Future history of Fallen

It is the sketch part of “About Fallen” page. It would be edited, steamrolled and placed there.

I plan to make this blog real citadel of Fallen, until it would need personal site.
Don'd hesitate to point me something or ask question. It would be really helpful!

History of Fallen the Roguelike

Fallen was completely different game or better say games during its development.

I want to write here short story of this project.

Wish it would be interesting for everyone, who like roguelikes, roguelike development. Would be helpful to roguelike developer to avoid my mistakes and at least, but not the last, would help me to put everything together.

So.

The development of the project, that eventually morphed into Fallen had begun in very late 2008. Maybe 28-30 of November, maybe December. Frankly, it would be better to say, that I have started it in early 2009. Also, it doesn't mean, that it was in development for all this years. At least one year, 2011, I didn't even touched it.

From the very beginning I was the only developer of the game, full of plans and rather inexperienced for the project of that size. Both in programming and game design. I thought, that my previous vast experience of “hand-made” ^_^ board and small computer games would be more then enough.

Of course, I was wrong, but I'll write about it.

First of all, the design document wasn't a design document at all, it was mere “coll stuff” list. Like, we would have golems, labyrinths, robots, lot of items, materials, global map, realistic combat, poisons, factions, bodyparts, wounds, pain, craft, wood, demons, nuclear war, fruit trees and cookies.

Doubtlessly, it was a death march project.

The waves of understanding.

Wave of team

I think, it the most important one. That help me to endure others. I was doubtlessly lucky that GoodSir to join the team. Feel of friend's shoulder, brainstorming, support, art, teamwork etc.
As I wrote for many time, without team, Fallen would be one of many “died in defunct” roguelikes.

Wave of code

Programmist. You need at least one skilled programmist for your roguelike, no exceptions. Sounds rather obvious, isn't it?
Roguelikes looks like really easy program, until you try to make one. There are lot of cross linked data and you have to keep it running smoothly.
It could be you, member of your team, you found, hired, enslaved or mesmerised. But you need this person!
Reading McConnnell's books when you already have bulk of smelly Cobol-style code, could be rather painful. I knew lot of projects, that died on this stage and, it is really pity, would die.
Fall From Heaven the Roguelike (old name of Fallen) gone the same way. Except I was stubborn enough to revive it for many times.
I'll put myself together, overcome terrifying shame and post my old code or “the best” parts of it. Maybe, it would help you to avoid my mistakes. I wish it to be so!
You can learn programming or make roguelike, but not simultaneous.

Wave of game design

Writing a design document after a couple of years of active development is cool tradition of Russian gamedev (c).

My philosophy of game design is that you can create the greatest algorhythms -- but it's in vain if you don't have a REASON to have them.
For example, the Roguelike "Fall From Heaven" had a couple of relatively working versions. It had tons of features, lots of places to visit, monsters to fight, neat pixel art, and etc. There's one thing wrong with it, though -- it was unplayable. This overwhelming swamp of features ended up being boring and useless.
I asked myself a funny questions -- "Why is Fall From Heaven the Roguelike not fun? My previous games were hella fun, but they had 1/100 of Fall From Heaven's features!".
Answer beat me with ugly stick. Lot of features doesn't mean fun. Useless feature would take your work as any other, with one exception – it contributes nothing to aspect of gameplay.
It was the moment, when I armed with big rusty knife, started to cut feature, balancing and reworking the remaining one.

But. Poor project architecture stroke on this stage. It was so fragile and overburden, so 80% of my efforts was put to keep program running with new changes.

This can lead the project to couple of ends.

First, the grave one – the very end of the project. We have seen hundreds of them. To tell the truth, I was close to it.
And the second, put yourself together and move on, step by step:

The King has died, Hail to the King

Old project collapsed at the summer-autumn of 2013, under burden of its unsupportable code. Yes, it was mostly technical fail.
I put my best to refactor it, but.. well.. it didn't survived the operation. I took couple of units, nice algorithms and started Fallen Rebirth at autumn-winter of 2013.
It was Paradigm changing decision.

I was always saying: Don't rewrite your project from scratch and did it myself one day.

Frankly, is there any other way to progress? Learn rules and ideas your workspace has, form the paradigms and them move them on!

Want to be creative game-designer and invent something new? Learn existing rules at first, play great games, write down cool ideas, analyse them, don't hesitate to copy, study, be openminded and then be ready to move forward.

Fallen Rebirth.

It is young, but looks promising. It's design document has, maybe 1/50 of “wannabe features” of demised project, but it isn't an overweight monster on a death row.
It is already ten times more playable, then old, full of features game.
The time will show the results, but GoodSir and I will do everything that we can to make Fallen to rise.

