.
  • Changed object distribution from chests.
  • Added an alpha-quality gtk port.
  • Scrolls of protection are now preserved when an object on the floor (including the scroll itself when reading it from the floor) prevents the creation of the rune.
  • Halved the price of the 'identify pack' service at the Zymurgist.
  • Small towns can now have special buildings (like an inn).
  • Updated and added lots of tiles for the 8x8 and 16x16 graphics modes.
  • Updated the documentation.
  • Prevented object levels from getting too high and producing lots of potions of new life at deeper levels.
  • Fixed the problem in stores with examining spell books from realms that you do not belong to.
  • Fixed several bugs in new projection code.
  • Fixed a bug in the monster lighting code.
  • Fixed bug that prevented loading of version 2.4.0 savefiles.
  • Fixed score abuse when you had zero hard quests.
  • Fixed a problem with identify not being useable on items whose flavour you have forgotten.
  • Corrected the prices of some weapons.
  • The game will now return the standard error-exit code of the system when an error occurs.
  • Charisma didn't affect building prices in the right way.
  • Fixed a problem with the xaw port not reading font information from .Xdefaults.
  • Re-detecting forgotten traps works properly now.
  • The 'use old target by default' and 'equippy chars' options are now disabled in Moria mode.
  • The default birth options for new characters can now be set from *.prf files.
  • The used staircases is now marked as known when entering a new level.
  • Refulling a latern from another latern in the inventory will now correctly update the inventory and equipment windows.
  • Corpses are now correctly updated when switching Adam Bolt's tiles off.
  • Fixed annoying lack of redraw when moving about the wilderness map quickly.
  • Rangers were *worse* at shooting a monster in a tree than other classes.
  • Added some extra checking in the bitmap loading code.
  • Fixed a bug with mimics in the 'visible monsters' window.
  • Fixed bug with the fake_monochrome flag not being updated when the graphics type changes.
  • Fixed display of item to be picked up when covered with gold, when several options were set in a certain way.
  • The race- and class-specific player icons work now with the 8x8 tiles.
Monday 4th June 2001
- Falcon's Eye Update. Jaakko Peltonen has released a new version (1.9) of his Nethack enhancement project, Falcon's Eye. Here are the changes...
  • More graphics (including priest and rogue characters).
  • Improved menus (scrollbar dragging, arrow and pageup/down scrolling).
  • Adjustable gamma correction.
  • Bug fixes, especially NT compatibility should now be better.
  • There is now a Linux version of NetHack - Falcon's Eye!
- New Crawl. A new beta (v4.00 b17) of Crawl is now available. Source, Dos executable and Win32 executables are available - links to which can be found after the changes list...
  • Autobutcher will now correctly switch back to bare hands.
  • Handle_nearby_ability() for monsters now takes into account monster friendliness and player visibility.
  • Wrapped #ifdef DOS_TERM around some of Brent's changes in view.cc to avoid problems with DOS gettext() and puttext().
  • Needles thrown by skilled characters will no longer destroy walls (sigh).
  • Monsters not carrying ammo won't bother picking any up if they're in a fight.
  • No more shapeshifter zombies.
  • "Vastly" improved stabbing messages.
  • Some grammatical fixes for speaking monsters.
  • Clarification: wanderers should not start with any spells, although some may start with spell skill(s).
  • Attacking enslaved creatures now breaks the charm.
  • MAJOR: fixed zombie generation in the various dungeon branches lacking zombifiable "native" critters. Should clear up most of the level hangs.
  • Fixed up monster_polymorph() to avoid hanging problems.
  • Shapeshifters no longer gain special abilities of critters into which they polymorph.
  • MAJOR: incredibly, monster enchantments were not being reset on level generation (so, new monsters could 'inherit' enchantments from previous ones). This was probably responsible for All Kinds of Weirdness(tm).
Wednesday 30th May 2001
- Amiga Stuff. Bablos has had a little blitz and created Amiga ports of several 'bands - Easyband (v2.2), EyAngband (v0.3.2), Gumband (v2.1.6a) and ZAngband (v2.5.6). You can find the files here...
Tuesday 29th May 2001
- Linux Omega Gfx. Erik Max Francis has made available Sheldon Simms graphical Omega for Linux. You can download the source and support files from Erik's page here or get it directly from the link below...
- DrAngband Borg. Andrew White has updated his borg for DrAngband. Source plus Win9x/Dos executables are available from his project homepage.
