skell
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Wait what?

Long time ago there was Flash DROD. Sad and unfinished. I decided to port it to modern web in 2021, abandoned the project after it was 90% done. After I finished my game, Trans Neuronica, I decided it's time to put this project to the rest.

The original post announcing this project is here; for cleanliness I made a new thread.


Playing KDDL

Version 1.6.13 Beta: https://evidentlycube.com/~kddl/

It has all 6 episodes plus Jacob's "The Ancient Palace" he made over a decade ago. Notable differences between this and the previous versions:
⟶ Ability to export/import saves
⟶ Much faster than Flash DROD and even the previous beta
⟶ Holds are now built in The Second Sky
⟶ No score submission
⟶ No translations


What next?

⟶ Polish translation and the tooling around translations

Beyond that there is testing. If two people are able to go through all holds and get all of the achievements and I iron out all the bugs they find I'll consider it done. As for translations see the section at the bottom.

Translations?

Flash DROD supported 8 languages other than English and it would be great to have them again. Unfortunately the old ones can't be used verbatim because a lot of texts have changed and not all episodes had translations in the past. If you are want to help in restoring any of the old translations post here or shoot me a PM.

As for adding new languages — in the past I wanted at least two people working on each language simply for the fact that the game has a lot of proper names that often can have very creative translations and bouncing ideas off each other usually gives better results. It's no longer a requirement, just a preference of mine. Post or shoot me a PM.

⟶ Dutch — robin
⟶ Finnish — No one assigned
⟶ French — No one assigned
⟶ German — No one assigned
⟶ Polish — skell
⟶ Portuguese — No one assigned
⟶ Russian — No one assigned
⟶ Spanish — No one assigned

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[Last edited by skell at 05-20-2025 11:17 AM]

LovaP48
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File: upper_text.png (1.4 MB)
Downloaded 1 times.
License: Public Domain

Good job to everyone who worked on this over the years!

I had a very quick peek just now and wanted report two "bugs":
First, see attached screenshot; the "coordinate" text should probably be higher up.
Second, the screen sometimes flickers. Not sure what it flickers to, or even how to properly reproduce this, but I just noticed it having like 1 frame changes out of nowhere.
It might have something to do if you press and hold to move in certain direction for a long time, but it didn't flicker always.

For your information, I played on the Firefox browser.

Hope this helps you.

skell
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LovaP48 wrote:
Second, the screen sometimes flickers.

So this appears like it might be a Firefox bug - when this happens a message appears in the console indicating such, I reported it to Mozilla but not much has happened since: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1961479

I have it in my todo to see if there is anything I can do to get rid of it.

As for the screenshot - that same text appears fine for me on Firefox 138 on Ubuntu. Does any other text appear weird or awkwardly positioned in the game? Can you check options/help sections?

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[Last edited by skell at 05-12-2025 09:15 AM]

LovaP48
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File: KDDL_views.zip (3.9 MB)
Downloaded 1 times.
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skell wrote:

LovaP48 wrote:
Second, the screen sometimes flickers.

So this appears like it might be a Firefox bug - when this happens a message appears in the console indicating such, I reported it to Mozilla but not much has happened since: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1961479

I have it in my todo to see if there is anything I can do to get rid of it.

Indeed, both of my mentioned problems go away if I open it in Microsoft Edge, which has been rotting away in the corner.

skell wrote:
As for the screenshot - that same text appears fine for me on Firefox 138 on Ubuntu. Does any other text appear weird or awkwardly positioned in the game? Can you check options/help sections?

Yeah, the repeat rates texts are kinda squished together and the DROD backstory tab is too tall for me to see the buttons on the bottom.
I thought I softlocked myself, but I could still press escape to get out.
I opened both the browsers again and compared; seems like my Firefox is padding texts to have needlessly tall spacings.

I too have version 138 of Firefox on this Windows machine.
I'll check this out on my other laptop later; that one has Linux Mint to see if issue remains.

