osiris37, I checked the top scores, both were from same game so I removed second one. Don't know how that happened but I'm investigating it. Score is calculated based on xp, dungeon level reached, amount of gold and value of items you possess. Returning Mystery Object gives you 10000 extra points and dying with it gives you 2000 extra points. So it is possible to get a score variation of several thousands. Cavern doesn't guarantee that every game gives exactly same possible maximum xp so there is a bit of luck too. (Levels do have xp limits that generator tries to meet best it can) Future versions will make character classes differ more, stay tuned.
I encountered a bug, I was on the first floor and couldn't equip any weapons, I accidently dropped the iron sword and when I picked it up I couldn't equip it again, same thing with the other weapons I found. Also I found a little spelling mistake when I killed a plant- the message goes something like "this plant can't harm anyone anymore" and instead of anymore it spelled anoymore. Oh and one last question: can you explain how exactly the dpad control option works? I know that you press the screen and slide your finger to move but how is that different than the default option then?
Hi Sami, encountered another bug that has potentially ended my chance to finish the current game, I'm in the catacombs on V1.4.1 and cleared the skeletons from the area around the stairs however I've got to a secret wall where I can shoot the creatures behind and yet not open the wall, I've tried all the walls in the area and none seem to work, I also checked further back incase there was a secret wall with a switch but again after trying all the walls it's a no go, looks like i'm out of luck. I'm starting again, just to see, if it's a problem with the update, I haven't had the problem in previous games, this is the first one I've tried on 1.4.1.
Impressive Normally I don't buy apps over $2. The store has a ton of decent freebies and $1 games. After reading this forum I just made an exception. This is an obvious labor of love crafted by a designer who wants to please his audience. I look forward to some dungeon delving.
Hi Sami, there definitely looks like there is an issue with high scores, Masaki was the first to complete the game as a mystic with a very nice score of 32757, but it looks like it's duplicated again (lower score of 32322) from the same game as both were started at 19:33 on the 24th.
Hi Sami, just had another playthrough and got stuck in the catacombs again, i'm wondering if this is a reccurrence of the bug noted by CommanderData that you fixed in 1.3.2?
Hello, I'm checking catacombs, will fix it asap. From next version, highscore server wont accept scores from same player with identical start times. I'm still not sure how you can submit two slightly different scores though. And no, 1.4.2 has not yet been submitted - I decided to work on it over weekeend and actually test it thoroughly. In other news, I spent the whole day today embedding lua scripting to the game engine - 1.4.2 will include couple cool scripted items and monsters but this tech won't be fully leveraged until future major versions. However, it basically enables me to do very, very customized item and monster behaviours. And finally, Big Thank You for all new Cavernites, being featured on App Store has almost doubled total copies sold. Now, if Apple would have just waited a little longer for a less buggy version
No worries, this game is too addictive to let the chance that the catacombs might be blocked sometimes stop me playing, had a laugh before when I looted 'silks of Lord Gek' from a dead adventurer, I felt a bit guilty taking them, do you think I should ask him if he wants them back? Maybe you should put a lost property box in the store room!
crap! yesteday I finally retourned the mystery object (btw I actually returned two mystery objects because I foun two of them), and the game finished, and I had score: failed rank: failed And when I checked the hall of fame, my lvl 14 was not there
Hello, Just submitted 1.4.2. Changelog pretty much as listed previously. One somewhat big change is that stairs do not appear in secret rooms anymore, it's just frustating until secret rooms are easier to find. Score resubmit is a bit hidden feature, you can access it by checking details of a non-submitted highscore and clicking "submit" -button. Initially, all 1.4.1 scores will show as not submitted, you can open the resubmit dialog and they change submit status to submitted. About relaunch corruption bug : Cavern should be much less prone to corrupt save game when closing app during restoring game. It's not 100% proof since it couldn't figure out a way on how to detect writing save from previous instance has finished or not before restoring game. Anyways, closing Cavern during restoring should not corrupt game, but opening Cavern again very quickly might. I'm working on this... Seiji: scoreboards are worldwide, this might change when user base grows.