- Amiga Angband. Bablos has created a new version of the Amiga Angband (v2.9.2), fixing the bugs listed (upto the 22nd May 2001) on Thangorodrim's bug page. You can get it from...
Wednesday 23rd May 2001
- Umbra Update. WARNING! CRINGE ATTACK! THIS WEBPAGE HAS BEEN INFECTED WITH A DOPEY .WAV FILE! *wink*. Yep, the roguelike with the annoying website has been updated. The new version of Umbra (v0.6), the 3D roguelike created by Mark Hughes, has ranged combat with a variety of firearms, many new critters, new terrain generation, slightly better AI, the healing power of food and user interface improvements.
Monday 21st May 2001
- Edge Article. UK multi-format games magazine, EDGE (#98), has done an article (well, half an article - presumably due to a print error) centering on Rogue with comments from Michael Toy, Ken Arnold and Glenn Wichman. Of what there is, it's a very interesting read. :)
- Amiga Ports. Another couple of Amiga ports are available, thanks to Bablos. On tonight's menu, PernAngband (4.2.2) and Kamband (2.1). You can get them from...
- New Iso-Angband. Hansjörg Malthaner has released a new version of his PernAngband-based isometric Angband, Iso-Angband. It's still based on PernAngband v4.1.5 rather than the recent v4.2.2 release as Hansjörg intends to nail more bugs in Iso before moving on. Here are the changes...
  • The lighting code is nearly complete, just a few more wall types need to be adapted.
  • First code for displaying spell and breath effects was written. This should work with bolt and beam effects but not yet with ball effects.
  • Finally the problems with non-english keyboards are fixed now.
  • A zoom option to switch bettwen the 64x64 and 32x32 tiles was included (press scroll-lock to toggle between the tile sets).
  • A bug was fixed, which caused the floors of all empty squares to be painted twice. Fixing this bug gave a noticeable speedup, particularly on slower systems!
Friday 18th May 2001
- Balrog Revived. After a fairly lengthy absence, Erik I. Bolsø has returned and given his roguelike information site - BALROG - a major update, adding another 30-40 entries bringing it to a grand total of over 210 roguelikes listed. If you're looking for a roguelike-related history lesson, BALROG is the site for you.
- Iso-Angband Source. Hansjörg Malthaner has made the source of his PernAngband-flavoured isometric 'add-on' for Angband, Iso-Angband available for download. Nosey individuals should check out the project homepage.
Thursday 17th May 2001
- New Roguelike. Dungeondweller is a new roguelike created by Björn Bergström. It's a traditional fantasy roguelike written in C++ and features 16x16 graphic tiles (borrowed from Angband) but a old-school ASCII display hasn't been ruled out also. On the project homepage, you'll find a Win9x/NT binary for download so go have a peek.
- Crossfire Update. Multiplayer roguelike, Crossfire has been updated. Version 1.0.0 is now available with both client and server available for Linux and Windows. One of the more recent changes to Crossfire is the inclusion of many new graphic tiles for the display.
- Belated Pernband. A little late but 'Darkgod' would like me to tell you about the last version of PernAngband (v4.2.2) that was released. There has been a whole slew of changes since the last release (v4.1.5), all of which can be found on the changes page on the project homepage.
Tuesday 15th May 2001
- Dev Addition. It's been a long time since the last new development article but Greg McIntyre is about to change that with his document (and example code) on Ray-Tracing Field-of-View Demo. It's another routine for that pesky whatcha-can't-see-an-whatcha-can problette RL coders run into.
- Bye March! Finally got round to doing a little archiving. The wonderful month of March is now only available as a limited edition commemorative month hidden away within the depths of the Archives section. Get it while stocks last!
Monday 14th May 2001
- New Project. Mines of Morgoth is a new roguelike created by Philippe Wartelle in VB6 and DirectX (7.0). The game has it's roots deep in Moria camp and features tiles instead of ASCII chars. There is already a version (0.0036) available for download from the project homepage. Go have a look.
- EyAngband Release. Eytan Zweig has released a new version (0.3.2) of his variant - EyAngband. This release offers a new stat system and many other changes and bugfixes. You can find the full list here on the project homepage along with source, Win32 binaries and Mac 68K/PPC binaries (thanks to Gijs Lamon).
- Amiga Ports. Bablos has created two new ports of current variants. This time, the Amiga crowd can enjoy Gumband (2.1.5b) and OAngband (0.5.1b). You can get them from...
