Java 1.5 Issues

With yesterday's release, comes the first round of bug reports! Though I appreciate all the information coming in, please keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Don't be too surprised to discover that your favorite treasure isn't implemented, or some things don't behave quite right yet.

The worst thing to come to light so far, is a bug that prevents the game from being played. It only happens if you are using Java 1.5.0 (the application is compiled under Java 1.4.2, and thus never tested under 1.5), and then only if you choose a spellcaster as your main character. The bug actually lies in Java itself, and thus requires a workaround. I have this fixed, but I want to finish a couple of other things before releasing a new version. If you find that the spell selection window doesn't work, then you have encountered this bug, and for that I apologize. I probably wont get anything new up until next weekend, assuming I get any time this week to work on it (I do have a day job, after all!)

I want to thank everyone who tried out the application, and gave me short reports on their experience. This really helps me out, as I can quickly pinpoint the issues that matter most.

Version 0.1 Released

Hooray, the first public version has been released! Now to start thinking about Spells and Combat...

Internet Test Success

Ran through a full game with my brother online, and everything worked great. There was a minor glitch with the map refresh, and a problem with selling armor, but otherwise we played a full game without a hitch! I'm adding a few improvements in addition to fixing the glitches we encountered, but I will release this on schedule sometime tomorrow evening (actually a day earlier than I anticipated).

Magic Sight, Game Finish logic, lots of cleanup

Lot's of stuff is getting finished up. I finally wrote the support logic for Magic Sight (yeah, I can play the Witch King now! sort of...), and it is working nicely. I added some code to handle the end game, and report a winner based on victory points. Of course, without combat in this version, your best bet is treasures, spells, and gold, but that works out okay!

I played a full month game just a moment ago, and it was sweet. The Captain ventured out, and immediately found the Hoard in the Caves. "That sucks" I thought, because of the lack of sunlight phases. The first item I found, was the lucky charm, which made looting very rewarding. The fifth (or so) item I looted from the Hoard, was the Magic Spectacles, so suddenly I was able to clear out that site rather quickly. I was VERY lucky with my hide rolls, and didn't get blocked by monsters for nearly the entire time I was looting. Just as I neared the end of the Hoard (and the Enchanted Meadow), I got teleported to "any cave clearing" on the map, and got the heck out of there. As the month was rapidly approaching an end, I found myself searching for a secret passage that just wouldn't appear, and got pounced on by a couple of giants. The game was over at that point, and the VPs were tallied (38! actually, that's only because I forgot to pull out the 1000 gps I gave myself at the beginning for debugging!) This application is going to ROCK once I can get combat implemented!

I'm preparing to do some long distance testing of the code over the weekend. My brother (in Oregon) and I (in California) will play a game or two over the internet using RealmSpeak. There's no reason to think it wont work, but it will be the first real chance I'll get to see what the transfer rate is like. On my local machines, it is lightning fast, so I'm hoping there wont be too much lag when it has to interact with my DSL line!

Once I clear this version with testing, I'll make it available (finally) for all of you to download. I'm hoping for a release on 3/28/2005, so look for it!

Trading, Relationships, and Spells

New stuff added:

• Each character now has a display of their relationship politics.
  
• The TRADE action is mostly finished, allowing characters to trade with natives and visitors in their clearing, with the Meeting dependant on that character's politics
  
• Magic users select their spells at the beginning of the game
  
• Read Runes works correctly, allowing players to discover and awaken spells at appropriate treasure locations and artifacts.
  

Enchanting

Working pretty heavily on the mechanics behind enchanting. Here's what's new:

• Color magic is recognized for every character. Icons in the character frame indicate which color magic is currently available. A chit icon inside the color magic indicates that the color is available from an enchanted color chit.
  
• SP phases enchant chits or tile based on a choice at play time.
  
• Recorded moves that become illegal due to an enchanted tile roadway vanishing are handled correctly.