Attached is a zip with more screenshots.

skell
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Thanks for more information! I just checked it in a VM running Windows 11 and Firefox 135 and neither issue appears. And after updating to 138.0.1... the text also works correctly, hrm.

I am sorry, I don't really have a good idea here. It does look like something is off with the way the browser calculates the height of the font - do you use Discord by any chance? If you do and you've got a few minutes to try a couple of things add me: maurycyz

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LovaP48
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I should clarify that my main laptop has Windows 10, but I don't think that's the deciding issue.

I'm here again from my small laptop; it has Linux Mint 22.1 and once again I'm on Firefox 138.0.1.
The spacing issue persists, unfortunately (and it might be even worse because this laptop has smaller screen; roughly 14 inches diagonal, whereas the other one has ~17 inches).

So I too am at a loss right now.

I added you on Discord.

robin
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I can do Dutch translation.
I do want to know, if there's a deadline, because I have some busy weeks a head.
But I should be able to do it.



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Kalin
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Yay!

I've successfully exported saves from Firefox to Chrome and back, though it seems you have to leave a room to get the minimap to display.

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skell
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Version 1.6.4 is up! The changes:

## 1.6.4 — 2025-05-13
- [OTHER] KDDL Episode 1 ⟶ Adjusted thresholds for the counting achievements
- [OTHER] The Ancient Palace ⟶ Restored it to the original state (removed the secret room and minor changes in Entrance)
- [BUGFIX] Pause menu's "Restart Room" option now restarts the room from the start, not from the checkpoint
- [BUGFIX] Achievement for killing X roaches now activates in rooms that contain queens
- [BUGFIX] It is no longer possible to cause the game to crash by using "Restore to a Different Room". This happened because the last played room was not updated on Restore, only when going between rooms/walking down the stairs/Go To Entrance command; on the other hand the commands are updated on every move. You could enter one room, use "Restore to a Different Room", make some moves without triggering save then reload the game. On pressing continue it would input those moves into the last saved room (the one before you restored) which could cause ASSERTs by dying/leaving the room in the middle of playing the moves back. This should fix existing broken saves by just dropping the stored moves.
- [BUGFIX] When continuing game and there were any moves restored the minimap will now draw.
- [BUGFIX] Hold Completion and Mastery is no longer lost when you change episode form a Completed/Mastered hold and switch to another/same Completed/Mastered one.
- [FEATURE] Pressing "Enter" now closes "Your Stats" window
- [FEATURE] Changed slightly how the global score for holds is calculated so that having hold completion and hold mastery has value.
- [OTHER] Released the source code - https://github.com/EvidentlyCube/kddl

robin wrote:
I can do Dutch translation.

Like in the good old days . I need to finish some tooling around translations and then it will be up for grabs - no deadline, new translations can be added after the release as well.

Kalin wrote:
it seems you have to leave a room to get the minimap to display.

Fixed now!

@LovaP48 - No updates on your issue yet, it's on my list though.

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Nuntar
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Episode 2 tutorial: 3E has an unintended solution (place the mimic by the orb).

Level 5 2N: Achievement can be triggered with Beethro trapped.

Level 5 2S2E: Achievement is listed twice.

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skell
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Version 1.6.6 is up:

## 1.6.6 — 2025-05-14
- [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 2 ⟶ Level 5: 2S2E, removed duplicate achievement "Can't Stand Yellow"
- [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 2 ⟶ Level 5: 2N, updated achievement "Orb Avoider" to reward at the room edge to ensure the player is not stuck

## 1.6.5 — 2025-05-14
- [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 1 ⟶ Third Level: 3S1W, fixed incorrectly assigned translation keys which would have caused strings in this room to not be translatable
- [OTHER] KDDL Episode 2 ⟶ Tutorial Level: 2E, removed redundant scroll from (17,14) since it duplicates information that's in the next room and isn't useful in this room either way
- [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 5 ⟶ Twentieth Level: 3N1W, fixed missing translation for speech
- [FEATURE] Added debug console that can be opened with backtick
- [FEATURE] Debug Console: added `copy-i18n`, command to copy data used in localization
- [FEATURE] Debug Console: added `debug-text-dimensions`, command to debug issue with too tall text
- [BUGFIX] System's keyboard repeat rate no longer overrides "Key repeat rate" setting if it's faster
- [BUGFIX] Also game's repeat rate was adjusted to be in sync with the animation speed of the movement

---

This should hopefully fix all issues with losing mastery/completion or having wrong global hold score. This does not apply retroactively in that you may still have to go to a previous episode and re-trigger hold mastery or something.

