PC Gamer (which named Dungeons of Dredmor its Indie Game of 2011) is showing off a nice new Dungeons of Dredmor wallpaper drawn by yours truly. Check it out on their site.

For your edutainment, I’ve taken images from the painting in various stages of progression, from initial sketch to final form, which you can view in chronological order in the land beyond the cut.

… and that’s how it’s done.

Gaslamp News

We have outgrown our offices, and are moving again! As previously briefly mentioned, the new offices have a spiral staircase and remind Daniel of the Ghostbusters (no pole though… yet). I interviewed for a job in this building eleven years ago, back when Black Box Games was still an independent studio and before they were purchased by EA. The thought of now renting an office, for Gaslamp, in the same building … is a little mindblowing.

I also have a giant mechanical clicking keyboard of doom now. It’s extremely noisy, and everybody else in the office hates it. I love it.

Dredmor News

Now that things are a little more organized on the Odin front, and now that our days are no longer a giant sink-hole of meetings and job interviews, we’ve found some time to finish pushing that patch out the door. A beta should be floating through the IRC channel any day now; at that point, we’ll have a week of testing, and then we will push everything to Steam, Desura, and the Humble Bundle. The current changelog is below the cut, as well as a handful of Odin teasers.

• FIXED: Invisibility now works as it says on the tin.
• FIXED: Blackjack works again.
• FIXED: Added a flag to targetHitEffects that lets them apply before, or after, the target combat calculation.
• FIXED: “Playing for Both Teams” achievement now works.
• FIXED: bookshelf crashing bug w/bony wand recipes
• FIXED: Some timing exploits.
• FIXED: A number of load/save corruption issues.
• FIXED: Uberchests not opening after you load and save.
• FIXED: You can now load more than one mod on OS X.
• FIXED: The Mace of Windu now uses the correct art.
• FIXED: Item spawning on levels 11-15 now works correctly. Additionally, mods can now create items up to Level 20.
• FIXED: Installing all the skill mods will no longer overflow the main mod loader screen.
• FIXED: Area of effect related crashes.
• FIXED: manTemplateDB.xml now loads in a mod.
• FIXED: Crash when doubly polymorphed.
• FIXED: You can no longer eat your own belt by right-clicking it.
• FIXED: You can now start the game with pants.
• FIXED: Magic reflection now reflects missile spells.
• FIXED: Game now remembers which mods have been loaded.
• FIXED: Invisible Geometries may finally work as intended.
• MECHANICS: Changes to combat ordering. The new combat ordering is as follows:
• If you dodge, no damage.
• If you crit, and your opponent counters, no damage. If you crit and your opponent blocks, normal damage. Else, critical attack.
• If your opponent counters, counterattack!
• If your opponent blocks, 1/2 damage.
• Else, normal damage.
• At present, this only affects melee combat.
• UI: Ubercrafting now has filters and a grid mode.
• NEW CONTENT: some new rooms.
• NEW CONTENT: about a bajillion new, evil traps.
• UI: Autosaves now auto-save once every 5 minutes in addition to before going down (and up) stairs.
• Upgraded SDL to version 1.2.15, fixing the bad things that happen on OS X (and no doubt introducing new bad things.)
• Rewrote the entire audio engine. This is going to end well.
• Removed all of the SDL_Image code.
• New features for modders:
• Scale: the ability to scale damages/effects in spells by a primary and a secondary stat
• Randomized Resistance and Damages for Items
• Generic Item Classes for Sacrifices
• Removal of Buffs by Name
• Counter, Block, Dodge, and Critical Hit Triggers
• Booze and Food Consumption Triggers
• Monster Cast on Death Triggers.
• Taxa can now be applied to specific monster types, not just the species category.
• Monsters now have per-type item drops.

Project Odin

And here are your Odin teasers for the day:

I will describe each of them briefly since there would be way too much to talk about for one post. If you want the details of every ability I suggest you go to Dredmorpedia, all six are featured there.

Bushido is probably the most Warrior-oriented of the skills. It’s designed to help melee characters survive the later levels and as such, it’s all about defensive buffs and self-healing. Here you even get some stackable buffs when getting hit, like Into The Jaws of Death, which stacks all resistances 66% of the time when you get hit.

It culminates into a Final Stand ability that grants you high block and magic resistance as long as you don’t move. All in all, very useful for a melee build, especially with RotDG.