- Crawl Beta. There's a new beta (v4.00 b16) of Crawl out there. The chunky list of tweaks and twiddles is followed by links to the source and Win32 binaries...
  • No more puffs of smoke from successfully summoned creatures.
  • Added Brent's "friend brand" patch.
  • No more spellcasting wanderers.
  • Explosions will now leave appropriate clouds over appropriate terrain.
  • Added bits of Josh's mega-patch.
  • Undead won't drink healing potions.
  • Polymorphed creatures won't be lavafied over non-lava squares.
  • Needles generated correctly (no more eggplants). :)
  • Fixed abyssmal zombies.
  • Fixed debug bit that made all traps into needle traps.
  • Fixed logic in poison_monster(), again.
  • Magic staves described with new speed metric.
  • Zombie monsters now appear a few levels earlier than their non-zombie counterparts.
  • Monster pickup is now much more sensible (there was some code to avoid silly pickups, but it was not sufficient).
  • Needle traps now check for player poison resistance.
  • Changed Ijyb's experience mod to 5.
  • Monsters should no longer get infinite scrolls, for any reason.
  • Fleeing monsters firing spells requiring tracers will no longer crash the game (very nasty!).
  • Fixed quadrant_blink(), again. It's also less accurate now.
  • 'f' command properly lists needles as ammo.
  • Fixed monsters hitting poison needle traps giving messages in wrong order.
  • Autobutchering with randart no longer fails to remove stat bonuses.
  • Polymorph will no longer _hugely_ modify the power of the target creature, but it's still pretty loose.
  • No more stabbing, or exercise thereof, on helpless creatures.
  • You can no longer tell if plants/fungi are interested in you or not.
  • Offscreen kills no longer generate "nothing happens" message.
  • Fixed near-stairs monster generation.
  • Increased rarity of blowguns. They should not exactly be littering the dungeon.
  • Fixed a couple spell descriptions that weren't quite tight enough.
  • Fixed a formatting problem with randart descriptions.
  • New monsters no longer get too many initial actions.
  • [rings, randarts, etc.] "of slaying" are now a little less powerful.
  • FreeBSD support courtesy Andrew E. Filonov.
Friday 11th May 2001
- New Roguelike. Umbra is a new 3D roguelike created by Mark Hughes in Python. Apparently influenced by a mix of roguelike games, Alternate Reality, console RPGs and the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, there is a pre-alpha release (v0.4) available for download. Check it out (MSIE users be warned, there is a mucho annoying sample playing on the project homepage *wink*).
- Abura Tan Moves. A quick note to say that Michael Blackney has moved his Abura Tan homepage. If you've got it linked, you might want to do the old link-editing boogie. It's kinda like the link-editing shuffle but it's a little funkier and your parents don't approve.
- HackNet Update. If you cast your mind back to the beginning of April - not that far in RLNews history what with the lack of updates - you might recall a mention of the new multiplayer Hack/Nethack clone, HackNet. Well, Trevor Powell has released a new version (0.0.4) since and the source tarball is available from the project homepage. Here are the changes...
  • Now compiles cleanly under various Linuxes, various BSDs, Solaris, as well as under Cygwin on Windows. Probably under other systems as well.
  • Conversation between players implemented.
  • Rogue-style FOV.
  • Optional player "grouping", a la InterHack's "surreal time", to cause nearby players to take turns synchronously.
  • Allows keypad movement, in addition to vi keys.
  • Grid bug initial implementation to test monster system. (Still no combat system, though)
  • Implemented up-stairs on topmost level of dungeon. (Going up them is equivalent to quitting the game, at the moment)
  • Massive source code reorganisations, lots of bug fixes, etc.
Wednesday 9th May 2001
- Okaaay. Right, lets see if we can get into the swing of this again. It might be a bit of a bumpy ride and if you've mailed me recently with news and you think it's still quite current, please mail again. I've completely lost track of things :)
- Dev Tool. Jean-Michel has created a console management for Visual C++ (called EasyConsole) and has released it to the roguelike development community. So, if this sounds like just what you need, pop along to his homepage here and download it. There's also a little demo in the archive showing the libraries features.
- Slash'Em Fixes. Apparently a bunch of bugs raised their ugly heads (boo!) in the last update of SLASH'EM, bringing about the release of a new version (0.0.6E4F4 - yay!). You can find the source plus Win and Unix binaries on the Project homepage.
