Koro
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I figured this would have been suggested by now, and I found a single unreplyed to sentence by joker on this one, so I re-propose that spiders come in enough colors to blend in with other tilesets. From a programming perspective, the best way to do this might be to move the spiders to the tileset bitmaps and out of the general tiles bitmap.
I love the spider concept, but really don't like the palace! And blue spiders are a tish easier to see elsewhere.

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DiMono
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This has indeed been proposed before, and if I recall correctly the response from the Caravel team was that spiders are only in the game because nobody had any other ideas for level 10, and that Erik wasn't particularly pleased with their existence at all since they sort of go against the puzzling theme of DROD, turning it in to a game of "wait for the blinking eyes to appear" instead of plotting your next move (longest sentence? eat your heart out )

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joker5
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This has indeed been suggested before by me, but I made two suggestions in one thread and they were promptly ignored, except for one or two posts stating that Erik doesn't like the whole blinkage idea.

Of course you could make your own...

~joker5

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The_Red_Hawk
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Would it be possible to change the colour of the spiders yourself then use them in a hold?

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Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

joker5
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Well, yeah. You could theoretically swap the spider's colors to something else. But then you'd have to distribute the file with the hold and then everyone would realize you're using them.

~joker5

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Criminals, like other people, dislike being shot. ~FBI study on guns

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"Two words: Beam Waffle!" -me

Mattcrampy
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I think you'll be pleased at the solution we've come up with.

Matt

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The_Red_Hawk
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Oooh...another 1.7 mystery! Any guesses as to what the solution is?

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Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Schik
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I'm guessing that they threw out all of the styles except palace.


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Nillo
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I'm guessing they threw out all the spiders.

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“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

joker5
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I'm guessing they threw out Beethro because of misconduct and in accordance with previous hints replaced him with a 20-year-old platinum-blonde prettyboy a la Metal Gear Solid Sons Of Liberty. Of course Beethro will still be playable for short portions, and gameplay will still be mostly the same, but there will now be sword -wielding portions

~joker5

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Criminals, like other people, dislike being shot. ~FBI study on guns

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"Two words: Beam Waffle!" -me

Nillo
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Or better, they equipped Beethro with Risk-o-Sense sunglasses.


[Edited by Nillo on 03-12-2004 at 08:24 PM GMT]

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“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

DiMono
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Come now, this is just getting ridiculous. I think it's clearly obvious that in 1.7 you will in fact play a spider, and the current "Spiders" will bear a striking resemblance to Beethro, right down to the sword taking up another square. As a result, when you move, the Beethros will only move if you happened to blink when you stepped, because otherwise they can't see you.

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

trick
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Actually, it was decided that 1.7 was too colorful. The game's taking place in a dungeon, and dungeons aren't exactly known for being light and colorful places with cute little monster-thingies. Dungeons are dark, menacing places with huge monsters looking like a terror so pure that it can't be communicated through a mere PC monitor. Therefore, to more accurately emulate Beethro's experience, all the colors were removed. In stead, DROD 1.7 will be based on sound navigation, where the echo of Beethro's footsteps bounce off monsters and walls in a complete and utter darkness. Because of these changes, all you need to be able to play DROD 1.7 is a soundcard with speakers attached. A microphone will also be required, as all communication with the game are done through whistling various pitched notes.

- Gerry

[Edited by trick on 03-13-2004 at 12:50 AM GMT: typo]

masonjason
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Of course, this only moves things to a different sense spectrum. Spiders are still in it, in certain soundsets where they blend in with the background noise. And they make a cute little "tip-tap" sound when they blink.

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AlefBet
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trick wrote:
In stead, DROD 1.7 will be based on sound navigation, where the echo of Beethro's footsteps bounce off monsters and walls in a complete and utter darkness. Because of these changes, all you need to be able to play DROD 1.7 is a soundcard with speakers attached. A microphone will also be required, as all communication with the game are done through whistling various pitched notes.

You stole this off SlashDot!

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trick
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AlefBet wrote:
You stole this off SlashDot!

I didn't, actually. Heh.

Schik
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trick wrote:
Actually, it was decided that 1.7 was too colorful. The game's taking place in a dungeon, and dungeons aren't exactly known for being light and colorful places with cute little monster-thingies. Dungeons are dark, menacing places with huge monsters looking like a terror so pure that it can't be communicated through a mere PC monitor. Therefore, to more accurately emulate Beethro's experience, all the colors were removed. In stead, DROD 1.7 will be based on sound navigation, where the echo of Beethro's footsteps bounce off monsters and walls in a complete and utter darkness. Because of these changes, all you need to be able to play DROD 1.7 is a soundcard with speakers attached. A microphone will also be required, as all communication with the game are done through whistling various pitched notes.

Ooooh, sweet! Can we see a screenshot?


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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
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Heh heh...

I think you forgot the [/justkidding] tags.



It's been mentioned in other places that there will be a lot more tilesets, right?

And by the way, I don't have speakers that work.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Scott
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Schik wrote:
Ooooh, sweet! Can we see a screenshot?

Of course here is one.

The_Red_Hawk
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I can't see the picture. What is it?

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

DiMono
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That sort of gives me an advantage, what with having a SB Live! and multiple speaker system, then, doesn't it?

Oh, and Hawk? ...never mind.

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

The_Red_Hawk
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DiMono wrote:
Oh, and Hawk? ...never mind.

Now I can see the picture. It's all black - I get the joke.....

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

trick
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That's a screenshot from an earlier prototype, before we got around to removing the last color, black. I don't know how Scott got hold of it, but we'll be sending over some thugs to his house to find out. Anyway, the newest version doesn't contain any colors at all, and actually creates a movable hole in the screen, so you can see through into the inside of the monitor case. This is especially nifty for flat-screen displays, as you can just put the screen up against for example a wall, and turn brightness and contrast up to maximum to increase the depth of the hole, thereby creating a hole through the wall. Objects can move freely through these holes, but it's risky -- if the window were to close, whatever object was in the hole at the time would be sliced in two (or stuck inside a wall).

For the interested, we had another prototype before this latest one that solved the remove-the-black problem by generating a black hole inside the monitor, but we scrapped this idea after losing our entire team of testing monkeys.

- Gerry

[Edited by trick on 03-13-2004 at 12:24 PM GMT]

masonjason
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Truly groundbreaking stuff. I'm worried, however, about the potential for health hazards if someone stands behind the screen with the brightness and contrast turned up.

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Zaratustra
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That's too complex. Actually, the game will flash the screen in all colors of the rainbow at 50 FPS, until you can't see the spiders. Or anything else.

SKWERLL
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I think spiders should turn into burrowing roaches that only appear when they are within 5 spaces of you, and should be branded "1.7".

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zex20913
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Just had to jump in to say that Trick made a nice WoT reference noone picked up on....and said.

As for my opinion on spiders, I think they will be given top hats and canes, and do a broadway number whenever the "Danger!" music plays.

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Watcher
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Yeah, now you're all laughing at trick's description of 1.7, but how many of you know that someone is actually making such a game? There's even a screenshot section there!

Anyway, back on topic...

I found this little tidbit on SourceForge. (Warning, spoilers about 1.7) Here's what the description says:


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Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!

masonjason
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On a different note: another feature request thread turning into Spying on Caravel!

[Edited by masonjason on 03-14-2004 at 10:03 AM GMT]

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Watcher
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Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!