Got common cold, again! What the hell is going on? 
Well, good new that I assembled new computer.
Working on combat actions. As I wrote before, we made small usability test, so we found that game should be spiced up, especially combat.
So, as your avatar progress in your weapon skill, he or, well, she would gain different actions:
Powerful strike - standard strike, but with STR bonus for damage calculations.
Armor piercing (for piercing based weapons) - ignore armor, but only 70% of damage.
Double strike - two standard strikes in one time.
Crushing strike (or bush) - strong blow moves enemy back (wold use weight of creatures).
maybe kick.
Everybody would get jump and sprint, harlequin or gymnast would get advanced version of jump.
Circular strike, for blade masters, 65% damage, but for everybody around.

all this actions would drain your fatigue, some of them would use concentration.

combat control

Combat in FFHtR aren't very interesting, you just bumping monsters, until some of you falls beaten. Boring.
Now, player would have different moves for combat. It would make your combat more interesting, enhancing combat control.
Also, all this actions would be seen on screen as icons with active key. You can open menu to learn more about this actions, of course.

Hell yeah! It looks like interesting to play!  Also, I found that it doesn't slow down game, as I thought it would. It looks like, my coding skills gone better a bit, neat!  ^_^

Also, GoodSir, send me first part of his usability test result. He found a least dozen of issues, I'll put them in to development page soon.

I would increase skill training cap from .0000 to .000000000, so It would be more interesting on higher levels. ^_^

Began work on new "train/gain" methods. It would be hard to balance, I think.
I killed few snakes and got 0.0219 of one skill point.
Of course, i didn't used any floating pointer.

Implemented new stats without any crashes, removed stat tables.
Adjusted Mana Focus regeneration and dodge chance.
It is no more decided by 3D6 dice, but comprising Attackers and defenders agility, encumbrancer and attackers weapon skill. Well, dodge skill would be nice idea.

Then, adjusted strength and hitpoints calculation. to damage limit. Now formula transforms str to dice properly.
Also, removed Weapons Attack power and armor protection power.
This parameters were used for "armor penentration" checks and were doubling "to hit" mechanism.

First wave of changes

We have spent this days for stress testing, as addition to other work, of course.
It was some sort of usability test, we tried to imagine that we never played FFHtR before and started game as new player, then we tried to answer two questions:
1. FFHtR is piece of s...t because of....
2. It is not interesting for me to play FFHtR because of... 

Well, it worked.
First of all, current character stats system aren't satisfying. It was planned to be realistic, giving player somewhat mature avatar and interesting and realistic enemies. Well, theoretically, it was done, practically, it would be great for some sort of quest game, but doesn't fits roguelike well, let me explain.  Mature avatar means that player doesn't feel avatars growth in power, one of the most pleasing moments of  roguelikes.There is no real difference between newbie character and older one.

So, stats (I mean STR, INT, DEX and END) would be 1-200, when 20 is standard untrained human, 50 - is good level, possible for human to train (it would be natural limit).

Skills would become 1-100 AND would become use/train (Yes , it would harder to make, but nicer to play).
I am not sure, would we have level for PC.

Some notes:
All game calculations would be based of formulas, not tables.
Skill growth would be limited on difficulty of action, no skill gains on iron daggers beyond 10, for example.

Dungeon Rush

I think, that before final 0.0.8, we would make 0.0.7d "dungeon rush" release.
It would have final score list with all interesting things to know and small map filled with dungeons, caves, random monsters encounters etc. or maybe special special dungeon combined from different dungeons, a la Dungeon Crawl.
It would be good stress test for all new features and, if you would like it, it would be left as one type of gameplay as well as sandbox.

FFHtR awaiting great changes. We would continue development of FFHtR, but It wouldn;t be limited by FFh setting, even we would change name of our roguelike. It doesn't mean that FFHtR and FFH universe would part ways, no, we wouldn't touch dark soul of FFH, but roguelike and strategy game has really different goals.
Do not afraid, nothing we have now would be removed, tossed a bit, maybe.

I working on Objects Vs Items. So, magic, traps, arrows would interact with items on tiles.
I am not sure, what to do with magic right now, but I have some ideas about traps and mechanical objects.
So previously useless stats would come to game, I am speaking about weight, size, fragility and rigidness.

So, if bronze chest with "cool items" would be hit well and fly, it would endure this, but glass bottles inside of it... nah.

I got some common cold this Saturday, so it wasn't very easy to work well, but I managed to fix all issues I promised. Let me explain this screenshot.
1 - this is moving trap (I used club bitmap for this. Temporary, of course, GoodSir working on nice trap looks),
2 - poor wolf was butchered by trap and his libs flied in all directions, shedding blood on a floor (yeah, blood was drawn by me, using madskills. It would be redrawn, up to 0.0.8).
3 -.It is not a bug, wolfs front paws don't have bitmap.  ^_^

Well, I should fix this bug, add some interrelations with traps, traps "works" only if they bump creature, but there is no problems for creature to enter tile with trap, also I should add Items VS Traps. Butchering limbs into meat chunks, breaking or moving containers etc.

