I've been off making secret deals in smoke-filled rooms. The drama of it all gets kind of addicting. It seems at times that since you can accomplish so much just by saying the right things to the right people, that maybe that's all you should do. Just forget all this drudgery of doing the work needed to actually create things. But of course, it doesn't work like that, so the last two days were spent getting builds together, updating web pages, ordering CDs, and writing announcements. Ugh.
I really did make some secret deals. If you are reading this from a website instead of an e-mail message, some text I wrote will be missing. I have an offer here for DROD players which must be made in private so that I don't steal customers from another company. This kind of thing is likely to occur quite often in the future, so I recommend receiving
the Illumination newsletter by e-mail. If you have a CaravelNet or forum account, you can set this in your profile. Otherwise, you can sign up to receive
the Illumination once each month at the following URL:
Mailing list sign-up
Trials of Werlin
Would you believe we're selling another game that isn't DROD? Yeah, we've got a new game for you. I think
Trials of Werlin will appeal to DROD players for its similarities: you're walking around on a topdown-view grid filled with monsters and obstacles, solving logic puzzles in each room. The purists cry out, "
but it's got arcade elements! It's realtime, not turn-based."
Hush, purists! If you plan your moves well, you don't have to be very quick. The rooms have a small number of squares and look simple to grasp at first glance. But with Werlin's many spell choices, possibilities open up that are hard to see immediately. Download the free demo and try it out!
More info and demo download
DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon... Again
Okay, you guys played KDD in '97 when it was Webfoot DROD. And you played it again in 2002 and 2003 in the first two Caravel releases of DROD. And then this year, you imported the unofficial release of KDD into the DROD 2.0 engine and played it some more. Penultimately, you slogged through KDD again when we released it on CaravelNet, because then it had recorded voices, new rooms, and was integrated with the high score system. Are you gonna hate me if I tell you there is a new version of KDD available? Well, maybe I will hate myself for working on KDD for ten years.
Mike Rimer and Adam Peterson made numerous cosmetic updates to KDD. The hold looks a lot better, but for those that played the last released version, that's probably not a good enough reason to replay it. However, next time you want to put in some Dugan time, you probably should update King Dugan's Dungeon from CaravelNet to get the best possible version. And before you do that, be sure to upgrade your installation of DROD with the 2.0.10 patch. I explain why below.
The other piece of news with King Dugan's Dungeon is that we released it as a separate product. So you can download a demo, try it out, and buy the full version, in much the same way as
DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold. All of the three graphic/music styles are available. Neil Frederick's
The Choice is included as well. There's actually no difference between the two holds in this product and the ones on CaravelNet. This begs the question: If I had CaravelNet, why would I be dumb enough to also buy
DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon? Well, let me give you the full pitch...
You can get it on a real CD, if you like. In this case, you'd have a souvenir from Caravel's first year in business (we began developing DROD earlier, of course). There are a hundred copies of this CD in the first run. It's an attractive item with a nice illustrated cover that will look good sitting next to your copy of
DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold. Each Smitemaster's Selection will also have its own CD, so if you are the collector type, I recommend picking up a KDD CD. Also on the CD, you'll find a new batch of shareware demos of indie games.
One caveat: I just put in my order for
DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon CDs today, so it will be about two weeks before we can start fulfilling orders. If you order a CD, you'll be able to download the full version of KDD right away, but the CD will take a few extra weeks longer than normal to ship. Choosing a faster shipping option won't change this initial delay, so if you shelled out for overnight shipping, you'd still have to wait two weeks for Plimus (the payment processing company) to have the CDs before they could ship it to you overnight.
Order page for DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon (Windows)
Order page for DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon (Linux)
For the less sentimental, I have another incentive for you to pick up a copy of
DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon.
This is the part I had to remove. You could only see it if you received the Illumination by e-mail. See the first part of the post for a better explanation.
Multi-Player DROD is Here
You can play Caravel's first multi-player game of DROD this month. It's the "
Smite to the Death"
contest where you and other players submit your moves to a moderator who updates the board every couple of days with results. The pace of the game is much slower--more like a play-by-mail chess game. You will get into your opponent's heads, and they will get into yours. Everyone is welcome to play, especially the quiet ones, but there is a deadline for entering the contest. So have a quick look at the page below and sign up for the contest if you like. As always, you can win prizes.
Contest info
The Golden Pie Awards
We have six DROD films you can watch, and now... hear. Six actors have recorded lines and put them into holds that tell some kind of story. You can download these holds and be entertained. Also, as I write this there's still 5 days left before the polls close for deciding which actor gave the best performance. So if you haven't already, why don't you watch these movies and vote your opinions?
Download films and vote
Not Another Patch
Yes, another patch. But this one is going to make everyone who is a CaravelNet member very happy, I think. You've noticed that it can take a very, very long time to upload your hold progress to the server in certain conditions? Schik and Mike fixed that. The way they fixed it is really very clever, but you probably have to be a software engineer to appreciate it.
Patch info page
Topic Picks for October
Is it really possible to summarize everything that is happening on the CaravelNet forum? Yes, it's possible, but not recommended unless you're a professional.
The Latest Social Experiment
Creative Commons and other licensing is now built right into the forum, courtesy of Matt Schikore. Nobody understands how huge this is yet. If I could only explain it to you without sounding like a watered-down Richard M. Stallman....
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=7703
DRODSpielen
Leroy translated the DROD help files to German and they are available for download. Diduoneto provided a French translation which will also be downloadable as soon as I get to it.
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=7624
Diago's Dungeon: A Delver's Delight, Treasure Hunt Master Quest, Manipulation
These are all the new holds (level collections) that have been released since the last newsletter. Congratulations to Leus for his high rating that should make him eligible for submitting Smitemaster's Selections.
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewboard.php?BoardID=11
Master List of Challenges
I missed this last month, but Stefan has put together a nice orderly list of available challenges in rooms. A "
challenge"
is a specific way of doing a room that makes it harder, like for example, "
Conquer this room without turning your sword clockwise"
.
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=7527
God Tower, Ocular Ink, Not Pron, ZeuxWorld, Fish Fillets, Settlers of Cataan
This just might be the most civilized forum on the net to talk about games. Check out the "
Electronic Games"
board--there are a wide range of games being discussed, and in a surprisingly mature way.
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewboard.php?BoardID=15
Dvorak Keyboard
Your life would greatly improve if you could learn to type in a completely different way. I'm sure of it!
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=6589
-Erik
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals |
twitch stream |
youtube archive (NSFW)
[Last edited by mrimer at 10-04-2005 04:59 AM]