As someone who enjoys playing rogues, Poisoneer is one of my two favorite skills in the pack. It’s straight-forward enough, and it does what the description says. Most of the abilities are either an activated poison or a chance to act. Surprisingly though, it has a healing spell!

It’s certainly a good skill to invest in for offense, and it even meshes well with Throwing because one ability makes all thrown weapons poison enemies.

This one is a mix between magic and melee, and boy is it enjoyable to use. The first half of the abilities boost your melee defense and attacks, but the second half lets you morph into a mana-infused being that wrecks havoc all over the place. The final spell is a huge storm of mana that surges all around you.

Interestingly enough, the abilities in the empowered form do not cast mana, they have a cooldown instead, and bad side effects. That means it is kind of an all-or-nothing strategy when you finally use them. As people have said, it’s kind of a strange skill to focus on and it’s open to experimentation.

This is my favorite skill because hey; ninjas. One of the only mods focusing on throwing (with a bit of melee), it really adds a different dynamic to the game. The first ability summons throwing weapons out of thin air for mana, their qualities depending on your luck. You can then create a clone of yourself, disappear from monsters’ grasps or even enter a stance that stuns enemies.

There’s a nice variety in gameplay here, so it remains enjoyable through and through.

The strangest skill in the pack, Silver Tongue is hard to describe, and somewhat all over the place in utility. It lets you put enemies to sleep, charm them and debuff them, but it also lets you pretend you have crafting skills for a few moments. I have a hard time finding a build to make it work with, but I suspect it would be interesting with the most uncommon ones.

Last but not least, QiGong has a unique concept: exchange mana, permanently, for internal power and fish-related abilities. In practice, it means sacrificing all your potential mana in return for damaging procs, blasting spells that use cooldowns and even empowering your character (but forget all your mana regen). Basically, if you’re making a character that doesn’t play to use spellcasting at all, this skill is a good choice since it makes you stronger with no downsides.

Well, that’s about it with these mods, and although I couldn’t describe them more deeply I highly recommend trying them out. I rather enjoyed using them all and they’re up on my regular playing list. Anyhow, I’ll see you next week with more findings!

Some more quick news fluff from the front:

• Congratulations to Gaslamp Programmer-Affiliate Ryan C. Gordon (better known as “icculus”, the great and knowledgeable), who is now the proud father of a lovely daughter. (This has slightly delayed our incoming patch yet more; just before dashing to the hospital, Ryan immediately said “Here! Have an entirely new SDL library and audio driver!” This fixes a lot of the stuttering issues, as well as various performance issues and crashes under OS X, but I’m currently quietly poking his changelist with a stick, somewhat afraid that it will bite me.) We have celebrated by having Chris Triolo produce this small homage to the Lion King.
• We are pleased to announce that Sean Hamilton has joined the Gaslamp Games team. Sean will be working with us on Project Odin; since his arrival on the project, he has already produced three crates, a selection of small shanty houses, two logs, one ingot, and a mineshaft. Auspicious.
• We are still looking for a character modeler and a gameplay programmer to do some contract work on Dredmor with us. I think we’ve got everything else taken care of  at this point. Exciting. If you think you’d be a good fit for either of these things, please drop us a line at jobs@gaslampgames.com ; I think, at this point, that we are restricting ourselves to locals after all for the most part.
• There is vague talk of doing another Dredmor DLC pack, either as an additional paid expansion (of a form to be determined) or a free DLC package of some sort to be determined. Other than our continued commitment to patching and general subterfuge, is there anything else specific that you’d like to see from us? Let us know in the comments.
• Finally, here’s another Odin teaser.

• We are still interviewing people for the programming positions we posted here, so you are not too late to submit.  At this point though, we reserve the right to charge you a late fee of beer or donuts.
• I will be dropping by the Global Game Jam at the University of Victoria this evening at around 5pm to say hi, see what the whole thing is about, maybe pitch some ideas and participate, who knows.  The whole thing sounds really interesting: you can find more info about it here.  If you are interested in seeing what it’s all about but don’t want to do any development, evidently you can sit there and heckle us while you play Minecraft!
• We are super excited that we may be moving into some office space that is sufficiently insulated that yesterday’s coffee doesn’t freeze in the night.  Woo!  Also, it reminds me of the offices of the Ghostbusters, which is potentially even more important.
• Lastly, we received word this morning that we are in PC Gamer’s March issue listed as number 58 of the top 100 video games of all time, which, frankly, floored each of us. Seriously.  We are staggered and supremely honored.  The issue hasn’t made it into our cold Canadian mittens yet, but I am certain that we stand with some very illustrious company.  We know that we owe all of our success to you guys, and we hope to continue to make you happy for years to come.

