Infra Arcana - An H.P. Lovecraft/Horror based Roguelike

[Haba]

A fucking putrid ooze sneaking up on me while healing? Oh ffs.

 

[non]

The skills "Observant" and "Vigilant" helps against this

 

[Haba]

Gentlemen...

Furthermore, I'd like to add...

Spoiler

Ïä! Cthulhu Fthagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

BTW, would be ultimate experience of being trolled to enter DLVL 30 with no dynamite or teleportation scrolls Since you can't go back up stairs...

 

[non]

Well played sir!

And now, anyone who complains that it's too difficult can suck it

Did you find any "Strange devices"?

What skills did you pick?

 

[Haba]

I went for sanity/physical status stuff first, especially the confusion immunity is worth it's price in gold. The previous playthrough I skipped that one, made it to level 27 but got confusion locked and died. In general being able to resist negative statuses seems to be very important for long term success.

Phantasms(?) were the only enemies I ran away from. Mummies were hell as well.

And I am really, really grateful that burning status does not reach your inventory... I peed myself the first time I caught fire, fearing that my dynamite would ignite... (not to give you any ideas).

I'd say that several play through are not viable on long run, which can make the game very hard to finish. Attempts at being stealthy and running through the levels were hopeless, for example. I had to spend 2000 turns finding a hidden door, and was certifiably insane halfway through the levels...

 

[non]

And I am really, really grateful that burning status does not reach your inventory... I peed myself the first time I caught fire, fearing that my dynamite would ignite... (not to give you any ideas).

Hm. Actually there are plans for items getting destroyed in various ways (fire might burn a scroll, being freezed might shatter a potion, and so on). But that's a problem, because then being on fire should realistically ignite your dynamite. But this would probably be damn annoying. You would certainly not bring dynamite further than half the game or so :D
Could be a way to encourage using them early though (many players seem to die because of too conservative resource use).

Attempts at being stealthy and running through the levels were hopeless, for example.

The stealth isn't really supposed to be a tool for avoiding combat, it's more supposed to be a way to take out enemies more effectively, and to initiate combat on your terms.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Looks awesome. I'm fucking right now.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Hm. Actually there are plans for items getting destroyed in various ways (fire might burn a scroll, being freezed might shatter a potion, and so on). But that's a problem, because then being on fire should realistically ignite your dynamite. But this would probably be damn annoying. You would certainly not bring dynamite further than half the game or so :D
Could be a way to encourage using them early though (many players seem to die because of too conservative resource use).

Some item such as waterproof / fireproof bags could be added for the player to protect a few choice items from environmental hazards, like this. That way the player would still be terrified of being burned / frozen, but he wouldn't pass on dynamite for not being worth the risk of being blown to high heaven (unless he has something even more important to keep in the bag...)

 

[Crooked Bee]

So I played this yesterday while on a plane and it was pretty nice. Good time waster, at the very least. Didn't dig too deep into it yet, though.

I wish Codexers made more games. It's a p. funny feeling playing games that the denizens of the forums you frequent have coded.

 

[fuzz]

Fun roguelike! I liked playing against sanity's clock, that's the first feature I mention when recommending IA for others to play.
Lately, I've been trying out libtcodpy. Any chances of seeing source for versions < 14.0, to see how you've handled things early?

 

[non]

Fun roguelike! I liked playing against sanity's clock, that's the first feature I mention when recommending IA for others to play.
Lately, I've been trying out libtcodpy. Any chances of seeing source for versions < 14.0, to see how you've handled things early?

The source code pre-14.0 was badly organized. Just a single branch and no tags. But go ahead and poke around in the git repo and see what you can find if you're interested.

I'm not sure what you mean by how I "handled things early".

For 14.1, I will use SDL again since it's more portable and seems to suit IA much better. You could look at the code currently on the develop branch to see how it will be done. But I'm doing the rendering in 14.1 in a different way than pre-14.0.

