Development update 2020-8-8

Darin · 2020-08-08 16:25:28

(I'm also going to use the main site news feed for dev updates, but I want to keep the update frequency to around once per week on the main site. So I felt more frequent minor updates/random thoughts I'll put on the forum (like below). )

Since launch, here's what I've been working on (for v0.2.0):

-Custom keybindings now supported and loaded from a config file. I'm still testing this and am checking to make sure the game screen matches the settings, but it behaves appropriately now, I think. (probably this and other changes I'll hold back until the next release -- but I can back port it to version v0.1.0 and release it as v0.1.1 sooner if requested -- I'm not sure how many people are actively playing the game now vs just hanging around the community)

-I started adding the 'spirituality' system -- basically the other side of the science - spirituality continuum I mentioned in another thread -- and a way that might require you to make choices about which cities you capture and keep and which you raze if their culture is too distant from yours. This is going to be one of, about six drivers of citizen happiness in the game.

After finishing those, I'll start trying to flesh out a little bit more of the happiness system. Put it on pause and work on some of the military command/automation ideas Tchey mentioned. THen come back to it later. Probably I'll alternate like this for a little while. We'll see. Sometimes I get stuck focusing on one issue for a while though with game dev!

Tchey · 2020-08-08 16:33:41

Hi,

I "request" key rebinding soon. Obey
(please)

Darin · 2020-08-08 16:44:22

haha
ok, expect to see this in v0.1.1 in hopefully in not more than a few days.

Darin · 2020-08-08 21:16:30

Tchey wrote:

Hi,
I "request" key rebinding soon. Obey
(please)

Here is version 0.1.1 with keyboard configuration support:
http://arcanefortune.com/releases/arcan … x_test.zip

I'll post it on the main site in a day or two, but wanted to post it here to give you and anyone else a chance to see if it works with your setup.

Check out config/keyboard.txt
The configuration is case-sensitive.

I'd be happy to include other keyboard configurations in the game zip for people to switch to, if you want to post your settings. I can credit you in the readme with a link to your website if you want.

Tchey · 2020-08-09 09:26:00

Thanks, that was fast.
Tested quickly, it seems to work well so far.

a/
Could we have "blank key" ?
Now if you have one single key not set, the game gives an error at launch.

b/
Also, could we have ctrl +key and alt +key combo ?

I really like my keyboard, and i can play all games without issue but a few exceptions.
But it is also very "roguelike unfriendly", because of special french characters, and lacks of numpad.
So, to go diagonals, i usually do ctrl+arrows.

My keyboard it a TypeMatrix 2030 BÉPOlayout :
https://download.tuxfamily.org/dvorak/w … omplet.png

It’s quite rare, even more amoung gamers, so if you don’t care or can’t, it’s not a big deal.

c/
Also a "bug" maybe ? Default, i cannot do Shift+arrows to move fast. Only shift+left is working, other directions are not.

Darin · 2020-08-09 18:46:24

a) Yes, I can do that. I am curious, though, what do you want to set as blank?

c)
>Also a "bug" maybe ? Default, i cannot do Shift+arrows to move fast. Only shift+left is working, other directions are not.

Yeah, this is something I came across myself too fairly early in the development of the game, because I also wanted the shift keys to do fast movement.

But either ncurses or the terminal directly don't seem to send shift + up or down arrow keys to applications running inside them. I don't know why. I've seen other people asking about this too in other contexts (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/975 … ch-ncurses).

b)
>Also, could we have ctrl +key and alt +key combo ?
Ok. I may make this change later, but I'll take a look and see if I can get it done before I post v0.1.1 on the main site.

I'll have to detect the key presses individually and check the timestamps of when they were pressed to see if they were pressed close enough together in time. (With shift key presses, the game is literally sent the upper-case character, so none of that logic is needed to detect shift + letter).

possible issues:
-I think some ctrl and alt sequences might not be sent to the terminal, but I can at least try to support the ones it does.
-Holding ctrl + key (for repeating the action multiple times), while it could work I think, would take additional work for me to support, because I think the terminal would send 'ctrl' then 'key', 'key', 'key', .... One of those things I could do if requested but would prefer not to.

-----
Do you have difficulty typing on more common keyboards layouts? I remap my caps lock key to escape and have a hard time working on keyboards where I haven't done this mapping (probably because I use vim where I need to press esc frequently). Maybe it's easier if the keyboard is more different to switch over, because you can't "forget" for very long that you're on a different keyboard like I can with the escape remapping.

Darin · 2020-08-09 20:42:50

Mock-up of some initial spiritualities.
Spirituality tree

Things like 'Cult of the Warrior' make your residents much happier and eager to be at war. While things like "Utilitarianism", the opposite (but they're more willing to pay much higher taxes).
Some give health bonuses (health is a new feature not in v0.1.x), similarly with some reducing crime (new feature too).

