Valve’s “Secret Weapon”, by Game Maker’s Toolkit.

A video about the importance of Playtesting, centered in the experiences of Valve while developing Portal.

At last, the demo-fantasy game included with the Hexagon mudlib is fully functional. You can start the mudlib, choose a game, create a character, and test it. It has a full map with three towns, each of them with pub and shop, multiple npcs, several items, etc.

                                       An : Naduk      
        3-4-R                          Bn : Erken      
        |                              TD : Tower
        2                              G  : Guild   
        |                              R  : Raiseroom
     TD-1-G                            41 : Labyrinth       
        |                              *S : Shop
        5            38                *P : Pub
      / |           /                  1  : Start
      7-6      35-36-37         A6 AS
         \     |/ |\           /|\ |
          8-9-10-11-12-13-A1-A2-A3-A4-A7
         /   \ |/ |            \|/ | 
       21     39 40-27-41       A5 AP
      /      / |  |  |
    22     14-15 16-26-41
     |    /    | /   |
    24   17    18   28-41
     |    |   /    /
    23   19-20-30-29
     |       |  |
    25      31-32  34
     |           \ |
    B1            33
     |\
    B2 B3
   /| \|
 B6-B4-B5
 |  |  |
 BS B7 BP
    |
B10-B8-B9

It is based in a very old newbie area made for the Reinos de Leyenda mud, circa maybe 1997. The code is new (as we use a different driver, from MudOS to DGD), but the map and the names have been kept, as an homage.

You can take a look to the game, it is included with the mudlib as an example of how to create your own game. Take a look at it in /mudlib/games/demo-fantasy in the Hexagon repository.

Using the new packages functionality, I’ve added a new package to the Hexagon mudlib: the issue tracker.

The package adds its own command issues, where you can list, close, remove or open issues.

We can create new issues automatically, i.e. when a shop cannot load an item:

// create new issue, same message as npcs equipment
if (package("issues"))
  package("issues")->add_issue("Cannot clone " + file, this_object());

We’ve reached the 1000 commits mark in the Hexagon mudlib project, since the first commit in 26 Aug 2014, when we started porting the ccmudlib project to DGD.

Changes and updates to the mudlib in its v1.21.09 Beregost version. This post will be updated during the spring and summer:

Player updates

• Weapons reviewed, and lots of weapons added to the Fantasy Demo game.
• hold/unhold working with weapons.
• Armours reviewed, and lots of armours added to the Fantasy Demo game.
• wear/unwear working with clothes and armours.
• Shields reviewed, and shields added to the Fantasy Demo game.
• Weapon combat fully functional.
• Basic materials for items (weapons, clothes, armours, etc).
• Passed out when equipping reviewed (doesn’t happen recently logged in). equip reviewed.
• Multiple commands reviewed:
  • user/games
  • user/characters
  • player/help
  • player/look
  • player/prompt
  • player/commands
  • player/glance
  • player/kill
  • player/prompt
  • player/retire
  • player/configuration
  • player/score
  • player/sheet
  • player/verbose
  • player/inform
  • player/bury
  • player/cost
  • player/stop (for both stop fights and stop following)
  • player/encumbrance
  • player/bravery
  • player/condition
  • player/money
  • player/combats
  • player/past
  • player/inventory
  • player/whomai
  • player/away
  • player/consider
  • player/travel
  • player/equipment
  • player/pov
  • player/time
  • player/grope
  • player/map
• Health messages (health points, death, etc) fully translated.
• Handle actions (take, drop, give) reviewed and fully translated en/es.
• Hearthstone item reviewed.

Developer updates

• Multiple commands reviewed (see issue #15)
  • coder/goto
  • coder/stats
  • coder/cat
  • coder/clone
  • coder/exits
  • coder/exec
  • coder/grep
  • coder/head
  • coder/more
  • coder/restore
  • coder/rm
  • coder/sar
  • coder/tail
  • coder/uptime
  • coder/armours
  • coder/discard
  • coder/actions
  • coder/backup
  • coder/cp
  • coder/cplines
  • coder/du
  • coder/ioulist
  • coder/load
  • coder/malloc
  • coder/mkdir
  • coder/mv
  • coder/rmdir
  • coder/ls
  • coder/nls
  • coder/visible
  • coder/invisible
  • coder/multi
  • coder/resistances
• Command handler translation and meta commands (use command rehash to reload all of them).
• Multilanguage commands: now commands are not executed depending on their file names, but a list of alias specified in code.
• Some tests done with binary connections.
• Start working with packages: pieces of code included in the /packages directory, each of them with its own code, license, authors, etc.
  • Each package can add their own commands automatically.
• Issue tracker working (new package).
• Start working with a test suite (new package).

Rss/Web feeds have been added (in Rss2 and Atom formats) to the blog, so now you can read the blog contents using the feed aggregator of your choice (like Feedly, The Old Reader, and many more).

Add maldorne.org to your favorite aggregator (web or app) and they should be detected automatically. Just in case, the links are:

• https://maldorne.org/atom.xml
• https://maldorne.org/rss2.xml

Juice it or lose it - a talk by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho.

A fantastic video for the weekend, about adding some juice to your game, giving it some bells and whistles. Take some ideas from here, for every kind of game, not only the graphical ones.

In an attemp to give some love to the documentation, the installation instructions have been reviewed and updated.

You can take a look on github, and remember to submit an issue if you have a problem or find any error.

Trying to add some more useful information to the web, and adding some documentation, this week I made a timeline of the versions of ccmudlib and Hexagon, and added it to the About page so you can take a look.

Not very game-designy, but is a way of stating the amount of work done during the last years, giving dates and specific versions. Maybe some other time I could add some more information there.

The same as shops were reviewed the last month, now pubs have been reviewed and they are operative. You can take a look to the ones included with de Fantasy Demo game:

• /demo-fantasy/areas/elfereth/rooms/z19.c
• /demo-fantasy/areas/erken/rooms/BP.c
• /demo-fantasy/areas/naduk/rooms/ap.c

One in every town.

The Slaughtered Lamb [-n-].
Arak is here.
Sign.

By default, a sign will be added:

> read sign
You read a text written in common:

 ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │                                                               │
 │  Food:                                                        │
 │    Ribs               :  3 bronze coins                       │
 │                                                               │
 │  Soft drinks:                                                 │
 │                                                               │
 │  Alcoholic beverages:                                         │
 │    Firewater          :  1 gold coin and 1 silver coin        │
 │    Whisky             :  1 gold coin                          │
 │    Dark Beer          :  3 bronze coins                       │
 │    Liquor             :  2 bronze coins                       │
 │                                                               │
 │  Use 'buy' to ask for what you want.                          │
 │                                                               │
 └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

And the commands can be used in any pub:

> buy liquor
You drink a glass of liquor.
> [ HPs: 172 (172) EPs: 172 (154) ]

As you can see, food and drinks will recover partially your health, and alcoholic beverages will also affect your perception, getting your character drunk.