Project in progress
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i'm wondering if you can itemize the costs of server time and all that from anticipated launch of product, to actual launch of product and invoice Valve for that cost... make sure to include your hourly rate spent dealing with their comments such as "does not support achievements" and answering them with "yes it does, see you earned one already what are you talking about it doesn't support achievements?"
Like I doubt they're going to pay, but seeing their reaction to being invoiced for costs expended trying to deal with their review process and get the game launched would be interesting.
Interesting from a distance. I ain't going to send them that invoice. i like my game library right where it is thank you.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
Just emailed a friend of mine who works at Valve -- or used to last I knew at least; not sure if he's still there -- explaining the situation and asking if he knows anything that could be of help in extricating the game from the all-consuming black hole that is the Steam review process. Hopefully he'll be able to be of some help.
*sigh*
And he responded. Basically "can't do anything to help here; you need to go through the standard process." Even though the standard process has broken down to the point where I feel like I'm trapped in a Kafka novel. But hey, at least I didn't have to wait 3 days to hear that from him.
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Well, either having my friend poke around into what's going on or the nastygram I sent them appears to have had some effect; I'm now getting actual timely, useful feedback rather than cursory rejections with minimal-to-no useful content. In the last 2 hours I've gotten two ordinary messages from the Steam guys asking for clarification. In the first, they described a problem that "the testers are reporting" which is very different from the problem that was last reported, that is supposedly preventing them from getting into the game, and asked for a list of steps to get into the game.
I provided a list of steps, then gave detailed information on what the database says has already happened -- that a tester had managed to successfully sign up, create a character, and create a save file inside a dungeon. I provided the user's email address and Steam ID#, and the character's name, as evidence, and remarked that the presence of the save file "raises questions as to why the email claimed that the tester was unable to enter any dungeons."
Now, confronted with evidence that the game is actually working, they're suddenly able to get into the dungeons just fine, (who'da thunk it?) and sent me a new email asking how to descend a staircase.
If they had bothered to find a tester who either
- could read the message displayed upon dungeon entry where it says
Press '?' for help, or - had ever played a Roguelike in their life and had any familiarity with standard genre conventions,
the tester would have easily discovered that what they're looking for is the
>key. Just pointed this out (in a slightly more civil tone). Hopefully this will be over soon.
- could read the message displayed upon dungeon entry where it says
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Just got another one. "When the tester kicks certain sections of wall, the game reports a rumbling, but the wall never breaks. How do you break through?"
I went
at this. And then I went 
at this. That message is meant to be an easter egg, for if you happen to kick a wall that just happens to actually be a secret door. I haven't the foggiest clue how a tester happened to randomly stumble across that, including having discerned how to use the kick command, and yet somehow doesn't know the correct way to deal with secret doors, which is the search command!
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
had ever played a Roguelike in their life and had any familiarity with standard genre conventions,
TBF, anyone who played actual Roguelikes (as opposed to rogue-lites) is more likely to be testing Depends in a nursing home than testing games for Steam.
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@hungrier ...how do you figure? I grew up on Rogue and NetHack, and I was in middle school when ADOM first came out. Old-school Roguelikes are hardly something for my grandparents' generation!
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@Mason_Wheeler Obviously it was a bit of hyperbole, but in any case I don't think Roguelikes were especially popular with kids even at the height (?) of their popularity. I think the overlap in the Venn diagram of people old enough for Roguelikes, actually played Roguelikes enough to get familiar with the genre conventions, and who test games for Steam (which, as an ass-pull guess, I assume is a fairly junior position with high turnaround), is vanishingly small.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
If they had bothered to find a tester who either
- could read the message displayed upon dungeon entry where it says
Press '?' for help, or - had ever played a Roguelike in their life and had any familiarity with standard genre conventions,
the tester would have easily discovered that what they're looking for is the
>key. Just pointed this out (in a slightly more civil tone). Hopefully this will be over soon.I mean, I'd take this as actually good feedback that:
- Your
Press '?' for helpmessage may not be as discoverable as you think it is. (Maybe it needs to be displayed not just on dungeon entry but for the first fifteen minutes or so of play on a new account? Ooh, or pop it up if you detect keysmashing. Or you could have a tutorial dungeon. Lots of good options here.) - Depending on nostalgia rather than simply appealing to it might not be fair to people who are maybe trying to pick up a new genre.
- could read the message displayed upon dungeon entry where it says
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@heterodox I actually did take that into account, and told them:
Upon further reflection, if it's been a while since the tester entered the dungeon initially, they might not recall that message. Examining the server code shows that it doesn't show up on loading a saved game; only on initial dungeon entry. This will be changed in the next server code update, to improve user experience.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
@heterodox I actually did take that into account, and told them:
Upon further reflection, if it's been a while since the tester entered the dungeon initially, they might not recall that message. Examining the server code shows that it doesn't show up on loading a saved game; only on initial dungeon entry. This will be changed in the next server code update, to improve user experience.
