Rogue Survivor

Poll: What Game Mode do you play the most?

2012-01-27T20:44:00.001+01:00

WELL?
Since Game Modes have been added in 7 I'm curious what game mode do you guys play the most.
You'll find the poll somewhere on the right side of the page.

DEBUGGING CAN BE FUN SOMETIMES
A start every RS player dreams of.

U MAD?

No cheats involved at all, just pure dumb luck.

Anyway, see you soon.

End of post.

Alpha 7 Release!

2012-01-14T18:11:00.000+01:00

Oui monsieur.

Check le download page et report le bugs.

ALPHA 7 CHANGES
---------------

Lots of new stuff most notably : Game modes with Infection and Corpses.

FIXED BUGS
- (n/a)

NEW GAMEPLAY - GAME MODES
- When starting a new game you choose a game mode...
- STD - Standard - the standard game like in previous versions
    recap:
    - evolution.
    - different types of zombies.
    - instant zombification.
- C&I - Corpses & Infection
    - disabled instant zombification.
    - livings are infected by some undead bites (the ones who regain their hp when they hit you). see below for details on infection.
    - when a living dies it becomes a corpse. see below for details on corpses.
    - there are still evolution and different types of zombies, if you want to be more hardcore, see VTG.
- VTG - Vintage - the must for hardcore classic zombies fans
    - all the features of C&I.
    - no different types of zombies, only zombified man and woman.
    - no zombie evolution.
- In vintage you can still start the game as another type of zombie if you want.
- Special case for the player : will immediatly turn into a zombie if dying infected (no corpse).

NEW GAMEPLAY - INFECTION (if game mode has it)
- Infection rated as % of actor resistance to infection.
- Resistance to infection = infection "hitpoints" = actor max Hitpoints + max Stamina.
- As infection % increase there are ill effects.
- 100% or more infection can trigger death.
- Does not increase or decrease by itself over time : heal with meds, worsen with bites.

NEW GAMEPLAY - CORPSES (if game mode has them)
- A corpse will slowly decay to finally turn into dust and disapear.
- A corpse might raise to become a zombie, with a delay of 6 hours (the infection takes some time to revive the dead).
- Chances to raise depends on a number of factors :
    - the time since death.
    - the infection level of the living who died.
    - corpses are much more likely to raise at night.
- Explosions (grenades) damage corpses.
- I'm sure you guys will find all kinds of funny exploits/bugs with corpses ^^

ACTIONS
- New Action: Drag Corpse.
    - move a corpse with you.
    - slows you down and is a tiring action.
- New Action: Butcher Corpse (living)
    - inflict damage to the corpse to accelerate the decay and eventually destroy it.
- New Action: Eat Corpse (undead)
    - inflict damage to the corpse and regen hp.

SKILLS
- New Skill : Necrology
    - damage bonus vs undeads and corpses when butchering them.
    - examining corpses will give you more info :
        at level 1 = estimation of date of death.
        at level 3 = estimation of infection.
        at level 5 = estimation of chances to rise as a zombie.

FACTIONS
- new Gangs: There are now 2 gangs of Bikers & 2 gangs of Gangsta.
Each gang is an enemy of the other one and they will fight each other.

ACTORS
- Zombifieds: with the AGILE skill can jump like the ZM does.
- Zombifieds: with the STRONG skill can push like the ZM does.
- Zombifieds: keep half of their past life skills (previously was only 1 skill at level 1).
- Zombifieds: spawned zombifieds (invasion) start with some random skills, half of what a living would get.
- Undeads: undeads gain a skill every two nights (night 1, 3...) from a limited set.
- Each unique survivor has a unique weapon.

ITEMS
- New Armors: The 2 biker gangs have a different jacket with different stats; Police Riot armor.
- New Light: Big Flashlight -for a lack of a better name- FoV+2 but spent fast.
- New Med: Antiviral pills in Hospital & CUF.
- Medkit heal a bit of infection.
- Grenade deals more damage.
- New unique weapons for BB, SM and RJ.

EVENTS
- Gangs: smaller squads but a bit more likely to come (to take advantage of the rival gangs feature)

AI
- Zombies & Rats eat corpses.
- Livings AIs use meds to cure their infection when appropriate.
- All Undeads AIs will push objects around if they are able to.
- Hungry angry civilians will push all kinds of objects around (tables...).

POST-MORTEM
- Removed useless "The weather stayed XXX" entries.

GFX
- New gfx for different stages of rotting corpses (flies).
Note to modders:
    - the gfx has 2 frames for each 5 stages of rot and moves by +-2 pixels.
    - the corpses are rotated and scaled gfxs of actors.

SFX
- Sfx when a corpse rise.
- Sfw when an undead eat a corpse.

