Bay 12 Games Forum

The game's 15% off in Steam until 2014-Mar-08, for a low low price of USD 2.69.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/266210/


It's a roguelike with pressure ever looming to the left side of the screen, in the form of a shadow engulfing the world. You must travel to the east, hopefully getting stronger along the way, because to the far east, the Demon Lord, who summoned the darkness, awaits.

Key features:
- JRPG look and feel
- No location transition; everything happens on the overworld map
- Shadow pressing you to move on vs stick around longer to explore more of this town/dungeon
- Turn-based
- JRPG style menu system
- Running non-stop, your hero still require sustenance
- Items have limited durability
- With each death (or victory) you gain hero points, which can be used to purchase more options (and thus more freedom) in future games
- Item vault to transfer items to your next characters. Item vault size is expanded by using hero points
- Unlockable classes
- Unlockable perks
- Randomly generated world with a short text-based random seed
- Many features in the world which you can explore. (I found some high-end merchants hidden inside a mountain once. Was too slow to get back out).
- You can replay a world by entering the seed
- Fast paced. You can easily win a game in one sitting
- Online events everyday. There are worlds with special rules which you can play in
- Multiple difficulty levels can be unlocked
- Great attention to details that will make you smile
- Steam cards and achievements

This $2.69 will be the best $2.69 you've ever spent.

Edit: Added link to Steam.

Because a game with this phrase must be pretty awesome, right?


Dungeon Monkey Unlimited (DMU) is a side-project by Joseph Hewitt, the guy who made GearHead 1 & 2. I saw it mentioned in one of the roguelike threads, but so far no thread of its own.

I've learned about its existence for a while but never tried it until yesterday. It's pretty fun! So I think I'll start a thread about it.

It's a roguelike with tile graphics (no ASCII mode, equipped items change your characters' appearance), randomly generated world (and probably story), with the player controlling a party of four characters. Iron-man mode on by default. If all your characters die, it's game over!

Here's what it looks like in-game...


Download from here

Simply unzip the downloaded file into a directory outside of Program Files... since it puts its save data in sub-directories, and you don't want to have to grant it admin rights.

Run dmu.exe and then close it. This is to create the config file, config.cfg.

Open config.cfg in the DMU directory... I recommend removing "#" from the following lines:
#SHOW_LEGAL_MOVES
#FULLSCREEN
SHOW_LEGAL_MOVES will display your character's max range in yellow, very convenient I think.

Run dmu.exe to start the game.

Game is mostly mouse-driven. Hover near edge to scroll the view, click on empty space to move, click on objects to interact, click on enemies to attack, right-click your characters for control menu.

Only a few keys are used:
H - Center view on party
M - Opens minimap
Shift-H - View history of party's exploits
Shift-R - Rest for a little while (beware of ambushes!)
Shift-Q - Quit game

The first thing you need to do is create four characters. What little document Joseph provided suggests a Warrior, Priest, Bard and Mage would be the easiest setup.

Choose a gender, then race.

Race mostly affects how high your stats can be, but some races have a few special properties. Like centaurs, who can move very fast but cannot wear shoes.

Then you have to roll your stats.

Your stats affects what class you can choose. So keep rerolling! Mouse-over the class will tell you about what it can do.

As far as I can tell:
Strength and Toughness are used to calculate Defense % (chance to avoid getting hit)
Strength and Reflexes are used to calculate Attack %.
Intelligence affects Magic %
Piety affects Aura %
Strength affects max. encumberance.
Spell gems are used for memorizing spells. More on this later, but in short the more gems the better. Different class provides different amount of gems, and you will receive more gems on level up.

You can choose to multiclass when you level up. Multiclassing here is not multiclass in the D&D sense... it's changing your class into the new one, while keeping abilities and spell gems earned. For example, a druid can use spear but not heavy armor. After multiclass into a priest, he can no longer use spear but can wear heavy armor, while keeping the spell gems earned as a druid.

After that you can change your appearance (limited as the avatars are so small), and choose starting equipments.