 

[non]

v14.1

http://infraarcana.wikispaces.com/Downloads

Miscellaneous
* Using SDL for rendering/input again (it seems more compatible with a wider range of systems)
* Dark areas now have less permissive field of view for spotting walls, previously it was easy to explore the walls in dark areas, whereas now you need to be adjacent to it - for a more atmospheric and oppressive feeling
* “Slimy” walls are now “Moss-grown” walls instead
* Added 15 more quotes to the main menu

New content and features
* Hit chance with ranged weapons is now affected by the size, speed and proximity of the target creature
* While aiming, you are informed what you are looking at, and hit chances are shown when aiming at monsters
* Monsters now avoid shooting each other (though there is still a small chance that it happens)

Balancing
* You no longer pick an ability when creating a new character
* The monster spawn rate on explored levels (spawning due to passage of time) is now lower
* The “Self-aware” bonus now has “Observant” as an additional prerequisite
* You now gain the mythos spell at 15% MTH instead of 10%
* Raised max character level from 21 to 30
* Greatly reduced duration of confusion caused by knockback
* Oozes now regenerate HP each standard turn instead of on their own turn (since these monsters are very slow, their regeneration occurred in bursts, which seemed erratic and unpredictable)
* Clear Oozes are somewhat easier to spot

Usability
* Floor cells lit by an Electric lantern, flare, burning creature, etc are now marked with yellow color
* The menu for picking a new ability also shows previously picked abilities
* The postmortem info shows gained abilities
* Renamed the manual to a .txt file, and removed all special formatting symbols from it - it should now be conveniently readable externally
* Changed texts in some screens (e.g. “Enter character name” -> “What is your name?”)
* Changed equipment screen command (wear, wield) from ‘v’ to ‘w’ (more traditional/intuitive key)
* Added a small delay per turn when waiting/healing/fainted/paralyzed
* Changed the “Kick/bash in what direction?” message to simply “Which direction?”, and vice versa for other actions
* Options for setting keyboard repeat delay and interval

Graphics
* Made layout changes to the main menu
* Made some changes to the wall tiles
* Changed the general color theme in the game - the “blood red” style has been changed to a teal style (inspired by how certain old black and white movies were tinted, e.g. Nosferatu)
* Added option to scale the font to 2x size (so you can for example use the small DOS-like font scaled up to a nice readable size) - if tiles mode is enabled, the scaled font must match the tile size
* Fullscreen can be toggled in the options menu, or by pressing alt-enter (fullscreen mode is highly experimental, it may or may not work for you)

Bug fixes
* Corrected a spelling error in an ability description
* Corrected a misplaced word in a monster description

 

[Haba]

Anything new?

I think there could be some unique floors, for example. The endgame got a bit samey.

A lair of K'n-yan or something equally different would be cool, though might break the general feel...

 

[non]

It's just a "maintenance" release for version 14. Leaving the game in a better state while I spend months working on next major release.

About unique floors, absolutely! This is planned. I intend to include visits to dreamlands, plateau of Leng, ancient Egypt, perhaps Yuggoth... etc. Your K'n-yan sounds cool too, definitely something to consider including.

 

[non]

v15.0 is released!

infraarcana.wikispaces.com/

The highlight is that sound effects are now added to the game, but there's many other interesting updates as well.