PERFORMANCE
- Dead undeads(sic) don't drop remains gfx anymore, while it was nice it made saved game unecessary larger as days passed.
Blood is still in though cause it's fun and be useful to the player.

MODDING
- Meds: Added INF for infection.
- Meds: All meds stats are now moddable (ex:bandages can help regain STA or whatever).
- Lights: added FOV bonus.

Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

Fin of post.

Alpha 6.3 Release!

2012-01-07T21:21:00.000+01:00

Yatta!

Check the download page and report the bugs.

ALPHA 6.3 CHANGES
-----------------

New improved armor (protection) system. Most Stats doubled to allow more items and skills variation.

FIXED BUGS
1. (Glitch) Random number generator might go insane when "Synchronous Simulation" is enabled (noone can hit anybody, Agile is always rolled etc...)
--> I never had this one happen to me, need players feedback to confirm it fixed or not!
2. (Glitch) Could not redefine some keys.
3. (Typo) Fun facts.
4. (Glitch) Player can see scents when sleeping.

GAMEPLAY
- New improved armor/protection system.
Armors have now 4 stats:
- Protection vs Hits : damage absorbed in melee.
- Protection vs Shots : damage absorbed when shot.
- Encumbrance : penalty to Defence value.
- Weight : penalty to Speed value.
Protection vs blasts (explosions like grenades) is the average of the two protection values.
- Unique refugee NPCs arrive with other refugees rather than being there at the start of the game.
- Famu Fataru has a unique Katana.

UI
- Actor description shows armor rating.
- new options: "Show Targets" and "Always Show Player Targets"
"Show Targets": when mouse over an actor, will show which actor this actor is targetting and if the actor is being targetted.
"Always Show Player Targets": will "Show Targets" on the player; in practice this is helpfull to notice when you are being targetted as players can easily fail to notice the "targetting you!" icons.

AI
- AIs are now allowed to pickup,trade or use unique items like JM Axe and FF Katana.
The subway badge is the exception and still forbidden to AIs.

DATA
- A bunch of stats have been doubled. Ex: double hit points, double damages etc... This will allow more variation in items and skills.
- Armors stats redone for new system.
- Modified some weapons stats.
- Modified skills stats.
- New unique item Famu Fataru katana.

MUSIC
- More fitting theme song for our favorite super hero.
- Short themes for all the unique refugee NPCs.

Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

End of post.

Alpha 6.2.1 Release!

2012-01-01T21:16:00.000+01:00

Check the download page.

WTF?
Well there was a nasty bug so I fixed it.
Should have fixed it...
May have fixed it!?

ALPHA 6.2.1 CHANGES
-------------------

Bug fix.

FIXED BUGS
1. (Crash) Might crash when displaying overlays (when mouse over stuff).

OPTIONS
- new: "Music Volume".

UI/GFX
- Some texts have a shadow effect.

DATA
- Zombie Master branch speed lowered to shambler level. Balance effect: weaker individually but more likely to be closely followed by a horde.

SYSTEM
- Small pause added when the player is sleeping to allow the sim to catch up.

Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

THE DEAL
I'll try to release small updates, say one every two weeks or something like that.

End of post.

Alpha 6.2 Release!

2011-12-31T21:47:00.000+01:00

Happy new year!

As usual check the download page.

ALPHA 6.2 CHANGES
-----------------

Much better simulation, bug fixes and a couple of goodies.

FIXED BUGS
1. (Crash) ESC might crash the game.
2. (Glitch) Simulation timer wasn't checked properly.

OPTIONS
- new: "Synchronous Simulation" (enabled by default)
If on, the simulation on the nearby districts runs while you are playing in your district.
That means when changing district you probably won't have to wait at all.
Disable this option if the game feels less responsive or sluggish, especially on low end computers.
- "District Simulation" by default up to FULL to take advantage of the new sim feature.
- Limited reincarnation turned off by default (was on).

GAMEPLAY
- Stench killer : nearby stench killer odor is now visible to living players (pink circle), so you can easily see where you or AIs used the sprays (its rare but yes the AI does spray).
- New Action: Recharge battery powered items - equip the item and bump into a powered generator, recharge 1 hour worth of battery.
Careful not to drop items out of battery you want to recharge later, they are still discarded!
- Difficulty: doesn't factor in Districts Simulation option anymore.
- 1 new unique NPC and its errr "theme song".

AIs
- Martial artists not interested in melee weapons.
- Civilians: More likely to use stench killer and improved use logic.

DEATH
- Post-Mortem: failed achievements tease.
- "Tip Of The Dead".

DATA
- Stench killer power/duration increased to 3h (was 1h) and double uses to 40 (was 20).

Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

End of post.

Alpha 6.1Christmas Release!

2011-12-24T18:32:00.000+01:00

HEY YOU!
Check the download page! Report bugs!
It's been a long time, hasn't it?
Well first things first, the download and then the explanations.