Can't find issue of "libs don't want to fly" bug. So, I'll secede it for a day and would add blood (you can turn it on/off). Usually it works, little break would give insight about troubling matter.

Traps are moving and killing creatures.
But I can't make them to "explode" creature. Creatures, killed by huge traps would be butchered and limbs would fly in any direction, but its buged.
Also, I think that blood splatters would look nice, turning trapped rooms into butchery.

Well, new traps are coming. I have some bugs in new code, so they don't want to be placed properly, but it doesn't looks like real trouble.
So, there would be two types of traps, standard roguelike  traps, you trigger them and they hit you with negative effect (bolt, gas, fire, curse etc) and active traps, like huge serrated discs moving around the room, big hummers and axes in corridors continuously working all over the time and huge boulders, Indiana Jones style, activated by something etc.
When finished they could make your day, even without any monsters in the dungeon.

New traps would be a bit exploitable, NPC AI don't know how to avoid traps, yet.

Traps

I was hit by stream of confusing gas from trapped door.
It is good, time has come for advanced magic and advanced traps.

Also, I discovered that map generator bug (no access to first room) wasn't fixed and found real issue of this bug and fixed it for good.

Mazatl

Welcome the Mazalt, new race of lizardman. Interesting and proud people, nearly exterminated in the Age of Winter.
They wouldn't be set playable, until complete crafting fix and race features finished.
We have fairies and elves to polish first.
I'll write more about hem here.

Good news, everyone!
Well, it is not really good news, my notebook decided to follow shining example of my stationary computer and now it is no more.
I didn't lost source codes, because, after some past events a bit paranoid about them, so I have to find some solution.

Update: My friend promised to lent me one of his notebooks, until I'll assemble new computer. It is really good, because I am a bit short on cash now.

Bugs

I wrote in last post, that 0.0.8 has four bugs to fix.
So, I decided to fix them first and began with the most annoying one - different elements (poison, air, fire etc) interrelations.
1. I put elemental relation to race description, so now all creature of one race would have same table of elemental relations and player would be the only one creature with own table. It is reasonable, simple goblin lives few turns in players FOV and don't need his own table of elements. ^_^
Well, it is done. I just need to set every race its own elemental settings and start next.
2. Fixed map generator bug, I am not 100% sure, but it stoped reproducing. Also, I meet door bug at pregenerated maps, fixed it.
3. Fixed talk script bug. It didn't show skill name and skill description.

So, I have only food balance and bug section for 0.0.8 would gone completly green, good!

Magic 3

Refactoring of magic code has been done!
Next step in magic development would be advanced spells and spells combinations. Spells would born another spells, explode etc.
For example single spell can has few objects (spells) inside, for example, fireball would start as fire arrow, then if meet collision it would born new object 3x3, 5x5 explosion etc

So, now I returned to traps development.

update:
cleared bugs section, so, we have 3 technical bugs and 1 balance bug left.

Magic 2

Fixed spell according to new spell storage and objects methods.
I have animation left and few issues of spellcasting.
Also, updated dev. page.

Magic

You know, it isn't that difficult as I thought!
There is no need to rewrite all code, 95% of it works and works well enough, but there was critical issue: code of magic, bullets etc has real OOP problems, Code was removing magical object every time when it should be removed, so it makes code big and really odd. Also, from time to time there were actions collisions and, for example, object was remover before it did something important.

I added just one flag, it mark object as "should be removed" and it would be removed at the end of it turn.
This let me to cut bulk of repeating check code, making it simple, easy to read and stable.
There are few issues yet, but I think that would finish objects in a day or two.

Update:
I have finished objects moving, collisions with creature and removing objects, fished there task (it was real problem).
So, I have to add animation tail for objects and final animation for explosions and, well, we are done here, I would return to traps.

Magic.
This is horrible.
You know, friends, I think, that rewriting code is bad game.
You can rewrite part or refactor it, but total rewriting is horrible!

Magic code is one, that I am not proude of.
It works, but I don't know how!
Thats why, there is no magic in FFHtR for that years. =(((

I will delete all magic code, and will rewrite iit from scratch.
Whish me luck, guys, I need it, it is really act of bravery.

Traps

It looks like I have to start refactoring of magic.
well, I have finished basic traps. Oh! You will like them! Traps would be completly horrible, deadly and interesting!
They wouldn't be just standart roguelike traps - you hit the trap and it acts. It would be firespitting pillars, pressure pads, trap combinations etc. When I'll finish, this traps, alone, can make enough fun in the dungeon.

I linked traps to spells and found, that if I want traps to use magic I should repare it.