Some would argue that 'Utilitarianism' isn't really a spirituality. And that's fair, maybe I even agree. Maybe a better name is out there. Or maybe calling all this all something other than 'Spirituality' would be good if there's a better word. I wanted to avoid real-world names as much as possible because I don't want people to think I'm making political statements that I'm not, and that I may not necessarily believe. But 'Utilitarianism' is the best name I could think of at the moment.

Hovering over these entries will (when I implement it) show the bonuses, like it does in the tech window.

'Undefined spirituality' is something you could choose to stay at. I felt like that covered any infinite number of interpretations, which is what I'm going for.

Darin · 2020-08-10 06:41:14

I added support for removing keyboard entries in config/keyboard.txt and posted it on the main site as v0.1.1
I decided not to support control+key for now. Maybe in the future if more people request it or someone strongly requests it.

Tchey · 2020-08-10 07:51:04

Cool, i think i like this "second tech tree".

Maybe Philosophy, or Doctrine, or Ideology, or Ethic, or Moral, instead of Spirituality?

But i think Spirituality could do as well, as it’s NOT religion but something very different in root. Spirituality is often defined as "free" as a research of the mind, while religion is more like a dogma, something you have to follow a code of conduct to be in the club. As the tree is meant to grow overtime, i think i feel it goes well in combination with Science for technology advancement, and Spirituality for mind advancement.

Thanks for the keyboard update, too. Alt and Ctrl would be neat for later, but i agree it’s a lot of work, unlike UPPER/lower case letters with Shift, for not a lot of uses, yet.

Darin · 2020-08-10 07:58:44

Good suggestions, thanks. I might just go with "Doctrine". It describes "Utilitarianism" a little better, I think.

Darin · 2020-08-22 20:34:30

The doctrine system is becoming slowly polished, but still needs more balancing work. Also the rioting system still needs to be done, but it's been started.

I also started working on the systems to allow saving groupings of units (which I'm calling `brigades` in the game), and defining map regions (called `sectors` in the game).

In unrelated news, I'm considering releasing v0.2.0 and onward under the GPL. I have some hesitations, but seeing projects like KeeperRL makes me think my hesitations wouldn't actually be concerns in reality. KeeperRL is a great success in a lot of ways, in my view.

Tchey · 2020-08-23 11:20:47

KeeperRL is free without the graphical interface and sounds.
The raw sources are free and open.
You pay only to have the fancy version.

I think it’s a nice way to do things.

Maybe it’s too early for Arcane Fortune anyway, but you could start with a GPL and see later how you feel about it.
Keep the "Alpha" free, sort of outdated demo, and go "Beta" with a common buy to play system, with a Steam key or whatever.

Or not.

Darin · 2020-08-23 19:01:36

Yeah, exactly. However, regardless of the approach, I'd want at least the text mode to be completely free and the most recent version (not an outdated version of the graphically-sold version, if I even do graphics ever to begin with). But even more preferred would just be everything for free and with code.

KeeperRL, from my understanding was open source from nearly the beginning, so I suspect/hope that open sourcing even the next version probably won't close any of these options in the future.

But, yeah, I'm getting way ahead of myself here, as usual haha.

Tchey · 2020-08-24 07:40:46

Darin wrote:

KeeperRL, from my understanding was open source from nearly the beginning, so I suspect/hope that open sourcing even the next version probably won't close any of these options in the future.
.

Yep. I started playing KeeperRL with Alpha 5 i think, early 2014, and still play it from time to time, depending on update content.

Darin · 2020-08-30 15:27:29

As mentioned on the main website, I've added civic advisors. Rioting now works, but as with the happiness system, needs more play testing. It seems to occur at the right amount with the AI though, which is the first limited form of play testing I always do with new stuff. One or two AI end up having rioting in their cities in every game -- sometimes leading to the total destruction of that AI.

Also, I did some performance optimizations so the game runs a little faster now.

And I'm now working again on the soldier automation (patrolling, sentry, the other ideas we discussed earlier).

Tchey · 2020-08-31 18:08:43

Nice !

Didn’t try the new version, maybe i’ll wait a couple updates, not sure. I have less time now.
Also curious about how you will deal with military stuff.

Darin · 2020-08-31 18:24:37

Thanks! I haven't released the update yet -- I was only updated on progress!

Darin · 2020-10-07 21:51:46

Development progress on v0.3.0:

Not sure if anyone cares (I find it cathartic I guess to post about at least), but I ended up starting a lot of code refactoring, which may take a while (a week or more?) to finish since I triggered something like 1000+ compile errors in doing this. I'm currently a few days into the process.

I felt this was starting to be past over-due because adding new player types like Nobility was going to be very hacky if I didn't soon re-organize the code. Stuff like functions taking 20+ parameters was becoming the norm, which is really hard to work with and error prone after a certain point. I tend to play it a bit faster and looser with the code than most people, I think, but even I have limits haha.

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