There is now debug console so if you see any weirdness with global hold scores press backtick, type `log-global-hold-score` and copy what the command prints/attach a screenshot.

Nuntar wrote:
Episode 2 tutorial: 3E has an unintended solution (place the mimic by the orb).

Level 5 2N: Achievement can be triggered with Beethro trapped.

Level 5 2S2E: Achievement is listed twice.

Achievements fixed, Tutorial can have the UU.

@LovaP48 - I've added something to the game to help with debugging the text issue! If you could open the latest version, press the backtick (usually the key above "Tab"), and type `debug-text-dimensions`. Then send me a screenshot of the output and I'll compare it with my machine. Hopefully this tells me something.

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[Last edited by skell at 05-15-2025 11:14 AM]

Pinnacle
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I can confirm, or at least provide anecdotal evidence, that the flickering seems to be universal on Firefox. Both my desktop and laptop flicker on Firefox but don't on Chrome.

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skell
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## 1.6.7 — 2025-05-15
- [BUGFIX] Fixed incorrect line heights that one player had.
- [BUGFIX] Fixed another incorrect hold score case. Because achievements were loaded AFTER hold score was loaded it was possible for the score to incorrectly change when going between episodes
- [BUGFIX] Export/Import buttons are no longer visible while the game is still loading
- [OTHER] Adjusted the weights for hold completion and mastery when calculating hold score
- [OTHER] Removed debug console command `debug-text-dimensions` as it's no longer needed

@LovaP48 - This should fix the issue you had with the line height

I next planned to see if I can work around the flickering issue but it decided to just stop happening almost altogether and if I can't reliably reproduce this I can't see what might be causing it .

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Kalin
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skell wrote:
I next planned to see if I can work around the flickering issue but it decided to just stop happening almost altogether and if I can't reliably reproduce this I can't see what might be causing it .

I'm not seeing the flickering any more either. Could it have been related to the font issue?

EDIT: And after I posted I saw a few flickers. Not nearly as bad as it was, though.

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[Last edited by Kalin at 05-15-2025 11:50 PM]

LovaP48
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skell wrote:
@LovaP48 - This should fix the issue you had with the line height

I can confirm the texts look good on my screens now.

Kalin wrote:

skell wrote:
I next planned to see if I can work around the flickering issue but it decided to just stop happening almost altogether and if I can't reliably reproduce this I can't see what might be causing it .

I'm not seeing the flickering any more either. Could it have been related to the font issue?

Nope, my screen still flickers, unfortunately.

kikuchiyo
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Version 1.6.7, Linux desktop, Firefox (either 137 or 138): strong, frequent flickering.