- New Easyband. Andres Zanzani has a new version (2.2) of his 'easy' variant Easyband. Seeing as RLNews has been a little sparse for the last feek weeks, here is the full changes list...
  • Added an HP "quantitifier" under the Status Bar (xtra1-859).
  • Removed Priest Spell "Chant" for "Radiance Lance" a pure positive energy ray of light, doing 1d4*Lev of Holy Orb damage (cdm3-1377,object2-4529).
  • Using the 'I', inspect command, give full knowledge of the item but doesn't *Identify* that item (cmd3-566).
  • The shop now can do Identify(1500AU) an all your Items. Command 'E'.
  • The shop now can Recharge your Staffs,Wands,Rods. Up to 99 charges (Opss..;). Command 'R'.
  • Better item in Black Market.
  • Better, but imperceptibily slower in dungeon creation, auto-scum for good level.
  • Slighty better result on autoroll.
  • Ranger can now cast spell.
  • Tweak some artifacts.
  • Replace some artifact quaterstaffs.
  • Reduce the multiplier for monsters's immunity to weapon.
  • Rogue and Paladin get better critical hits.
  • Tweaked to 1/10 (from 1/55) the possibility to reverse the malus of cursed items.
  • Better Chests.
  • Warrior only can wield 2 Handed Weapon and Shield without restriction (cm3-188).
  • Reduce Tax to 5% from 10% (store).
  • If the Shop is closed try after 12 hours.
  • Less probability to damage con or wis for over-exert casting ( from 50% to 33%).
  • Farmer Maggot now Drop_Great!
  • Included "The Slime Molds - Maintener" Patch.
  • Easy destroy on pick-up option (y/n/k).
...source and Win32 binary can be found here...
- Dev ZAngband. Another variant with a mammoth changes list is ZAngband (v2.5.6). Without further ado, here it is...
  • Shifted store names over so that the long ones fit along with the maximum price.
  • Fixed display of the 'curse' line on the info screen so it shows the Permacurse or Evilcurse.
  • Figurines are green instead of blue, to match the stores.
  • Tweaks to the object prices and distribution.
  • Restore stat potions should be buyable at the alchemist.
  • The distribution of Ego items in the dungeon has been tweaked.
  • You can use the '5' key to enter stores while standing on them.
  • Added a user-editable 16x16 font for the projected view.
  • Stores will buy more types of items than they sell.
  • Increased maximum number of spikes you can jam a door with to 2^16 - 1 or so. 3 tonnes of spikes should stop a few monsters...
  • Fixed combining of {empty} wands with non-empty wands still keeping the {empty} inscription.
  • Quaffing potions of salt water no longer causes a dangling pointer which can read in garbage values for the change in 'hunger' value.
  • Made the "normal" stores and home, more common.
  • Your inventory updates as rods recharge, not just when all have recharged.
  • Fixed loading of old savefiles. A possible crash has been prevented, and the starting town is correctly drawn.
  • Fixed bug in number of monk attacks you get depending on encumberance.
  • Torches and lanterns now use the timeout variable, instead of pval. This will allow ego lights in the future.
  • Added the LITE flags to the artifact lights. They show up as providing light on the info screen.
  • Fixed various bugs in combining ammo with other ammo. Fixed bugs in combining ego items.
  • Fixed bug that was turning "good" quest rewards half the time into "bad" items.
  • Made the pval of various rings and amulets affected by the values in k_info.txt
  • Added the y/n/k prompt to the easy_floor option, when there is only one object to pick up.
  • Removed several options, and moved others around. This includes turning the AI on, and adding a smart_packs option. The monster lighting no longer has 'testing' status.
  • Fixed the case when a menu has zero available options.
  • Added the casino, inn and healer back in.
  • Fixed monsters breathing much less often than normal with the AI on.
  • Lowered overall monster-level of the wilderness. Made the starting town be placed in the 'easiest' place in the wilderness.
  • Improved the chance that towns have stairs.
  • Major cleanup of the unix ports. The maid-x11.c file now behaves properly.
  • Added proper ascii support to the projected view, using the 16x16 font.
  • Cursed arrows hit half as often as normal arrows.
  • Reverted the overhead map code to work the old way and made it look better in graphics mode.
  • The 'Yellow light' can now blind you when exploding.
  • Fixed the bug in the weaponmaster when showing minimum damage.
  • Improved the distribution of books in the normal bookstore.