This one is zip only, no installer.

Changelog.

ALPHA 6.1CHRISTMAS CHANGES
--------------------------
This version is a 6.0 bugfix.
Computer died. Lost sources to 6.1 but retrieved 6.0.
That means forget 6.1 changes including the infamous armor bug!
Let's pretend 6.1 never existed.

FIXED BUGS
1. (Engine) Player long-waiting was sometimes not interrupted when attacked.
2. (Manual) Incorrectly mentioned 3 skill levels.
3. (Reincarnation) Difficulty was not updated when switching sides (remember difficulty is divived by life number).
4. (Undead) Starting a new game as Zombified Male prevented you from starting new games as Female Zombified.
5. (Crash) Crash on Win7 with DirectX gfx engine when minimizing/switching windows.

GAMEPLAY
Actors
- 2 new unique NPCs.
Death
- Dead people always drop their ammo and food.

INSTALL
- All game user data now located in the game installation directory rather than user documents.
- Removed installer, the game ships as a zip.

Merry Christmas!
And remember, die with a smile!

WE NEED TO TALK
First sorry for the obvious lack of update, activity and most of all sorry for not answering emails and not following up on the java test.

Reasons being:
- I have a job since June or so and as you may guess it is time consuming.
- My goold old trusty computer died and took with him alpha 6.1 to the grave.

So I thought I would find the time and code a little something this christmas for you guys.
I thought I made a backup of the 6.1 project, but unfortunately I didn't and got 6.0 instead. No biggie, 6.1 was a minor update and had the infamous armor bug. So I started anew and here is 6.1christmas. Its a bugfix version with a couple of NPC.

RS future is unclear. It depends on how things go for me, the position of the stars, the moon cycles, and whether Cthulu finally comes back or not.

Voilà mes amis. Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas! Happy Braineating!

End of post.

Need Linux Mac Windows testers

2011-06-07T17:34:00.007+02:00

Test closed, thanks to all testers!

Hopefully something nice will come out of it!

I have some secret evil plans for Rogue Survivor.
I need testers to download and run a small java program.

You have Linux, Mac or Windows.
32 bits or 64 bits.
Desktop or laptop.
Whatever.
Mac users don't have to run a virtual windows machine or compatibility mode, just run your Mac natively.
The procedure:

Download test-rs.jar here: removed
Drop it anywhere you want, it doesn't install extract or install anything so it doesn't matter.
If you know you have Java 1.6 or are on Mac, go to step 5.
Get java here or here.
Double-click on the jar you downloaded in step 1.
Post a comment here stating your OS and what happened.
????
PROFIT!

I'll keep a record of tests done here. Ideally I'd like at least one tester for each OS.

-

OS	win !	fail :(
Linux 32	ww	-
Linux 64	wwww	f3
Win XP 32	wwwwwwwwwww	f1 f7
Win XP 64	-	-
Win Vista 32	www	f4
Win Vista 64	www	-
Win 7 32	www	-
Win 7 64	wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww	f2 f5
Mac ???	www	f6

The fails.

Text missing
Toggling out of fullscreen = black screen
Can't toggle out/exit fullscreen (OpenJDK)
Failed to initialise the LWJGL display.
Toggling out of fullscreen..
Nothing worked. (Leopard 64bits).
Notebook.

Thank you.
End of post.

Facebook & Bugs & Fans Stuff

2011-05-14T15:29:00.001+02:00

FACEBOOK
Created a facebook page for the game.
If you are into this kind of things, it is there:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rogue-Survivor/173271429395039

BUGS
...had to show up, didn't they?
Remember to post them on the "report bugs" page.

FANS STUFF
Spanish fan Rubeus translated the alpha 6.0 manual some time ago and I didn't have the time (ok I fucked up) to add the link as agreed. Sorry for the delay!
So get the translated manual on the "fans stuff" page!

End of post.

Alpha 6.1 release!

2011-05-10T20:24:00.000+02:00

Check the download page.

Minor release, nothing major.

I'll get very busy very soon so I'd thought I'd release a little something now rather than a bit more later.
Couldn't find the time to implement the various requests from the poll. I'll have to rewrite the AI engine and write a quest engine so it will take some time.

The changelog:

ALPHA 6.1 CHANGES
-----------------
Minor update.

FIXED BUGS
1. (Engine) Player long-waiting was not interrupted by attacks through exits.
2. (Manual) Incorrectly mentioned 3 skill levels.
3. (Reincarnation) Difficulty was not updated when switching sides.
4. (Undead) Starting a new game as Zombified Male prevented you from starting new games as Female Zombified.
Various typos ingame & in manual.