skell
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## 1.6.8 - 2025-05-16
⟶ [BUGFIX] It should no longer be possible to make music stop playing by triggering a fading out track to play (eg by quickly walking between empty room and a room with a monster)
⟶ [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 5, the room with entrance to Mastery Level is no longer a required room
⟶ [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 5 ⟶ Level 20: 1N1W, fixed the achievement "Slithering Elimination" not failing the achievement when the serpent dies before all other monsters are dead
⟶ [I18N] KDDL Episode 1 ⟶ Level 1: 2N1W, updated the "click orb" scroll to also include info about clicking doors
⟶ [I18N] KDDL Episode 1 ⟶ Level 1: 6N2W, updated the name of the achievement to match the scroll
⟶ [I18N] KDDL Episode 2, fixed the master wall scroll incorrectly calling it master door
⟶ [I18N] KDDL Episode 5 ⟶ Level 17: 1N1W, fixed the second achievement in this room having the same description and name as the first one
⟶ [I18N] KDDL Episode 5 ⟶ Level 24: 1N, changed achievement name from "Ladies Last" to "Mothers Last" because it was already used in another achievement
⟶ [I18N] Updated a lot of texts to: always refer to level names by long hand; fixed 'Neather missing the quotation at the start in one place; standardized achievement description for ones where you have to win without turning; added "Combo" counter to the additional Tuning Fork achievements for specific rooms; updated mastery level entrance description to be the same in EP 5 & 6 as in other episodes;
⟶ [I18N] Updated help description to no longer refer to CaravelNet functionalities which are not available in this release
⟶ [OTHER] Improved tooltip in game's pause menu for "Return to title screen" — it no longer incorrectly mentions progress in the current room is lost

@all - Sorry, I haven't done anything with the flicker. For a short while it just kept happening all the time for me but it magically stopped and until it decides to start happening all the time there's nothing I can do.

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[Last edited by skell at 05-16-2025 05:51 PM]

skell
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Small flicker update - I did a lot of debugging and even tried to see if updating Pixi (a rendering library) to the latest version would help but no, it wouldn't.

Technical babble: the issue is related to constantly updating textures from canvas. Flash DROD worked by rendering stuff to intermediate textures and then composing those into the final screen and I did not want to rewrite the entire rendering pipeline of the game when porting to JS. The result is that most of the rendering happens in canvas (CPU powered rendering) and each frame a few canvases update their corresponding textures in the GPU. And that update is the cause of our woes. I can move this all to happen entirely in the GPU but that's no trivial matter unfortunately. I'll poke around this at some point again but I need a break from the flicker issue before I burn myself out completely and I enter another multi year hiatus.

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skell
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## 1.6.9 - 2025-05-17
- [BUGFIX] KDDL Episode 6, fixed an exception thrown in two places caused by styles not being initialized

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skell
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## 1.6.10 - 2025-05-18
- [BUGFIX] Dying then undoing then restarting the game will no longer restore you to the turn when you're dead (in a quasi-softlocked state).
- [BUGFIX] Hold score (the one on the list of holds) now gets updated immediately after getting an achievement as opposed to when changing the room/loading a hold.
- [OTHER] Swapped a bunch of rendering to be fully GPU powered which should reduce flickering on Firefox = still a lot to go.

I am rewriting a large chunk of how the game is rendered which should ultimately lead to fixing the flickering issue on firefox. First part is done and I hope it should slightly reduce the flickering. Downside is things can be broken now so report away when you find anything!

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averagemoe
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So, the achievement in Twenty First Level, 1N1W... did you just copy it over from the 5.0 challenges without checking if it was possible in the compacted version?

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skell
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averagemoe wrote:
So, the achievement in Twenty First Level, 1N1W... did you just copy it over from the 5.0 challenges without checking if it was possible in the compacted version?

There are ways to ask that question without the dig.

The achievement was doable when made but since then I've discovered and fixed a bug with brained roach queens where they calculated the position of the middle axes not by halving the dimensions of the room in tiles but the dimension of the room in pixels. So they behaved wholly differently.

Actually, comparing the behavior between TSS and KDDL there is still some bug so off to github we are.

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[Last edited by skell at 05-19-2025 07:44 AM]

skell
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## 1.6.11 - 2025-05-19
- [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where roach queens were using brained movement when standing on an arrow which is not how things work in regular DROD.
- [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where minimap would not update a room when it was conquer pending or left after conquering.

This will also make Twenty-First Level 1N1W achievement once again attainable.

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kikuchiyo
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Version 1.6.11 on Firefox: almost no flickering! Gameplay was perfectly normal and smooth for minutes at a time, and only rarely did I notice any rendering glitches.

averagemoe
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Now reach eggs don't stop being drawn when they hatch. They only turn invisible when the player undoes a move.