Hello, Small status update: I will be submitting 1.4.5 today with changelist: -Fixed major crash bug with level generation (that appeared in 1.4.2) -Fixed crash and saving issues with highscores -Fixed issues that enabled to continue finished game after crash -Some smaller bugfixes and typos fixed -Reworked ingame-gui: status bars and menu button are moved to top of the screen, action button is larger, dpad has dedicated "pad", ability to swap action button to right. -Screen flashes red when player takes damage and hp drops below 20% of max -A bunch of new sounds Next version will be a major content and gameplay update. By the way, if anyone has tested Cavern on iPad, it would be interesting to hear how it works.
Great job at cranking out the fixes and features soulinhki! I agree with your changes to the UI- status info always works best at the top of the screen, otherwise your fingers can be covering it at critical points in combat. Haven't had a chance to start a new game on 1.42 due to being buried with work, looks like I should just wait a day or two for 1.45 to get my fix
1.4.5 submitted. Changelist as mentioned before. Oh, and there's also a new monster around, Dark Menacer. You'll likely find it from the couple levels before end game.. It features a custom (scripted) ai that makes it's actions a bit less predictable. Tell me what you do like - 1.5 will feature a lot more custom behaviour for both old and new monsters. Screenshot from 1.4.5: CommanderData, maybe it's a good thing you skipped 1.4.2, it must have been most bug infested version of Cavern , at least when it comes to crashes...
Looks like the 1.4.5 update is live! I'll try to get a couple of rounds in later and provide a bit of feedback to you
I got this game recently and love it. Thanks for the time and effort and a special thanks for supporting your game so well! I love the new update as well. My two suggestions are this: 1. Allow the ability to remove the d-pad or automatically remove it if that control scheme is not chosen. The new interface looks so clean and nice but the unused d-pad just clutters it up and bugs me. I doubt too many players use it anyway. 2. Always show explored sections of the cavern. I know they appear on the map but it would be nice to not have to flip to the map to see if a section has been explored. I think this feature would be huge. Thanks for listening.
Dienekes, In 1.4.5, you can't choose dpad as movement method anymore, it's kind of always on. I agree that likely most of you wont be using it so an option to hide pad is justified. Will include this in next update. As for second suggestion, I guess you mean overlayed minimap? This will be most likely added in next update, it's been on my todo list since 1.0. However, showing explored but not visible areas as faded out won't be happening - I think a strict fov contributes a great deal of atmosphere to games of this genre. Speaking of field of vision, I just noticed couple days ago CommanderData's cool shadow casting prototype (for Spirit Hunter Mineko) on youtube. It's very similar to what Cavern had in development versions before release but my implementation was so slow (with CoreGraphics) that I had to drop it. Hopefully I have enough time in not so distant future to develop OpenGL version of Cavern engine so we can get some cool graphical effects too
I'm wondering if something useful can be put in place of the d-pad when you hide it? Not sure what that would be mind you... just speculating! If you're stuck with Coregraphics for a bit, you can use a lot of tricks to get speed. Rogue Touch used about 7 different CALayers overlaying each other transparently inside a UIView. This allowed me to update only regions of the screen that I wanted to, without having to redraw others. For example, I can update the mini-map image whenever you see something new, but the rest of the time it just "floats" over the main game screen without needing to explicitly re-draw it. As for the dark areas- do NOT remove them As you say, this adds atmosphere and strategic elements to the game. What you could do with minimal effort instead of drawing "black squares" is show any previously explored but not visible tiles with about 25-50% opacity (and do not draw any monsters or treasure on those squares). This gives the element of mystery not too far from my very first youtube demo- you sort of know what's around that corner because you've seen it before, but maybe there's a monster following you now! Speaking of youtube, you probably are referring to my second video with primitive Shadow Casting. My third demo video (released Wednesday April 7th) had a very much improved but still rough around the edges shadowing. I won't clutter up your thread with embedded video/links , but pop over to the Spirit Hunter Mineko thread for a look at it (around page 9/10 of the thread). Actually I have another variant in testing today that might be even more post-worthy. Honestly they are both neat in their own way, but the "Dark Creepy Caves" video and my latest unpublished shadow test each have different types of artifacts/glitches that bother me. I'd love to unify the best of both of them, but at some point I need to just call it "good enough" and move on to other aspects of the display and presentation If you get into work on an OpenGL engine for Cavern I'd love to chat about your experiences and see if there's something we can both learn from it