Changes:
* Added sound effects (for weapons, monsters, etc) and atmospheric ambient background sounds. Audio can be enabled/disabled in the options menu.
* The track “Madness” by Musica Cthulhiana (from the album “Fragment”) is used as intro music in the main menu
* Reworked the status effects system, and changed/added many effects. Internally, status effects are now called “Properties”. They can describe both a creature’s temporary conditions (confused, burning, diseased...) and permanent attributes (natural fire resistance, light sensitivity...). It is now also possible for items to apply properties on the wearer. Properties may prevent damage (e.g. fire resistance will prevent all fire damage).
* Removed the physical/mental status resistances (measured in percent). The reason is that they felt too dependant on luck - you could for example get confused many times even with high resistance. Now there are instead binary resistances (you are either completely immune, or completely susceptible), such as resistance to fear, confusion, sleep, etc. The “shock resistance” percentage is still kept however, since this simply reduces shock by a certain percent (no luck involved).
* Changed the spell casting system to use a mana-like resource called “Spirit”, instead of the previous chance-based system. The reason for this is similar to the reason for removing physical/mental status resistances (mentioned above) - it was too unpredictable and luck dependant. Now it should be easier to make tactical decisions about spell casting.
* Being Confused now prevents spell casting
* All creatures have a certain amount of Spirit. If a creature’s Spirit is depleted, it dies (monsters may sometimes attempt to cast a spell that could kill it, if it “feels desperate”).
* Removed “Potion of the Cobra” (gave perfect aiming and dodging)
* Added “Potion of Frenzy” - Gives the property “Frenzied”: Perfect melee aiming, cannot cast spells or read, resistance to confusion/sleep/fear/weakening, attempting to walk in any direction will cause you to step towards nearest visible monster, becomes weakened when effect ends.
* Added “Potion of Spirit” - Restores spirit
* Added “Potion of Fire Resistance”
* Added “Potion of Insulation” - Electricity resistance
* Added “Potion of Antidote” - Cures poisoning
* Removed “Manuscript of Identify”
* Renamed “Potion of Knowledge” to “Potion of Insight” - It now identifies a random carried item, as well as increasing Mythos knowledge like in previous versions
* Changed “Manuscript of Descent” to a potion
* Added “Manuscript of Sacrifice Life Force” - Convert remaining Hit Points to Spirit points
* Added “Manuscript of Sacrifice Spirit” - Convert remaining Spirit points to Hit Points
* The spell that you gain after reaching a certain level of Mythos knowledge (“Thaumaturgic Alteration”), now chooses effect automatically (instead of player selecting the effect from a menu), this can include a random manuscript-spell, or a special effect if the circumstances allow it.
* Renamed the spell “Azathoths Blast” to “Azathoths Wrath”
* Added armor “Asbestos Suit” - Wearing this gives you resistance to fire/acid/electricity. It has 1 armor point (physical damage protection and durability of the armor)
* Added armor “Heavy Coat” - Wearing this gives you resistance to cold. It has 1 armor point
* Bloated Corpse spit attack now does acid damage
* Added a few cold based monsters that does cold damage
* Hit points now automatically regenerates over time, although you can receive wounds that need many turns of active healing (similar to how HP were healed in previous versions, but more elaborate - see below). Each wound reduces your fighting abilities (especially melee) and your HP regeneration rate. If you have more than four wounds, you die.
* Added item “Medical Bag”. This has a number of different uses, the main purpose is to heal wounds.
* The [h]eal command has been removed, instead you use the Medical Bag.
* When attacking ethereal monsters (e.g. Ghosts-type monsters), the attack will often fail to hit (“My attack passes right through the Ghost!”). In case of ranged attacks, the projectile will often pass through the monster and continue on its path, even if aiming succeeded.
* Shadow-type monsters are now light sensitive - they are harmed each turn a light shines on them (e.g. from a lantern, flare, or burning creature).
* Reworked leveling system: You now pick all your character’s traits and skills at the start of the game instead of when gaining levels. Gaining a level now increases your hit points, and for some levels also attack skills, dodging, spirit points and mythos knowledge.
* Merged/changed/added some traits and skills
* The formulas determining XP needed per level, and XP given per monster are completely remade.
* A monster’s chance of spotting you is now affected by distance.
* Added fountains that you can drink from for various effects
* Some dungeon features can now spawn more freely on the map, as well as in themed rooms. Some room themes are also made less obvious now, and their label has been removed from the bottom of the screen. The reason for this is that in the previous version some themed rooms got very repetitive (e.g. too many levels had identical human quarters with a chest, cabinet, and some Cultists).
* Added a simple animated effect for summoned monsters and for creatures hit by spells
* You no longer automatically reload your weapon when attempting to fire an empty gun (though there is a setting in the options menu to enable this again). The reason is that it was too easy to reload by accident.
* Fixed a typo that said “Press ‘v’” when you tried to throw a missile with empty missile slot. Changed it to say “Press ‘w’”, which is the actual command to equip items.
* Fixed a bug that prevented you from using melee attacks on a turn that you had a free move from the “Dextrous” bonus, and walked in liquid
* Fixed a bug where carrying multiple electric lanterns prevented you from using any other than the top one

Enjoy!

 

[Qatesh]

Let's rock then, man I'm totally enjoying this game.
Thank you.

 

[non]

Let's rock then, man I'm totally enjoying this game.
Thank you.

Great to hear

 

[non]

Version 16.0 is released!

http://infraarcana.wikispaces.com/Downloads

Gameplay
* You now pick traits when gaining character levels (as it was in v14) instead of only at the start. Many new traits have been added. You pick a trait each level, but the XP rate is roughly halved compared to older versions, and your character is limited to 10 levels.