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skell
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Talk about timing, I just uploaded 1.6.12 without this fix so I quickly fixed this (and a few other small things I remembered)

## 1.6.12 - 2025-05-19
- [BUGFIX] Minimap will correctly render if you first restore to a room and then use restore function without leaving the room
- [BUGFIX] Episode 6 ⟶ Level 22: 2N2W, fixed the room being unbeatable
- [OTHER] Monsters & player rendering is now GPU accelerated
- [OTHER] All visual effects are now GPU accelerated
- [OTHER] Floating number rounding error artifacts should no longer be present
- [OTHER] Added new debug console command `clear-room`
- {1.6.12.1} [BUGFIX] Roach eggs now properly disappear after hatching
- {1.6.12.1} [BUGFIX] In certain circumstances opening restore screen would not display the minimap until room/level was changed
- {1.6.12.1} [BUGFIX] Opening Restore screen then going to main menu and starting/continuing game (or just starting a new game immediately) the minimap would be incorrectly position until next time redraw was triggered


Three things:
- As of now I believe flickering should be gone. The culprit (uploading canvas repeatedly into GPU) is no longer happening.
- With the flicker fixes you might have started noticing weird artifacts mostly around sprites. Those were caused by game being scaled and GPUs running on floating numbers. These should be no more.
- Unfortunately DROD decided to update ID of all the rooms in KDDL6 (most likely because I dared to import an older version of a hold to make sure I did not change something accidentally). Sorry about that. Plase use the debug command `clear-room` to make it easier to restore your progress.

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[Last edited by skell at 05-19-2025 10:29 PM]

NoahT
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File: Screenshot 2025-05-19 at 4.40.27 PM.png (2.5 MB)
Downloaded 4 times.
License: Public Domain

The attached screenshot includes two graphical bugs:
-The icons for achievements are all messed up.
-Orb and door highlights don't go away when you click to remove them and they persist into later rooms and levels.

There's also a music bug where the song heard while playing persists into the title screen and restoring to another room (at least this is the case with the song Leave Everything, not sure about others).

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[Last edited by NoahT at 05-20-2025 12:49 AM]

skell
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## 1.6.13 - 2025-05-20
- [BUGFIX] Fixed broken achievements + remade them to avoid the flicker-risking canvas texture upload
- [BUGFIX] Fixed orb highlights not disappearing on click/move
- [BUGFIX] Music stacking and never stopping should no longer happen
- [OTHER] Achievement description tooltip now also shows its state
- [OTHER] Achievements window has updated description
- [FEATURE] Game now auto mutes sound when not visible
- [FEATURE] Mouse cursor now hides when playing the game and reappears when moved

@NoahT -- Thanks, fixed all!

----

And with this what is even left?
- We're talking with Schik about actually bringing back CNet features into KDDL in the same capabilities they were in the original Flash DROD. We'll see how far this goes.
- Which dictates any translation efforts since depending on what features end up being in the game there will be different strings to prepare and translate.
- Interacting with the minimap during play, hopefully maybe.

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LovaP48
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Alright, tonight I had a bit of time and went to play the 5th level (2nd episode).
The good news is that I didn't experience any flickering on my Firefox, thanks for fixing that, Skell!
The rooms also look largely fine, but I somewhat disagree with the wording of the achievement "Controlled Mimicry" from 1S1W; I think that should read "Clear the room without leaving the marked area after you drink the potion", no?

Also, I stumbled upon a visual bug connected with the evil eyes.
I'm not 100% sure how to reproduce it, but I think if Beethro is seen by two evil eyes that occupy the same line (could be both of one side or one on either side), then the red line that marks their line of sight firstly flashes, but then stays visible until I leave the room.
It doesn't happen always and it probably has something to do with quickly undoing a move.
Related to this is that if you bump a wall and very quickly press undo, the wall will stay rendered in the "bumped state" a returned to the proper state after another move has been made.