Release 0.7.1

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Joachim de Groot

I’m happy to announce another iteration of NLarn. This release focuses on bug fixes and balancing. Some of the changes made this version incompatible to the previous version’s save files.

Download it today and spend all your free time playing it, but don’t blame me if you miss your next exam.

Changes in this release are:

• More armour:
  • a simple cloak.
  • Boots of Speed (unique).
  • Cloak of Invisibility (unique).
• Weapons can break during combat. The number of broken weapons is counted and shown in the postmortem.
• Make damaged items less effective: burnt, corroded or rusty weapons and ammunition will now cause less damage, damaged armour will protect less.
• Redesigned armour and weapon distribution in the dungeon. The elven chain is more heavy and unique.
• Reduced the availability of items in the store.
• Replaced the amulet of invisibility by the amulet of sustainment, which protects against attribute draining attacks.
• The bank pays less interest on player’s savings.
• Increased school course prices. The course prices now depend on the length of the course, thus maintaining the balance between benefit and cost.
• Raise item identification and repair prices. The prices will now depend on the item’s value. For lower-prices items the minimum charge stays at 50 gold. Repair prices for item stacks depend on the amount of items.
• Generate monster item adequate to dungeon level. Previously troglodytes on dungeon level 3 could carry an amulet of power, which was not desirable. Another effect of this change is that monsters in the deep dungeon levels carry more interesting items.
• Do not erode items inside containers.
• Implemented scroll of hold monster. This scroll was in error set up as a scroll that affects the player, and as the effect “hold monster” has no effect on the player, this mistake went unnoticed until now.
• Reduced the range of enlightenment.
• Wizard Mode: allow to select stationary objects as teleport destination (as for auto-travel).
• Improved the help file.
• Modernised the Windows Installer.
• Windows Resources now allow icons for the executable and embedded dynamic version information in the executable.
• Accept ^U/^D in the inventory, spell list and message windows as PGUP/PGDOWN.
• Expanded scores in the memorial file onto two lines. This avoids ugly wraps and allows to display more information. Spelled out explanational remarks and added the dungeon level.
• Enhanced saving the memorial file:
  • Save the file in the user’s home directory; on Windows save it under “My Documents”.
  • Offer to chose a new file name if a file exists.
  • Wrap and indent long lines at column 78.
  • Choose the line terminator matching the platform.
• Implemented working setgid for system-wide installations on *nix systems.

Quite a lot of bugs got fixed:

• Adapted the map loading code to native EOL. This fixes unreachable areas when playing on Windows (reported by many).
• Fixed enlightenment for the upper left corner of the map (Reported by Krice).
• Fixed a crash after shooting the last ammo.
• Ensure player’s experience can not sink below zero. This fixes a crash that occurred when drinking from a fountain and loosing more experience than the player has.
• Calculate adjacent monsters while enlightened. This fixes targeting and allows to abort running or auto-travel.
• Fixed increase of spell effect duration when casting a spell known at a higher level of knowledge multiple times.
• Prevent swapping cursed weapons.
• Fixed the descriptions for item stacks in the shop (use the plural form when applicable).
• Fix the order of message when unequipping multiple item types: log success only after the time is passed. Fixed the order of messages when climbing out of a pit.
• Fixed ranged attacks to monsters over water/lava.
• Waste ammo when dropped on deep water or lava.
• Slings and bows are two-handed weapons, too.
• Recalc burdened status after fighter courses.
• Colour first headline in identified item’s list.
• Count scrolls scribed at the school as item purchase, not as educational purpose.
• Fixed a memory leak and accesses to freed memory found by valgrind.