* You now select a background when starting a game, the choices are “Occultist” (magic), “Rogue” (stealth), and “War Veteran” (fighter/firearms) - Your background determines which traits and items you start with, there are also special background-specific abilities, and some traits have background prerequisites.

* You now gain half a monsters worth of experience when spotting it, and the other half when killing it (killing a monster without spotting it gives the full worth)

* You can now “become aware” of a monster by hearing or seeing it - this “awareness” will last for a few turns and cause the monster to be marked on the map with an exclamation mark (“!”) while it is not in your view. This represents the player character listening more closely for footsteps and other small clues, and estimating where the monster could go. This feature is intended to help avoid situations like walking around a corner to get instantly killed by a shotgun blast - now you should have more opportunity to make better decisions about such things.

* Objects on the map are no longer interacted with through popup menus (which were considered slow and boring). Instead you use the standard keyboard commands listed in the manual - such as 'd' for disarming traps, or 'q' for bashing something. The examine command 'a' is now merely used for searching an object (for traps). Bumping an object will attempt to use it in the normal way (opening a chest, drinking from a fountain, descending the stairs, reading the inscriptions on the graves in the forest level, etc).

* Bashing now works in a more general way. You can attempt to find secret doors by bashing on any wall. You can destroy corpses by bashing them. Bashing/kicking now always consumes a turn, whether you hit something or not (“I kick the air!”). When attempting to kick in a cell with an unseen monster (due to blindness or monster hiding), it will behave in the same way as normal melee attacks (“I kick it”) - this fixes a bug where an attempt to kick an unseen monster had no effect

* Reworked Strange Devices. Now instead of keeping them enabled for random occasional effects, you activate them for an instant effect. They can be activated multiple times, although their condition may degrade, and they can malfunction or break. The effects of some of the Devices have been reworked as well. The result of these changes is that the Devices should now be more effective and fun to use. Also, they are more common now, and you can even find them on the first dungeon level.

* Your insanity no longer rises immediately when shock is at 100% or more, instead you now first have three turns with warning messages - during these turns you have a chance to reduce shock below 100% (e.g. by turning on a light in a dark room, drinking a Potion of Fortitude, descending the stairs, or stepping away from a ghoulish statue)

* Added sound effects for melee attacks, spellcasting, dying, and opening tombs - also added more ambient sounds
* The game now prompts for confirmation when attempting to cast an intrinsic spell which could potentially deplete your Spirit
* Greatly reduced duration of Weakening
* Greatly reduced duration of Disease when received from fountains, tombs, and spells (disease will only last a very long time when received from infections)
* You are now immune to Infection while Diseased (being Infected and Diseased at the same time was redundant and annoying)
* Added “Manuscript of Darkbolt”, this is similar to “Azathoths Wrath”, but targets only one monster and costs less spirit to cast intrinsically - selecting the background “Occultist” guarantees starting with this spell
* Added spell “Mi-Go hypnosis”, available for all monsters (but not the player) - all Mi-Go (Fungi from Yuggoth) know this spell - when this is cast, there is a chance that you will faint for a few turns
* Added a spell available only for monsters, which causes the player to burn for a few turns
* Changed “Manuscript of Clairvoyance” to a Potion, and instead of continuously revealing monsters and dungeon layout around you, it now instantly reveals the layout of the whole level (including items, but not monsters)
* Added “Manuscript of Detect Monsters”, which marks all unseen monsters on the map with an exclamation mark for a number of turns (no shock taken from these detected monsters)
* Added “Manuscript of Elemental Resistance”, which gives you temporary resistance to fire, cold, and electricity
* Manuscript of Pestilence no longer spawns dozens of monsters - it is now a more reasonable number
* Quaffing Potions of Health/Spirit when already at max HP/SPI no longer raises your max values, instead they can now temporarily raise your current HP/SPI above the max values
* Reduced the number of vertical map cells
* Added two common monsters (Flying Polyps, Chthonians), and one unique monster
* Added Golden Fountains, which are guaranteed to have a positive effect
* Hearing sounds no longer aborts multi-turn actions (such as healing)
* Reduced the propagation range of sounds (especially loud sounds like pistol fire)
* Added natural fear and confusion resistance for various monsters (e.g. Ooze-types, Spirit-types)
* Knockback no longer cause confusion
* Added a message that tells you when a monster spots you and becomes aware of you
* More sensible rules for where stairs can spawn, and where player descends on the next level
* Reduced number of turns waited when pressing 's' from 10 to 5
* Removed the message “was that supposed to do something?” when reading scrolls with no apparent effect
* The trait “Observant” no longer makes you find clues about hidden doors (was represented by a yellow wall) - instead this trait simply raises your chance of finding doors, and allows you to spot them from two cells away (another trait “Perceptive” raises the distance to three cells)
* Mummies now generally spawn alone instead of in groups
* Removed “Mythos knowledge”, and removed the spell you gained at a certain level of MTH
* You can now disarm traps by pressing 'd' and choosing a direction (works both for traps on the ground and on chests)
* When the electric lantern is flickering, it now merely reduces the lit area to 3x3 cells, it can still also malfunction and fail to give any light, or break completely
* When encumbered there is now an interval between 100-125% where you are able to move at half speed - at 125% and above you are completely immobile
* Added messages when your Spirit is being drained (e.g. by Ghosts)
* The postmortem information no longer lists number of kills for each type of monster, instead it only lists unique monsters killed, and the total number of monsters
* Masochistic Obsession no longer restores shock when player is damaged, it now merely removes the shock normally taken when damaged (and raises minimum shock to 35%)