Runecaster

“You’re very scholarly, you also make runes.”

Runecaster is a wizard skill that combines crafting with spell casting. You create runes out of mana, which you then combine with the n-Dimensional lathe to create runewords. These runewords are throwing weapons that cast a spell when hitting enemies/the ground.

With each level in the skill, you unlock more powerful runes and rune words, up to a total of 20. They have a variety of effects, from buffs or healing when you stand on them, to elemental AoEs, teleports, even up to Mass Destruction.

There’s enough utility to get through just about any situation, though you’ll likely always be crafting new ones every couple minutes.
Ruigi has even drawn new sprites for each rune, rune word and spell effect.

Strangely, this is a skill that doesn’t merge well with others, but at the same time can work with pretty much any build due to its usefulness. I might suggest trying this with either a melee build or throwing/crossbows. Blood magic helps immensely as well. However: do not pick this with crafting skills. Your inventory will be almost full with just these runes.

Essentially, this is a very unique mod, worth a try at least once (though you may not want to put it down once you have.)

NOTE: This mod requires Realm of the Diggle Gods due to the mechanics it uses.

Since this post is getting big, I’ll briefly touch up on two interesting mods to try out as well.

Jaybud4′s Mega Phoneme Mod

This mod adds 1,111 phonemes to the random name generator, so if you thought there wasn’t enough variety in artifact or monster names, this is the mod for you!

Interior Dredmorating by r_b_bergstrom

Pretty much a small expansion by itself, this mod adds (from the description,)

• 45 new rooms. You should find something new on nearly every floor of the typical play-through. Some of the rooms have scripts, levers, and/or new custom blockers you haven’t seen before.
• 25 variant rooms. These are either a tweaked version of a room from the main game, or a tweaked version of one of my new rooms, adjusted to better fit specific floors.
• 20+ new items, including armor, weapons, special booze, and even a gorgon’s head.
• Lots and lots of flavor-text. Several dozen new words for the monster, artifact, and room name generators. Some of the new room names generate new statues or paintings, as well. New phonemes, and new qualities and materials, too!
• New insults for monsters to hurl, and new ichors for them to collapse into when you squish them in retaliation for insulting you.

I recommend it mostly for the diversity it brings to the dungeon layout and I think most people will enjoy it.
This mod also requires Realm of the Diggle Gods.

On a final note, Dredmorpedia received an update, refining the monster list and adding a stats list. I recommend checking it out if you haven’t before.

As always, I’m inviting you to come hang out with us on the forums and IRC.
Happy adventuring and see you next week!

As a result of this work, we’ve had to remove two libraries from Dredmor, in order to replace them with… well, equivalents that are suitable. We have only just finished rewriting all of Dredmor’s audio code to use OpenAL; because this is a fairly major rewrite, we actually have to sit down and run a Real Beta now instead of just testing the bugfixes, vaguely making sure we didn’t break anything major, and calling it a day.

Some test binaries will probably show up in the IRC channel either late today or early tomorrow, and based on how well that turns out we will let you know what a better ETA for the patch looks like. This is mainly us being ultra-cautious and trying to make sure that we don’t shower you all with broken pixels and static in our quest for increased portability.

That said, the new audio is a heck of a lot better, and also fixes all the little lag issues when changing music or wandering in and out of stores. We’ve also managed to cut down on our memory use a bit as a result of this secret project, although we still have further work to do on this front. Levels now use about 20 megabytes less memory on average. It’s not quite enough for our svelte new lifestyle, but it’s a start.

Wind Magic

“You are the master of all winds in the sealed off underground dungeon with no access to the sky.”

Clearly, the description was enough to intrigue me.

This skill is based both on utility and damage. The first ability is a frontal AoE with knockback, which would also be useful to non-mages. The second lets you fly gracefully is a teleport with an added dodge and sneakiness bonus.
The next three let you silence monsters, stun them, and move around the battlefield all while doing damage.