In the game the weapons got detailed descriptions; but armor doesn't. You can only judge an armor based on price and effects on Def% when equipped, unfortunately you don't get a price on character creation.

I think most of those "color XXX" are for appearance only; for protective values go for these items:
Padded Armor
Ranger Armor
Leather Armor
Bronze Breastplate
etc.

With four characters created, choose Start Campaign from main menu. The selection order decides how they line up in the game (I screwed up this one in my current game). Choose your tough guys first!

The first thing to do is to visit the town nearby (click on it).

Town provides several crucial functions:
Guild - This is where you go to level up when you've got some XP. It's free!
Inn - Pay a small fee to get fully recharged on HP and MP.
Library - Spellcasting classes use this place to setup their spellbooks. More on this later.
Shop - This is where you buy, sell and identify magical items. More on this later.
Temple - Pay a fee to restore status effects or resurrect the dead.

This is the shop interface. You choose who enters the shop; i.e. shop for each character separately.

Items your character cannot use will be marked with a "#" symbol and piled up at the top of the list. The list can be longer than the screen - hover mouse near the top/bottom to scroll. Again, weapons are described clearly, but armors aren't. You can only judge based on price and weight. Those very cheap items like Black Shoes (5gp) are for appearance only.

The library lets you do two things:

Spend spell gems to prepare a new spell, or discard a prepared spell (you will get your spell gems refunded).

Spell descriptions are very detailed. At the start of the second line is the amount of spell gems required.

Don't forget to equip your new items! Right click on one of your characters to display the character menu:

Here you can cast spells, use abilities, or enter inventory (Change Equipment). As your spell list grows you may need to scroll this menu as well.

The inventory:

It's similar to shop interface, except with a new marker "+" to indicate the item is currently equipped. When changing armors, use the Defense % on the left to see how useful the piece of armor is. Also on the left is the Encumerance level. When carrying too much your character will walk very slowly during combat.

You can open minimap by pressing M:

Fog of war is removed as you explore. Certain locations will be marked on your minimap, which you can jump your view to. Then you can click on the ground to travel there (with auto path-finding).

Enemies do not respawn (or at least, I haven't seen any). It is possible to sneak past enemies if you move around them carefully.


When you get close enough to enemies, combat will start.


Combat is turn-based, everything will get to move once during a turn. The character you're controlling will be surrounded by a blue square. The yellow area marked the character's max range, which is affected by encumberance level. Attacking counts as moving 1 square, so in the above image my Priest cannot attack the tree-like monster. You can move in portions; your character's turn won't end until you've spent all action points. You can also press Spacebar to end the character's turn immediately.

On my bard's turn, I right-clicked to open character menu:


I choose the Probe spell. The game enters targeting mode, and I can move the orange square around. Left-click to confirm (you can fire on invalid targets wasting MP and the turn), right-click to cancel.


The Probe spell display the target's data.


When combat ends you will get a report on how much XP and gold you've received.

Some monsters will be guarding chests. A short while into the game you'll start finding magical items - equipping magical armor/weapon/items makes your spells more powerful - Magic% and Aura% will increase.

A forum game derived from this thread.

- Guess my character from the questions and answers given by using Alkinator.
- Whoever wins get to ask the next question.
- To be fair to humans without a giant database connected to the back of their heads, let's use really famous characters only.
- Try to use ones the Genie can get on first try, so the list of questions is shorter.

Here's the first question:

Question Answer Given Answer Expected
Is your character a girl? Yes Yes
Is your character a singer, or does he work with a singer (as a songwriter, producer, musician...)? No No
Is your character a star? No No
Have you said hello to your character? No No
Is your character from an anime (Japanese animation)? No No
Does your character fight? Yes Yes
Is your character linked with shooting games? Probably No
Does your character use guns? Yes Yes
Has your character been into space? Yes Yes
Is your character linked with Nintendo? No No
Do you control your character? No No
Has your character played in 'Star Wars'? No No
Do you speak with your character? No No
Does your character have white skin? Yes Yes
Is your character from a TV series? No No
Is your character a boss from a videogame? No ?
Is your character the main character in his movie? Yes Yes
Was your character famous in the 80s? Yes Yes
Does your character have Asian origins? No No

It's a science fiction (translated into Chinese) I read at least 20 years ago.