Interface
* The game now supports Vi-keys
* You can no longer select things in menus by pressing letter keys
* To make it easier to notice when shocking events happen, exclamation marks (“!”) are now drawn on the player character if enough shock is received during a turn (up to three marks can be drawn)
* There is now two lines for displaying messages - significantly reducing the number of “--More--” prompts.
* Some important messages are now colored orange, and some of these messages always trigger a “--More--” prompt (for example spotting traps and monsters), making them easier to notice and react to
* Item symbols are now drawn in the inventory screen and the wielding info at the bottom of the screen
* Changed the appearance of the main menu and character creation screens
* Removed the option to scale the font to 2x size
* Added a 16x24 DOS font
* Added option for how tiles mode should render walls - full square or pseudo-3D
* The game now handles delays in a nicer way. Previously, a delay would freeze the whole program. So for example while a projectile was travelling, the game could appear frozen (especially noticeable if setting a long delay). Now user input is read during delays so the game is not freezing - you can move the screen, alt-tab back and forth, minimize etc.
* The screen is now redrawn when toggling fullscreen (previously the screen would be black until you entered a command)
* Popup windows with multiple choices (e.g. the medical bag menu) can be closed with space or escape
* The options menu is now accessible from within an ongoing game
* Pressing 'x' re-casts previous spell, and pressing 'X' (uppercase) opens the list of all memorized spells
* Added an in-game menu opened with 'Esc', where you can select Options, Manual, Quit, or Cancel
* Removed commands '>' (descend stairs) and 'S' (save and quit) - instead you now bump the stairs, which opens a menu asking if you want to Descend, Save and quit, or Cancel
* Changed command for viewing descriptions to 'v' instead of 'l' (lowercase L)
* Changed command for bashing/kicking to 'q' instead of 'b'
* Changed command for unloading/picking up ammo to 'G' instead of 'u'
* Changed the message log command to 'm' instead of 'L'
* When reloading, the amount of ammo loaded in the weapon is now printed in the log
* Some special ranged weapons now only show “*” (asterisk) as damage info (e.g. the Incinerator, which previously displayed “1d3” as damage - this only represented the “impact damage” of the shell, and did not include the explosion - the asterisk used now should give a clearer indication that the weapon will do damage in a special way)

Bug fixes
* Fixed many bugs related to saving/loading (e.g. crashing, losing memorized spells)
* Fixed many bugs related to properties (especially concerning properties which were supposed to be permanent, but would time out - e.g. confusion resistance gained from picking the trait “Self-aware”)
* Corrected various spelling mistakes
* Fixed a bug that prevented Ooze-type monsters from passing through closed doors (they should be able to do this)
* Fixed a bug that prevented using Page Up/Page Down/Home/End for diagonal movement

 

[Gragt]

Chrome claims that IA_v16.0_win.zip is malicious. Doesn't seem to happen with the other files for download. VirusTotal reports the file as clean with 0/49. Not that I care but some people may get scared because of this.

 

[non]

Chrome claims that IA_v16.0_win.zip is malicious. Doesn't seem to happen with the other files for download. VirusTotal reports the file as clean with 0/49. Not that I care but some people may get scared because of this.