INSTALL
- All game user data now located in the game installation directory rather than user documents.
- Config : select game font - limitations :
- style is ignored.
- the ui DOES NOT adapt to font settings, so changing too much will mess up the interface.
- so yes, this is a rather limited and useless option. doh.

GAMEPLAY
Map Generation
- New building : Warehouse, filled with crates.
Map Objects
- New object : Crate - break them to loot random content or use them as mobile barricade.
Melee
- Disarm : when fighting in melee attacker/defender has a small chance to disarm opponent on a succesfull hit/defence (5%).
Skills
- Martial Arts increase chances to disarm opponent.
Death
- Dead people always drop their ammo and food.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- Removed Exit/Cancel binding, ESC is the universal exit key.

MOD
- Skills.csv : Martial Arts 3rd value = disarm bonus.
- New gfx for crates.

KNOWN BUGS AND GLITCHES
- Asymetric FoV.

Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

End of post.

Poll results & the future

2011-04-02T09:59:00.005+02:00

POLL
Thanks to everyone who voted and commented!
The top three:

66% more content
36% better living AI
35% quests/missions

I heard you guys and will work on these points in priority. I still have ideas on my own to do ;-)

THE FUTURE & MY EVIL ROGUE SURVIVOR UNRELATED SCHEMES
As I said in a comment, I'm working on a serious job opportunity.
This means I'm busy.
Very busy.
I'm sure you understand I need to make a living.

Currently I have little free time to spend on RS or any other thing really. Everything not job related is on hold (yep the flash thing too not like, anyone seems to care :p)
But.
This job should allow me to work on RS in quiet periods. Right now is a busy period.
So, keep the faith.
Blast zombies.
Eat brains.
Or murder innocent bystanders for food.

End of post.

Poll: What would you like for Rogue Survivor?

2011-02-28T12:58:00.005+01:00

See poll on the right panel.

Blogger automatically considers some comments as spam, don't worry if your comment doesn't appear, I check the spam box regularly and put comments back here.

Clarifications:

A. "Just keep at it!"
Means keep doing it as opposed to open source.

F. Better living AI

Should have made separate votes for Soldiers, Civilians, Gangs, CHAR and player followers AI etc...

If you want a particular living AI improved over others, precise it with a comment.

I. More content (items, buildings..)

Also includes Skills.

End of post.

Donation page added

2011-02-23T17:33:00.002+01:00

I added a "Donate" page where you can donate via PayPal.
Look at the top of the blog in the page menu.

Some of you expressed the desire or willingness to donate, so why not?
I put a disclaimer on the donation page to remind you what a donation is and what you can expect from it.
I won't play the poor sad puppy or salesman tricks on you to get more donation money.
Just give what you want, if you feel like it!

End of post.

New roguedjack Flash blog

2011-02-20T17:03:00.000+01:00

http://roguedjackflash.blogspot.com/

That's the place to go if you want to know what the hell I'm doing with Flash while every decent chap knows I should be working on Rogue Survivor (bastard me!).
There are already a couple of gameplay screens to lurk at.
I'll keep this blog Rogue Survivor related.

"OK. BUT"
Don't worry, again either :

I go back to Rogue Survivor in the near/mid future.
I release the game as Open Source, so anyone can improve it.
Some game company has a lot of money to loose and hire me to make a Virtual Rogue Survivor 3D Multiplayer Wireless Surround Turbo.Unlikely eh?

End of post.

You've got mail

2011-02-10T16:42:00.000+01:00

I'll take time to answer mails and look at comments and troll-spam the fans forum.
I also must try Grand Rogue Auto.

"ROGUE SURVIVOR?"
For various reasons, RS is in neutral gear since January. That's bad news I know.
The time that was spent on RS is now spent on learning Flash, because I need the skill.

"FLASH?"
I'm writing various game prototypes while learning. Prototyping with Flash is really easy and fun. I strongly dislike writing UI code and Flash makes it very easy to implement an interface and go straight to game mechanics and AI. Some real games might come out of it. Simpler than RS but with original and interesting gameplay and very unlike your average Flash game. I think I'll make a blog about them.

"OK. BUT ROGUE SURVIVOR?"
I'll try to come back at it later. Hopefully it is not dead, but you shouldn't expect frequent releases as before.
Letting this game die would be a shame, wouldn't it?

Ok. Time to check the mails.

End of post.

Hey me!

2011-01-18T17:51:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit busy, sorry if I don't post or answer emails.
In the meantime have fun, study hard at school, brush your teeth and eat brains.

End of post.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T15:47:00.000+01:00

Coding - It's UML Time!

2010-12-16T23:23:00.000+01:00

Sorry folks but...

IT'S UML TIME!

Note that most classes members are omitted and method signatures simplified.
They say that UML is worth over 9000 words...
...so I'll just throw random class diagrams at you.