As you can see, they’re designed to work with most builds, but the cost will be steep for melee characters.

The capstone ability is probably the most fun to use, creating a large storm around you that buffs you, rains on all nearby tiles and strikes enemies with lightning for many turns to debuff and kill them.

As a whole, Null’s mod is all about options since it can be a support skill, a main damage skill and even complement more physical character builds.

Cooliomancy

“Some people are just born cooler than others. Some people gain magical powers from their excessive levels of coolness. You are one of those people.”

Since it’s not my case in real life, I was looking forward to doing so in game. I became cold as ice.

Terrible jokes aside, this skill is a good Hyperborean excellent counterpart to Promethean Magic and can hold its own very well.

It starts with a single-target damaging spell with included root, and the second gives you access to a mana recovery ability right away. You might think it’s overpowered, but you’ll most likely need a different way to deal damage on cold-resisting enemies which are plentiful throughout the game.

The next spells are a knockback, a teleport, and a tile-based damage/debuff, respectively. They bring variety to your arsenal and I had little trouble going through floors 3 and 4 with them.

The capstone lets you hide in a tomb of ice that looks suspiciously like rocks. It’s a great panic button though.

Blind Piper’s creation remains enjoyable through the entirety of its spells and is an excellent addition for people who enjoy watching monsters die from afar.

That’s it for this week! I recommend you check the mod index once in a while as the mods are still steadily trickling in. Finally, as always, we’ll be happy to see you on the forums and IRC.

In Another Goings-on …

Hi there, this is David jumping in to add a little bit to the end of the post here.

Last week an unwitting fan, Sam, wrote to us asking for a birthday drawing for his friend. I figured, what’s the harm? (He also claims to worship Diggles as gods-under-the-earth. I’ve mentioned that Dredmor fans are nuts, right?)

So this happened. They printed and framed the drawing for their birthday-having friend Kino. (Now I wish I’d spent more time on the drawing!)

Happy birthday to Kino from Gaslamp Games!

Apparently Kino has a problem with saving his high-power bolts because he might need them later. They won't help you when you're dead, man! (Click the above image for the original comic.)

Of course now I have to draw a birthday comic for everyone who asks. Oops.

If SOPA passes, it requires that we censor each and every post or message within our blog posts and our forums to ensure that no piracy or hints at piracy are posted.  If we aren’t successful, we could become blacklisted and unreachable without so much as a chance to defend ourselves.  What’s more, the bills together give internet service providers the ability to make these decisions on their own, only requiring “credible evidence” of piracy-oriented content.  We simply can’t afford to police our community to a degree where we could be somewhat assured to be operating within the parameters set out by these bills.  What’s more, we don’t want to police our users.  Our community, like every other healthy community, depends upon some degree of freedom of expression.

Gaslamp’s vested interest aside, there are some very serious freedom of speech issues.  I am no expert here but I have read a lot about SOPA and PIPA over the last week or so and I strongly urge you to look into them on your own, and of course, to try to hear both sides of the story.  While it is our opinion that SOPA and PIPA are too heavy-handed in their attempt to lessen a problem which is a serious concern, it is most important that you know what is going on and have the opportunity to share an informed opinion with your government representatives.

• The Stop Online Piracy Act
• The Protect Intellectual Property Act
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s latest article on SOPA and PIPA

We have been uncommunicative lately, and this is our fault. Owing to external factors which we cannot announce yet, we have suddenly found ourselves catapulted into Project Odin, almost full-time, somewhat quicker than we anticipated. We’re not entirely sure how much we can talk about this yet, which is problematic, and everybody is probably wondering what’s going on. Ah, growing pains. (This has also been one of the reasons why we are looking for additional gameplay programmers; at least one person will be working on Dredmor with me, on a full-time basis, for the next few months.)

While we can’t give away what Odin is *just* yet – although there have been some pretty good guesses made – we can start talking a little bit about things we have been working on. We have acquired a real budget, oddly; dealing with this, and getting this organized, has been our major time-occupying phenomenon. Other major activities last week have included:

• running art tests and programmer interviews,
• gear simulation code,
• procedural extrusion code,
• designing a series of menacing secret policemen with plague-doctor masks,
• learning about Leyden jars,
• my ongoing battle with the networking and gameplay code,
• procedural water simulation on the GPU,
• and reading every paper every written by the Spore development team at EA Maxis…