Officially announcement:

We have started ARRP work on FFHtR 0.1 "Hell on Erebus".
we have about one month, I think we can do this.

Preliminary report about forth Sunday release.

0.0.9-2 wouldn't bring new features, but would fix and expand existing.
Consider this release as technical patch.

Results:
+ Completely reworked font. (main goal). It is important step in FFHtR development!
+ Player Character would start with only one weapon skill you select. If you want to learn more, you should pay coins. (Minor).
+ Added two more thoughts.
+ You can train skill potential.
+ Portion of new quests.
+ Fixed suicidal wood cutting. (bug)
+ Food in taverns (minor).
+ Guild marks. (minor)
+ Fixed "can`t use items in inventory bug, again". (bug)
+ Fixed "Vanishing Leader status for historical figures". (bug). But, they still a bit bugged.
+ Tweaked "Historical figures" stat boost. They would be more powerful now.
+ If creature kills players character, it would be promoted to historical figure and got stat boost, be careful with vengeance.
+ Fixed issue, when non greedy characters can get "made money", "spent money" thoughts.(minor bug).


Of course, I have something to add and fix, until tomorrow. 
I think, it is time to update screenshot section. 
Hmm, next post would be 100 in 2012! It should be release post, I am sure!

I started rewriting development and future of FFHtR page, but it would take time.
Also, as you noticed, every time you refuse to take quest, new one generated. It would be so, until we would make good potion of quests and test them. After that, quests would be static and would be changing once per, for example, 10 game days.

Today changes:
+ Player Character would start with only one weapon skill you select. If you want to learn more, you should pay coins.
+ Added two more thoughts.
+ You can train skill potential. (In this release, look for Adventurers guild taskmaster).
+ Nearly finished font update. Of course , it messed up all over the game, so I have to finish some clean up, but, at end of all, it looks better and takes less space.

Colour changed when I transformed it to PNG, but I really want to sleep, let it be.

Seceded bounties, they need better historical figures routines.

Got a common cold, once again! I hate it!

It looks like my health gone junky. Take 1/2 of hot tea, 1 lemon and 0.5 of rum. Mixed it, and I am gonna be ok!

Released. Yeah, next release is scheduled.
Working on new moods.
If you have any idea, contact me, I'll put into game.

PS
Just added more pain for character. Gore awaits.
Good portion of gunpowder brandy could fix it, but good portion of brandy can fix nearly everything. ^_^ 

Plan for the future saturday?
Ok, ok!
GoodSir would write about his work himself.
My part? Complete as more promises I done in this blog as possible + armor skills ^_^
But, the most important:
- Interface from GoodSir.
- Weapos and armor rebalance (new creature stats need new items stats, remember?).
- 50 semi-random sites.
- about 50 "mood"s.
- ability to pour from bottles.

This is must have list, If we would do something else, It would be nice bonus!

first saturday release

GoodSir and I decided to make few "sprint" releases, one per saturday.  I think, we would make about 3 or 4 of them and then will hide up untill ARRP 2012, but who know.


So, here is first one. It doesn't have everything, but, you can wait for the next one ^_^

As I wrote before, we would make Dungeon Rush releases.
Big world? NO.
Robing Corovans? NO.
Storyline? NO. etc
Until FFHtR would have interesting, standard roguelike gameplay, no bells and whistles.

You have  tiny world, five dungeons to explore, one hamet to trade, thats all for now!

I'll post 0.0.8 "dungeon rush" alpha list of changes and plan for the next version tomorrow,

Download:
there ^_^ ========>

I added GoodSir (nickname dude here), we work together on FFHtR, if didn't know as author to this blog (I didn't know, that it is possible, before ^_^).
I think, it would be interesting, so he would report his own development news, so it would help to avoid misinterpretation from me, reporting his work here.

Also, I have read this blog to understand what we have left and found, that I made some promises, like one nice man, we all know: ^_^

So, I'll update development page today, check all promises and post here some report: promise/ done.

I found, that FFHtR marked on roguebasin as 0.0.8!
Look: http://thelist.roguelikedevelopment.org/
I post some prealpha in this blog for testing and removed it two months ago, but I swear, I didn't report this release to basin, temple or somrthing like this.
0.0.8 is coming, GoodSir and I planing this sunday or beginig of next weak, but I hasn`t release 0.0.8 ever!

Also, I fixed traps issues, added temporary windows for skills and some other things.
GoodSir send me new and  awesome character doll, we implemented it into game.
Changed grab interface a bit.

And, I found, that blogger has RSS, enjoy!

Fixed food clock. Your character would become hungry on global map very quickly (30 times faster) and slower on local map (3 times), but not visa versa.