1. Controllers

2. AI

NCLASS
I used NClass for this. NClass is nice for doing C# class diagrams.
http://nclass.sourceforge.net/

End of uml time.

Coding - District Map Generation

2010-12-13T16:25:00.003+01:00

How about a coding article? It's been quite a long time, so let's have one.
Let's start with some simple.
If "recursive quad splitting" tells you something you can skip the article alltogether, as the algorithm is really only doing that. It's nothing special really.

DISTRICT MAP...
If you look at the structure of district surface maps they basically all look the same : blocks of buildings cut by straight roads. It's no coincidence, there is one algorithm that generate all the districts.

...GENERATION : Generating Blocks
How can we get this blocky district plan?
Let's start with the whole district rectangle and nothing in it.

Mister District.

We want blocks.
How about cutting this district along two lines?

Cut

The blue lines would split the district in the middle.
That would be not very interesting for the player.
So let's deviate a bit and cut along the red lines.
We obtain 4 smaller rectangles, call them quads a, b, c, d.
a is topleft, b topright, c bottomleft and d bottomright.
Nice.
But b is a bit too small, so let's merge it with a instead.

b merges with a

Let's continue splitting shall we?
We apply the same process we did on the big district rectangle on the smaller quads (recursion).

After Cut+Merge on a,c,d.

We try to split a in 4, but the smaller quads are too small, so we merge the smaller quads and get only two quads a1 and a2. Same with c.
We find d is already too small and decide to not split it further.
We decide that's enough as there has to be an end to this madness.
From these quads we make blocks and give them numbers.

Blocks

... GENERATION : Assigning Blocks.
Looks like your average district map, with the roads and all.
Only thing, the blocks are empty.
So next for each block we decide what to do with them and fill them.

Assigned blocks

h for housing block, p for park.
Different algorithms are used to fill different block types.
Different district types will have different distribution of block types.
That's it.

THE ALGORITHM
The block generation algorithms in pseudo code (image).

MakeBlocks : Making Blocks since 1887

Start the recursion with calling MakeBlocks on the district rectangle.
Block is a class that has a rectangle property and various other content properties that are filled later.

QuadSplit is even more simple, choosing the split lines semi-randomly and doesn't split quads that would be too small ("merge"), enlarging one of the quads and marking the merged one as empty.

End of post.

Alpha 6 release!

2010-12-11T16:15:00.000+01:00

Check the download page.

Changes :

ALPHA 6 CHANGES
---------------
New major concepts : personal enemies, murders and murderers, law enforcers and followers trust.
Bunch of bug fixes.
Modified how smell works.
Rebalanced skills and upgrade.
Flavor : Fun Facts, NPC emotes.
Various rebalancing, fixes and AI improvements.

FIXED BUGS
1 Zombified male was created as a zombified female instead.
2 Soldier followers bumped into generators.
3 Player could always break stuff with the break command.
4 Dying in the sewers with a follower crashed reincarnation if option "Can Reincarnate to Sewers" is off.
5 If you spawned as a slow actor (eg: undead zm) you will not get messages for actions done by actors who get to act before you on turn 0 (eg: getting shot by cop).
6 Flawed spawn logic for undead player.
7 Follower selection menu did not work properly.
8 Looking at a live grenade crashed the game.
9 Armor now drawn on top of torso decoration; might give some funky looks (eg: armor on top of coat).
10 Policeman and male civilians were both named as "man" in post-mortems.
11 Manual : default key for city information is "i" not "m".
12 System.InvalidOperationException: killing deadGuy that is already dead.
13 Reincarnation messed up CUF script. (eg: a zombie could block the stairs forever).
14 Shoving allowed an actor to enter an otherwise unpassable tile.
15 Simulating did not check properly for events.
16 Actors with natural speed over 100% who sleeps can act right after starting to sleep.

