nlarn

A rewrite of Noah Morgan's classic roguelike game Larn from 1986. NLarn tries to maintain the atmosphere and story of the original game while improving the gameplay by using state-of-the-art roguelike technology and a simplified user interface. more..

Recent News

  • May 23, 2020

    Release 0.7.6

    New month, new features. This release mainly seeks to fix the macOS package, which was broken in 0.7.5. But also some other bugs, that only affected first time players were fixed and last but not least casting the spell “fireball” finally works in all cases and places on the maps.

    But also something new will sure delight the heart of any adventurer: some monsters will now appear in packs and move through the caverns together.

    Games created by the previous version 0.7.5 are compatible and can be continued.

    Download NLarn 0.7.6 from Sourceforge.

    The Changes:

    • Some monsters now appear in packs (e.g. osquips and rothes)
    Pack of orcs
    • Some monsters produce sounds when attacking
    • Differentiate between amulets and talismans
    • Add some missing monster resistances
    • Shatter potions when exposed to fire
    • Consistently call the currency “gold”
    • Consistently show monastery messages as windows
    • Sort stats in obituary matching to order on main screen
    • Document that shop prices for item stacks are per item

    The fixed bugs:

    • Fix macOS application bundle
    • Handle empty scoreboard correctly
    • Show undefined gender correctly in configuration dialogue
    • Several fixes to casting fireballs:
      • now works in the topmost corridor
      • selecting the location only allows valid selections
      • red monsters are shown as light red when they’ll be hit.
    • Bring back the Eye of Larn (after red_kangaroo)
    • Keep townsfolk inside the town area
    • Fix debit message
  • Apr 24, 2020

    Release 0.7.5

    After three weeks the next release on NLarn is finished. Mainly driven by the desire to fix saving highscores on Windows, which was broken in the previous version 0.7.4, this release also brings some nice improvements which were long wished for.

    A main menu now welcomes the player when starting the game; when a character dies, instead of disrespectfully terminating, the player returns to the main menu and can immediately start over. The interface has also been subtly improved in other aspects: important messages now stand out in bright colours and finally items on the player’s position are menitoned in the game log, sparing the effort of always examining places with items.

    On winning the game, the difficulty level is raised and subsequent games will be more difficult then the previous games. Finally NLarn follows its paragon in this aspect. Except this automatism, everything related to increased difficulty was implemented more than a decade ago. Be prepared to pay your taxes to the Larn Revenue Service!

    Games created by the previous version 0.7.4 are compatible and can be continued. I’m also happy to announce that the macOS installation package, which was missing for the previos release, has returned for this release.

    Download NLarn 0.7.5 from Sourceforge and continue your endeavours in the caverns of Larn!

    The changes.

    • Add a menu system: instead of dropping directly into the game on start, present a menu with the option to start a or continue the saved game, configure the settings and view the highscores. When the player dies, don’t drop out of the game, but return to the menu.
    Main menu
    • Increase difficulty after winning the game
    • Emphasise important messages with color (e.g. a critical hit is shown in bright red)
    • Emphasise most recent message in the log, show others grayed out
    • Mention items at player’s position in the log
    • Improve the result of the charm monster spell
    • Improve monster status descriptions
    • Remove the option to set the game difficulty from the command line
    • Increased robustness against broken configuration files

    The fixed bugs.

    • Fix saving highscores on Windows
    • They’re the caverns, not some random dungeon
    • Consistent naming of the buildings
    • Fix sleep and hold monster for townsfolk
    • Fix generating giant bats (not generated by 0.7.4)

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