Added fading windows, I`ll test them, if they would be handy, I`ll add more of them.
For now, it is "carried weight" and weight limit.
Stat potions were changed to drinks in bottles.
Fixed jumping, now everybody can jump if sprint for two tiles. Harlequin can jump without sprint, jump over creatures and for really longer distance.

Also, player would start with one scroll of identify.

Made a sip of mashroom vodka from brass flask, red wine from boiled leather wineskin and healing solution from green glass bottle.^_^

I wouldn't remove old code for drinking one item potions, because, it good to have possibility for them to be, hmm...
It is easy with healing solution, you drink it and you get healed, also, I have to rework different stats potions, like poisons and buff solutions to become fluids, but it isn't difficult.

Well, alcohol would be different and different potions could spirituous too. 
One or two sips of wine or beer, would give your character nice thoughts, but drinking have of wineskin would waste him, until you don't have alcohol tolerance perk, the same it for strong alcohol, like goblins mashroom vodka or dwarven gunpowder brandy etc. But strong alcohol would be useful for removing pain and intense pain debaff thoughts.

---
It is not wise to drink a lot, even if you have alcohol tolerance perk:
As you can see, at first, character got boozed perk and later, when got more strong alcohol, gone wasted.
Then, a hangover comes.^_^

I have something to report:
1. reworked potions. Now every drink should be inside some bottle or flask, or wineskin whatever. Also, it would save preciose emplty space inside your inventory, character would make a sip from flask if needed. So, you would not have to carry tons of potions, few flask would be enough.

 2. Added more information to character creation screen and would add more.
3. Fixed two bugs with material (game doesn't sjow name of glass) and tilset (game always used default one ).
4. Allowed more items and creatures on the local level, about four times.
5. Randomized faction starting tech level. It would add some more replayability.
6. Added different treasure configs.
7. Semi-random sites in the big dungeon look great.
8. Balanced creatures speed and stats.
9. Added more low level creatures, so player wouldn't be teared by dozen of wolfs at "nood" cave.

I create "mood managing" algorithms.
Add, remove, decrement counter, check results, display at game screen etc

So, next step to create tons of them and add them to game.
Frightened, Boozed, Wounded etc
I think, that it should also add some change success rate of any ingame actions.

Funny: I was adding semi-random sites to enlarged dungeon generator and friezed it completely
MadSkillz coding! ^_^

EDIT:
Well, I think that this. I mean: Simi-random sites + fixed doors, spells, NPC, food etc + traps + interface tweaks + moods would be enough for new gameplay and new realise.

Moods will spice up the gameplay.
As you know, we have train-gain system in FFHtR now. So.
Mood modificators to gains would be interesting.
Well, like Elona or, hmm, Sims, for example.
For example, if mood of your character is 0 and you hit the snake with your trusty dugger, you would gain, for exampple, 0.0001 to your sword skill.

If your mood is 100, you would gain 0.002!
And, if -100, your gain would be 0.00003!

It is just for example, I got from my mind, final formulas would differ.
And of course, different proffesions would gain buffs and debaffs from different situations, depents on perks and so on.
For example, I would allow eating raw meat for everybody, but if don't have "raw eater" perk, you would gain strong debaff for doing this, but wild trolls would gain pleasant thoughts about it etc 
Or another example, every class would gain possitive baff from victories and debaffs from lacerations and wounds, but warrior would have a bit different thoughts etc

Maybe later, I would add some selectable perks, so you can create your character more precisly.
   

Besides this, we are working on sheduled tasks (interface, bugs, traps finalization, dungeon features.

Alarm trap

Added alarm trap and tweaked creatures alarm mechanism.
So, if you don't see speaking creature, you would have message with direction and range.

Lazy days are over.
Fixed flying creature, would be used for kicked, bushed, trapped etc creatures. Added stonefalling trap, it is Indiana Jones style trap with huge boulder. It would be activated by different triggers, right now it is pressure pads. You step on it and then, CLICK, huge stone is rolling in your direction, it would be funny in narrow corridors.
Pressure pad, of course, would be used for different traps, for example poisoned clouds, fireballs etc. Also, pressure pads would respect creatures weight and maybe agility, also "light step" and "elephant foot" perks would used for counting.

It looks like that fire spiting pillars would be like  monster with ranged attack, so it doesn't look worthy to add, until it would have some own features.

EDIT:
Huge boulder trap has some issues, but, even now, it looks really funny, when you are running from boulders and evading discs. As I wrote before, monsters don't know how to avoid traps, so heavily trapped rooms gives real bloodbath.
Also, I have fixed some "broken item" issues, but there are some more and warning for potentially dangerous tiles, player wants to step in. It is important, because it was REALLY annoying to die, because you step into trap. Of course, you can turn warnings off.

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 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.