GAMEPLAY
New: Personal Enemies!
- Read the manual.
New : Murders and Law Enforcers!
- Read the manual.
Followers
- New Order : "give me...".
- New concept : Trust. Read the manual.
Smell sense
- Smell only adjacent and center tiles (FoS/smell = 1 in old system).
- Smell rating now means lowest scent detectable as % of strongest scent possible.
eg: 100% means will smell all scents.
       50% means will smell only scents above 50% of max value, that is quite fresh scents.
       10% will almost be "scent blind".
- This means :
- no more "x-ray scent scan".
- undeads with poor smell will be more susceptible to loose track of their prey.
- undeads with poor smell rely more on the noses of ZMs/rats.
- ...and so more packs led by ZM.
- importance of clever use of rain & stench killer increased.
- slightly better undead AI performance, since needs to scan only adjacent tiles.
Map Generation
- Rebalanced Housing rooms type distribution.
- Much more food in houses.
- All Shops start with shelves full of goodies.
- CHAR Offices have canned food only rather than a mix of canned food and army rations.
- Less cars.
- Hospital storage has also some canned food, all items there are full stack.
- Zombie rats in basements.
- Building zones extended to cover doors/windows (good for ai & orders).
- Walkway around buildings are zones (good for ai & orders).
- Try to spawn zombies outside (so most of the initial wave will most probably get shot by cops)
Events
- All gangs size down to 8 (was 10).
- Gangsta will show up a bit longer.
- Rebalanced and redone army supplies logic - will be less frequent and drop smaller packages.
- Rebalanced and redone refugees logic - more on city borders, less in center, default everywhere else.
- National Guard less likey to intervene.
Skills & Upgrading
- Max skill level up to 5 (was 3) - only exception is Hauler.
- Upgrade : choose from 5 skills (was 3).
- Rebalanced skills to account for the new max.
- New Skill : Charismatic - gain trust faster and get more trade offers.
- New Skill : Unsuspicious - law enforcers might ignore you.
- All living actors always upgrade each morning (was previously limited to civilians with a % chance).
Attacks
- Double potential damage when attacking a sleeping target.
Actors
- Rats NPCs can use exits (see AI).
- "Zombie" branch renamed "Shambler" to avoid confusion.
- Rebalanced undeads.
- 2 new unique actors.
Items
- Pills stacking limit increased to 20 (was 10).
- New Item : Police Radio - see all the police on the map.
Post-mortem
- Tells how many actors you murdered.
- Death reason is "murdered" if you happen to be... well murdered.
- Fun Facts.
Reincarnation
- Fun Facts.
Engine
- Optimized actor turn ordering.
- Optimized memory usage.
- New simulation algorithm - faster & more accurate.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- New command : Make personal enemies (default Ctrl-E); designate actors as personal enemies.
- Player personal enemies are highlighted on the map :
red    : mutual enemies.
orange : the other actor considers the player as enemy, but the player do not.
yellow : the player considers the other actor as enemy, but the actor do not.
- Break/Attack through exits with the wait key when asked for a direction (NumPad5 by default).
- Player or follower actor description say if made personal enemies.
- Trusting follower : light blue; Untrusting follower : dark blue.
- Follower actor description shows trust level and if trusting murders committed.
- PC cops can see number of murders in actor description.
- Yes/No prompts : ESC key also works for No.
- When simulating refresh screen only 1 time per second.
- Simulating show turns simulated per second, as a performance counter - keep in mind that lower sim rate means higher tps.
- Colored say and emotes messages so they are more noticable.
- "Barricade mode" says "Barricade/repair" - some players might have overlook that you can repair fortifications!
- New gfx for new stuff.
- Updated manual.

OPTIONS
- New option : "Aggressive Hungry Civs" - enable or disable aggressive behavior of hungry civilians (default is on).
- New option : "Event - National Guard" - how likely the NG is to show up. See the manual for exact meaning.
- New option : "Event - Supplies Drop" - how likely are supplies drop to happen. See the manual for exact meaning.

AI
- CivilianAI : hungry civilians without food will attack people for food (carrying or standing on food); followers never do this on their own.
- CivilianAI : more aggressive, now charge enemies if they want to.
- CivilianAI : don't wait for starvation to push objects/attack barricades, they start doing it when hungry.
- CivilianAI : reordered behaviors so followers close doors and windows behind them.
- ZombieAI : attack enemies blocking exits (in addition to already attacking blocking objects) - no more "sleeping on stairs" exploit.
- ZombieAI : will explore stairs/ladders more.
- ZombieAI : ZMs will more actively push objects, opening up paths for other zombies.
- RatsAI : will now follow living scents through exits - means they will leave sewers to chase livings.
- SkeletonAI : has a chance to passively wait rather than wandering.
- AI leaders try not to leave followers behind - npc groups have better cohesion.
- Bikers are not interested in trading or picking up ranged weapons - melee fighters.
- JM is free to wander and is more dangerous.
- Improved FightOrFlee and ChargeEnemy behaviors.
- Modified exploration behavior.
- Rewrote smell & tracking related AI due to rules change.
- AIs won't flee through exit if their leader is not on the destination map (eg: they won't left you behind when fleeing).
- AIs will use exits to follow someone.
- AIs warning message for sleeping friends more explicit : "wake up !" instead of "warning!".
- AIs won't warn someone if it is itself adjacent to an enemy.
- Improved skill upgrade choice.
- Improved use of pills.
- Improved large fortification build logic - will tend to make lines anchored on walls.
- AIs might emote (saying stuff or posturing) in some situations; funny and might help understanding what those retards think they are doing.
- AIs more interested in expired food.