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I was also going to comment on Hack/Rogue/Moria/etc. not being that known and thus needing to provide help for new players, but that seems to have been covered. I'll still add one suggestion:
@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
the tester would have easily discovered that what they're looking for is the
>key. Just pointed this out (in a slightly more civil tone). Hopefully this will be over soon.Since you show a help hint at the start of the game, how about showing a
Press > to go down stairs.one when they move onto a staircase? You could only show it on that first floor or add an option to disable the extra hints if your players find them annoying.(
And yes, it's probably actually . on a US English keyboard, but whatever.)
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@Parody said in Project in progress:
(
And yes, it's actually . on a US English keyboard, but whatever.)No, . is "stand still". It causes the player to skip a turn. Going downstairs requires actually pressing >. With the SHIFT key and everything.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
@Parody said in Project in progress:
(
And yes, it's actually . on a US English keyboard, but whatever.)No, . is "stand still". It causes the player to skip a turn. Actually going downstairs requires pressing >. With the SHIFT key and everything.
Cool. :)
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Just got home from a hard workout at the dojo, and there's the email from Steam. I finally passed approval and can release when I'm ready. But oh by the way there's still a problem with one specific aspect of registration that I might want to look at.
I look at the server and realize this has been failing for weeks (and they never mentioned it until now!) and logs say nothing useful.
Screw it. It's late and I'm worn out after an hour of intense kempo practice. I'll debug this in the morning, get it fixed, and then do the release tomorrow.
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DungeonEpic is now live on Steam!
DungeonEpic on Steam
DungeonEpic is an old-school Roguelike with a few modern twists. Dungeon City is famed worldwide for its mystical dungeons, and hopeful adventurers come from throughout the land to test their skill and seek their fortune within. Seek out the secrets of the dungeons, and even learn to build your own!
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Username text is white after registering (minor issue, obvs).
Also text in email is funky.
Activate link just goes to a completely empty page.
Can't login - presumably it's related. Login form disappears, the message only appears on clicking login a second time.
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@loopback0 crap! I thought I fixed that! I must have forgotten to publish the updated server code, and now I'm out with my wife for a few hours.
In the URL, there should be a slash after "api" but there isn't one because string manipulation is hard. Fix that and registration will work.
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genuine user reactions:
https://i.imgur.com/EJAC8K7.png
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OK, the verification code has been fixed, and emails have been sent out to everyone affected. And it's almost 10 PM here. Bedtime. Hopefully nothing will blow up overnight.
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@pie_flavor That's what Unity says its minimum requirements are.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
What else are they looking for?!?
You need an achievement to trigger upon starting the game, obs.
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@pie_flavor said in Project in progress:
genuine user reactions:
https://i.imgur.com/EJAC8K7.png
So... a Pentium IV?
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@HardwareGeek ran into a problem where, after logging in, you could get stuck at the title screen. Just pushed a new build fixing this issue.
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Game shipped 20 hours ago, and 7 hours ago there was already 2 updates.
That's modern software development for you
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@TimeBandit said in Project in progress:
Game shipped 20 hours ago, and 7 hours ago there was already 2 updates.
That's modern software development for you
You should have seen the update history for Hypatia.
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I played it for an hourish earlier before needing to do some other stuff. I like it. I hadn't even realised I'd been playing it for that long.
A couple of issues spotted (unless I'm doing something wrong).
1 - if you try and exit the dungeon by going up the stairs you start at, the character disappears and nothing else happens and the only thing that gets out of it is to kill the game but then the progress is gone.
2 - if you try to equip something to a slot but don't have anything valid for that slot then you end up stuck in that menu sometimes. E.g. if you press I then B to equip something in the right hand but don't have anything that can be equipped in the right hand.
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@loopback0 said in Project in progress:
I played it for an hourish earlier before needing to do some other stuff. I like it. I hadn't even realised I'd been playing it for that long.
A couple of issues spotted (unless I'm doing something wrong).
1 - if you try and exit the dungeon by going up the stairs you start at, the character disappears and nothing else happens and the only thing that gets out of it is to kill the game but then the progress is gone.
2 - if you try to equip something to a slot but don't have anything valid for that slot then you end up stuck in that menu sometimes. E.g. if you press I then B to equip something in the right hand but don't have anything that can be equipped in the right hand.Argh, no idea why I never got notifications for this and am just now seeing it, 2 days later.
- Just fixed that in a new update.
- Pressing ESC should get you out of any menu.
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So I just pushed a new update to address issues found by early players. Also, my friend Carrie Summers just gave the project a shout-out on her Facebook page. She's an author with a moderate-sized following, so hopefully that'll bring some exposure at least.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
Argh, no idea why I never got notifications for this and am just now seeing it, 2 days later.
@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
Just fixed that in a new update.
Will check later@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
2 - if you try to equip something to a slot but don't have anything valid for that slot then you end up stuck in that menu sometimes. E.g. if you press I then B to equip something in the right hand but don't have anything that can be equipped in the right hand.
I'm sure I tried Escape (as it does indeed work elsewhere) but I'll double check.
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@loopback0 Just make sure you've updated the client first. I just added a version check to the client, but it wasn't in the original build, so if you somehow miss downloading the update, things (including leaving the dungeon) won't work.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
Argh, no idea why I never got notifications for this and am just now seeing it, 2 days later.