Yeah, it's been noticed. We had a discussion on it here:
http://infraarcana.wikispaces.com/share/view/67124008

The file is completely fine.

But Google does some shenanigans to report certain files as malware. I think they are marked as malware by default if they have less than a certain number of downloads or something like that (I'm not sure how it works, I've only done some brief searches for answers)

 

[Gragt]

Again I'm fine with it but less tech-savy users might get scared. Then again I doubt those are the kind of people to play a bone fide roguelike.

 

[non]

The download seems to work in Chrome now, without any warnings.

 

[non]

Infra Arcana v17.0 is released!

http://infraarcana.wikispaces.com/Downloads

Gameplay
* Monsters can now be allied to the player
* Added spell/manuscript "Summon Creature"
* The "Pestilence" spell now summons allied critters, and can be learned by both the player and monsters
* Renamed "Sentry Device" to "Blaster Device", and added a new "Sentry Drone Device" which will hover around you when activated and attack your enemies
* Added (rare) magic Amulets and Rings
* Added spell (and manuscript) of "Light" (illuminates the area around the caster for a number of turns)
* Added forest rooms
* Removed the old way of making cave like rooms, and added a new improved cave room
* Some of the old rooms are now occasionally cave shaped (e.g. flooded rooms and spider rooms)
* Added in-game descriptions for all items and spells
* Some items now causes ability penalties while used (e.g. the Iron Suite makes it more difficult to dodge) - all penalties are mentioned in the item descriptions
* A vast majority of the common fountains are now "refreshing" (restores HP, SPI and shock), many of the beneficial properties (RFire, RFear, etc) granted from fountains lasts twice as long. Golden fountains are much rarer than before and gives three effects (always beneficial).
* Some map features can catch fire, which can spread to adjacent cells over time
* Smoke causes blinding and choking
* Added Gas mask (the war veteran starts with one)
* Added Smoke grenades (the war veteran starts with some)
* Removed wounds - instead passive HP regeneration is now much slower, the Medical Bag can be used for restoring HP at a quick rate.
* Your inventory is no longer limited by the number of items (only by weight)
* Items can now exist on revealed traps (in previous versions, revealing a trap would "push" away any item to an adjacent cell, which was very annoying if you intended to pick up the item) - traps covered by an item are drawn with a background color corresponding to the trap type.
* You now start with a fixed number of items (instead of a random range), and your starting items depend more on the chosen background (e.g. the Rogue always starts with a +1 Dagger).
* Added trait "Summoner" - Reduced cost for summoning spells, and lower risk that called creatures are hostile
* Added trait "Vicious" - +50% backstab damage
* Added trait "Bane of the Undead" - +2 melee/ranged attack damage against undead monsters, attacks against ethereal undead monsters (e.g. Ghosts) never pass through them (although you can still miss in the ordinary way)
* Added trait "Unbreakable" - This is a continuation of "Tough"/"Rugged" (HP bonus, carry weight bonus, etc)
* The Electric Lantern now lasts a specific number of turns (displayed in the item name) instead of having a random chance per turn to break (but it can still randomly malfunction).
* Kicking a statue can cause it to topple over, damaging any monster behind it
* Doors no longer have a "broken" state - instead, breaking them simply converts them to "rubble"
* Brown Jenkin now does more melee damage, has very high sneak skills, and knows the teleport spell
* Added a bunch of new monsters
* The Mi-go Electric gun is now a "real" weapon that the Mi-go can drop, and can be used by the player - the Tesla Cannon has been removed (redundant). The "yellow cultists" now use the Mi-go Electric gun.
* Added Mi-go Biological Armor - this can be used by the player
* Monsters now drop all their items when they die (in previous versions, each item had 50% chance to be destroyed)
* Reworked how you interact with lootable features (chests etc). This is now a lot quicker - there is no need to search repeatedly with [a] (that command has been removed) - you use [d] to disarm/search for chest traps and check if the chest is locked, and you are either able to spot the trap or not (based on Observant/Perceptive traits) - searching repeatedly makes no difference. Attempting to disarm a known chest trap only either succeeds or triggers the trap, there is never any need to disarm repeatedly.
* When picking up Electric Lanterns or Medical Bags, those items are now combined with existing Lanterns/Medical Bags instead of adding a separate item in the inventory
* Removed insanity as a factor in score (it is now purely based on XP and dungeon level reached)
* Graves are no longer placed in the forest intro level for winning characters
* Firearms and thrown weapons have limited effective ranges, beyond which their damage is halved. When selecting target, the marker is colored orange beyond the effective range.
* Added phobia for darkness

