Tag: arx

Alternate Reality X – Release 0.61 Now Available!

Acrin1 3 Comments
“New” Dungeon gate graphics

Release 0.61 of Alternate Reality X is now available from the downloads page at www.crpgdev.com.

I’ve switched from Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 to Code Blocks for development and also upgraded to a newer version of the SFML library. These changes uncovered some bugs which had previously gone unnoticed but might have caused players to experience crashes. Compile times on Visual Studio 2010 were much slower for me than the 2008 version and I liked the option with CodeBlocks of using the same development environment and project files to compile native versions of ARX on Linux and Mac.

This release also has a few visual changes with the addition of some new encounter artwork from Ted to replace my placeholder images. I think they work really well and can’t wait to see what Ted comes up with for some of the other characters. I’ve also added some images you might not have seen before from the 16bit Amiga version of the City and the unreleased Amiga version of the Dungeon. Hope you like them.

The main changes in release 0.61 are as follows:

  • Switched to CodeBlocks and MinGW for development
  • No longer requires Visual Studio C++ runtime installed
  • Switched to latest version of SFML 2.0 (downloaded 1st March 2013)
  • Improved compatibility for players using Intel graphics cards
  • Fixed Bug #019: Offer menu won’t page back when offering to Pauper
  • Added check for arx.ini configuration file when the game is run
  • Flags for Trolls, Goblins and Oracle now correctly included in save games
  • Added “Loading…” message when loading image resources
  • Added 3 new encounter images from Ted for use with alternate wall textures
  • Removed the Might & Magic 6 encounter placeholder images
  • Added Amiga City & Dungeon interiors for use with alternate wall textures

With the major changes behind the scenes in this release there are likely to be some new bugs I’ve not seen yet but hopefully you enjoy the release.

Thanks for your continued support,
Acrin1

Alternate Reality X – Release 0.61 Status

Acrin1 1 Comment

Release 0.61 of ARX will be released as soon as I fix a bug when entering guilds
which leads to a crash.

The main change in this release is that at
least on a temporary basis I’ve switched to the CodeBlocks development
environment using the MinGW C++ compiler. There were 2 main reasons for this –
firstly compile times increased significantly with Visual Studio 2010 from a few
seconds for a change to about a minute which was really making small changes
very tedious, and secondly CodeBlocks is available on Linux and Mac making
native versions of ARX much easier to produce as the same environment can be
used across all platforms. The switch of environment has raised a few new compile
bugs though which I need to deal with before releasing 0.61.

From a
player perspective the other major change I’ve made is that I’ve almost 100%
dropped the use of “RenderTextures” in the SFML media library. My use of these
created lots of problems for players with Intel onboard graphics and a few
issues on newer machines I had access to. My code was also messier and harder to
debug when I had these in. My new 0.61 version works much better on old harder
which I’m much happier with. I don’t see why a player shouldn’t be able to use
an old laptop to play something based on a 25 year old game series just because
it has intel graphics.

I’ve also added code to better handle monster
vulnerabilities and invulnerabilies to various damage types. Bit more work to do
there though to make it complete.

There are a few new encounter images
which I’ve been sent as well which are included for players playing ARX in a
full window. These will hopefully gradually replace the handful of placeholder
MM6 images I’ve used currently.

Hopefully I can have this release wrapped
up fairly soon.

All the best,
Acrin1

Alternate Reality X – Release 0.60 Now Available!

Acrin1 3 Comments

Release 0.60 of Alternate Reality X is now available for download from:

https://www.crpgdev.com/downloads.html

It contains the following additions and bug fixes:

  • Implemented City and Dungeon encounters as a single set using same encounter object format
  • Combined encounter images into single set using Dungeon images for majority
  • Added all Dungeon fixed encounter specials (32 in total)
  • Added weapons for encounter specials above
  • Added a Dungeon Quest
  • Fixed Bug #002: Delay of a couple of seconds when entering some shops / modules due to music loading
  • Fixed Bug #003: Mini map edges don’t refresh properly
  • Fixed Bug #004: City map wrapped at some points instead of leading to Wilderness
  • Fixed Bug #013: Lyric strip appears over shop / module image at 800 x 600 resolution
  • Fixed Bug #014: Daggers only type of weapon dropped after winning an encounter
  • Fixed Bug #001: Goblins and Trolls don’t recognise that you’re carrying rival ring half
  • Fixed Bug #016: Oracle offerings did not include weapons etc
  • Fixed Bug #017: Pauper could not accept all positive items and never rejected offers
  • Fixed Bug #018: City encounters didn’t drop weapons

Hope you enjoy it. There should be another release out soon in February.

Thanks for your continued support and feedback- greatly appreciated.

All the best,
Acrin1

Release 0.60 – Coming Soon

Acrin1 4 Comments

Release 0.60 of Alternate Reality X is coming along very nicely with a particularly productive late night / early hours to bed development session last night. So far I’ve completed the following for release 0.60:

  • Implemented City and Dungeon encounters as a single set using same encounter object format
  • Combined encounter images into single set using Dungeon images for majority
  • Added all Dungeon fixed encounter specials (32 in total)
  • Added all weapons for encounter specials above
  • Added one of the Dungeon quests
  • Fixed Bug #002: Delay of a couple of seconds when entering some shops / modules due to music loading 
  • Fixed Bug #003: Mini map edges weren’t refreshing properly
  • Fixed Bug #013: Lyric strip appearedover shop / module image at 800 x 600 resolution
  • Fixed Bug #014: Daggers were only type of weapon dropped after winning an encounter
  • Fixed Bug #001: Goblins and Trolls didn’t recognise that you’re carrying rival ring half

There are a few more things I’d like to add before release but I would expect to have this available for download by the end of the week.

