Development Info Star Hammer 0.0.4 released

[Ausir]

Tags: Star Hammer

A new version of <a href=http://mitglied.lycos.de/goodfire/>Star Hammer</a>, an open-sourced sci-fi roguelike, has been released. Here's a list of changes:
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<ul>
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Features
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- added an "Info" command to the cybertech clinic.
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- added skill system docu to in-game help.
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- added a "Look" command (finally!).
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- player characters now start with equipment in use.
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- increased player character starting money to 300 credits /
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modified some starting kits because of this.
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- added a new martial arts move "Flash Jump".
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- improved the "BB" map generator (used for the Gennie Lab dungeon).
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- added a dojo to the city Tevera /
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martial arts work like psi powers now (you need to learn them).
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- added an "Info" command to the psi temple.
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- pain now decreases Ev too.
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- taking the drug "Star Dust" now has the negative side-effect that you
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no longer notice feelings of hunger.
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- lots of minor tweaks
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<br>
Fixes
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- "Wolverine Claws" were much too cheap. Fixed.
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- Hospital treatment didn't remove pain. Fixed.
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- Psi meditation inside the temple didn't cost any money. Fixed.
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- Bugs in the init/error handling routines could
<br>
cause a crash in a few very rare cases. Fixed.
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- The game no longer accepts invalid commands.
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- polished/fixed targetting.
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- being "numb" didn't "cure" the effects of pain. Fixed.
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- there were misc. item drop bugs. Fixed.
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- grenades often didn't damage every actor in their explosion radius. Fixed.
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- sometimes an NPC didn't take his turn. Fixed.
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- grenades couldn't kill the player character. Fixed
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- lots of code cleanup
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</ul>
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://yarns.felis7.civ.pl/index.php?newlang=eng">YARNS</A>

 

[Psilon]

It's kind of amusing how frequently "free, open-source" and "roguelike" go together. The only major one I can think of which isn't open source, in fact, is ADOM.

 

[Greenskin13]

I prefer open-source games, even though I don't know enough programming to actually change anything. But since other people can build on it, it allows for growth beyond the author's capability. Perhaps it's a minor detail, but I use it when determining which roguelike trumps another.

 

[Psilon]

The main problem with open source games, like SourceForge in general, is that a lot of these projects start off as someone's weekend hobby, get to v0.0.1, and then stop. For every NetHack or Tux Racer, there are a ton of pre-pre-pre-alpha projects that are nowhere near feature-complete (or even know what feature-complete will mean) and which never update.

That said, I'm not dissing the principles of open source in the slightest. I just wish people would wait until the game's functional (if not pretty) before releasing. Star Hammer seems to be getting close, but it needs way more documentation for the player, as well as some healing options for fighter types.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

There's some older news items on this game before they changed the name. It used to be called Goodfire, so it's been in development for a while now. But yeah, I normally crawl through source forge looking for new things to post about, but I hold off before they have something they can actually show.