MOD
- All actor graphics (Actors and Actors\Decoration) are now 32x32 rather than 24x24.
- Data files incompatible with previous versions due to changes : Skills.csv, Actors.csv, Items_Trackers.csv.
- Better modding readme doc.

KNOWN BUGS AND GLITCHES
- Asymetric FoV.

Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!

End of post.

Sorry no Alpha 5.1...

2010-12-06T12:36:00.000+01:00

...Alpha 6.0 instead.

I can't resist adding new features and fixing stuff.

Probable release by the end of the week, somewhere between friday and sunday european time.

End of post.

Alpha 5.1 - Of Murder And Trust

2010-12-03T18:47:00.004+01:00

Major new concepts and features for 5.1. Should be renamed 6.0 honestly, didn't thought I would go this fast.
Murder, murderers, law enforcers and follower trust.
Let the annotated screenies tell the story.

NEW FEATURES IN SCREENS

A murderer and his future victim.

Designating as enemy so I can attack.

The attack.

A new career in serial killing opens for me.

Got a bodyguard,but he doesn't trust me enough yet to accept my orders.

Need to build trust over time or with other means.

...giving good gifts for instance.

...or getting him out of trouble.

He finally trust me enough to accept orders. Notice the new one.

Damn! The Internet Police!

Law enforcers have a chance to recognize an actor as a murderer when they see him.
There are various factors, all explained in the release.
They can also spot actors committing a murder.

Will he stop shouting like that!!

My mate is helping of course. We are now partners in crime.
Right after getting rid of the cop I open the door...

Will all this hate around me never ends? :(

I drop some food for him to avoid more troubles.

There. Good dog.

New features = new skills, so here they are.

Watch out folks. You can get murdered too, most likely by a starving mad civilian in your sleep. I wonder if a follower guarding you would help...
And yes, you can DISABLE the angry hungry civilian thing, it's an option on by default.

WHEN??
Soon my disturbed psychopatic children. Soon.

End of post.

Alpha 5.1 - "HEY! YOU!" the return

2010-12-01T12:54:00.000+01:00

Already done some work for 5.1, fixing bugs, rebalancing stuff, adding new features.
A feature players kept craving for is coming. You will love it for the freedom it gives you... and hate it when NPCs will use it on you.

HEY! YOU!
Your friendly nextdoor civilian can get quite nasty...

i can haz ur food?

U talkin' to me?

...and that means you can get quite nasty as well.

You will be able to initiate attacks on anyone, but that will make them "personal ennemies" and, depending on who you attack, will have more consequences. Consequences will never be the same. (lulz zomg roflcopter).

End of post.

Alpha 5 release!

2010-11-27T18:24:00.000+01:00

This time it's true.
Get it on the download page.
If you want to unlock all the reincarnation madness go to the options in game.

ALPHA 5 CHANGES
---------------
Two new HUGE features : undead mode and reincarnation.
You can use or abuse the reincarnation feature... or not. Its up to you.
There are also some modifications to gameplay, balance and AI.

FIXED BUGS
- Subway small maintenance room will not overlap platform anymore.
- Post-mortem option "simulate when sleeping" shows properly.
- Attacker icon won't display in odd places when the attacker is out of map (eg: zombie bashing from another map).
- Long names in HiScore table are now truncated.
- Actors who can't talk cannot shout either (eg: undeads).

GAMEPLAY
New : Play as an Undead!
- Choose your race from Skeleton to Zombie Master.
- All undead rules apply to you, so know your abilities and limitations.
- You can see living and zombie masters scents - if ability.
- Scoring comes mostly from killing, no achievement to reach.
- Difficulty rating as undead is opposite to difficulty as survivor.
- No access to the city map.
- Does not get notified of events.
New : Reincarnate!
- When your current character dies you get the choice to reincarnate or not, if the option is activated.
- Continue playing in the game world as you left it.
- After dying you can choose between different reincarnations avatars :
- Random Actor.
- Random Living.
- Random Undead.
- Random Follower (of yours).
- Your Killer.
- Your Zombified Self.
- You loose everything related to your previous character (scoring, memory etc...).
- Reincarnation as living can be limited to civilians only (an option, on by default).
- Reincarnation as undead can exclude zombie rats (an option, on by default).
- Reincarnation can exclude avatars in the sewers (an option, on by default).
- Some rare reincarnation unique places or actors are forbidden.
- Difficulty value for scoring is divided by each successive reincarnation.
Map Objects
- Iron Gates (subway, hospital, prison) are now breakable but are very resistant.
- Large fortifications are now opaque.
Trading
- Followers are always willing to trade with their leader, even uninteresting or silly deals.
- Gangs can trade with friends.
Leading
- Relaxed faction leadership restrictions a bit, so civilians can be lead by anyone friendly (eg: civilians led by cops or army).
Items
- Item batteries duration and stench killer capacity increased.
Ligthing
- Flashlights improves FoV only if it is dark (in other words, they are useless during the day).
Map Generation
- Shops might have a window.
- No zombie start in the subway.
Event
- Zombies do not spawn in subway anymore.
Zombification
- Zombifieds keep one level of a random skill of their ex-living form - skill which might now be useless to them.
Actors
- Undeads may stumble while jumping and loose action points (eg: ZMs).
- Rats have the "Small" ability which allows them to slip through any objects except closed doors.
Pushing
- Pushing is a loud noise.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- Undead : view scents.
- Undead : status line show "Field Of Smelling" range (FoS).
- UI does not display stats irrelevant to your current avatar (eg: food for zombies).
- Reincarnation screens.
- Leaders have a "L" icon.
- NPC/objects in action messages will show up as "someone/something" if when not visible to the player.
- Refugees and Midnight Invasion event won't pause the game anymore - this get annoying after a while.
- Updated the manual.