The story begins with the male protagonist having an eye surgery in a hospital (for a reason I forgot). A day before removing his bandages, a comet approached Earth and everyone except the protagonist were watching it.

Next day the protagonist waited a long time for his doctor to come, but the hospital was unusually quiet. Finally he removed the bandage on his own, and found the hospital empty.

Later on he found out that everyone was blind from looking at the comet, and that Earth was invaded by man-eating alien plants.

I forgot how the story ends.

I am trying to remember the author and title of the book. If it's originally written in English, I may read it again...

I'm starting to play this game now... the old thread is 6 months old and the forum software suggested a new thread.

Long ago, when my sister's boss gave me his old 8088 XT (with a harddisk), I got access to a bunch of disks too. One of those was Star Control 1. The main game mode never worked (was it due to the lack of manual so I couldn't enter passcode? I don't remember), but I got a lot of fun from the melee mode. My favorite is the inertialess flying saucer, I loved using it to kill the Dreadnought by slamming it into the planet or by slowing picking off all its fighters.

When I first heard about Ur-quan Masters, I thought it was a commercial game - I didn't see it on the shelves and forgot all about it... until recently I read the freeware game thread here and saw the name again!

The game's much faster than I remember... I tried a melee game, with the old alliance ships vs the old Hierarchy ships. I used the Hierarchy, a weak computer the alliance. I won with just one ship left. 

Do I need to be really good at melee to be successful in the main game? Or do I get time to practice and a much buffed-up ship to compenstate?

I saw this documentary, "Pedigree Dogs Exposed" on my local TV channel last night.

It broke my heart. I cried after I saw that poor cavalier crying in agony, wriggling uncontrollably on the floor. Selective breeding made its skull too small for its brain (size-10 foot shoved inside a size-6 shoe), leading to brain/nerve damage.

The documentary exposed a trend in some show breeders that used extreme inbreeding (mother-and-son, bother-and-sister) to "fix" desirable traits, traits that are set as a breed's standards by the Kennel Club UK, traits that only concerns with very exaggerated features and not the dogs' health.

To those irresponsible, ignorant (and refuse to change) or totally-in-denial show dog breeders: You are going to hell and hell hounds are going feast on your flesh and bone in the same fashion as Prometheus' punishment.

Kudos to BBC and all organizations cutting their ties with Crufts. Kennel Club must try harder to reverse the damage it has done/encouraged breeders to do for all these years.

You can watch the show here on MySpace. It's about an hour in length.

I learned about Transcendence in this forum - I bookmarked it then, and finally started playing it two days ago. Died ten times or so, didn't resurrect. I just reached the arena last night, but I think I would not be able to handle the next opponents... the 3 ships with mining lasers got me pretty hurt already. I'll have to upgrade my shield first.

I'm using the freighter, class III monopole deflector screen, 50MW reactor, the starting omni laser and Shtorm repeater. Sung armor (class V) on all sides, and I have a Akan 30 and 3 segments of Luminous armature in cargo hold (I had 4, but one got eaten away by degenerative nano).

Are there any players around? I would like to ask some newbie questions:
(The admin of Transcendence's official forum hasn't approved my registration yet)

1. I see that there are a lot of different damage types. Is there a complete list of that? I searched around and all the wiki of Transcendence are empty of such information.

2. Is there a rule about how those different attacks look like? If I know what damage types they're using I can retreat, prepare accordingly and return.

3. Is there anyway I can check what ROM I've installed? I don't want to use (and waste) the ones I already have.

4. I've found some ROMs that got names like a weapon magazine... what are those?

5. How can I tell if a piece of equipment is illegal? I lost a lot of credits by docking onto CommonWealth stations...

6. What weapon/armor are those Nomad balls using? They stole a lot of loot from me!