Same here; Ive been tossing all my funds into enhancing pottery/chest finds and hit points but nearly maxed everything out.
Back from IRDC, you can catch my presentation on roguelike engine internals (and a bit of my history) here at about 34 minutes in: http://www.twitch.tv/irdc_usa/b/664260719 and you can see Jason's (the Sproggiwood writer & designer) here http://www.twitch.tv/irdc_usa/b/664332154 at about 16 minutes. Took a break today to just chill out, but I'll get cracking on the technical patch tomorrow, first stop is lefty/righty switching and iOS keyboards, then I'll do some scope estimation on cloud saves and see how much testing it's going to take. The review times means it'll be a couple weeks out at least, but beta will start sooner. If I put cloud saves in the first patch, it'll extend the release time a lot, because I want to get cloud saves thoroughly tested, so I might do some quicker low-risk stuff like lefty/righty switching, new input devices and bugs, get that posted, then start in on getting cloud saves done and tested thoroughly. The response has been great and humbling, glad you guys are enjoying it!
Welcome back! When you say cloud saves, will it just be between iDevices, or will you be looking into sharing saves with the Steam version too?
Just a word of caution on cloud saves, and note that I'm not a developer, so this is all a users perspective. I've had trouble in the past with games that are cloud save intensive. ie, their only save method is the cloud, no local save, and the first thing and last thing the game always does is look for a cloud save. I know of one game at the moment id like to play and the cloud system they've done on it is giving me grief. Of course all things can have their niggles and crashes, but the way this cloud save is done, it's completely in the way. Cannot load this particular game without the iCloud load. So, in my opinion, the best implementation as an optional press button to go and retrieve or send to iCloud. And local save is still supported. None of this iCloud or the highway business. Just my 2C from a user perspective because I believe there are options in the implementation of iCloud, and it is important.
This game is like a student that knocks an exam out of the water but then forgets to write their name on it. After many hours of playing, sadly it's time to delete. I've lost too many runs because of my inability to invest a full 20 or so minutes in a dungeon run, then having all my progress wiped (except for coins) when the game is cleared from memory. I was going to hold out until an update, but the post from the dev above seems to indicate that it's not on the road map at all. It's a shame because it's game breaking for me and probably a lot of others. Oh well, back to my other roguelikes. I can only dream that one day another roguelike will come along on iOS with the same level of polish and modernisation, minus the issue above.
I'm running it on very current hardware (ip6, rMini). The issue is that I have to use my phone for other purposes throughout the day. Incomplete dungeon run + switching to another app later on -> game booted out of memory. If you switch to any other app for even a few minutes on your iPad 4, I guarantee you would have the same problem. It's just a more common scenario on an iphone. To the dev: If saving the exact state is too much effort at this stage, maybe a compromise could be having it save the floor/level (e.g 3) and stats of the character in the current dungeon, and have it randomly generate a new level at the corresponding floor number if the game was kicked out of memory. Starting the same floor again is a lot more tolerable than going back to floor 1.
Watched a video on nPlayer, checked a few reddit posts on Mercury browser, took a turn on Ascension and then resumed back to Sproggiwood at exactly the same spot I left it on floor 2.
Not sure if you're deliberately trying to mislead others that haven't yet bought the game or if you're unaware of how iOS allocates is paltry memory. Have you read this thread? When this came up by myself and a few others earlier, the dev responded something along the lines of: "we thought that a player dedicating to a 10 minute run would be acceptable for most people" (rough paraphrase). There's no dispute that it doesn't save it current state permanently to memory (unlike most other similar titles), yet for some reason you seem to be disputing the devs own words? The second point is that even the latest iOS devices are memory starved and everyone knows that iOS will reallocate its memory with very little effort. Looking at how long you've been here, I'm sure you're perfectly aware that it doesn't take much to boot an app out of memory, and can take far less than even the little "test" that you undertook. Not sure why you're so adamant the game is absolutely perfect and can't possibly have any flaws.
I'm perfectly aware of how iOS deals with multitasking and memory. I'm only narrating my personal experience with multitasking and this game, in particular related to your contention here, I never said that the game is perfect or it won't get kicked out of memory, just that in my experience so far that hasn't been the case.
I haven't bought this game yet, but a similar issue is present in Desktop Dungeons. I went a number of sessions with DD where I jumped around my iPad Air 2 and did not lose progress, but there are also several times when just allowing my Smart Cover to close was enough to lose my in-level progress. It is very frustrating and I will only buy Sproggiwood after this save issue has been addressed.
The fact that the game doesn't save its state in the middle of a run is the only reason I haven't bought it yet. With kids around, not being able to minimize it at the drop of a hat and resume later is a deal breaker for me. The game looks amazing, so I'm hoping the dev figures something out to solve this issue at some point
Agreed. I prefer games that allow you a certain amount of control over the saves, even if it's something as small as asking "do you want to use this local save or this cloud save?" Like Implosion does. Multiple save slots (where you can manually save over a slot) also helps, in case something goes wrong with it.
Okay, I'm beginning to feel like there has to be some trick to killing the pairs other than in one turn or before they proc because the fish triplets are outright impossible to kill. Even when I kill all three in one turn using lightning arrow, they all respawn. It can't possible be that once proc'd they are an invincible enemy?
Yeah, I certainly understand the concern. The architecture just wasn't built up-front to handle it. It's certainly not an impossible problem, but the other issues are lower hanging fruit at the moment. Once I get that stuff cleared, I'll be taking a look at it, but it realistically won't make it into the first patch round.
How about the workaround I mentioned at bottom of post #208? I think that would be more than adequate for most people even if it's not completely ideal.
Yeah, that's one real possibility, for sure. I'd rather not fall back on an incomplete solution like that, but it might be the only practical solution. Like cloud saves, a broken implementation is way worse than not having one, so I don't want to rush something out. Though I know current players are impatient for a fix, the game will be around for years, so I'm gonna take the time to evaluate my options and make it work the best I can.