  • Prevented the stack-smash when too many monsters explode at once.
  • Turned off illumination of walls with the view_torch_grids option on. (This option does not work correctly.)
  • Fixed messages received when you look at or discover a mimic.
  • Rewrote los and projection code so that they work the same way as the view code. You can hit anything you see, and nothing you can not. 'Trick shots' are not possible. (Every shot is a 'trick shot'.)
  • The amnesia attack is more powerful. You will forget the tried status, and flavor of objects.
  • The formula used for monster fear ignores attacks that do zero damage.
  • Fixed bug that was preventing the rarity value of stores from having any effect on their distribution in towns.
  • Moved the platform-specific externs to h-system.h, and out of main.c
  • Made the cursor a rectangle instead of a filled box, on xwindows ports.
  • Fixed a crash with some beaming spells.
  • The projected view port now has an ascii mode (controlled by the '-g' startup option.)
  • Things are no longer always invisible in doorways in the projected view.
  • Reduced bonuses to slaying ego-items in some cases where they were too large.
  • Lights are yellow in your inventory, not grey.
  • Fixed quest message being on two lines instead of one.
  • If a message is displayed while the dungeon was generated, you won't see half the dungeon lit.
  • Cloaks and boots count as armour now. (Not 'tools')
  • The XAW port is now smart enough to understand the fonts defined in environment variables, and in z-config.h (As well as in .Xdefaults)
  • Fixed a bug with the monster lighting not lighting other monsters properly.
  • Stopped the projection routine being too smart, and not hitting monsters you are aiming at.
  • Reordered some of the shop attr/feats. '0' now stands for 'other'. Warrior halls are now '0', and lots of the old '0' stores have changed.
  • Made the vanilla town shops look like the vanilla versions used to.
Phew, here are the files...
Tuesday 1st May 2001
- Big News 2. I have a new job! After a couple of stressful weeks, I'm back in gainful employment working for a small company creating GBA titles. I might need a little while to settle in but if everything pans out, RLNews should be up and running again. One thing I'd like to say is a big thanks to everyone who got in touch to show their support. It was very kind and much appreciated.
Tuesday 10th April 2001
- Big News. Unfortunately, today I was made redundant and am now out of work. What this means for RLNews is that a lot of my focus will be on getting a new job and as a result, updates may be few and far (very, very far) between until that happens. Sorry folks, but I've gotta get my priorities straight for a while.
Friday 6th April 2001
- OAngband Binaries. Gileba has the Mac bases covered with a PPC and 68k ports of the recent OAngband (v0.5.1) release. Joseph William Dixon, on the other hand has compiled a DOS binary of OAngband. You should find the files here...
Thursday 5th April 2001
- New KAngband. There is a new release of KAngband (2.9.2r1) from John I'anson-Holton. Only source currently available - with the DOS/Win binaries coming in about a week if no major bugs are found. Here is the changes list...
  • Quest designers may now specify the generation of a random artifact, a specific ego item, a specific item with an appropriate random ego type or a totally random ego item.
  • Removed support for loading savefiles from versions of Kangband older than 2.8.3(x).
  • Various tweaks/additions to the pref files.
  • Selectively implemented Jonathan Ellis' updates to the *_info.txt files for objects and artifacts.
  • Added an auto-destoy item and auto-pick-up item feature (accessed via the '#' command) which makes the game automatically destroy or pick-up an item as the player moves over it. This is not the "squelch" patch although some code was adapted from that in refining the original implementation.
  • Added the [y/n/k] pick-up prompt from Zangband.
  • Added the "Time of day" command from Zangband ('[' in the roguelike key set).
  • Studying spells is now done via the 'G' command rather than in the buildings.
  • Items created via the debugging mode commands 'g' and 'v' will now be created unid'd. Use cheat_iden if you want this functionality.
  • Mages and Illusionists now require progressively less energy to use wands and rods. Priests and Druids require progressively less energy to use staves.
  • Patches for the latest bug fixes for Angband 2.9.2 applied where aplicable.
  • You no longer receive inappropriate 'feeling' messages in the Arena or in fixed quests.
  • Specified ego items (where sensible) are now generated in the fixed quests.
  • Various problems with the towns/quests fixed.
And the source can be found here... - OAngband Release. Bahman Rabii has a new release of his variant, OAngband (v0.5.1). Changes can be found here.