Using a forum as a bugtracker:
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@pie_flavor said in Project in progress:
@Mason_Wheeler The difficulties make sense, but they make too much sense. As in, if there's a challenge here, there's a challenge everywhere. Which there isn't, because y'all made SharpDevelop work somehow. So where's the disconnect? How was this problem solved in SharpDevelop?
Never got an answer for this.
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@pie_flavor Never really looked into it. Not 100% sure, but I think that SharpDevelop basically rolled its own parser, which does a good job of sidestepping that particular problem, at the cost of sucky analytics.
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Holy crap! This is... I may be in a little bit of trouble. But the good kind.
Now that DungeonEpic is launched, I've been thinking about Stormhunter Studios's next project, and I came up with an idea that seems like a lot of fun, and as far as I'm aware is something that's never been done before in a video game. Not going to go into too much detail just yet, but the point here is that it would be something that would benefit from voice acting.
I was watching a video by one of my favorite YouTubers, when the thought struck me. "He's got a really cool voice. And he likes to talk about fantasy stuff and dragons. He would sound really good as a dragon!" So totally on a whim, I hunted down his contact information, emailed the guy from my Stormhunter Studios account, and asked if he would be interested in voicing a dragon if I could get the game and the funding for it set up.
Never really expected to hear anything back, but... I just got an email from his manager, (this is someone popular enough to have a team and a manager,) saying that he "would certainly be interested in doing some voice acting for you so please email us at redacted@gmail.com when you get your funding and we'll discuss it."
Now I have to build a game and run a Kickstarter campaign! Because this opportunity is too awesome to pass up!
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@Mason_Wheeler Give your dragons four limbs or I will buy your game expressly to leave a negative review.
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@kazitor By "four limbs", you mean two feet, two wings, and no arms separate from the wings?
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@Mason_Wheeler I mean shoulders that don't look retarded.
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@kazitor OK, that's an extremely subjective standard. Would you mind posting a few problematic dragon pics, with explanations as to what looks so bad on them?
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@Mason_Wheeler I guess?
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@kazitor ...meh. That really doesn't look all that bad IMO.
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@kazitor It really boils down to where you put the second set of shoulder blades.
The first has very obvious wing muscles above the front legs, but they appear to be connected to the front legs instead of the chest.
Your second pic doesn't have noticeable wing shoulder blades at all, but that might be because of how far up the wings are spread. Can a bat or bird actually fold back their wings that far?
The third seems to have a complete lack of flight muscles. I know dragons are imaginary and a creature like that could never fly, but there's a difference between having only 20% of the muscle strength needed for flight, and not even having a muscle to begin with.I know once upon a time I read a decently founded argument regarding how angel wings would work (both skeleton and muscle), but I don't have a link since its' been at least two decades.
I know once upon a time I've read about how centaurs would work, and that many drawings are actually pretty reasonable, but that's a completely different problem since the spine is much longer so you don't have the front leg and wing hooked up at pretty much the same place.
One might look for classical renditions of pegasi, since they've got a similar skeletal setup as dragons do. I seem to recall pegasi originate with the ancient Greeks, and I recall reading they had centaurs set up quite reasonably.
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@PleegWat said in Project in progress:
I seem to recall pegasi originate with the ancient Greeks
Kinda sorta almost. Pegasus originated with the ancient Greeks. It was the proper name of a specific, individual horse that happened to have wings, much like Sleipnir is a specific, individual horse that happened to have extra legs. But for whatever reason, modern-day fantasy writers have mutated "Pegasus" from an individual into a species, but you never hear of a battalion of Sleipnir cavalry.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Project in progress:
It was the proper name of a specific, individual horse that happened to have wings
I sit corrected, and I nominate you for a
ry badge because I really should have remembered that bit myself.
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@PleegWat said in Project in progress:
It really boils down to where you put the second set of shoulder blades.
Two sets of shoulders is indeed one, marginally less effective method of mitigating shoulder ugliness. But that's practically never actually done, so it's pretty accurate to say that six limbs leads to shoulder ugliness.
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@kazitor said in Project in progress:
Two sets of shoulders is indeed one, marginally less effective method of mitigating shoulder ugliness
Examine how your shoulder moves when you point your arm straight forward, compared to when they point sideways and slightly backwards. I don't think hooking front legs and wings to the same set of shoulderblades will work. I'm pretty sure a pair of hips is straigt out. And they have to hook up to something.
An alternative would be to go more batlike an either attach the wing to the front leg completely, or fork at the elbow. But that is certainly not classical.
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@PleegWat said in Project in progress:
An alternative would be to go more
batlike any actual powered flying vertebrate…and make the "wings" and "front legs" the exact same limb, because that's what they are.
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@kazitor I specify bats specifically since bats have dual use of their front limbs. Feathered birds tend to use them for flying exclusively. And in either case, what you're drawing up really stops looking like a dragon. That's like being asked to draw a centaur, and turning in a drawing of a horse because that's the only way to make it realistic.
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