Encounters

Acrin1 9 Comments

I’ve now merged all the City and Dungeon encounters into a single set as previously they were treated as two separate sets of encounter types meaning that a thief in the City did not behave the same as one from the Dungeon. This led to some confusion for players and made some of the code more complicated than it needed to be. I think I’ve been holding back to some degree but I think I’ve realised that if I’m really going to make Alternate Reality X a true, single game or environment then I need to make some aspects of the game more consistent across the different scenarios. This includes content such as encounters, weapons, items and the game mechanics. I have decided to keep the individual graphics for each scenario just now but even that may change over time.

I’ve also added all the fixed encounters for all levels of the Dungeon. There are around 32 in total. Now I’m modifying all the encounters covered by these fixed encounters so they have the correct weapons (e.g. Ebon Blade for an Undead Knight). I then need to add some more of those treasures that they are protecting!

I should have another release out in the next few days.

Keep on supporting the project in whatever way you can as this keeps my spirits up and let’s me know there is still interest in the project.

Thanks,
Acrin1 

Alternate Reality X: Release 0.59

Acrin1 7 Comments

Release 0.59 is now available from the downloads page at www.crpgdev.com. This release fixes and adds a number of features around experience awards, levelling up and level up bonuses for the seven primary stats. There’s more work to be done to make experience points accurate across the whole of ARX and the City.

Changes included in this release are:

  • Removed levelling up cap (previously level 5)
  • Added stat bonuses when levelling up
  • Added Strength, Intelligence and Charisma bonuses for repeated successful actions
  • Dungeon encounters now award correct experience points when you defeat them
  • Dungeon encounters now award correct experience points for 50% of hits during combat
  • Removed “spinner” special from Dungeon level 1 map (location 40,15) as it left player trapped
  • Added Knight to Dungeon encounters & related alignment adjustments
  • Added Pauper introduction message
  • Added text for quests to Oracle module
If you like what I’m doing with ARX then please consider dropping me a note, spreading the word online or making a small Paypal donation towards my time. 
All the best,
Acrin1

Alternate Reality X: Added levelling up

Acrin1 9 Comments

Managed to spend several hours working on ARX focused on levelling up and investigating correct experience point awards for combat. I’ve noticed that many people playing ARX have managed to get up to level 5 very easily and part of the reason for this is that in many cases the experience awards have been way too high.

I’ve removed the level cap that was in place at level 5 so you should now be able to develop your ARX character up to a very high level. I’ve also added the missing stat bonuses which you should receive when gaining a level so your seven primary stats may now improve for each level of experience you gain.

Investigating the experience gained from encounters in the Dungeon I believe I now understand that the Dungeon awards it’s experience on 2 levels:

  • Firstly you receive half the experience for any hits you land on an opponent e.g. if you hit for 6 points of damage you would instantly gain 3 points of experience.
  • Secondly on winning an encounter you appear to get an experience bonus which is based on the opponent’s initial hit points multiplied by a factor – in many cases this is two but in the case of say a Ghost this could be as high as eight.

I’ve added these into ARX for all encounters as it’s my intention now to have only one method of calculating of experience in the game rather than differentiating between City and Dungeon. I will however spend some time playing the City to see what level of experience awards it provides.

Alternate Reality: Attention to Detail

Acrin1 9 Comments

I’ve been working away on adding the Dungeon Oracle to ARX so that we can sign up for all those Dungeon quests but while I was sifting through a capture of the binary for this part of the game I noticed something that interested me as someone with a long time interest in game design. Whilst many games of the era (and most recent games too!) are happy to have a single response or set of outcomes from the gameplay The Dungeon designers always added two, three or more varied responses to each of the modules. It’s a simple thing to do but so few designers or programmers bother to do it. I think this shows attention to detail that is so often overlooked or not considered. They didn’t take the easy route or quickest options to finish things but added extras to the game which is probably why we still play these two games.

Did you know that if you upset the Oracle repeatedly he will tell you not to come back for a month? I never knew that and if you return before the month is up then be prepared for trouble.

One of the other things I’ve been looking at is the design of the City shops. Where most games would provide you with a stock selection of clothing, in the City we have four values for each possible item – value, material, colour and type – giving us literally hundreds of possible clothing items some of which we will never see within a game. We have a similar feature in the shape of the Weapons Enchantress who can modify numerous attributes of your weapons (based on your choice) allowing us to potentially create some very interesting custom weapons of our own if we have sufficient patience (and precious stones).

For me this means I need to alter my object code for ARX as it currently doesn’t allow for the flexibility and custom nature of items such as procedurally generated clothing from the City (the D & P apparel items are static) or the custom weapons of the Dungeon. I overlooked the complexity of attention to detail in The City and The Dungeon when I first set up the object code and took a simpler route like most games do. Once I’ve done this and I want to do it soon then I’ll be able to add City shops, the Dwarven Smithy and the Weapon Enchantress to ARX.

Despite playing this game on and off for over 25 years I never realised those features and details were in there. This is one of the key things I love about Alternate Reality – I’m still discovering things about it 25 years after it was created – how many other games – past or present could we say that about.