- Mac Gumband. Another Gumband (2.1.3b) port, from Gileba this time for the Mac (in a PPC flavour). The file should turn up here...
Wednesday 4th April 2001
- Win Gumband. Franklin Bratcher has released a Win port of the recent Gumband (2.1.3b) release. You should be able to find the file here...
Tuesday 3rd April 2001
- Borgband Release. A new version (2.9.2) of Borgband has been released by Dennis van Es. Here are the changes for this version...
  • Random name generator (Dean Anderson).
  • Faster auto-roller.
  • Auto-note patch (Chris Kern).
  • Uniques with level .
  • Display exp. needed to advance.
  • JLE patch included.
  • Added a Faery-race.
- New Crawl. Another prerelease (4.00 pr12) of Crawl is available. This release looks to be mainly concerned with quashing bugs - which is no bad thing, ofcourse. Source and a Win32 binary is available, as usual. Here is a list...
  • Fixed minor error with perma-mutation code.
  • Monsters will no longer ignore player invisibility.
  • Monster target acquisition and release has been cleaned up. Monsters can still be persistent about chasing the player's last known position, but they'll be a little more sensible about it.
  • Fixed typing problem with quadrant_blink().
  • Fixed logic error in quadrant_blink().
  • Reinstated someone old code to make monsters move unpredictably along oblique lines.
  • Fixed up all possible cases of friendly monsters mistakenly harming the player.
  • Fixed a couple more typos and grammatical issues.
  • Added nice message to apportation (it may have been confusing without).
  • Monsters once again pay attention if you shout at them.
  • Hostile bats are no longer shown as "not interested" in you. :)
  • Changed chmod() argument on multiuser systems to 600 for save & level files and 666 for ghost/score files.
  • Kills by friendly monsters once again give experience (typo).
  • Fixed whopper of a bug which could hang the game by generating super-fast monsters. Manifested most often in the Hive.
  • Patched in Brent's balance changes; reduced missile damage by 1 to compensate.
  • Made daggers & spears easier to use. Bumped thrown dagger damage up by 1 (i.e., it stays at 3).
  • Changed messaging for god-blasts so that message is given after the blast.
  • Adjusted damage for Magic Dart to 1 + power/4.
  • Doubled the number of possible monster enchantments (to 6).
  • Monsters can now be created specifically as god gifts, which means that the god can act (or not act) on them if they're killed.
  • Fixed (finally!) 'critters summoned out of LOS' bug.
  • Fixed messaging bug for failed summonings.
  • Fixed buffer overflow during character dumps.
  • Fixed minor messaging problem in backlight_monsters().
Files can be found here...
Monday 2nd April 2001
- New Khaos. There is a new roguelike out there in development - created using Blitz Basic (a powerful basic programming language for the PC) by Benjamin W. Lagow. It's called Khaos: The Shattered Worlds. There is a downloadable Win9x binary available from the project homepage - an early alpha version but it does let you have a wander round the dungeon. Take a look.
- Another One. Also take a look at another new project - HackNet from Trevor Powell. It's an attempt to create a Hack/Nethack clone that can have several people interacting in the same dungeon. It's slow progress as Trevor works through the problems introduced through creating a multiplayer roguelike but an initial release of the sourcecode (0.0.1) is available from the project's SourceForge homepage.
- More Eye. A new version (1.7) of the Nethack enhancement project, Falcon's Eye from Jaakko Peltonen has been released. Here are the changes...
  • New graphics, including several new terrain types, armor and other objects, and an (impeccably-dressed) tourist.
  • Rooms in the dungeon now have individual architectural styles, including marble halls, moss-covered caverns, ceramic mastabas and medieval brickwork.
  • Graphical spellbook.
  • Three different display styles for walls: full, transparent and half-height.
  • Two new pieces of music.
  • You can now push boulders, enter and exit traps with the mouse.
  • Mini-map now shows doors and stairways.
  • Adjustable movement (command) speed and scrolling speed.
  • Optional "one command per mouse click"-mode.
  • Some bug fixes.
  • CD audio support.
- OS/2 Gumband. Skylar Thompson has created an OS/2 version of Gumband (v2.1.3a) which you can find here soon enough...
- EyAngband Final. Eytan Zweig's variant - EyAngband is out of beta with the release of a new version (0.3.0). this location. Changes include bugfixes and some new features.
The Past
- You will find all news previous to the above, carefully filed away in the Archives. Check them out.
© Copyright 2000 Darren Hebden.