Interface
* Added a quick move command [e], to automatically move in some direction until interrupted
* Removed the Inventory menu and the Use menu [e] - instead you now view and handle your inventory from a single menu, accessed with [w].
* Removed the examine command [a]
* Added a shortcut key [a] to quickly activate the two most common items - Medical bag and Electric Lantern. When you press [a] the game asks if you want to use [a] Medical Bag or [e] Electric Lantern (perhaps in the future, shortcuts like these could be customized by the player).
* You no longer choose Medical Bag actions through a popup menu, instead it first sanitizes an infection if you have one, otherwise it restores HP.
* The "--More--" prompts now only accepts space or esc to proceed, this prompt is also added to more messages, for example triggering or avoiding traps - making it much easier to notice
* Changed the general color theme of the game�s interface
* When viewing map cells with [v], information is printed for everything in that cell (not just the "top" thing) - e.g.: "I see here: A dart trap. A murky potion"
* Monster corpses are now included when viewing map cells with [v]
* Monster corpses are now referred to in more interesting ways, e.g. "A lifeless gruesome corpse" instead of "A body of a Reanimated Corpse"
* Monster corpses are now rendered in the same color as the living monster, making them easier to distinguish
* Adjacent dark cells are now rendered darker than normal cells to make it easier to notice darkness
* Walls now draw the front wall tile instead of the top tile if the cell below is unexplored
* Fountains are now either blue (common) or yellow (golden), then turns to gray when they are dried up
* Added more sound effects
* Number of turns left on the Electric Lantern is printed in the map screen interface (e.g. "L:498") - the number is printed with yellow color when the Lantern is lit
* Removed the status line at the bottom of the map that said "It is dark here" / "The darkness is lit up" (etc)
* Lit cells are no longer colored completely yellow - instead they are just colored slightly brighter (with more weight on yellow)
* The game no longer prints hit chance percent when aiming at ethereal monsters (this number was misleading)
* The graves in the intro level forest now also display the background of the characters
* Throwing explosives in tiles mode now draws the items tile instead of its ASCII character
* The game no longer draws/delays at each intermediate cell when creatures are knocked back (or pulled by a Vortex), only when the creature reach the "destination" cell - this feels more intuitive and responsive.

Bug fixes
* Fixed a bug that prevented backstabs from giving hit chance bonus in many cases
* Fixed a crash that occurred if enter was pressed while equipping a slot with no available items
* Fixed a crash that occurred if shift + enter (drop item) was pressed while a slot with no item was selected
* Fixed a bug that caused properties to "stick" on an item if it was dropped while wearing it (if the item was picked up again, the properties were enabled on the player even when the item was just carried in the backpack)
* Thrown objects may now pass through ethereal monsters (in the previous version, this rule mistakenly only applied to firearms and melee attacks)
* The Electric Lantern on/off state is now stored when saving the game
* Flying monsters can no longer be killed by kicking them into chasms
* The audio player now attempts to find a free channel, instead of just picking the next channel (this could stop other sounds, which frequently happened with long tracks like the ambient background noises)

 

[LilSassy]

I'm having a hell of a time trying to get to the bottom with Occultist. Most of my success can be attributed to lighting dynamite and blowing away the colonel from Herbert West - Reanimator. Also sometimes the witch.

 

[non]

I'm having a hell of a time trying to get to the bottom with Occultist. Most of my success can be attributed to lighting dynamite and blowing away the colonel from Herbert West - Reanimator. Also sometimes the witch.

Playing Occultist successfully depends a lot on good Darkbolt timing. You want to utilize the stun effect as much as possible. A good tactic is to wait around the corner, cast DB when a monster shows up, then follow up with melee attacks while they're paralyzed (easy to hit).

Later in the game, the focus quickly changes from "kill everything in your way to proceed", to "OH SHIT run run run!!!". This is pretty much equally true for all classes. Until that point, you gotta find and identify as many escape or crowd control items as possible. The Occultist has a nice advantage here of being able to cast more of this through a regenerating resource.