GRAPHICS & MUSIC
- New gfx : scents icons for undead mode; leader icon.
- 2 new musics (well one is a sfx actually).

OPTIONS
- Difficulty : Show separate difficulty for undead mode.
- New option : Max number of reincarnations allowed (1 by default).
- New option : Allow to reincarnate as zombie rat or not - as they are numerous and quite boring to play (no by default).
- New option : Allow to reincarnate to the sewers or not (no by default).
- New option : Restrict livings reincarnation to civilians (yes by default) - some actors like char guards are not meant to be played, but can be fun
- New option : Permadeath - delete saved game on death, doubles difficulty rating (off by default).
- New option : Death Screenshot - automatically takes a screenshot of your death (on by default).
- Default Zombification up to 100% (was 80%).
- Default Max Undeads up to 100 (was 90).

AI
- Followers : when Guarding or Patroling, mimick leader cellphone usage.
- CivilianAI : desperate starving civilians will push objects around and attack barricades in the hope of finding hidden stashes of food.
- CivilianAI : now interested in stench killers and will use them.
- ZombieAI : reordered behaviors to give more priority to following ZM.
- ZombieAI : ZMs and evolved Zombifieds can and will push objects in various situations.
- ZombieAI : do not attack objects and barricades on sight anymore.
- Soldiers & Civilians will now build large fortifications too.
- Tuned Fleeing logic.
- Updated living AIs to handle being led by the player.

KNOWN BUGS AND GLITCHES
- Asymetric FoV.

A NOTE ON REINCARNATION
Playing as a civilian survivor is still the main focus of the game.
If you play a non-civilian leader, keep in mind non civilians-AI are pretty much limited.
Some living actors do not need to eat, but most have to sleep.
The ability the play other actors has been tested but is not guaranted to work 100% fine yet.
Feel free to report any bug or oddity you might find when playing a non-civilian.
With all this being said...

...HAVE FUN!!
And remember, die with a smile!

End of post.

Alpha 5 - From Disciple to National Guard

2010-11-25T23:54:00.001+01:00

JUMPING FROM BODIES TO BODIES
One of the test runs I made.
Started as a survivor, got killed and zombified.
Reincarnated as my zombie, luckily a Neophyte already.
Killed enough people to get promoted to Disciple.
Eating poor weaklings left and right.
Facing my first serious enemy : a National Guard.

Hello, you look tasty in green.

Like the good blood thirsty abomination that I am now I promptly rush him and we duke it out.

Stop poking me with that gun!

I prevail and make a new friend in the process.

See private, it's not that bad being undead.

I get cocky, don't wait for the night to get more tactical advantages and get what I deserve.

Sorry for your pal dudes, listen I ggrgrrlkggrlkgrg

I choose my killer again as reincarnation and discover life as a Private.

Wait!? What? Who? When?

I perform my duty and hang out with the squad.

Hey Sgt what are we doing here!?... Why don't you answer?

Upgrade time!

Sgt, help! What is that screen!?... Why don't you answer?

You can upgrade when playing a living NPC as you would as a civilian survivor.
If you happen to be a leader, your followers will upgrade too of course.
You can build yourself a nice high level biker gang for instance.

AI
The Civilian and Zombie AI also does get a couple of improvements. Some of the standard tactics might not work anymore. Or they might. But not really. You'll find out.

ROTTING BRAIN
Mine. I seem to keep missing letters and whole words in my posts recently.

End of post.

Fans Forum!

2010-11-24T18:58:00.000+01:00

Since RS has no forum yet Survivor Johny 1337 created a forum to discuss all things Rogue Survivor.

http://roguesurvivor.proboards.com/

Thanks to Johny!
Go there and register. I'm sure you guys will like a proper place to discuss the game.
I will lurk over there and laugh at your pathetic deaths.
what? i die stupidly too in my videos? errr it was all for show of course...

End of post.